Day 26 — Battery checks, creative overdrive & choosing your own adventures
Blogtober — Day 26. “Emerging through the mist.”
My brain is an idea generator which seems like it’s always switched on.
Everyday I get downloads for new, innovative and possibly even unique ways to combine transformative technologies like biofeedback, audio, music, brain stimulation, breathwork, substances, etc, etc, etc.
This idea generator is something of a gift yet also a curse.
The sheer volume of ideas I get is ludicrous and too much for one person to accomplish in any lifetime. Well, unless you’re Elon Musk, and then you have a team of world class experts and performers to collaborate with.
Today I infused my breath biofeedback session session with an app experience called Breathscape.
Breathscape plays epic sounds to the rising and falling of your belly breathing. I put the phone on my belly, and the sounds emerge along with my breath. It’s a tiny addition (I did write hack, but deleted it!!) to the process, but the experience was added to in a positive way.
Even the Breathscape app by itself is an awesome addition to anyone’s breathwork practice as there’s something about hearing your breath cycle fed back to you in gorgeous AI generator music, sounds and effects.
During this morning’s session I also had two downloads, several in fact, but two which came to mind and stuck, as I don’t stop to write my downloads during breathwork, not usually anyways.
One was to add the Woojer, a wearable subwoofer kit while using BreathScape.
The visceral feeling of the music vibrating through my chest and body I can only imagine would certainly, in my mind, enhance the experience.
I’ve written to my buddy Matt Cannon, Co-Founder of JamStik and Flow Genome Project Alumni and fellow coach, as he introduced me to BreathScape, and I know he has a Woojer. I await his feedback on how the session was different with that addition.
And then, as I use the Thought Technology TPS (triple physiology sensor) during my breathwork sessions, which picks up when the body and heart is relaxing, and when the body and heart is arousing, I wondered if the Woojer would be a stressor and cause people to be less likely to relax due to all the stimulation?
As I think about it now, I think it would depend on the beats, rhythms and melodies played. If it’s 5.5 breaths per minute, that perfect resonance rate, then I’d imagine it would only contribute to going deeper and deeper into that rest, digest, restoration, recuperation, regroup, revitalise state of deep, deep calm. The beauty of the TPS is it can measure that!!
So instead of thinking, “Oh this will deepen my calm and relaxation” we can actually test it.
But who knows right?! Different people will respond to it differently and intrapersonally people react on different days, when in different states of brain-body-breath (dys)regulation.
As I think about what techknowledgical combo to write about next I’m overwhelmed with the sheer number and diversity of how we can combine, sequence and then measure the effects on our physiology, psychology, neurobiology, and cardiology.
And I guess that is where it’s important to find heuristics… rules of thumb to simplify the complex.
1) Sequential
2) Simultaneous
3) Measurement of effects
4) K.I.S.S. right?!
I’m so inspired at the moment to create a breathwork app for the Apple Watch that is so epic it rivals anything out there on the market. That is a pretty big idea, and yet where I am now, with my resources, skills, network, etc is nowhere near the level I’d need to make that a reality.
I also want to coach people using the WHOOP wearable to assist those struggling with stress, poor sleep and that familiar feeling of the humdrum mundane (and anxious racing mind) to use the basic fundamentals of The Flow Genome Project alongside the WHOOP as the scorecard.
Just like in a game of basketball, there is a goal, and the score. WHOOP provides that score… sleep, strain, and recovery.
What we do on a daily, every other day, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, seasonally, and yearly can impact our scores. Just like my WHOOP scores declined from June onwards, and only recently have I made a concerted effort to bring that score up. Like a bank account balance, or weight on the scales that you’re not going to accept anymore. Put in the effort, get measurable results.
That is where I get to most froth in my life. Being able to measure and share with others how to measure their wellness, sleep, and strain… giving them a daily measure of their life batteries.
“The battery check” is something Kokoro and Benny and I from Team Froth Bear do at the beginning of our calls.
Inspired by Brene Brown and her husband’s practice of checking in to see who has the most energy is going to be the leader. It builds empathy. And with our WHOOP and Oura rings we can even refer to our objective measurements, as well as the felt experience of what that score feels like.
It’s a way to combo technology with interpersonal psychology to enhance our understanding of each other, and ourselves.
I’ll finish with this since I’m on a riff with relationships and technology.
Amazon is bringing out Halo, a wearable very much like WHOOP.
And yet it claims to provide emotional tags for your day. i.e. while in conversation it analyses your voice tone, and tags the emotion.
The benefit of getting a mirror image of yourself may help to inform certain people, places or situations where you lose your calm, head or shit.
So I pitched to Jacquie my partner that we apply for the Amazon Halo early release program and use it as a “check in” at the end of the day.
Simply showing each other our emotional tags for the day might assist us to go deeper than the usual, “have a good day hun?” and the stereotypical reply, “Yeah babe.” Usually I can infer from the tone, as most humans can, whether it was a good day or not. Still, memory bias can mean that if our day had one negative event, we can get stuck on that.
And if Amazon Halo can remind her, or I, or us, of the excitement or enthusiasm, gratitude, or love we also felt that day, it may help us to be more appreciative and mindful of the gamut of emotions we experience on a daily basis and not get so hooked on the negative, which is like velcro… with the positive like teflon. YIKES!!
This blog only scratches the surface for all the ways we can use trans tech in our daily lives. Ourselves for peak experiences. With others to build empathy bridges.
It’s a choose your own adventure game at it’s finest. So go find out!!
