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The Ultimate Brain Hack: Boost Memory, Focus, and Mental Strength! · Spiritual Sense: Practical wisdom to quiet an overthinking mind and recharge your soul

• 0:01
  Speaker A: Lots of love and blessings. Welcome to the spiritual Sense podcast. Hello, Shereen.
• 0:08
  Speaker B: Hello, Michael.
• 0:10
  Speaker A: Today we're diving into the joys of rest. The joys of rest. Why rest is so important for our well being, for our happiness and different ways that you can practice resting. And we're not talking about sleep, of course, is also extremely important when we go to bed at night and have a beautiful, long rest. But we need to also enjoy a restful life because if we are not restful, if we're not taking rest in between our actions, then we end up very stressed. And stress leads to high cortisol levels and all these different chemical impact on our body. You can do a lot of research about this if you're interested in all the science behind it. But there's been tons and tons of studies that basically say that people who are stressed have higher possibility of, you know, cancer, heart disease, all the other diseases, even dying in accidents. All sorts of things are the consequence of stress, basically, right? So we don't need to like list them all off because you probably get, it just feels bad. So that would be enough in and of itself. Whereas when we get rest, we feel so much better, we can think more clearly, we can enjoy life more, we have more patience for other people, we have more patience for what we're doing, we're more successful. We actually get more done in less time. So there's just so many benefits of resting. So we're going to be sharing about how you can get more rest and what the different methods are with you today. Welcome, welcome.
• 1:55
  Speaker B: Hello. Wonderful, wonderful topic.
• 1:58
  Speaker A: Wonderful topic. Yeah, we started, we came up with this topic because, you know, both of us, you know, we get up early and sometimes, you know, we can feel tired. I woke up this morning very early and I had wonderful meditation. Then I had a bunch of meetings and I was like, I'm really, I'm really like spacing out here. I need to rest. So I went to the beach and I walked somewhere into the shade under a coconut tree and I just took a nap for about, I don't know, 2030 minutes meditation, nap. And I feel so much better now because of that. Right. I could have just said, I'm not going to do it and I'm just going to push through, but I'm gaining energy because I took the time away. And we kind of have this choice again and again in our life. Should I take rest or should I have sugar and caffeine? Basically, there's the two options and a lot of people, they just say, you know, what? I haven't got any time for rest. Let's just keep knocking back those red bulls and coffees and sugary things, but then it leads to burnout and then we end up exhausted. And so a few minutes rest can do the world of wonders.
• 3:11
  Speaker B: One of the things I've been thinking about is that we need to understand that there needs to be periods of rest without sleeping. Like there's sleep, right? Like let's say you need 7 hours of sleep a day. Then apart from the 7 hours of sleep, there has to be periods of rest separate from that. And it's really important to understand why you need periods of rest. I feel, you know, there was so much in the last few years, so much of education and attention and what would you call it? Light shined upon how important sleep is. Right. You know, before, like, let's say 20 years ago, no one was talking about, oh, you need this much sleep, you need to sleep. No one was talking about it. But recently, like last ten years or so, people have been talking about, you need this much of sleep. You know, the sleep hygiene. I remember doctors talking to me about sleep hygiene and how important it is to sleep. And you know, all of that, right? So we have found that I feel the next frontier in health is really rest. It's wakeful rest. Like wakeful rest. I think the next thing that we really need to shine a light on and have a whole education thing going on is wakeful rest. That is the periods of time we are resting when we are not sleeping because we are always plugged in now, like really technologically, right? We are always plugged in. Some of us are in front of screensh 8 hours a day either computer, phones, you know, so much of the time we are doing that, we are in meetings, we are talking to people, we are working, we are doing all of these things. And so there has to be periods of time where there is none of that going on. Wakeful rest.
• 5:17
  Speaker A: That's very nice. Wakeful rest. You know, when you're talking about it reminds me of an interesting thing I discovered about top sports people. Do you know what the difference is between the highest level, you know, tennis players or highest level sports people and the people, like underneath them? Like what's the difference between the top.
• 5:41
  Speaker B: You recently said something in a podcast, is that it? You said that the top, top people practice the basics.
• 5:49
  Speaker A: That is something they do. But the other people also practice the basics. Like in terms of like let's say you've got tennis players, right? They're all really really, really good. And they all practice the basics and they all do the training and like everything they do. So people have studied these, these tennis players and they're looking, okay, what is it that these top players are doing differently from the, like, let's say the top ten versus like the ten and below? How come the top ten are the top ten? And they looked at all these videos and they're like, we can't figure out exactly the difference because they're all doing the same stuff, right? And then they looked at something else and they, what they realized is that, let's say some, there's in between points, the top players on the way back from the net to the line. When they walk back, they consciously rest and relax and calm down in between points and they don't let themselves get upset. And because they get these like 3 seconds of rest, 5 seconds of rest in between points, they end up beating their opponent over time. Not because they're better at the play, but because the rest gave them the edge. Isn't that interesting?
• 7:02
  Speaker B: It fascinates the only difference.
• 7:05
  Speaker A: Yeah. So the rest is what took them to the higher level. And you see the same thing with entrepreneurs and famous scientists and whatever else. It's the rest period that gives them the edge that they're looking for, right.
• 7:21
  Speaker B: When I was doing research in university, I remember one of the scientists, how he used to be constantly, right? He used to be constantly at work and he wouldn't even take a lunch break. Like, he would eat little, little things, you know, like every 1520 minutes. He used to a little bit. So I asked him, why do you do that? He said, so I don't need to take a break. And I used to watch him and I said, why do you not want to take a break? He said, no, because it shifts my focus away from what I'm doing. But it's not like he was any better than any of us, right? Like, why are you doing this? I love what you're sharing about the top players is if you really want to enhance your performance in any area, area of your life, then wakeful rest is absolutely essential.
• 8:15
  Speaker A: And I've heard the same thing with some of these top scientists. I can't remember the name, but like, one of them was saying that if he has a particularly difficult problem, he goes on these really, really long, long walks in the mountains, that the harder the problem, the longer the walk is and the higher the mountain he goes. So if it's a trivial thing, he'll just get on with it in his office. But if it's a really difficult thing, he goes on a massive walk because he can't solve it in his office.
• 8:41
  Speaker B: Right. You know, I was thinking about how when you have these periods of wakeful rest, that it's not even about performance, right? Because we can't really always gauge our life by how we are performing and how we are doing and all of that. I think that mindset shift has to, you know, happen where it's like it's about enjoying life. It's about being content with life. It's about really taking time away from, let's say, a screen. Because nowadays people come from work and then they just scroll, scroll, scroll through shorts and scroll through shorts and stuff. Before you know it. Like someone I know was telling me, before I knew it, I, you know, looked at shots for 3 hours. Right? And so. But that's not rest. You think that's rest, but that's not rest. Really. Wakeful rest is like, there are three areas of wakeful rest. One is all sensory things off, right? Like you not using your eyes, you're not using your ears, you're not using. You know, you're not using anything, right? You're just sensory. Sensory. You're like, on a down. Down. There's no. There's nothing. Like you're shutting everything off. And then there is the physical also, where you're just laying down and just being. And then also there is the mental. Mental one, too. Like meditation could be a wakeful rest. That would be a mental wakeful rest, right?
• 10:32
  Speaker A: Yeah. There's three different categories of rest. And, you know, sleep, obviously, is. Is the deepest sort of rest because you're not even really aware of anything. And from what we understand from our spiritual perspective is that when we sleep, we actually leave the body. We're floating above the body. And then that's why we like sleep, because the soul leaves the body temporarily. And that feeling of complete silence out of the body is what gives the benefit of the sleep, really, when you think about it. What is it we're really looking for in rest? We're looking for a very beyond the senses type of experience. That's. That's what provides the feeling of deep renewal. We go. It's like. That's why, like, why do people go on vacation? They want to get away from everything to some. Some pleasant place, and then they can come back renewed.
• 11:35
  Speaker B: You know, it's interesting what you're saying about meditation and leaving the body. I feel that there are a. Some meditation techniques that are more restful than others. Like, leaving the body, right. Which emulates sleep where you are in sleep, you're leaving the body, but you don't know you're doing it. But in meditation, the soul can just separate from the body for a few moments. I mean, you're not actually separating from the body, but your consciousness is separating from the body. And that's really amazing. Rest. You know, like, not all meditation practices are equally restful, right. There's some meditation practices. You're contemplating, you're thinking about things, but there's some practices, like what you're sharing is leaving the body temporarily for a few moments and coming back into the body. How restful that is. Another thing we were discussing earlier was going home, like, going to our spiritual home. That's very restful.
• 12:38
  Speaker A: We're talking about right at the beginning, the highest level types of rest that you can do. And what I personally like to do is combine these things. So, like, if I feel tired, I'll typically go and lie down somewhere comfortable. And then in my mind, I'm imagining going back to my home, back to the light. So, like, I'm going beyond, going beyond the body, looking down, going beyond the world, and then going into the golden light, the golden red lights of the home. And then I fall asleep. But my intention is just to be in the light. And normally I fall asleep as well, but sometimes I don't. But that's not the point. The point is to just be in the light. And sometimes I set my timer for 20 minutes just in case I do fall asleep. And normally I'll fall asleep naturally. And then I wake up and I feel much, much, much better. Like, massive difference. And because I work for myself, I don't have to be anywhere. So I can actually do this fairly easy. And a lot of people work from home, so this is something that a lot of people could, could do if they wanted to, just to take 20 minutes, 15 minutes, lie down and just breathe, calmly breathe, and then just go back into the. The light. We have meditations, and you can see the visual image. We can see if we can put it on the screen here with this going beyond, into the light. And then you fall asleep, and then you come back in the body, and then you're like, yay, here we are. We've come back, and everything's better. It's better. Hooray. Now I can get on with it, because, like, even today I was so spaced out, I was like, I can't think properly. My brain isn't working. So I just did the practice, and now I feel charged again. Even Winston Churchill, right, in the second world war, he said he always had to have his afternoon nap. Otherwise, there's no chance he could have managed with the war. I mean, obviously Nazi Germany and trying to deal with that was a big deal. But he always had his afternoon nap no matter what, because he wasn't able to function otherwise. So if we say, I haven't got time because my life's so busy, what about Winston Churchill in World War Two with the Nazi Germans, you know, bombing London the whole time. Right. I mean, come on.
• 14:57
  Speaker B: Other thing I was thinking about wakeful rest. Wakeful rest was to really switch off screens. Even if you come home, right? Even if you do it like 1 hour before going to bed, just switch it off, don't have it on. And or anytime during the day, if you're not able to manage before going to sleep, anytime during the day, just don't engage. Don't engage with social media. It's really important because you will feel much better. And, you know, there were periods of time in my life where I. For years, I didn't do any social media, right? Nothing, nothing, nothing. And I felt so, so good. And I'm back on it now, and I just feel so good not engaging. You know, one of the things that I really feel good about, like how much time and thought these tech companies have put into catching my attention and keeping my attention and I'm besting them, right. I feel like, yay. Like you not going to get the better of me in this.
• 16:12
  Speaker A: Exactly. They have an army of geniuses figuring out, okay, what is the particular video that you're definitely gonna like out of all, you know, that's just gonna. And then you. Oh, and there's the next one. And the next. And they. They so good at it. They're so good at it.
• 16:31
  Speaker B: So we don't realize they're so good at it. And you just end up being a slave. Right. I'm not going to be a slave. Hopefully we all agree slavery is not a good thing and just. We are being slaves, right? Like, feel it in your. That it is my honor that I shouldn't be a slave to this, because wakeful rest is so good for us. It's so good for us. Why are we not doing it?
• 16:56
  Speaker A: Exactly. You see, another thing, the fallacy is that when someone feels tired or whatever, they think, oh, let me just watch this thing, and I can relax. Right? And that's what it appears to be. And I've certainly experienced that myself. Oh, you know, I'm just gonna think, but what it actually is, it's actually stimulation, isn't it?
• 17:16
  Speaker B: It is stimulation. And you think your mind is shutting off, but it's not shutting off. There are a couple of things we could do that I've been doing lately that really have helped. One is, like, muscle progressive muscle relaxation. Like, I tense different muscles. Then I just relax. Like, I surrender the muscle to gravity. Like, I tense my head, then surrender it, tense my shoulders, surrender it, tense my arms, surrender it. I'm just laying there and doing this, right? Slowly I progressively go from my head to my toes, and then I just surrender my whole body. And it just feels so good. Like, you're totally, totally relaxed. Absolutely relaxed. That is very important. The other one, which I've been doing lately, is deep breathing in. Breath is four, count out. Breath is six, count. Like, I hold the breath also, but I count on four in, hold it, exit six. And it really helps. It really helps. Even though I'm relaxed, right. It's not like I'm stressed in life, but I have a lot of projects and a lot of things going on. And just to be able to sit down and do these things are so helpful. So helpful. One thing I've just recently started doing. One more thing. One more thing that I recently started doing is third eye. Right? This third eye area. I just tell myself, I see you, I know you're here. Just relax. You're okay, right? I keep massaging it and just really seeing myself behind in the third eye area. And I just do that for a few minutes, and it really feels very relaxed and restful.
• 19:20
  Speaker A: That's beautiful. To become aware that you're a spiritual being and to relax and let yourself come into that wonderful feeling. You know, these sorts of things we can say to ourselves, you know, I haven't got time for this stuff because I'm so busy and I just want to watch some stuff. And I understand that entirely. Right. However, afterwards, we don't really feel better. We feel our mind is full of random stuff. We feel often more agitated. So taking the time to do these practices, they are more effort upfront, but then you end up feeling so much more relaxed down the road. I think this is the. You can only tell whether or not something is good or bad for you if you think about how do you feel afterwards, like immediately afterwards, and generally speaking, in your life afterwards. Because there's like three levels of any. Any experience. One is how does it feel in the moment? The other is, how does it feel when it's finished? And the third is, how does it feel later on, like in, you know, weeks and months later? And so, for example, media feels good in the moment, typically because they custom design the content we watch, right. But it doesn't feel good afterwards. Often we feel we want more and more and more, and it's never enough because it's. Because it's like junk food. And then in the long run, we feel terrible because we're now slaves and addicted to nonsense, basically. And the same thing is true, you know, for certain types of food, there's type. There's lots of food that's extremely tasty, so you really enjoy eating it. But then we might feel a bit bloated afterwards, and then down the road, we might end up with heart disease or something. If you carry on doing that long enough, like for years and years and years, some of these junk foods. And so these practices, they, they don't necessarily feel good right at the beginning, at the very beginning, because there's resistance to doing them. So that's, that's the issue we're dealing with, is that there's some part of us says, yeah, but this is work, right? That's. But the thing is, it does actually fairly quickly become pleasurable, and then it feels good afterwards, and then it feels good down the road. So it's almost pleasure, pleasure, pleasure with a slight amount of discomfort on the very front end of it for possibly 1 minute or a few minutes.
• 22:04
  Speaker B: I was thinking, Michael, when you were saying this, that it's just changing our, like, habits, right? It's a habit because it does feel good. Being relaxed does feel good. We just have to change the habit.
• 22:21
  Speaker A: Right? It's the front end bit. That's the difficult thing. That's where the almost any of these habits, the very beginning part is the make or break thing, because that reason we don't create good habits is because there's resistance for about 20 seconds, and that's enough to knock us down. It sounds funny when we talk about it directly, but when in the moment, there's like, I could go instant gratification here, or a little bit of discomfort followed by pleasure here. And the instant gratification normally wins because we've been programmed with instant gratification.
• 23:05
  Speaker B: I remember dadi Janki. Dadi Janki was our spiritual leader. She was really amazing. She was one of my favorite people on the planet, right? So I used to go for walks with her a lot. So when I went to mount Abu, our spiritual headquarters, I used to go walks with her. So one day I was walking right it's on top of the mountain. I'm walking in this little garden with her, and she was telling me. So she must have been about 95, 96 at that time. And she was telling me that you should move, walk as much as you sit in a day. So if you're sitting for 4 hours, then you should walk for 4 hours. And she was walking. Right. Like, she really was walking. So I had such beautiful memories of walking with dadi in several places, like in the US, several places. San francisco, here, everywhere, and there too. Right. But I remember that very well, and so I'm remembering that now, and I'm really making a light walking, a habit. Like, I put a timer and say, no, I'm going to get up and walk. I'm not just going to sit here and keep going.
• 24:33
  Speaker A: She lived to 104, so.
• 24:35
  Speaker B: Yes, she lived at 104, and she was so healthy pretty much till the end. The thing was about Dadi Washington, like. Like, she said many things. Like, right. Like, one time she gave me walnuts, and she said, you should always eat walnuts because walnuts look like a brain, and they're good for your brain. So anything that looks like. Like a part of your body, then they're good for that part of the body. Right. Like, that's the understanding. But that's what she said about wall arts.
• 25:12
  Speaker A: Mm hmm. Well, there you go. Hate walnuts. So kidney beans good for the kidneys?
• 25:19
  Speaker B: Yes, kidney beans, good for the kidneys. Like that. But she didn't say anything about kidney beans. But she said that about walnuts. She said soak them and eat them.
• 25:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. They are good for the brain. Walnuts. Anyway. Yeah.
• 25:31
  Speaker B: It was not just spirituality. Right. Like, she really taught us these things, like walking and this and that, and it's so nice, light walk. It's not like you're going fast. It's not like you're going to the gym, but just to light walk. Right. It's so important.
• 25:50
  Speaker A: Yeah. I love going on little. I go on hikes, but they're very relaxed. I'm not like. I'm not, like, puffing and panting and trying to get anywhere. It's more. Walking in nature is one of the best restful things, especially if it's green trees and green things, because you get to benefit from nature and your walking at the same time. When I'm in Hawaii, I go for walks on the beach every day. There's one nice walk, Hanlei bay, which is like an hour each way. It's a little big beach or maybe 40 minutes or something. All the way, one side. And then you get the negative ions from the ocean. So you get the beauty and the walk and the ions and all these things. So if you have a park you can go to or a beach or some.
• 26:39
  Speaker B: Anywhere, even outside or even in the house. I walk in the house.
• 26:45
  Speaker A: Exactly. I mean, any way you can. Like, the ideal thing is walking in nature. And if you can't do it, for whatever reason, just walk around your neighborhood. And if that's not going to work, then just walk around the house. And if that's not happening, then you can just walk on the spot in your room. So I suppose there's the order of preference there. But that's a. That's very restful. And if it's a power walk where you're really pushing yourself, then it's not necessarily the same sort of feeling about it. Still, good for help.
• 27:15
  Speaker B: They shouldn't be agendas. Absolutely right. What you're saying, Michael, that don't, like. They shouldn't be an agenda to your wakeful rest. Right. You decide how much of the time in your day you're going to do wakeful rest and don't have an agenda. Don't think I have to accomplish this because we are so accomplished. Accomplish. Accomplish. Goal oriented. Like society. Right. I have to do this and I have to do that. No, it's just for you to just relax.
• 27:47
  Speaker A: Relaxation is success. I think that's the thing you have to write, we should create some stickers or something. Relaxation is success or peace is success. Because otherwise we think, oh, but that doesn't count. It doesn't count because I didn't get a certain amount of whatever it was a certain amount of money or a certain amount of followers or a certain amount of service or a certain amount of whatever. But what about isn't being happy success and being relaxed? You know, I mean, in this today's world, being a relaxed person is a major success because most people aren't, you know, and what a blessing you are for everyone around you.
• 28:30
  Speaker B: You know, I'm thinking of this, right? I'm thinking of how people say 8 hours of sleep or 6 hours of sleep, whatever you think you need, right, a day, how important it is. And there's so much education on that and shining a light on this and people talking about this. I think, like for wakeful rest, right? Wakeful rest. At least half an hour to an hour a day. That could include meditation, it could include walking, it could include, you know, going off screens, you know, it could include, you know, muscle relaxation. It could include anything, right? Breathing, all of that, at least an hour we should do. Because what is life? Really? What is life? Just go, go, go. Get on a treadmill and go, go, go. Be a hamster on a wheel and go, go, go. And then what?
• 29:30
  Speaker A: No, I think the art of living is largely about enjoying being alive. And why are we here? What are we doing here at all? I mean, as far as I can tell, we're here to enjoy ourselves. I mean, fundamentally, we're here to experience the wonder of being alive. And the wonder of being alive isn't about constantly being on a screen and working.
• 29:54
  Speaker B: I know, right? Especially because someone else is making you want to be on a screen.
• 29:59
  Speaker A: The thing is, what most people don't realize, and I've studied this a lot and read a lot of books about this and studied courses on it, is that these tech companies have vested interest in making sure that we're on their stuff, that using their system. So we. We sort of Nais, naively assume that these tools are just for our benefit. That's what we think. Just, oh, well, you know, like, it wouldn't be here if it wasn't, like, useful to me. And of course it is useful, but their business model designed so that the longer we use their products, the more money they make. And if you don't realize that, then. Then we're basically being abused by an invisible hand. That's essentially what's going on. This is enslaved and manipulated by some. Some people pulling the strings behind the screen. And this isn't like a conspiracy theory that, oh, my, this is actually happening. This is, if you talk to the companies, they have metrics where they say how much time is people spending on our product and how can we raise the amount of engagement and time on the screen? That's their job. Like, there's whole company departments whose job it is to get us to spend more time doing it. The irony, of course, is that we're creating a podcast on YouTube whereby we want you to watch this ourselves. So, of course, it's not that it's all bad, but we have to.
• 31:37
  Speaker B: They could be listening, right?
• 31:39
  Speaker A: They could be listening to it, but it's still going to be coming through his phone. So it's not that. It's obviously not all bad, but we have to be discerning consumers of whatever it is that we find useful and not let the algorithms get the better of us. All right, so I think we've discovered everything we need to. What can you do to take from this, this podcast today? What's one or two restful things that you can bring into your life. You can leave us a comment what you liked and we'll wrap it up with a blessing.
• 32:21
  Speaker B: All right, pick a number or pick.
• 32:23
  Speaker A: A random page 21 rest.
• 32:33
  Speaker B: Coolness.
• 32:34
  Speaker A: Bliss.
• 32:35
  Speaker B: Coolness.
• 32:36
  Speaker A: Coolness.
• 32:39
  Speaker B: Coolness. Your caring nature has flourished, showing the world your remarkable abilities to bring calmness and coolness. You're a peacemaker, making an impact in the lives of many. With your pure kindness. You are truly a master of inner serenity.
• 33:03
  Speaker A: Read again.
• 33:06
  Speaker B: Coolness, your caring nature has flourished, showing the world your remarkable abilities to bring calmness and coolness. You are a peacemaker, making an impact in the lives of many with your pure kindness. You are truly a master of inner serenity.
• 33:33
  Speaker A: That's beautiful. So take that to heart and your wakeful rest. Restful life and enjoy lots and lots of moments of rest in the day and see how you feel. You never know if you don't try. Lots of love. Talk to you soon.
• 33:55
  Speaker B: Om Shanti.