Inner Calm
In times of great stress, it’s crucial that we have pathways to quiet our minds, relax our bodies and rest in a calm, steady presence. This meditation guides us in using the breath, body scan, and a home base of presence to find that inner refuge that can carry us through difficult times.How to Respond More Positively to (just about) Everything
A concept called mindful acceptance can help you stop negative feelings from turning into an emotional avalanche. To start, try to view situations as if you're an objective observer, not a participant. You could feel more positive and capable of persevering through challenges after one quick exercise. Read on to learn more ... If you've been rolling your eyes waiting for this meditation craze to stop, well, you may want to call it a day—and even give it a shot. Research shows the practice can provide many health benefits, including stress reduction and an improvement in your mood, both of which can help you persevere when you hit those inevitable speed bumps on the journey called life. And it doesn't require a major time commitment to get some of those results. In fact, according to a study done by researchers at Yale, Columbia, the University of Colorado Boulder and Dartmouth, one short course in mindfulness training can help you learn how to deal with pain and negative emotions better. The Science Behind the Om That study is worth exploring: in it, the researchers had participants who'd never meditated before take a 30-minute lesson on mindful acceptance. They learnt what the concept was (the awareness and acceptance of a situation without judgement) and how it works (say, after falling short of a race PR, you'd acknowledge and accept that you're disappointed with yourself without letting the disappointment make you feel guilty, angry or weak). They were also given metaphors about being a bus driver or sitting through a storm (we'll walk you through these towards the end) to help them learn how to apply this approach to real-life situations. Immediately afterwards, the participants were instructed to react naturally to seeing neutral and negative images and feeling warm and painfully hot temperatures. Then they were told to react to each with mindful acceptance. When participants accepted a negative image or painful heat, they experienced less negative emotion and physical pain than they did when they reacted naturally to them. The reason? Here's one: according to study co-author Kevin N. Ochsner, PhD, a professor and chair in the department of psychology at Columbia University, mindful acceptance changes how you interpret what something means to you. Another name for that interpretation is "appraisal", and it drives all your emotions. "Mindful acceptance can alter your appraisal by giving you a sense of being removed from an experience, like you're merely observing what's happening and not actually participating in it", he says. For example, say your goal was to complete 10 push-ups and you had to drop to your knees at nine. Your appraisal could either make you fixate on being one off and thus feel frustrated, or it could help you acknowledge that you came closer than you've ever been and motivate you to persist next time you're tempted to quit. "People have a tendency to let their feelings build on each other and snowball. You feel anxious and afraid, then you feel angry that you're anxious and afraid, then you're sad that you're angry and so on. But if you can mindfully accept the initial reaction as the way you really feel, then it will simply flow through you, you won't amplify things, and your emotional response won't be nearly as intense or long-lasting", says Ochsner. In other words, mindful acceptance allows you to just let it go, something to bear in mind next time things don't go the way you had hoped. Your Entryway to Mindful Acceptance Sound … lovely? It is. Try it for yourself with this intro to mindfulness acceptance, based on exercises from Ochsner's study. Sit comfortably in a quiet room without any distractions. Spend two to five minutes focusing on your breath. Then, imagine you're driving a bus. Passengers get on and off, but the bus just keeps on moving. Some passengers are loud and obnoxious. Think of them as unquiet thoughts or unpleasant emotions. Acknowledge and accept their presence without reacting to them. When they get off the bus, keep driving. Another approach: imagine you're outside and a storm is coming. The ground, the trees, the buildings and you are all still there, whether it's raining, snowing or sunny. Instead of running away, accept that the storm is there. Then let it pass. When the time comes, put what you've learnt into practice. If you feel a big emotion brewing, rather than judge whether it's "good" or "bad", channel your inner bus driver or storm watcher and try to attend to what you feel, then drop it off or let it pass. The great thing about this exercise is that you can see improvements after a single short session. And the more you practise mindful acceptance, the easier and more natural it will become, says Ochsner. "If you can set aside a few minutes a day when you just focus on your breath, sit patiently with your feelings and observe what's going on in your mind and your body, that's the first step towards improving your ability to accept—and change—things in your life". No one can eye-roll that. Words: Lindsey Emery Illustration: Sebastien Plassard CHECK IT OUT You know what goes hand-in-hand with meditation and mindfulness? Yoga. Find peace on your mat with yoga workouts in the Nike Training Club App. When you're done, learn even more about persevering through serious emotions during an enlightening conversation on the Trained podcast with bestselling author Lewis Howes.One of the coolest places to run
The mystique of Nike lies behind a berm near Beaverton, Oregon. It is there, where the Nike Worldwide Headquarters spreads across 286 acres and more than 75 buildings, that Jordan lovers can visit the lobby of the Jordan Building to peruse a collection of drool-worthy sneakers. Or maybe you want to check out that replica Pebble Beach #18 tee box and subsequent green a mere 315 yards away. Or tie back to a bit of Nike’s New England history and stop in the Boston Deli inside the Joan Benoit Samuelson Building, a deli-meets-sports bar with a treasure trove of signed athlete photos and memorabilia, much of it dedicated to Nike co-founder Phil Knight. And that’s just a start. In my many years covering Nike, writing for publications such as Sports Illustrated and Popular Mechanics, I’ve had the pleasure of multiple invites onto the campus to interview athletes and designers and witness the creation process live in search of a better story. Whether with a group of other journalists in a coach weaving through the security-guarded entrance of the Tiger Woods Conference Center (my first official visit to campus), pulling up to the main entrance (past the 48 flags signifying the countries Nike did business with when it was founded), or even meeting a Nike employee on campus after meandering through a wooded walking path south of it that connects the local light rail line—and hundreds of employees using the stop—to the main campus, arriving at the site always offers an entry into what feels like a rarefied world. The Sports Performance Center, opened in 2001 at 75,000 square feet (it was once named after Lance Armstrong), includes a glass-encased, Olympic-size swimming pool. The two-story center’s 30-foot-high glass window walls also hold weight rooms, workout studios, a spin room, and a rock-climbing wall. The Coach K facility trumps them both, though, especially with that specially designed basketball court on the third floor. Exploring outside—whether you brought your umbrella or not—comes in many forms. A 1.3-mile trail loop inside campus includes four footbridges, and a 1.9-mile loop reaches outside campus. The best area for stretching those legs, though, come near that MAX stop, where the Michael Johnson track nestles into the landscape. A five-lane, 400-meter track made from 50,000 recycled athletic shoes lets the red of the surface play against the greens and browns of the environment. With so many aspects to the university-like campus—often closed off at key points with security—it allows both employees and riff-raff like me to enjoy the odes to sports sprinkled about. The Nike Worldwide Headquarters serves as a workplace environment with the hustle of folks going about their jobs, but the campus is one with grand gestures, intriguing history, and a setting that gives it a unique character. For many lovers of sport and the gear tied to it, Nike is significant. A visit to the campus connects gear creation with experience. Or, at the very least, we can take in a bite of history at the Boston Deli.The best core workouts to do at home
Having a strong core keeps your spine, pelvis and hips stable when you run, preventing you from swaying side to side. This enables you to run more powerfully and efficiently, as it prevents the legs from having to work too hard just to keep you stable, and encourages a more upright posture. It also reduces your risk of getting injured, as a weak core can force unnatural movement compensations and increased strain on other parts of the body – including of the knees and hips. If you're new to running, it's worth building two core workouts into your training every week – and the three beginner core workouts below are a great place to start. These can be done at home and don't require any equipment. We've also included five beginner core exercises, which you can link together to form a circuit – repeat this two or three times.What does running do to your body?
When you run, numerous changes begin happening in your body from the moment you step out the door, throughout the exercise, and then for hours after you’ve finished. To start with, your body releases chemicals (endorphins) that provide you with the energy you need to move. You’ll also notice that your body temperature rises, and you will start to sweat. Depending on your level of fitness, after a certain period, fatigue may you to slow down and you will want to stop. If you run fast and hard, lactic acid starts building up in your muscles, which can make it painful to keep going. Post-run, you will feel energised, and your mood becomes elevated. This is because, during your run, the endorphins your brain releases for energy are still being released, so you get the so-called ‘runner’s high’. As your body recovers from exercise, you’ll also be burning more calories than usual as you clear lactic acid and repair muscles – this is sometimes called ‘afterburn’. It can last for several hours – or even days, according to one study in a sports science journal.Is it ok to run twice in one day?
Is it ok for runners to do two runs in one day? For most runners, doubles are a foreign concept, assumed to be the province only of those cranking out 100-mile weeks. Most of us don’t run twice a day – we don’t have time or there’s too much injury risk. But if you want to push your running to the next level, it may be time to reconsider.Making the U-Turn – Awakening Through Conflict
How do we honor the intelligence within anger, but not get hijacked into emotional reactivity? In this short reflection, we’ll explores the U-turn that enables us to offer a healing attention to the feelings and unmet needs under anger. Once present with our inner life, we are able to respond to those around us with wisdom, empathy and true strength.Light RAIN in Difficult Times
This meditation guides us in bringing the mindfulness and self-compassion of RAIN to a challenging part of our life, and particularly, to places of self-judgment or feelings of failure. The acronym RAIN is an easy-to-remember tool for practicing mindfulness and compassion using the following four steps: Recognize what is happening; Allow the experience to be there, just as it is; Investigate with interest and care; Nurture with self-compassion. You can take your time and explore RAIN as a stand-alone meditation or move through the steps whenever challenging feelings arise.
