Stress Is Killing Your Running (The Relax Fix You’re Missing) with Dr Kasim Al-Mashat

Like stress affects every system in the body.

Most of us think that stress is just part of life, something that you push through. But what if the way that you're handling stress is quietly affecting your ability to recover, your sleep quality, or even the way you're able to absorb your training?

We're reacting to everything as stressor when it doesn't need to be, and we call this paper tiger.

A paper tiger. Something that feels dangerous but isn't, and yet your nervous system responds the same way.

We keep replaying these issues in our mind even when it's over.

Dr. Qasim Al-Mashat is a psychologist who once had to step away from work due to stress and later ran 12 half marathons in a single year. He also spent 6 months meditating in silence in Myanmar, waking up at 3 AM every day. What he learned changed how he thinks about stress entirely. Today, he explains the breathing technique that resets your nervous system in just under 2 minutes, why relaxing is actually the key to better performance, and the one practice that changes your relationship with stress. I really enjoyed this conversation. It is not about doing more, but it's about learning how to relax the right way. Before we continue, I want to talk about something that comes up over and over again in my own running, in my coaching, and in my new book Running Breakthroughs, and that is the topic of electrolytes. I've been using LMNT electrolytes for several years now. Hydration isn't just about drinking more water. When you're running, hiking, or training in the gym, you're losing sodium, and if you don't replace it, performance drops fast. You feel flat, foggy, crampy, or just off. I use LMNT on my long runs, when I'm hiking with my kids, or during harder gym sessions. One packet in water, especially when I'm sweating a lot, can make a noticeable difference. Better energy, better focus, and smoother recovery. What I like about about Element is how simple and clean it is. No sugars and no artificial ingredients, just what the body actually needs: sodium, potassium, and magnesium in the right ratios. Right now you can get a free sample pack with any order at drinkelement.com/flow. That is drinkelement.com/flow. Hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Kazim. You're a runner, you're a doctor, and you have a lot of experience in stress management. And in this conversation in particular, we're going to talk about different ways to reduce stress in daily life. And there's a lot of different ways that stress can impact us. You have a podcast or you have a TED Talk with more than a million views that talks in detail about mindfulness and happiness and ways to reduce stress. And maybe we can start out there. What is a single most effective thing that an athlete can do today to find ways to reduce their stress levels the right way?

What a great question. Thank you so much for starting that way. So if you think of one main thing, and I think there's so many branches, but if you think of one tree, what's the main tree is get to know your mind. That's the big tree. And within getting to know your mind, we're going to get to know the thoughts we're having, we're getting to know the emotions we're having, we're also getting to know the sensations, what's happening in the body. But get to know your mind, if I would pick one thing, get to know your mind. And not just for ourselves, but actually the more we know our mind, the more we can be there for others. And there's so many things we can explore going to an athlete as well.

Absolutely. So getting to know your mind, it really all evolves around awareness, right? To being aware of what's happening. So what are some of the ways that you can raise that awareness?

Let me give you some examples for me, which I did not make the connection. So being in counseling, being psychologists interested in mental health and well-being, Actually, the light bulb didn't come up for me for a long time, but the connection between my own mind, stress, and how it was affecting my body. So for me, it was 20-something years ago where actually I had quite a breakdown in terms of my body. I started developing like colitis, IBS symptoms, stress, and I had to even go on disability from work. There's a lot happening. It was very humbling. And I didn't make the link, but the level of stress was impacting me. Like, you know, I thought, okay, we're all stressed, what's the big deal? Life is stressful. But actually, stress is such a big word, but it really impacts us, impacts our physiology, impacts our mind, impacts our emotion. And for me, when the light bulb came on, like, wow, how I am living my life is really hurting me. Like how I'm reacting to things, how I'm thinking about things. But I couldn't see it because I'm in it. Like, it's like a fish but doesn't see it's in water. You know what I mean? Like, I couldn't see how I was thinking, really. So that's one of the things that really helped me is begin to recognize, ah, my reactivity to stress is making things worse. My upsetness, my perspective was really hurting me, but I couldn't see it.

It's fascinating you're saying that because we all experience different levels of stress throughout the day, and some stress is good for you, and too much stress in a variety of ways can be harmful.

Yes.

Dr. Phil Maffetone, he often talks about one of the limiting factors is high stress levels. Meaning, if your stress levels are very high, A variety of different ways get impacted by that. For example, your digestion. Like, you literally don't absorb food the same way when you're in a relaxed state versus when you're in a stressed-out state. Stress can also impact our sleep at night, which we can talk about in a bit further because I think optimizing sleep for athletes is a huge one. So I definitely want to spend some time on that. But even when you're stress levels are lower, your nervous system is calmer, and you can absorb more training. You literally have a stress bucket.

Yes.

That can be full. But if your stress bucket is already very full by daily life, you can just not handle as much training volume or training load, training intensity as well. Once we reduce that amount of stress, like, we can simply absorb more training. So, so How can people do this? What are some of these things? Because I've heard you talk in detail about meditation. You've spoken about journaling in a variety of different ways, but give us some concrete examples what a listener can implement.

There's so many things I'd love to share with you. So let me just backtrack a little bit about— you're talking about stress and how it affects physiology. So I teach something called mindfulness-based stress reduction, which we can get into as well, MBSR. And it's one of these gold standard in the use of mindfulness that works with pain, illness, and just stress in daily life. And one of the things that the research shows so clearly, and it's something that I share in the program, is stress affects every system in the body and causes inflammation in every system in the body. Look at digestive system, inflammation, endocrine system, reproductive system, every system. And there's even some research on inflammation in the mind, in terms of anxiety and depression. So here we have inflammation, and the body is just reacting to try to protect us from stress. But the problem is this stress, we're reacting to everything as stressor when it doesn't need to be. And we call this paper tiger. And I love the wording paper tiger because this system was developed, you know, when there's an actual tiger that jumps in front of us, you want the stress response to kick in. Fight, flight, freeze. That's kind of the standard fight, flight, freeze. And there's also what's called tend and befriend, another approach where we're trying to create alliances. But here we are, stress is affecting the whole system, and it's meant to be temporary, the stress. And our body knows through the autonomic nervous system to regulate if we just let it. If you look at animals, if you watch Discovery Channel, and it's like zebras running, right? And they're almost getting caught by a tiger. And what happens when they survive? They go shake.

Yeah, exactly. I just want to say.

Yeah, they go shake, right? Because this is the natural way. We have an autonomic nervous system, sympathetic and parasympathetic, and it harmonizes. But for all of us, there's so many things now. It's like death by a thousand little stings. Do you know what I mean? Like an email that bothers us, somebody honks at us, a long lineup at the cashier, we forgot the wallet, the knee hurts. I mean, all of these things and Then the problem becomes, and this is why I want to link it to what you're saying and about what I shared about getting to know our mind. We keep replaying these issues in our mind, even when it's over. Like the zebra, when it's over, it's over. They're not replaying, like, can you believe what happened to me yesterday? Or can you believe what the other zebra said to me? Or can you— you want to be like, it's over. So when we don't know where we're paying attention to in our mind, we're in trouble. So to go back and answer one of the many ways I want to answer this is, what is a practical thing? Number 1, pay attention to what you're paying attention to. So even before trying to meditate or anything, just Actually, it can happen right now, even as someone is listening or watching. Like, what are you paying attention to? Is it certain words, or did your mind think about lunch, or did you associate it with another memory as you heard some words? You're like, "Oh yeah, there's this..." That now we're beginning to notice. Ah, where is the mind? Paying attention to what we're paying attention to. Is quite something.

So well said. And like Dr. Joe Dispenza, he often talks about a lot of repeat patterns. Like we basically relive like 60,000 thoughts a day.

Yes.

And we relive by the age of 35, 95% of our thoughts end up becoming whether they're repeats or your personality has already been built and you really have this character that you're living in throughout the day.

Yes.

And I thought that was so fascinating. You really have built up all these patterns and you have to proactively almost, yeah, make some significant awareness changes in order to be able to modify that, or otherwise you're going to live in autopilot. I think a lot of people just live in autopilot throughout the day, like day in, day out, they have the same thoughts repeating itself. And like you were saying, some of these thoughts, once they keep repeating itself, it's not doing you any good versus at some point just interrupting that and finding more awareness through that. And yeah, that can be done in a variety of different ways, but I think indeed a lot of this starts with awareness. And I think nowadays when there's so many people having easy access to their phone, it's the opposite of awareness. Literally like society is doing everything it can with the Instagram Reels and the TikToks and the whatnot. Whatnot to pull you out of awareness. So you have to even be more conscious and aware of getting pulled out of it.

It's so interesting. It's so easy to get caught up because we're constantly fueling and filling the mind with busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. And if we're not looking at social media, we're busy with replaying, we're scrolling in our mind, actually. We're scrolling in our mind, "Oh, this happened, this happened, what is going to happen tomorrow, what's going to happen yesterday?" It's ongoing. They refer to this as the default network. And here's some good news for everyone. It's not about shutting it down. I think this is where it's so discouraging in meditation for many, or even working with your mind, even if you don't want to learn meditation. How do I stop it? Well, you can't. It's not about stopping the default network. It's constantly happening. In fact, they've done research where they've put people in functional MRIs and asked them, just rest. And they noticed the same regions in the brain are active, like they're actually talking. You know what I mean? Still the same brain is having— it's the narrative network, they call it. It's happening. So what do we do then? Here's a couple other simple things. We need to activate another network in the mind. And that network helps with senses. Now, we're getting into kind of being present. How do we get engaged in our senses? And for runners, or somebody who even walks, or any sport, is actually paying attention to what you're seeing, what you're hearing, what you're smelling, what you're feeling. Now you're tuning the brain, you're paying attention, to what's right here, instead of paying attention and getting lost in some kind of movie in the mind, about the past or about the future. So the senses are a doorway to being present. Like feeling the feet, hearing things, seeing things.

During meditation, sometimes you can center yourself by focusing on your breath.

Yes.

Even during running, I found that to be exceptionally helpful. This is why I often run without music or without listening to anything.

Me too, actually.

You're just more in tune with the body. You literally start paying attention to— like, I do still from time to time run with a heart rate monitor, but now that I've done it for more than a decade, I really know kind of based on breathing pattern what my heart rate is. And sometimes I actually do, like I just listen to my breathing. I'm like, well, I think I'm at 138 heart rate. And I look down and it would be within a few beats typically. And it's almost like this game that I like to play. But I think it's that awareness of just paying attention to the body and then paying attention to your footsteps on the ground and possibly the rhythm between your breathing and your footsteps and Yeah, the more we can be aware of that, I think, yeah, there's something special there.

Very much so. And actually, it becomes such a metaphor for life, I find, with running. And again, someone who does not run, even if it's just walking, the more I think about the end, the more I'm suffering in my run. Like, when am I going to get there? You know what I mean? But the more when I'm just present, like being here, because the goal is not just getting there, is actually being in this step, like enjoying each kilometer or mile, like being in this mile, just like being in this decade, being in this year, being in this week. We don't know if we're going to get another one, like literally, we don't know. So, there's something about being present in where our feet are.

Totally.

Totally. Right. Here.

The other day I was coaching my daughter. She wanted to improve in her running, and we were running on the track, and it was getting tough. And one cue that I gave her was relax more, because it's so easy to just push harder. And to— yeah, but the pushing harder is going to be harder when you're forcing it. But when you're actually relaxing more, it becomes more from a centered stage and Yeah, it ends up working often. Tell yourself next time at the end of a long run or at the end of a race or a speed session, like, instead of forcing it, let's try to relax more. And you might be surprised actually with that one.

You know, I love that you said that because that applies as well in meditation. And they refer to it in many traditions as the right effort. Right effort. Like if you overexert in something, it's going to be rigid, and unenjoyable. And if it's too loose, you're also really not there. And there's a nice metaphor, I don't know if someone's listening, rather than watching, like if you have a palm open, right now I have my palm open, and if my fingers are open with the palm and you put sand, it's going to go through it. And if I clench my fist, it's too tight, sand is not going to be held here. But if I just hold it just enough where my fingers are closed, now there's a bit of a little bucket in my palm for that sand. That's the right effort I find in meditation, but in running, knowing when I need to relax, when I need to put a little more effort. But in meditation, people get lost. They try so hard to be peaceful, or like, "I want to meditate," and even if you watch your your breath, you notice your breath, or as simple right now, someone can do it even if you're sitting or even if you're standing, if you just notice your feet. Like right now, right here, all it takes is a minute. If you send your mind like a flashlight to your feet and without needing to look at the feet or imagine the feet, you're going to feel sensations. It might be heat, coolness in the feet, pressure point, a sense of a sock, a shoe, flip-flop, tingling, itching, something's happening. Now, that's actually meditation. We're paying attention—that's one of the definitions—in the present moment, on purpose. We're saying, "Mind, I want you to go there." And the fourth word used in describing it is "non-judgmentally." Which is we're not judging, like, "Why do I have a sensation?" or "Why is my mind busy?" I'm just paying attention to my feet. Paying attention to my feet. And as you do that, even it's been like under a minute I've been saying it, if someone has been following, probably the mind drifted somewhere. Like, "What does he mean by that?" or like, "Then what do we go on? Am I doing it right?" Like some commentary, right? And this is so normal. In meditation, even if you meditate for a minute, because our mind is like a factory of thoughts. You know, like a heart pumps blood? Do we want the heart to stop? No, please keep going, heart. The mind is not going to stop. It's not about stopping the thoughts, but actually recognizing, again, where is it? And do I want to spend more time on that or not? Yeah. And we use the body in one way as an anchor—hands or feet or seat or the breath or sounds. So these are some ways, even for a minute, and someone can start by just sit for a few minutes, put a timer, 1 minute to start if you want.

And this is a mental muscle that you have to train as well. I feel in particular these days, with all the dopamine addictions. Like, the dopamine addiction is real. And I honestly don't think that there's enough talk about it. Yes. That most people just have the hardest time even to sit still for just a few minutes without grabbing and grabbing a phone. And I do think it impacts all other areas in your life, including your athletic performance too, because you're always in that on mode. And yes, Yeah, there's— once you do 1 minute, like, and train yourself a little bit longer the next time and a little bit longer the next time. Same with doing deep work. I've been fascinated by the topic of flow states and about deep work and time blocking and any of these things. It's very helpful for me throughout the day to just know what I'm going to work on. And I literally put like a timer. Now I'm going to work on this block for this thing. I put everything off and That is what I'm going to be doing. It's single focus task without any distraction, but that's easier said than done. Like, of course, even when you put all the different systems in place, still there's like so many different distractions. But yeah, it's a wild one. The part I want to talk about is meditation. In particular, some practical guidelines over here for those listening who might not have a consistent meditation practice. But even for those who are familiar with meditation, who want to start doing it more on a consistent basis, how would you go about that? And what is somewhat of the minimum dose to see benefits from this? Oh, what a great question.

So I've been so interested, so both as a meditator but also a psychologist, like what is effective? What are we needing? What is the absolute minimum we can give anyone. And there's a lot of research on this, and some research gives us numbers. And sometimes I hesitate to give numbers, like only do this much, because then it puts people in some kind of bind. Like, if I don't do whatever, 30 minutes or 20 minutes, I'm not benefiting. But here's what I would suggest. Is start. And many people start with some app or following some audio, which can be helpful, but I encourage everyone to— it could be in your area or with online, there's so many options, like besides me teaching, can go anywhere. But if you actually go to be part of a community, it really supports learning, because learning just on an app alone can be helpful, gives you something But there isn't the refinement, there isn't the addressing the challenges, there isn't the hearing what others are doing. So that's just a recommendation. Go anywhere you want. If you're interested in, again, this mindfulness-based stress reduction, I teach it including free sessions about it, online, self-paced, or go anywhere. Just Google it and go anywhere that offers that, or some meditation community. I think that's really helpful.

In your program, do you have that type of community as well? Yes, yes.

Because the program itself, it's an 8-week program and we meet once a week for 8 weeks online by Zoom. And there's meditations, we follow this curriculum which was developed in the faculty of University of Massachusetts, Faculty of Medicine. In 1979, that's when it began. Imagine that. Meditation and medicine. Right? This was revolutionary at the time and still now, right? Meditation and medicine. So yeah, so we meet once a week and people learn meditation and they're not short. Like, we do 40 minutes, 30 minutes, some are 10 minutes. And that's part of the challenge that's actually helpful. Because sometimes people go, how am I going to do 40 minutes? I'm too busy. Well, me too. When I started my journey, and there wasn't all the social media then, right? Like, there wasn't all the TikTok and Instagram when I started in the early 2000s. And I was like, there's no way I can do this. I'm stressed out of my mind. I'm busy. Where the heck am I going to get the time to do this and sit to try to do nothing? What a waste of time. I was skeptical. So if there's anyone skeptical, please don't throw your skepticism. Keep it. And Find out for yourself, does it actually help you? So what I found for myself, which research shows as well, is when we do it, our own sense of time becomes more spacious. And actually, I'm more effective when I'm meditating. Like, I problem solve better, I come up with ideas better, I have more clarity in my mind. And I don't have more minutes in the day than anyone else. So when I started, I kind of resisted that. I was like, this is just for people who have, like, I don't know, they got time every day and I'm too busy for this. This is not going to help me. And then I realized actually, like, top executives, CEO, athletes, military, special forces, like, Wait a minute, there's value to this. And obviously the science is so clear. We can spend hours talking about the research, but that kind of sold me. Like, take the time and you'll actually have more time. Yeah. Which is kind of mind-twisting a little bit.

I'm 100% with you though. Like last year for the first time, I used to always meditate for about 10 minutes to 20 minutes a day. And then last year I went to the Joe Dispenza meditation retreat and we did 45 minutes and an hour long meditation and I was getting into deep alpha state and theta and all of it and very noticeable difference to the nervous system. It really made a positive impact. Another example was several high performers that I've read interviews and books about, even someone like an Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes. He said in his most productive years, he was meditating twice a day for 20 minutes. And this is him being exceptionally busy, but still he found to be more productive, more relaxed, in a better mindset, mind state when he was meditating twice a day.

So yes, I can attest to that 100% as well. I am more effective and people share this when we do the program, like days they miss meditation or I have graduates who come back back and do like drop-ins we have for graduates, and they're like, I haven't meditated a couple of weeks and I can feel it. Like, my, my— when I'm back, I'm better. I'm better with myself. I'm more kind to myself. I'm not as agitated with my kids or my pets. Like, very active. Like, there's a little more space, and that's what we're needing, a little more space.

Is there a, is there a best time of day to meditate?

Another great question. So, a lot of traditions encourage morning practice because for many, the mind is a little quieter in the morning, might be easier, and it sets up your day. But in terms of research, no. Do what's most effective for you. So, for me, I had periods in my life where it was the first thing in the morning. Right now, it's actually middle of my day. My mornings are the exercise, the run, the weights. And it's middle of the day. For some people, it's at night. So there's actually— wherever you can get it in, get it in. If it's, again, 5 minutes start, 10 minutes, whatever you are, just commit to it. And let go of the expectation that you're supposed to feel a certain way, feel peaceful or feel quiet, or get rid of your thoughts. That's not the point. The point is getting to know the mind and not reacting to the thoughts. Like, "Oh, this is just a thought, like a cloud that's coming and going. Let it come, let it go. Come back to my feet or to my breath," or whatever you're focusing on.

One interesting one. In the last few weeks, I've been very consistent in meditation. Like, more consistent than recent. I've been very consistent in journaling and gratitude practices. Yes, it can be. It's January 21st. It's the beginning of a new year. And like, just kind of relooked at certain habits I wanted to continue implementing on a consistent basis. And the fascinating thing I sometimes notice when I meditate on a more consistent basis is the awareness part you talked about earlier. But one thing stood out. I was at the store yesterday. As I was ringing up my groceries, I was so exceptionally present. And it's strange because very often I go to the store and I'm just going through the motions. I noticed I was in tune with the cashier who was ringing me up. There was a person bagging up groceries and like I could almost as a third person observe what was happening there. And it's strange to describe, but I've had that previously where I've sat in certain meetings or I've been even on certain group runs and I can just almost zoom out from the whole— it, it, I don't know how to describe it. It's just like more awareness throughout, like for what's going on. Are you more in tune with the other people or something.

Oh, what a beautiful description. See, this is the point of meditation. It's not just to sit in a cushion or chair. It's actually to connect to our life, to wake up to our life, to be present in these precious moments with the cashier in a lineup, and actually be there. Like, you were present. It's a different experience when you're present rather than waiting in line and now When is this life going to be over? Is it going to be over? What am I going to do when I'm going to get there? What am I going to cook today? Notice how that makes you feel. I encourage your listeners to connect. Notice what's happening between what's running in the mind and how your body's feeling. And what happens when you become just present in the moment? What changes? What changes? It's like a little homework if anyone wants to take it on.

No, it really is. And I think you start to have more compassion with self, compassion with others, more grace coming from an open-hearted place. Yeah, there's a lot of things connected to that. One thing, like earlier you mentioned something and I want to touch base on that. Yeah, like our mindset can have a big impact on our results, meaning even when we look at— there's some athletes who are trying low heart rate training and they might experience some challenges with it, or they have to slow down by several minutes per mile, per kilometer, and they find it stressful, or they find it frustrating, or they find it— yeah, I have found the people who are able to just accept that this is part of the journey versus really frustrated, they're like, this is torture, this is so hard, this is— how we talk to ourselves impacts even their distress levels, even, even the outcome of this process. And I was curious to hear if you had any thoughts on that.

Oh yeah, this is so good. So the first thing is we have to be aware. What are we thinking? What are we telling ourselves? Some people don't even realize what they're thinking. They don't realize they're just caught in it. So, you know, you mentioned the word acceptance, and I think it's such a beautiful word, but it's so misunderstood. I feel bad for acceptance. Like, I'm sorry, acceptance, a lot of us don't understand you. But acceptance sometimes gets misunderstood as like, I have to agree with fully, or I have to fully I don't like something, or I'm like all of a sudden weak or something. And if you rethink acceptance as acknowledging, like I'm acknowledging this is difficult, but I don't have to like it. So I don't have to like that this is taking longer, but I am acknowledging this is what it is. That's acceptance. And same thing like meditation. Right? Like, it's really simple, but it's not easy. And we just have to, like, we don't have to accept our thoughts, like, oh, but it's here, acknowledge it. So same thing as you're saying here. Well, Lohar training might be challenging, right? And I don't know, I mean, personally for me, I didn't find it as challenging myself. I found it to be a relief. I did catch my mind sometimes thinking I should be trying harder because that's the mindset often. And actually, that's what led me to injuries because I didn't accept, I didn't accept the fact that I can go slower to improve. I don't want to accept it. I had a certain idea like only harder constantly pushing, which is, you know, I learned that like in different sports and martial arts and growing up competing in provincials and in where I am in Canada and kind of push, push hard, hard, hard. That was like, you get recognized for pushing hard. And then this was different, this slow, hard training. Like, yeah, almost felt lazy for a little bit.

It, yeah, it is counterintuitive initially thinking you can run slower and eventually over time improve and be able to run faster. And yeah, there's a lot to it. What have you learned throughout your journey? Like, you're one of the members of the Personal Best Program. I've seen you progress very well. Like, you went from getting injured in like a half marathon in 2021, I believe, when you started getting into it. To like being able to complete, was it 12, 10 or 12 half marathons in a year? Yeah, 12.

Yes, 12 half marathons last year in '25. Yes. Yeah.

So what have you, what have been some of the high-level lessons and maybe any advice to those listening here that are looking to improve in their running?

Yes, absolutely. Well, I have to say, one of the key differences that helped me was you. So, I just want to name that. No, truly, truly, because I got so frustrated and I kind of set my mind. This was during COVID a lot of the sports that I did, everything was closed and I thought, "Okay. Well, let's try running." And typically, if I did run, it was like 2 kilometers after some weightlifting or a warm-up for something, but not like running, running, not even a 5K or whatever that You know, what's 5K in miles?

8. It's like 3.1 miles. 3.1.

Yeah, 3.1. That's right. Yeah. So like, that was a lot for me. Like, whoa, I got like, I got to 4K, like 3 miles. Whoo. All right. So I started running and then I started getting these injuries in my calf and it was kind of annoying and I was like, I just got to push harder. And I did see some physio. I addressed it. But I kept going. And then I was most interested in my pace. How fast can I go? I mean, I got excited. There's a part of me that's competitive, and I was like, ooh, I might even break the 2-hour mark for a half marathon here, like in my first one. Like I was— and training was going relatively well, and then I pushed so hard in my first attempt. And this was actually in '22, my first half marathon attempt. Halfway through, literally, ding, my Achilles had a tear. And it was immediate. Like, it wasn't, you know, they had to drive me to the finish line, right? Which was kind of humbling. And then from there I thought, okay, I got to do this thing. Like, I really want to finish a half marathon.. And so I had to start again, everything, go back to the drawing board. And I was part of a running group, and the coach there said something which was so helpful, and I hope this is helpful for listeners too. He said, you know, when there's an injury, it's just highlighting weakness in the chain, and all it means, it's an opportunity to strengthen the whole chain. And I thought, oh, what a great mindset. It's just revealing areas that need strengthening. Oh, so that got me excited. Instead of like, oh, I failed my first half, it's like, okay, I can learn to strengthen it. And so the year after, I did one half marathon and I almost died. Like, I was like, oh my God, I make it. I think it was mentally, I was, I think I had to monitor my mind because I had fear pop up. What if I get injured again? What if, what if, what? Like, my mind was hyper kind of attentive to my body, which was good, but it wasn't enjoyable. Yeah. And then, and then the year after, I did 3 half marathons, so in 24. And then I thought, what if I could do more? But I realized I can do more if I don't improve other things, including this low heart training. This was really huge for me. And one of the things that actually helped me last year in doing that is doing a couple trail runs, right? And just like on the uphills, walking, like that walking, that running, it slowed me down, like just slow down. And so that really helped. So I had to, yeah.

No, one thing about the trail running too, going back to awareness and presence, because there's so much different terrain and there's wildlife and there's branches and sticks and rocks, I feel when I run on the trails, I'm more present too than when I'm running on the road where everything is quite predictable. So it's another way to kind of tune into awareness, I feel.

I agree with you, but you know, it's interesting you say that. I find both of them have their own beauty. So, uh, like the road running, like, I feel the scenery moves faster towards me, you know what I mean? Like, I just pay attention to more— here's a sign, uh, here's a tree, here, here's a car, here's, here's someone crossing the road, here's it— like, I'm paying— there's still a lot actually happening which requires attention.

Yeah, um, yeah, no, go ahead.

Yeah, I was just gonna say something else that helped me. You're asking about what helped. So, so here is changing my mindset, not worrying about my, um, like how fast I was running, my pace, but, but actually my heart rate. Like, I started— I, before, I, I didn't care. Like, it was mostly high, high, high, high. Do you know what I mean? Because I was going for high pace. That helped me recover better and allow me to add 1 or 2 high-intensity sprints in my week. But I had the legs for it because I wasn't beat up from running. So that helped me. And I want to mention 2 more things that really helped me. And one of them, again, you said it. Which really helped me. When we first met, you're like, so how often are you running? And I was like, well, I'm running like 3 times, and then I do jiu-jitsu, and I do this. And you're like, I think you need to run a little more. And I was like, yeah, where am I going to fit running more? And that made a huge difference. Like, I rearranged my schedule. So running more, so 4 or 5 times a week. And I include like a water running session, which I really like. Yeah.

So aqua jogging. So you have one of those floating devices around here.

Floating device.

Yes. And you're like, it's very gentle on the body and yeah. Very gentle.

There's something called actually also fluid running, which is aqua jogging. There's someone who created this system called fluid running that comes with audios. And I actually bought it during my injury and I even had the the person who created it on my podcast because it was life-changing for me. I could run with no pain.

Yeah, so I still do that. Yeah, that is awesome. Um, going back to stress management, because I do think there's quite a few athletes who wake up in the middle of the night, and often this is related to higher cortisol levels, stress hormones that are out of whack. Do you have any thoughts on ways to reduce stress throughout the day? Because sometimes it's not even for athletes falling asleep, but it's that waking up in the middle of the night. And obviously there can be a variety of different causes here. Sometimes athletes underfuel, sometimes athletes have different, like, different stresses going on throughout their life that might be harder to manage. But very curious if you have any Any thoughts on ways overall to reduce stress throughout the day?

You know, something I find helpful is it's really so simple, and it even sounds like really, really simple, but make sure you're breathing throughout the day. So we are breathing anyway, so we don't have to remember, luckily, right? But doing some deep breathing Like there's many forms of breathing, and I have some even videos on YouTube about it. Like the different, you know, there's the, what's called 4-7-8. So you breathe into the nose to the count of 4, you hold your breath for 7 seconds, and you exhale slowly to the count of 8. And you do that 4 times. So it's 4-7-8. But there's many kinds. But training the nervous system to wind down. Because we're winding up the whole day, not just what's happening, but remember, what winds us up is our thoughts. We see an email, we remember something, we read something, we watch something in the news, and now we're like off to the races. So the actual breathing is helpful, and catching ourselves throughout the day. I do this often. As soon as I notice my body tensing, tightening, I'm like, "What's happening here? Oh, I'm worrying about this project I've got to submit. Okay, just breathe. It's okay.

I'll get there." So, practically speaking, sometimes I do a meditation and I sit for 20 minutes, and just the only thing I have on is a bell. And like every few minutes it rings a bell and that bell just kind of brings back your awareness if you had drifted off. Yes. So when you're talking about trying to catch your breath or trying to do some of these exercises, would potentially setting a bell every 20 minutes or every hour— like I'm so Type A wired of needing some instructions of like practical implementation. Same with like, all right, the 7-8 breathing. How many times during the day would you do that in an ideal world? Is that like try to do that in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening? Or, and same for like the notification thing or like a bell, like any type of practical guidelines here I think will be helpful.

Absolutely, for sure. So if we look at the 4-7-8, Dr. Andrew Weil speaks about that as well for 4-7-8. Breathing. And one of the things he speaks about, if we do 4 cycles, 4-7-8, at least twice a day, it seems optimal. But remember, that's optimal. Like, even if you sit once in the day and do 4 cycles, you're doing something, you're pausing. So that's excellent. So it's a great start for breathwork itself. The meditation, you remind me of something that actually I did for a while, but I'm not doing it right now. I had an experience and I've done many retreats. I know you mentioned I did a 6-month retreat in silence in Myanmar. And they had like a massive— when they wake us up in the morning, it was like 3 AM, when they wake us up. Literally, at 3 AM, we begin meditation 3:30 in the morning. It was in a forest monastery. And they had this massive log, like wood, and they smacked it on like a metal, right? So it wasn't the nice chime you'd hear, like ding, or a bowl, dong. It was like, get up! Yeah, it's like, Boom, right? And it was so startling, like it woke me up, like it woke me up. And then there's something about sounds that trigger in the mind, okay, now it's time, that's it, I got to get up, there's non-negotiable, I'm getting up. So sounds can be helpful, right? Sounds. So if you have a notification throughout the day to just pause, just pause, like put even an alarm if you want, twice a day, once a day, just even start once a day, an alarm to beep and just pause, just pause for a minute. Just pause for a minute. I do this, I'll give another practical element before doing emails. Mm-hmm. Can you see yourself thinking ahead of time as you're sitting in front of your computer? This is for everyone, right? Like you're about to catch up with things and your mind is already racing. I got to reply to this person. Well, I didn't reply. I was just sitting in front of a computer before opening your email. Just pause 1 minute. Like, just, just sit. Breathe. Breathe. These are little interruptions we can have in our day. Little one. Breathe. That's it. So sounds can be very helpful. And actually, I just remembered another one. There's the late Thích Nhất Hạnh, who's a Vietnamese monk who passed away. And He had their monastery in France, actually. It's called Plum Village, and some people may know of his work. An incredible, also, activist, Nobel Peace Prize winner. And one of the things that they have, and I did a retreat with their monks, and one of the things they do is they ring a bowl throughout the day. And it doesn't matter what you're doing in the whole thing. If it's eating time, or it's time where people are talking in that setting, then you just pause. Just listen to the sound. And then, one of the things the monks shared, which I really liked, is that every time you're stuck in traffic, and you see a red light in front of you, like the actual red light, or the red light of a car, Just imagine it's just telling you, "Breathe. Breathe. Breathe." When the phone rings, I learned that from them as well, is when the phone rings, they actually don't answer it right away. They breathe, breathe, then answer it. So these little interruptions from this, "Quickly, I gotta rush, I gotta, I gotta," this hurried life, Man, oh man, we live such a rushed, hurried, hurried life. It's like we're chasing a finish line, which is actually our death. Like, what are we chasing here? Did you know what I mean? Like, yeah, little interruptions.

Yeah. Wow. I love that concept. I love the concept of something that would normally potentially trigger, whether that's a phone ringing or a red light or traffic on the freeway. And you actually change your mindset around it, that that is a moment to take a deep breath in and to be present and to be aware. Wow.

That is powerful. Yeah. Yeah, Wies, see this in mindfulness-based stress reduction, MBSR, we call it formal practice and informal. Formal meaning you schedule a time to meditate. Informal is you pay attention throughout the day. When you brush your teeth, that's another practical element. You're not creating time to brush your teeth because, I mean, we're all going to brush our teeth today, hopefully more than twice. And here's something that everyone can try if you're up for it. Like whoever is listening that you're up for it is when you're brushing your teeth, again, you don't have to put a timer on it. You don't have to slow it down. Because awareness is not about just slowing down, but pay attention when you brush your teeth. Like, can you sense the toothpaste on the teeth on the right side? Are you actually remembering which side you brush your teeth before you go to the up, to low? How many seconds can you stay present with your teeth? That's a great informed meditation, which does not need more time or slowing down. Totally. So it's a really nice one. So, daily.

So informal, right? You can even switch it over to your left hand too, like to your opposite hand of what you normally do it with. Yes. And that rewires the brain in a different kind of way too.

So. Exactly. See, I want to just go back to something when you're talking about tools. I want to share like Another thing, and this one I picked up from Dr. Judson Brewer, who is a neuroscientist and a psychiatrist that's interested in mindfulness and addiction. And his work is on addiction, not only just to substances, like he looks at smoking, he looked at, but not just substance, but anxiety, how we're addicted to our thoughts. And he uses mindfulness to work with that. And he's quite amazing. I've had him actually twice on my podcast. And he He says, curiosity is a superpower. Curiosity is a superpower. So that helps us be present. Get curious. Get curious. So well said. So I find that helpful. Like, just get curious about whatever, about your run, about what's happening in the moment, and then things can be surprising. So I'll give you an example. So I'll give you one example that really surprised me. This is before I even knew of curiosity in that way. I was learning meditation, and I will never forget this because it was so simple. I was like shocked. So here I was stuck in traffic, and in the traffic there's a median, and the median, there was like a little weed that's growing out of the concrete. And you know, the traffic is not moving, and I was like, okay, let me apply what I'm learning, meditation, like look around, see what's here. And then I see this little weed growing out of the concrete, and I looked and I thought, that's amazing! What a resilience to grow out of this concrete! How did that happen? And my whole attention now was on this weed. And my emotion, I felt uplifted, I felt curious, very different than if my intention was, "When the heck am I gonna go home? I'm gonna be late, just throw out my schedule, my plan, I'm gonna sleep well, blah blah blah." And here's all the change, which is go back what I showed earlier, is where am I paying attention to? So notice the weeds around, friends.

It really is. And I will never forget what you just mentioned there was when I grew up, both my parents worked full-time and my aunt, she played a big role in my life and she like partly raised us as well. Like she would come to the house and she would often bring us to school and be there after we come back from school and whatnot. At some point, she ended up getting cancer and she was very ill. And at one point, she went for a walk with my mom around the neighborhood and she saw certain flowers and she said, I've never seen these flowers before. These are the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen. And it is that part where all of a sudden you start seeing the world differently around you because of awareness, because you realize you only have a limited amount of time left on Earth and you just become more appreciative, you become more grateful. And I think, yeah, that's really powerful, realizing we're all going to die one day and that day can be here sooner than you think and just being very thankful of the things that we do have. One calendar that I have on my wall, I'm not sure if you're aware of this one, it's called My Life in Weeks. And basically you could indicate, it's a poster that I bought somewhere online, and you can indicate like, all right, what is your age? And then how many years old do you think you're going to get? And so I selected like, all right, I'm going to become 88 years old. 'cause 88 was my favorite number. And then I figured like, well, I told my kids I was gonna be 120 years old, but let's at least get to like 88. And then there's 52 little blocks on the top. And then for every year there's a different row. And so you can mark every week that you have lived. You can literally grab a Sharpie and pencil that in. And so the poster comes with your age already like highlighted in in black dots. And then basically every week I cross off one more week. And it sounds like some people see that post and they're like, oh, that's messed up. Like, you're looking at this. I'm looking at it. I'm zooming out and I see my full life in front of me. There's literally like 88 years. I'm 43 years old right now. So I see I'm about halfway in this life. This is how much I've already lived. This is how much I've left. Who knows how many healthy years there are and who knows if you're even going to live to that age, right? But for me, it becomes this really— I feel the whole topic of death. Yeah, a lot of people don't talk about it or don't dare to talk about it, or it's like this taboo. But we're all going to die one day. Maybe not Brian Johnson, who's going to live forever, but like this whole part of being aware of that. And I think that changes some of your appreciation and some of your awareness, possibly, as well here.

Yes. Oh, this is so powerful what you're sharing. This is the importance of actually befriending death. Like, this is— this whole principle— these are so many things that practically I learned from meditation, is how everything is impermanent. Like, truly, everything is impermanent. So let me befriend my mind. Let me become friends with my mind. Let me be friends with this body. Let me be friends with this life that I have, this one. Let's make the most out of this one. Like, literally, we don't know. You're absolutely right. And death is something so interesting. In North American culture, it's not talked about as much. But a lot of cultures, it's talked about, it's celebrated. I had actually a teacher who passed away and his words echo with me. And he said, "Keep death on your shoulder like a friend. It reminds you to live." Right? And, ooh, like, wow, okay. This is not a theory. Sometimes we know it as a concept. Then someone passes away and we're like, oh, I can't believe it. And then we have like amnesia, we forget like, well, we're not immune to this. Like, how do you want this year? What do you want to experience this year? Don't delay. That's what meditation had taught me. Don't wait to live. Like, don't wait to live. Don't wait until you finally one day start meditation.

Start. Don't wait. Start. And that can be like, yeah, that can be around death, but it can even be about a healthy body. Yes. We don't appreciate it until we get ill or get injured or any of those kind of things. So to anyone listening, when you have a healthy body and you can run, you're already winning. Yes. Like just that appreciation, right? That can make a big difference. And yeah, that's a powerful one for sure.

Yes, yes. See, this is when we're present, we can find more pleasure in things. Like when we're present with the body. Ah, here's my body. It's running. Feel the sensation of the muscles, the wind, the ground that I'm touching. When we're present, there's actually pleasure in being present. We can appreciate things. Yeah.

How was that experience for you for 6 months being in a silent retreat in Southeast Asia? Like, I've never done a silent retreat. Silent retreat. The longest I've ever meditated was 1 hour, and that was last year. Yes, well done. I'm very curious, what is it like to meditate for extended periods of time? What is it like not to to speak for an extended period of time.

Yes. So, just to let the listeners know, this wasn't— so, for me, it was a buildup. So, I had done— before I did that 6-month, I've done many like 10-day retreats, 2-week retreats. So, I kind of build towards it. It was really intense. Like, as much as I thought I was ready for it, many times I wanted to leave. I was like, this is hard. Because at least the tradition that I chose was all sitting. And so sit, and then there's some walking meditation, sitting walk, but there's no like lying down option. There's no use a chair. It was all on the cushion. And like I suffered, you know, like back and knee and everything was hurting and no sleep, hunger, because they only fed you twice based on whatever donation they got in the monastery. So, I started getting into comparing mode in the mind, and in psychology we call this compare and despair. It's a mindset that leads to lowered mood. Compare and despair. Oh, I should have gone this other place. I thought I should have gone to this Thich Nhat Hanh, to this France, and they sing there, and I think it's more fun if I had gone there. So I started comparing. And I started comparing to other people who looked like they're sitting cross-legged and no pain. I'm like, look at these real meditators, like I'm suffering. So one of the things that I learned that literally got me through the hardest time, and I had some painful periods of like deep, deep dark valleys in the mind, right? And ironically, the only thing that got me out of it is just this moment. Just be in this moment. Like, just literally, I can do this moment. When you break it down, I can be just in this moment. Like, I had deep grief show up. I had periods where I was like just sobbing in tears. Like, it was just, okay, this is how it is right now. As Jon Kabat-Zinn, who created MBSR, says, and I share this all the time, is put out the welcome mat to yourself. Put out the welcome mat. So that helped me because as soon as I started thinking about how am I going to make it till the end, I felt crushed. Like, how am I going to do like Even after the first week, I'm like, what? 5 months and 3 weeks of this? Are you kidding me? I want to go home, I want to exercise, I want to watch TV, I want to listen to music. None of that. There's no TV, no music. Like, in silence, day in, day out. Same schedule. Same schedule. Wake up at 3, continue meditating in 1-hour slots throughout the day until 9 PM. Start again. There's no days off. But here's what I recognize is suffering is what we do. Pain we cannot avoid. There's emotional pain that comes and goes, physical pain comes and goes. But how we each get lost in the suffering, that's our control. I notice how my mind, as soon as I get lost in my own stories, and I had periods of being so angry at the monks, "What's wrong with them? Why do they do this? Why aren't they changing the schedule? Can't they see I'm like, just came all the way from Canada? I need to sleep." Like, I had periods of like, I met the anger that's inside of me. I met the jealousy that's inside of me. I met all these seeds that have really tainted me, tainted how I see the world, and I got to be with them. I got to befriend things I don't want to look at. Right? My own emotions, my own memories, my own thoughts. But how do we do that? Just be steady. Steady. Just right here. Meeting it with kindness. Ah, angry mind is here. Ah, regret is here. Meeting it moment to moment.

So many of these lessons apply to running a race too. You're talking about— not thinking about the finish line, but being here, being now. You have emotions of regret. You have emotions of why did I sign up for this? Why did I think this was— Yes. Doubting all sorts of different things come into play. And yeah, focusing on the, on the current footstep that you're in versus thinking about how many more miles you have to go until the finish line can be incredibly powerful.

Are so huge. And I guess same thing with running, as you're saying, it's like— and I saw that when I did that 6-month— is even when the conditions are the same, the mind is going to have peaks and valleys. You're like, nothing changed here. Some days I feel like, oh, I think I'm going to become a monk. I can do like a whole— maybe I do like a whole year here. And there's days I'm like, I'm packing up, I'm leaving. But if we recognize the thoughts, same thing as running, You may have a moment to like, "I can't stand it." Just breathe. It's okay, it's just a thought. Take another step, and the thought may change in a minute. And if it doesn't, well, we'll hang around with it like an annoying friend. All right, today is annoyed mind. All right. Keep going.

I have a question about race day nerves, because there's quite a few people listening who might be nervous at the start line of a race. Do you have any advice the first or the few minutes, either like in the days leading up to a race, but even the few minutes before the gun goes off, anything to calm the mind to, like, I would assume that certain breathing techniques, maybe even the 4-7-8 that you had talked about, but let me know any thoughts there.

Yes. You know, the— so good you asked this because I actually, the first couple half marathons, I was so nervous because of the injury and it's like it took away from like, I'm like, oh no, okay, I hope nothing happens here. I'm like, just breathe, just breathe. So what I started doing is just a gentle little warmup. And as I do the warmup, focus on people around me. Like, get out of my own head and my story. Like, oh, here's these people. Some people are wearing like interesting costumes. I see here's a cart coming by. Like, looking around, there's music. So what actually helps me relax before the race is be present with taking in like, wow, I'll never do this one again this way. Like, today will never happen again, so take it in. So I'm actually taking it in. So that helps me relax rather than think about the outcome. So it's a cognitive thing, like, put aside thinking, take in the environment. Breathing, I don't do specifically that morning, so to speak. But what helps me relax is prepare my stuff. So I prepare my shoe, I prepare, like, you know, if I've picked up the bib, I put it on my shirt, I get my gels, I prepare everything. And what helps me relax, and this is going to sound maybe strange, but planning, like, okay, where are the bathrooms in this thing? Like, okay, there's a bathroom, like, at least halfway through. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah. Talking to some people. Right? So just actually enjoying being there. Like, no one is forcing me to do a half, it's not like a torture thing. So let's enjoy it. So that helps me relax on the day off. And of course, eating. In the morning, I have a little light, like I have my oatmeal and I have banana and just fuel up. That helps me. Like, it's my ritual that I do on my long runs anyway. And it's like, it's just, it's just another long run.

So well said. So it really is like control the things you can control. Yes. Having the ritual that you have gone through previously. Yes. And then truly being present and trying to enjoy the experience you signed up for this. I think the combination of that gets you to a calm mindset for sure.

Very much so, very much so. And it's like, I have never think about it. I have this coach that I was with locally here. He said, you know, that the race is the celebration day. Like, you did all the work, now it's the celebration. And taking the crowd, taking the environment. So that has helped me in terms of change my mindset. Celebration time, not like, oh no, how am I going to do? Like letting go of like, how am I going to do? I got to get to this time. It's like, just do my best.

Let's celebrate and enjoy this. Totally. There's a— when you're running a race and sometimes things don't go according to plan. Oh yeah. One thing I found helpful, two things actually. One is to just take some energy from the crowd, either slapping a high five to a kid or to a stranger. The other is smiling. Even if you don't necessarily feel like smiling, give yourself a smile and just take in some of that crowd support. Well, you have taken smiling to a whole nother level. You actually have experience with laughter yoga. Can you tell me a bit more what is laughter yoga? And for those listening, in what sort of ways could they even experience what this is like? Or is there anything that they can practice at home with this? Because humor, laughter, smiling, it can all bring positive emotions. I would love to hear your thoughts there.

Thank you so much for that question. You know, actually, before we started recording and before I even logged in myself, I did a combination of— I sat, did a short little meditation, and I did a few minutes of just laughing, which relaxed my body. So how did I get into laughter yoga? Well, laughter yoga is— I got into it in 2006, so wow, that's actually 20 years ago. And my life was a little serious. I don't know about listeners or you, life gets serious sometimes, right? You're like, oh, Shoot. And I came across this thing called laughter yoga, which was created by a physician in Mumbai, India, Dr. Kataria. And he created a system in the '90s for laughing for no reason. And funny enough, I learned about it at a meditation retreat. And it was the last day of the meditation where people start talking, right, and integrate. And this guy was laughing. He had a really great laugh. And I was like, what's going on there? Like, what's this deep laughter? So I went and chatted with him, and he's like, oh yeah, I do laughter yoga. And I thought, this is so weird. I don't know, why would you— like, what? And he said, come try it. He was a leader, laughter leader. And I was like, yeah, okay, I'll try it. I tried it. I laughed so much I was in tears. But I thought, this is just weird. I'm not doing that again. Like, what are people going to think of me? Like, I'm in a academic, and it's just like being goofy. But there's a part of me that was just dying to be playful like that. You know, Dr. Kataria says, "Life is serious. Death is serious. Let's get serious about laughter." And I love that. I thought, why not do laughter as a practice? Why not? I was hungry for laughing. I was hungry for letting loose. And if someone hasn't tried it, then they're like, well, what are you doing there? What do you do there? Actually, I'll tell you a funny story. I teach this laughter yoga free online, so any listeners, if they want to try it out, I teach it for free. Once a month. So we'll put the website later. And I also teach a weekend of laughter once a year. And so in the weekend of laughter, it's also a training in laughter. So we just finished the weekend, and one of the people, the maintenance folks in the building, was just coming in, letting me know, is there anything? It's finished. Do you need anything? I'm like, no, we're done. And then I saw the same guy the maintenance person from that building in the gym at the sauna, right? And he's like, so like, you, you're a doctor and like, um, did you inject people with something? Like, why were— why is everyone laughing so much for 2 days? And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, no, seriously, did you like— do you give an injection for laughter? I was like, no. He's like, did you give him like a laughing 'Like gas or something? Did they breathe something?' I was like, 'No, actually it is exercises that are meant to simulate laughter.' So even if it starts as fake laughter, and it's contagious because we have mirror neurons. So even if someone's smiling, you can't help that, you gotta smile. Someone's frowning, you're like, 'Oh, okay, we're gonna frown here.' So we have mirror neurons. So there's no actual humor, so to speak. There's no jokes or comedy. We laugh as an exercise, where we simulate the laughter and we breathe, we move around, and we can do something right here. It's really simple. And that's basically it. You know, there's a couple of strategies we do in there, but there's no yoga poses.

Breathe. The interesting thing is, and we'll make sure to link to this to see some examples or to even, yes, if anyone wants to try it, to see a link to your monthly. I would actually love to join. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But I think one of the first responses that might go through people's mind, including my own, when I watched it the first time, I was like, does the thing of Oh, this looks interesting. However, this is so freaking weird. Or yeah, yeah, there's an ego component of like, what would other people think if I'm doing this? Or it's also— so once again, what you mentioned earlier about being playful again, and even Lawrence Van Lingen often talks about being childlike again. Yes, that whole part of joy, of play. That's what we sometimes get away with in daily life, right? It becomes very serious, including myself. I catch myself being very serious often, whereas like snap out of that. And when you can experience more joy and more laughter, and that can be in a variety of different ways, you might be surprised how much joy that brings you to your internal state.

It's so interesting you say that because one of the components of laughter yoga we call it childlike playfulness, literally. We're reconnecting because kids are actually masters of being present and playful. And guess what? We were all kids one day, right? The kid within us is still here, but just got buried down with bills, relationships, mortgage, life stress. But that part in us really needs that. And for me, I found it's so nourishing just to laugh for no reason. No reason at all. Just to laugh.

So next time at mile 20, when you're hitting the wall, just start laughing. Yeah, yeah. I want to be respectful of your time. This one is going really long, purely because I find this fascinating. I'm enjoying this so much. A lot of good topics here. First of all, where can people find more about you? Where can people find more about your work, about your courses, about your programs? Yes, thank you.

So we can put the website, so center, and it's the Canadian spelling, so R-E for center, centerformindfulness.ca for the website. And I'm on Instagram at Dr. So Dr. and then Qasim Almashat on Instagram. So these are the two. And then you'll find me on YouTube as well under my name, Qasim Almashat.

Yes. And you have had a variety of different guests on your podcast, including myself. You interviewed me recently too. So that was— there's a lot of fascinating conversations on your channel there. Thank you. Wanted to ask one closing question here. And do you have any last thoughts here for athletes looking to become a stronger, healthier, and happier athlete?

Ah, beautiful. So, I just took a moment here just to see what bubbles up for me. And I don't know why this came up, but it's a saying from a Zen teacher who passed away. And he said, "You are perfect as you are, and you can use a little improvement." So for everyone to be healthier, happier, stronger, is to know you're just perfect as you are, and this is just improvement. How can I keep polishing? Not from a place of lack, 'Or what's wrong with me?' Or I'm like, sometimes we get so hard on ourselves that it takes the joy out of it. So enjoy the process. This year will never happen again. The body you have right here today will be different 10 years from now. So actually enjoy being you. Enjoy being you and find good people. That's something that has made a difference in my life. Good people, good people even if you don't know in person, but listening, like your podcast. Like, you are really— I so, so admire and respect you, truly. You are such a real human being and you really elevate. I mean, that's the reason my podcast got paused, to elevate. Like, taking pauses, what can we do to improve ourself? And you really are that, and I just want to really thank you for how you are and who you are. Thank you for saying that. I really mean it. Yeah, I really mean it. So good people, and I know your program is excellent, is really excellent with these Zoom calls, and I learned so much, and I still learn from it. I go back to it too as well in terms of the recorded portion.

I love watching the different athletes in our program just progress and not just in the running component, but I think in all the other areas of life. And I feel hearing you talk more about the stress management and the mindset and the breathing and the journaling, and there's so much what you're talking about that applies directly into, like, my world and vice versa. So I'm really thankful for you coming on the show here today and sharing this. Like, We've been talking for almost an hour and a half here, and I feel like we could keep going because there's so much here.

But it went so quickly. I feel the same way. I really do.

No, that was great. And I look forward to going for a run with you next time you're over here in Southern California, or if we meet at one of the races around the world. I would love that. Absolutely.

I would love that. And I want to thank you. I want to thank all the listeners, and I wish all the listeners may your moments be filled with ease and may be present in as many of them. Awesome.

Thank you so much. We'll talk more soon again. Thank you so much. All right. Have a good one. Thanks for watching. There was definitely a bit of a different episode over there, but I really think reducing stress is such an important one for athletes of all levels. So yeah, would love to hear from you. Was there anything that stood out to you from this episode? Please let me know in the comments below on YouTube. And there's even a gift card giveaway tied into that. You can win a gift card from Path Projects there. I just watched the trailer from the new Badwater 135-mile race with Jeff Pelletier where I crewed him. The trailer is freaking amazing. I can't wait to share that. I can't wait to watch the full video. That was definitely an adventure to remember, and I think some of you might actually really enjoy that film as well. Bit of an update from my end. I've been quite consistent active in the gym last few weeks over here. Probably about, not probably, like 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And the consistency, I've rediscovered a joy in the gym again that's on a whole nother level. So I can highly encourage anyone listening over here, especially those over the age of 35, do consistent strength training. Not only will it make you feel like your running becomes easier, I think that's a big mental component as well. When you do strength training, there's, there's some positive benefits even from a brain standpoint, like the happiness hormones. And I, I feel you're just able to handle more stress throughout the day when you integrate some consistent strength training. So anyways, friendly reminder there. And, uh, yeah, more podcasts in the works. Have fun out there on your runs, and, uh, we'll see you guys again at the next one. Have a good one. Bye now.