Tag Archives: Vivian Law

Falling asleep during meditation…is OK

I was introduced to body based meditation back in phys ed school where we were shown a variety of mind body practices. We did a body scan during the class while lying down and I fell asleep pretty much every time! I was also caught nodding off in class sometimes where my classmates were concerned for the health of my neck in how much it bobbed up and down quickly.

Even with many years of meditation practice behind me, it is still a significant risk for me to fall asleep during meditation while lying down. It amazes me how easily others in the field of yoga and meditation will diagnose me as exhausted and not doing the meditation properly. Having tried for 20 years, I have come to accept the possibility of a little snooze and enjoy feeling great afterward. The point of meditation is to relax, so snoozing a bit IS evidently changing your state to one of serious relaxation.

This month, I shared some meditation recordings at a class I covered and I would like to share them here:

https://music.apple.com/ca/album/celestial-sleep-healing-sound-for-rest-and-relaxation/1538626410

This 20 minute meditation with the crystal bowls is incredibly relaxing and useful if you are ever up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling asleep again.

https://books.apple.com/ca/audiobook/seven-masters-one-path-course/id272362167

The John Selby book is an excellent easy to understand book on meditation. This audio book makes the practice more guided and accessible.

Apparently it is best that you remain awake during non sleep deep rest or yoga nidra, and honestly, sometimes I fall asleep and that’s ok, especially if you wake up feeling great.

The mind needs constant taming, and this is where daily mindfulness practice makes all the difference. Making a daily effort to practice even just for a few minutes IS the way to learn and improve.

The Barbie Movie

I just saw the Barbie movie, because a good friend asked me to join her. I had no plans to go to this film, but I got into the spirit to have fun with a friend. We wore pink and ate candy! We laughed and enjoyed ourselves. We both played with Barbies when we were kids and have fond memories, although we don’t recall all the different Barbies they referenced. Probably because neither of us had many Barbies. My most memorable Barbie was the one with arms that moved up to head with the push of a button- Magic Moves Barbie. It was a gift from my grandpa when he let me pick any toy I wanted from the toy store- truly memorable.

I most enjoyed putting on the various outfits and shoes on Barbie and I believe it helped develop some creativity and fashion sense, or perhaps just an ingrained love for the 80s. When I learned what the proportions on Barbie translated to real human measurements was it was disturbing. I could see the insidious unrealistic expectations placed on girls/women for an ‘ideal’ body.

I played the Dua Lipa track Dance the Night from the film as soon as I heard it and I just loved watching the dance scene (and others). The music in the film is so well done and the acting with the dolls come to life concept is great. I wasn’t too keen to see the movie and came out pleasantly surprised to see intelligent humour, gender and social commentary, along with a beautiful real life Barbie Land. It’s like a high class music video! Not to mention the Beach with a professional like Ken!

12 hour rest from eating

Intermittent fasting has been a trend for some time. I haven’t done much of it myself, because I notice I perform better when working in the mornings when I have some breakfast, so I eat in order to fully concentrate when I’m with clients. On holiday, I will delay breakfast with ease for the sake of leisure.

A colleague recommended books by Satchin Panda and I read the Circadian Code. Here’s the TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/satchin_panda_circadian_code_to_extend_longevity

The science in the book was very compelling in setting up your life more in line with hours of sunlight and ensuring you have a window of at least 12 hours where you are not eating(fasting). If we sleep 8 hours, then it is relatively easy to have an additional 4 hours of no eating. It is more ideal to eat an earlier dinner to ensure the food is digested so the digestive system can slow down at its natural time, which is at night. The concept of ideal times for organs is very much in line with traditional chinese medicine, where energy in the body moves through a different organ every 2 hours.

Minimizing exposure to screens and artificial light at night is helpful for better quality sleep since it mimics natural light conditions. No one will be perfect with these practices living in a big city- compliance most of the time and being flexible makes it work with major benefits to your long term health.

Tina Turner Chanting

I was saddened to learn of Tina Turner’s passing last week. She was a great positive influence. I saw her in concert for her farewell tour. I knew some of her music and decided to get some tickets at the last minute and they were in the last row of the Air Canada Centre. She was an incredible performer, so I looked further into her music and watched the film What’s Love Got to Do with It. The only good part is her resilience and how well she did in the end. I read her book I, Tina, which was even more harrowing. She credits Buddhist chanting as the practice that helped her find her resolve to leave Ike.

I read her other books and additional books she referenced on Buddhism. It does have a positive effect, although I can’t say I’m a strong adherent of the practice of chanting. Either a gentle movement practice or more quiet stillness seems to suit me better. I did listen to a variety of chanting material and put together this playlist a few years ago, featuring Tina Turner:

https://music.apple.com/ca/playlist/chanting/pl.u-KVXBxxvT9zBLym

The main mantra is Nam myoho Renge Kyo and I found a slower, easier to follow version with Deva Premal. The meaning takes some interpretation and I will not presume to truly know, although I understand the repeated chanting aids in purifying the mind and spirit.

Ideal Exercise Program

I was recently asked what an ideal exercise program to be healthy would be and what a great question! I answered the question with the long term goal of staying strong, healthy and fit for as long as possible- which actually requires daily activity that addresses cardiovascular fitness, strength and mobility. I have observed that people tend to ‘like’ certain modalities of exercise more than others and neglect activities they don’t like, which eventually comes at a cost to fitness/well being. Either lack of fitness, strength, mobility or injury.

Personally, I am the biggest fan of hard cardio exercise like running or indoor cycling meeting a performance goal, such as running 5km/3miles in under 25 minutes or cycling as far as possible in 20min. I have neglected weight training at various times in my life, although I got started at age 15, which seems like a head start. I’ve worked with a trainer whenever I became ‘lazy’ on the weights and got back on track. Having experienced the pandemic and the lack of weight training due to gyms being closed, I realized the difference it makes and re committed myself. Strength training improves your metabolism by building muscle tissue, which is the most metabolically active tissue, muscle has insulin receptors. Cardio vascular training ensures efficacy in the utilization of fuel by your muscles and overall circulation. Mobility training maintains the optimal range of motion of your joints, which we need to stay limber and able to move easily with grace.

What does an ‘ideal’ exercise program look like? Daily activity that would be a mixture of:

2-3 sessions/week of strength training

3-5 sessions/week of cardio vascular exercise, some easy some hard

2-3 sessions/week of mobility/yoga/pilates

It is a lot and what is required to be in optimal condition for life, especially later in life. Many of us have limited time to exercise and it is also required to be healthy in the long term. Find 20-60minutes daily to take better care of yourself with physical activity. This will be unpopular, but we need to do the activities we don’t like in order to be in optimal condition. For example, the folks who love yoga and are super flexible, really need to be in the weight room and doing cardio exercise to balance themselves. The cardio junkies need to get stronger by hitting the weights and working on their mobility. The people who only like to lift heavy weights and are super strong, could likely use some work on their cardio fitness and mobility. You need to find the right variation of exercise and balance for you and your goals.

To simplify, cardio exercise like running, biking, swimming improves your circulation. Strength/weight training improves your muscle mass, which is much needed as we lose muscle mass with age. Yoga, pilates and mobility improves your ability to move and has benefits for the mind. We need all 3 areas of exercise to be well rounded and healthy for the long term.

Happiness is fleeting

I’ve been reading a couple books on happiness this month. I seem to give a lot of advice on how to be happier, so it was nice to confirm the strategies in a book like the Blue Zones of Happiness. The quiz within the book and available to take online is great with helpful, actionable tips one can put to use right away: https://apps.bluezones.com/en/happiness

Another book, the Happiness Trap is premised on the unreasonable expectation that we should feel happy all the time ineffective behaviours many of us have to avoid unpleasant feelings. It really is a good goal to become more resilient and better able to handle various situations in life and all the emotions that may come. It is also easier to be more peaceful and resilient when we are living with purpose, which may take a little or a lot of work to find. Even when you are certain of your purpose, it is alway a concept that is worth revisiting and refining to be better-

2022 Gratitude

I’m in town for the holidays this year, teaching extra classes and loving it. My 2022 Apple Music Replay showed 45000 minutes of play. That is a lot of time and it shows the level of seriousness I put into music selection for my classes. Inspiration comes anywhere and anytime, including watching a kid launch rockets in his backyard- Lovin’ Every Minute of It ! Or a teenager blaring Down Under in his parents SUV- the song has been remixed well.

A year ago, gyms and restaurants were shut down in Toronto. I feel a lot of gratitude for having the community back in action with the opportunity to connect with people regularly. Exercise, eat, drink, enjoy, rest and repeat. There are always new challenges that arise in life and regular exercise along with breathing/meditation practices help us handle it all with more ease while maintaining inner peace.

All the best for 2023!

Music Speaks

My interest in music developed from a young age. I enjoyed playing musical instruments and getting a Walkman with headphones was the coolest thing ever. I did have the sense from even that young age it was obnoxious to blare music in settings where it may disturb others. Speakers on the beach is not okay when others are within hearing range, especially with the vast amount of nonsense produced and consumed. Music has the capability to influence our mood and shapes perception of our surroundings. There’s music piped in at the grocery store!

I understand that Spotify playlists are popular and used by many. I stand for human curated music and I’m not a fan of algorithm driven music selection. Any music you hear at a class with me is specifically chosen by me on Apple Music (@vivian_law). I’m a music aficionado and I get inspiration from other humans, not algorithms. The autoplay feature on Spotify has yielded maybe one song out of a hundred that I enjoyed, so it is not a feature I appreciate at all- in fact it feels like force fed mediocrity. The Release Radar is something I give a listen and works a lot better for me than autoplay.

With exposure to more genres of music in my teenage years I found myself offended by vulgar lyrics. Friends who have known me since then were subjected to my pontification on ill effects of listening to such nonsense. I sounded like an old person back then and now that I am an older person, my sensibilities have not changed at all! No degrading lyrics are played at my cycling classes. We take requests and the policy is each rap song is matched with a country song.

Music is a form of subliminal messaging that we choose to expose ourselves to- so I recommend that we all be mindful to what messages we might receive in what we listen to and allow children to be exposed to.

Canada Day

Summer is finally here in Toronto and nothing like Canada Day to show some gratitude for where we live and all the privileges we have. I’ll be making playlists with Canadian artists all week long in celebration. I’m certainly grateful that fitness is back in action having lived through 2 years of virtual shutdown. Having the option of virtual meetings is a real positive result of the past couple years. Real life meetings, human interaction is such a welcome return. July also marks my start date as a fitness professional, this year being 22 years of ‘service’ which I feel incredibly grateful for, as I love what I do has only grown in that time. Happy Canada Day!

Hour of Power- Stages Cycling

After a lot of consideration and talk, we completed the Hour of Power ride this evening at the Toronto Athletic Club. Our group had tested our functional threshold power (FTP) at a previous time and I had always wondered if that theoretical number translated to actual performance. When my FTP was calculated with a 20 min test, I felt very confident I could produce that power for an hour. When my FTP was calculated in February with an 8min test, I felt a lot less confident about my capabilities.

Armed with some very well selected tunes, we did a 15 min warmup and hit varying intervals of 95-100%, 100-105% set to the selected songs. I backed off and took a few ‘breaks’ of less than 1min here and there. Turns out I was able to complete the 60min with an average power that was 3 watts below my FTP, so that was a wonderful surprise! Our field test was a success. The ‘theoretical’ maximum power that you can ride for an hour, is a REAL thing provided that you actually push yourself during the test!