Shane Doggy enjoying the view at Piedmont Park

Fasting Day

Today is my fasting day. My roommate and I decided to fast once a week in order to discipline ourselves. I also hear that fasting develops your palate: food is more sensual and tasty after fasting. Instead of completely going without food, I am drinking the Master Cleanse lemonade mixture (water, lemonade, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup). I tried doing the Master Cleanse for 30 days once. But, I could actually feel the muscle atrophy in my legs, and my prized fatty parts significantly shrunk in size. So, instead I am doing the cleanse once a week rather than for a prolonged period; in addition, during one of the weeks out of the month, I will do the cleanse for 5 days. (I feel that my body gets the intended benefits out of the Master Cleanse from doing it in that time frame.) It's a cleanse, not a diet. I am looking forward to cleansing my system on a regular basis.

I have ADD like symptoms, which is probably the product of my environment. On the 3rd day of the Master Cleanse, those symptoms subside. From the Master Cleanse, I gain clarity and self-control. Also, my stomach is completely flat by the fourth day. I think a lot of other people should fast or cleanse on a regular basis.

Internet Addiction

I have a very addictive personality, and my internet addiction is one of my most malicious bad habits. It prevents me from being productive, and I don't have the self control to stop even though the web surfing that I do is completely meaningless, and I, at the same time, have really important school work to do. But now I have a program called Self Control, which allows me block certain websites for a time interval. And the beauty about the program is that there is no way that you can disable it. So, now I have to schedule in (and be able to control) my meaningless web browsing. You can find the program here.

I'll let you know how it goes. No more coffee; scheduled meaningless web browsing. I'm on a roll!

Chucking Out the Coffee

I enjoy the up-ditty euphoria that coffee brings. However, most of the time, drinking coffee is counterproductive. It gives me anxiety and makes my thinking more cloudy. Also, when I crash, I end up unmotivated to do any work. And if I drink coffee too late in the day (e.g., 3pm), I can't go to sleep, which ruins my next day. So, I am chucking coffee out of my life and replacing it with a natural stimulant called Yerba Mate. It is a type of tea found in South America. Read about it's health benefits here.

I just bought a cool teapot off Amazon. I'll let you know if the Yerba Mate is better than coffee.

Stop Watch Meditation

So far, I have been doing all of my meditating with music and headphones. The music is very helpful for controlling outside distractions, and the extra stimulation from the music helps control my mind.

I did a stop watch meditation. I put 20 mins on a stop watch and stared at the numbers while the stop watch counted down. I imagined a continuous blue light being emitted from the numbers in order to create an extra task for my mind so that it concentrates on the stop watch. Breathing is important. I breathed in and out (alternatively) each second.

The purpose of this exercise to prevent your mind from drifting off, and if your mind does drift off, come back to concentrating on the stop watch.

I would give this exercise a very helpful rating.