I want to share the following article, because the relaxation technique is very quick and simple, yet surprisingly effective. It’s a basic technique that’s also used in yoga and self-hypnosis.
In fact, I am doing a kind of experiment in which I try to break down the tasks I want to do into chunks of 15-20 minutes, and do the progressive relaxation technique afterwards. This strategy has been quite effective for me so far, but it’s still very experimental at the moment, so I cannot draw any definite conclusions from this approach, other than it feels good and I appear to be more productive. Actually, this approach is not too different from the Pomodoro technique, which is also supposed to be pretty effective (because it alternates 25 minutes of focused concentration on a task with 5 minute or longer breaks).
You may want to test some of these techniques. They are after all pretty simple, but have at least the potential to be very effective. If you have had experiences with those techniques, please feel free to share them in this thread.
Edmond here, writer of the blog post mentioned. Thanks for creating this thread.
The most important aspect of the process described is gaining the ability to transition from any negative emotion that we experience in our lives to a “feel good” state which is accessible to us anytime, anywhere and that state is relaxation. Whatever we think or do when we’re relaxed feels much better and thus we become much more efficient. This is how we can maximize the amount of passion, pleasure and joy that we feel while moving towards our goals.
I strongly believe that the world needs a lot more passionate doctors, economists, programmers, politicians, philosophers, artists etc. This is how we can solve the big problems and also significantly increase our chances of developing the treatments that will allow us to achieve indefinite healthy lifespans. In order to get there we just need to teach people how to relax efficiently and gain more and more passion and pleasure as they move towards their personal goals. I’m currently doing this with 3 guys who want to learn English and programming and I’m always looking for other people who want to teach others how to become passionate about something. Please contact me if you’re interested.