5 Minute Facts - Master Meditation

This is episode 204 of the Empowered Team podcast. The Zenith is back. The most amazing retreat that really dives in to getting you to your next level. Physically, mentally, spiritually. We have leased out a five acre oceanfront gorgeous spot in Sayulita, Mexico and it is time for you to dive in and change your your life. And I don't mean there's anything wrong with your life. I mean up level, expand, make it what you really want. The Z ness is coming end of February this year. We'll tell you more. We just want you to know ahead of time, save the dates. Welcome to the Empowered Team podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life.

And now your host, executive coach and.

Life strategist, Kari Schneider. Welcome to Performance Power. The way this works. We do this once a month and we pick a topic. So this month's topic is meditation. I do the deep dive into the research to figure out why it serves us so well or not. And then we do all kinds of Q and A on this topic or any topic that serves you. So the reason we dive into this is because I want to serve. I love health and wellness. I have a background as a life coach as well as an executive coach and I have done all kinds of work on leadership. However, a lot of people don't realize that I have a background in high performance sport for over two decades as a strength and conditioning specialist, a certified exercise physiologist, a certified athletic therapist, and I have a master's degree in lumbar spine kinematics and all sorts of fun things along those lines, even research and heart rate variability. So we will dive right into all of the things. Welcome everyone. We're starting with the topic of meditation. So here is the research for our five minute facts of this month's performance power. Number one for our five minute facts is meditation. I don't think this is going to shock anyone. Reduces stress and controls anxiety. Now, for any of us on here right now, I think everyone here meditates in some form or another. However, for researchers, for scientists to say that it reduces stress and controls anxiety, it's kind of a big deal. So that's why I'm starting with that as being number one. So this is from a meta analysis that looks at multiple different meditation trials and with over 650 subjects, they found that meditation was effective for PTSD and depression symptoms. So to make statements like that in science is really powerful. So that's a fantastic one. That is five minute fact number one. Number Two is that meditation promotes emotional health and self awareness. Now for any of us who meditate, no brainer, we know that it promotes our emotional health. So this is what the studies find, that meditation subjects experience fewer negative thoughts in response to negative images versus control groups when they study the blood markers, there's fewer inflammatory cytokines. Really cool things have been found in research. What they find as well is that self inquiry, when we're taking a look at some of our mental practices in meditation, the self inquiry give us a better understanding of ourselves and then steers us towards more constructive patterns. So, so really powerful when it comes to what it does with our own thoughts. So that's number two. Number three for our five minute facts is that meditation lengthens our attention span. Now for those of us who have all sorts of things coming at us, whether it's life or family or business or whatever is coming your way, then this is kind of a big deal to be able to lengthen our attention span. So, so subjects who complete demanding attentional tasks could perform more quickly with better accuracy. And there are very specific tests, testing protocols in science for these attentional tasks. So they're not exactly easy things to do. Any of these attention tasks require a fair bit of focus and there's a level of difficulty with them as well. So another study found that it would reverse the patterns in the brain that contribute to mind wandering, worry and poor attention. So that alone, can you imagine the brain patterns that contribute to mind wandering, worry and poor attention? Meditation reverses those brain patterns. So very, very powerful. And I love that science is being able to validate what so many of us have known about meditation for so long. So that's five minute fact number three. Five minute fact number four is that there's a decrease in age related memory loss. So age related memory loss, we're talking dementia, we're talking Alzheimer's. And meditation allows a decrease in age related memory loss. So people with age related memory loss, like dementia show improved performance on neuropsychological tests in increasing attention, increasing memory and increasing quickness in response time. So really, really powerful to be able to use meditation. And when I know that for those of you who meditate more often, and you know, there's some on here who could be arguably experts at meditation and teach meditation. And there are so many different forms of meditation and in some of these studies that I was reviewing, there were, they were pointing to all a number of different forms of meditation. They weren't pointing to just one. Some studies studied one specific style. But but in the meta analysis, there was all sorts of types of meditation being studied. So five minute fact number five is that it improves sleep. So meditation improves sleep. I know that some people don't want to take that moment to relax because they feel that, oh, if I just relax now, then I won't be relaxed as much for sleep later. And it's the entire opposite. When we go into our parasympathetic nervous system and we unwind a little more toward midday, early day, end of day with meditation, it allows a better sleep. One study found on people with insomnia that they stayed asleep longer and it improved any of their insomnia severity, so it decreased any of their insomnia symptoms. So meditation for those who have trouble sleeping is very powerful. And it's one of the biggest reasons that I sleep better now because of my meditation practice. Now, meditation is such a powerful thing for our health, our wellbeing, that of course there's going to be a couple bonuses. I couldn't just leave all the five minute facts to just five this time. I have to have a few bonuses. So the bonuses here are that meditation can fight addictions. It also allows us to generate greater kindness and controls pain and decreases blood pressure. So I wanted to throw those out there as well because this is all supported and verified in research studies. And lastly, you can do it anywhere. So I wanted to really devote our 5 minute facts this month to meditation because it is so powerful. It makes such a huge difference for our physiological health, our psychological health, and all sorts of other things that contribute to our best health and our best performance and our best life, like sleep, like blood pressure, like pain. So that's our five minute facts for today. And if you have any specific questions on meditation, then please put them in right now and then we will dive into the other Q and A on any other things that are on your heart or mind or body right now for your best performance. One thing I'm going to say about meditation before, if there's any questions on meditation, pop them in. Personally, I had to start with meditation. With guided meditations, my mind is so active that I found it very, very challenging to just sit in stillness and sit with quietness. So I chose guided meditations when I first started meditating. And over time, what was amazing is that then I found that because I was so practiced in certain styles of breathing that if I just started going into that practice of breathing that lo and behold, I would start to shift my state and be able to go into a deeper meditation without a Guided meditation. So it truly becomes, as most people have heard, a practice. The practice will start to cue the physiological responses, which is very powerful. One other thing I would like to share before fielding the questions as well. Some of you have seen me wear an aura ring. I'd like to share this little piece of personal data and it's that if we've been moving, we've been doing a lot of fairly stressful activities and I see the stress or on my readiness scores, on my aura ring and if my readiness score is low, so for instance, at one point it was 63. Normally I like to have a readiness score of 80 or above. So my readiness score was 63. I did a 15 minute meditation midday. And after that 15 minute meditation, my aura is measuring all my metrics, my heart rate, my breathing rate, my heart rate variability. It's measuring all sorts of things. It can even measure time of the month, you name it. So I did that 15 meditation and my recovery score goes up to 76 because it's bringing in all of the metrics that 15 minute meditation was so, so powerful in my recovery that I needed at that time. And, and that lends to one of the questions that has come in on meditation. Was there a fifth, a minimum time used during the studies? Well, when I went through these studies, there were at least between the meta analysis and the other ones, there were at least eight studies that I looked at and there wasn't, there wasn't one that pointed to a minimum time. I would, you know, in my experience, as little as five minutes has made a difference for me personally. And they weren't pointing to minimum times overall. So anywhere between that five minutes and one hour is personally, as my opinion, I'm going to say is awesome. Awesome. Another person asks, are there any tips for this? Is Joshua any tips for how to effectively use meditation to reduce anxiety right before surgery? Discomfort after asking for a friend? This is really powerful. Pain meditations are fantastic because our brain is so powerful we can focus on something else and actually reduce our own pain. When it comes to anxiety before the surgery, I love yoga nidra meditations that help me with sleep. If I'm not sleeping, it's typically because there's some level of future thinking or a misguided future thinking which would be anxiety or worry. A yoga nidra meditation can be very powerful for both reducing the anxiety, promoting restfulness as well as reducing pain also in the body because of how it focuses on different parts of the body. That can be a beautiful one. There are also pain meditations if you look up. Some of us on here are familiar with Master Ko. Master Ko will do some beautiful meditations you can look up on YouTube as well. Yoga Nidra, Master Co. And any of them will help when it comes to pain, but also anxiety and restfulness. So that's what I would suggest there. I also have an app that has a pain option as well. There's an app called Buddhify. I use that app. So Bootify. I have used Waking. What is it called? Waking up, which is Sam Harris's app. I don't use that as much anymore. And I have another app called Oak. I like the app Oak as well for mindfulness and also connectedness as well. Another recommendation here coming in from Lynn is Insight Timer. Insight Timer sounds like a good one as well. Okay, any other questions on the meditation before we go into other exercise related nutrition and health related? No. Okay, so Joshua has a question on. I have. Oh, hang on one second. And Mind Valley Meditations. Yes, mindvalley are fantastic. Headspace is another one. So we've got an entire list of apps that. There's a plethora of apps out there and if you're ever stuck, just search in YouTube. You will find some really amazing ones there. But the apps are fantastic. We have some great go to apps. Okay, so Joshua has ACL repair surgery scheduled for April 22 from a ski injury. I'd love any guidance, tips or wisdom. Fantastic question. I've been fortunate enough to bring many people from pre injury injury through surgery and back to performance from acls. So much so even aerial skiers. So you can imagine having to take someone from an ACL surgery to being able to land from 50ft in the air as a national team aerial skier. So I've experienced a lot on having to get that ACL reconstruction back to high performance. So pre surgery tips if you are at a point where you can use that leg because oftentimes when there's an ACL damage, there's typically some sort of trauma. So sometimes there's other soft tissue injury along with that ACL rupture. If that's the case, then you may not be able to use that leg very well at this point. So I'm not sure if that's the case for you. But some people. So you can't use the leg very well. Oh, you can't. Sorry.

Am I allowed to unmute?

Absolutely. Go for it.

Yes, I can use. There's no pain. I can use. I can walk around. I can use the leg very well.

Fantastic. Okay, get that leg as strong as you can before April 22nd. That doesn't sound like a lot of time, but really a week plus. So you've got over a week, you've got over 10 days. That is enough time to neurologically increase strength in that leg. So get that leg as strong as you can before the surgery without injuring it. Now, without an acl, that means that you're not going to be great in hyperextension, you're not going to be able to pivot, you're not going to be able to do some things like that. So I'm not suggesting that you do an agility course. I'm not suggesting you do anything really massively different than what you're currently capable of doing. What I am suggesting is if you can do some very controlled exercises that you're familiar with, that might look like a linear lunge, it might look like a squat, it might look like a step up. If you can do some things like that. Get that leg as strong as possible before the surgery. These are top level tips that high level athletes need so that they can get back from surgery as fast as possible. Now, here's the thing that happens in rehab. In rehab, most physiotherapists will you've got your injured leg and you've got your good leg. Right? Injured leg is down here. Well, you go through surgery and guess what happens? The good leg, just because you've been in surgery, drops by at least 30%. Now you've got a physiotherapist that will typically be rehabbing the surgery leg up to, to the good leg. Well, nobody's remembered that the good leg is actually in a 30% deficit. And so they usually bring you back up close enough, maybe 20% close enough to the good leg. So now if you're actually looking at the numbers, you're still 50% below where that leg needs to be in order to operate on the kind of function. If you're a skier, you say this is ski injury, then you are active, you are athletic, you want to be fit, you want to perform. So what you need to do is a get that leg as strong as possible going into it. And here's a question for you. Do you know if they're harvesting the hamstring tendon or if they're harvesting the patellar tendon, you know where they're harvesting from for the reconstruction?

Cadaver tissue. Cadaver tissue.

Cadaver cadaver. Okay. I like real tissue versus I've been in on the surgeries for a lot of my athletes So I get to watch it. I've seen patellar tendon harvesting, I've seen semitendinosis, which is a hamstring tendon harvesting as well on that person. And I've also seen it harvested on the opposite leg. So I've seen a number of different ways. My least favorite is cadaver. There's nothing wrong with that because there's so much more that can be done now than, you know, if I think of 10 years ago that when I didn't like using cadaver, there's lots that can be done. So they're going to make, they're going to make an ACL out of that cadaver tissue that is stronger than your ACL ever was. Now here's the thing. Coming out of an ACL reconstruction, you're going to get to a point that's three months in and you're going to feel like a freaking rock star. You're going to be in my, like my, my knee is so much more solid. I can pivot, I can run. I think I need to ski again. You're going to feel like that three months in, guaranteed. And your mind is going to go, oh, but I'm the exception. I can do all these things. Do not do that. Because here's what has to happen. Whether it's cadaver, whether it's patellar tendon or semitendinosis, the tissue has to become live, like your tissue. Okay? So that tissue that's now your new ACL needs more time. And so that three or four month mark where you're feeling really, really good, you need longer time for that tissue to actually be solid. So you can't start doing that agility work or the extra stuff you feel like you can until a little later, like around that five month or six month mark. Okay? So that would be a key tip if you are someone who takes in fish oil. Fish oil is very great at thinning the blood. It's really good for us. Fish oil is really good for us. Get off of the fish oil before the surgery. We don't want thinner blood right before surgery. So these are top high performance tips. Okay. Anything else? I can think of any other questions on that ACL before.

Two quick follow up questions you don't mind. One for the prehab, what I've been doing like these peloton workouts like a few times a week. Is that sufficient? Is that in line? Should I be looking at.

Exercises you need just a little bit more than the peloton. I know that you'll be able to do maybe a hard interval as though you're hill climbing, something pretty intense that actually is working that leg really hard. But you're going to need something that actually recruits more muscle fibers than that. Because I'm guessing that when you get off the peloton, you're rarely sore like muscle soreness, you know what I mean? You might feel like you worked really hard, but you probably aren't getting site specific hamstring soreness, quad soreness, adductor soreness, calf soreness. So I want something that's actually going to recruit more fibers because you're going to lose a lot just because of surgery and then because of the time it takes to come out of surgery and rehab. So that's where the peloton is good. Keep doing the peloton. Think about, I don't know if it's your left side or your right side, but think about the injured side. Think about actively recruiting more fibers when you do that. This has been shown for years, decades, that when you think about what's contracting more, you will be able to recruit more fibers. So when you're on the peloton, think about that leg doing more cyclical work. When you actually get onto a step up and you're holding a weight, think about that side activating. Think about the glute, think about the hamstring. That posterior chain, meaning your glute and hamstring are going to be critical for supporting that ACL because it prevents posterior shift. Those glutes and hamstrings will be, will be critical as well.

Wonderful, thank you. My second follow up question was to the point of cadaver versus personal tissue. Obviously there's the yuck factor with cadaver. But other physician advice I've received so far is that cadaver tissue actually leads to a faster recovery time because yes, you need three months to revascularize that cadaver tissue. But because you're not injuring yourself by taking other tissue from other parts of your body, it leads to a faster recovery. Are there other reasons to be concerned about. It's not too late, so push back on this. Are there other and asked to do the harvesting. But in your experience, are there other. Should I do that?

Here's what I would say now because it's been a few years since I've been in on the surgery, so I'm not quite as cutting edge as I was on it, say five years ago. So what I would say is that that is absolutely a valid argument because harvesting a semitendinosis, you're taking your Own hamstring. Hamstring tendon. Now you've got another one right there. And it regenerate, it grows and repairs back. So, you know, there's some good things there. But I. So, yes, there's advantages there. But I wouldn't worry about, you know, I wouldn't worry about the factor of the cadaver. Like, you're. If you're healing properly and it's going the way it should, it's going to become your own tissue. It will become you. It will become your tissue, and that's why the time factor is there. But, yeah, I've seen a lot of incredible, incredible success with semi tendinosis. Taking from the same leg and taking from the other leg. I've seen some really bizarre, amazing things that the body can do. So it. I have the utmost confidence in your body and what it's capable of.

Thank you very much.

No problem. Okay, we're going to use another question here. We've got Marta exercising while a knee. Let me just see. Exercising while a knee is not feeling very well. Okay, what is very well? What does that mean?

It's so. I don't know if I heard it or not. It hurts a little bit when I walk and at night, but it doesn't necessarily hurt while I'm exercising.

Where. Where does it hurt?

So, okay, let me see. So it hurts, like on this, this part, and it feels a little inflamed. It feels a little bigger than the other one. It pain patches, you know, like. And it doesn't go away. So I'm thinking about going to the doctor with just, you know, to be safe, completely safe. Would an orthopedic be best for this?

I don't know. You might be in the US but in Canada we need a doctor's referral to get to the orthopedic surgeon.

I don't need a referral. I'm in the U.S. yeah.

Okay. If you can get an orthopedic, then you may be a candidate for a scope where they would clean some things up. Now, I'm not a physician. I can't say for sure, but here's what I can say where you're pointing and what you're describing. It wouldn't surprise me. If you've got a real tight quadricep or hip flexor, and. And if you've got really tight quadriceps and hip flexors, then it's going to put pressure on your patellar tendon, your kneecap. When it puts pressure on your patellar tendon, then that kneecap pushes down and you're going to feel pain right below the kneecap or sometimes on the inside of the kneecap or on the outside of the kneecap. And you might even feel some grinding of the kneecap if you're not feeling it so much when you're working out. That's often because we get what's called synovial fluid. As soon as you get warmer and you're getting a little bit of blood flow, whether you're walking or biking or you get a little blood flow going, then your body sends more joint lube. And joint lube is that synovial fluid. And so the fact that it's not bothering you so much when you're exercising tells me that, hey, it sounds like it's not a major injury. It sounds like it's functioning well when it's a little warmer and a little lubricated. That makes me think that if you open up those hip flexors and quads a little more and stretch those babies out, you might have to get a little bit aggressive with stretching out the hip flexors. When you're warm, that is, then that may be the only thing you need to alleviate that discomfort in your knee. Try that first before you see the physician. And then if you find that getting warm and opening up the hip flexors and opening up the quads and that over the span of a week or two doesn't help the knee, then it might be something, you might have some little micro tears, wear and tear over time that they can help out with.

Strength, train. And then the next day I do yoga stretching so I can definitely, when I stretch the right side, it definitely feels much more the same side as the knee.

Okay. Yeah. That's your clue. That's your clue to go. Oops. That's your clue to go more into that hip flexor. Really warm, even start to do some rolling, some foam, rolling some ball, rolling, some stretching on that hip flexor. And that might be your ticket to alleviating what's going on with that knee. Follow.

Thank you.

Very, very good. That's awesome. That's a great question. And best home test for food allergies. I don't have time today to dive into that, but I would suggest often naturopaths are amazing to get a good natural path. They are amazing for really being able to put some guidance around your food tests. And typically most people are doing an elimination type of testing, which can be tedious and long because you're eliminating a whole bunch of foods and then reintroducing one at a time, but a naturopath can be amazing at guiding through that. So that's where we're going to wrap up today for Performance Power. I really hope that this has served you in a few ways and bring your questions next time if you want something very specific identified for you. I use your questions to create the topics for these. So we will see you next month on our Performance Power. Stay healthy. So much love to you. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team runs year round. It is our group coaching and accountability program where we take mindset and physical performance concepts and break them down to usable action steps that optimize results. To learn more about our Empowered Leadership coaching for business, our custom online physical training plans, and of course the Empowered Team Group coaching, head to www.theempowered.ca empowered learn more. That's www.theempowered.ca. empowered learn more.