Meditation is daunting for many people.
Psychedelic drugs are mostly illegal.
And both have been credited with bringing about amazing transformations of body, mind, and spirit.
So if you're too antsy or busy to create a meditation practice, and you don't trust drugs (or the people who supply them), what can you do to bring about positive changes in your health, happiness, and consciousness?
Robbie Bent wants to introduce you to a couple of practices that are safe, inexpensive or free, and pretty much always available. They have been shown to improve health by improving the functioning and resilience of the immune system and nervous system.
They also come with profound psychological benefits.
The three practices are breathwork, cold exposure, and heat exposure.
Robbie Bent is on a mission to make mental health cool - literally.
The co-founder of Othership, a wellness app that guides users through fun and challenging breathing exercises, Robbie evangelizes the practice of hormesis. That's when you introduce some stress in your life on purpose, voluntarily, for the purpose of growing from it.
I've been doing daily cold showers or ice buckets for five years now, and as much as I hate it, I also love it. I feel absolutely miserable the moment before I get cold, and then afterwards I bask in the euphoric backlash as my body is flooded with dopamine and other neurotransmitters associated with feeling good.
In our conversation, Robbie shares some of the latest research on breathing - and shares the three basic kinds of breathwork, and what each one is for - as well as waxing evangelical on cold and heat exposure.
Some of his favorite tools are quite pricey - like the $6k saunas he recommends - while others are as free as your next breath of air.
Bottom line, in a world of soft and hard addiction and awful mental health, there are things you can do right now to access that most precious of all experiences: the feeling of being alive.
