Monthly Musings - July
Mental resilience and mouth breathing in sport, 'Dinner is ready' AI experiment
Welcome to monthly musings! This is a once per month email (not my usual programming), where I share random things that have tickled my fancy over the past four weeks. Some will be related to the content of this newsletter, and others…well…won’t be.
Hope you enjoy a little glimpse into my world!
Hello friends,
We’ve had an explosion of new subscribers this past month, so a big welcome to all of you! I hope you enjoy the weekly tips. Do let me know if there’s a topic you’d like to see more of.
This month has felt like it’s flown by.
I came across a theory that suggests when time appears to be moving more slowly, it’s because you’re encountering novel experiences. So, I guess that means that none of my experiences this month have been new.
Which is almost true, except for…
…this month, Bean finished his reception year at school.
I won’t bore you with the obligatory first and last day photos of him in his school uniform, but can confirm that they do show a substantial increase in height. Which of course one doesn’t notice on a day-to-day basis, further corroborating that just the mere act of having children and doing everyday mundane things, makes time go faster.
Now comes the toughest part of the year for parents in the UK. Six weeks of school summer holidays begin, and there will be clubs to attend for sure, but they don’t last the full workday, so it will be a bit of a juggle. Nothing that Covid hasn’t already prepared us for!
In other news, Blueberry can now say 19 different clearly pronounced words in the correct context (Yes, I’m that sad that I write them all down!). I did that when Bean was learning to speak as well. It’s quite nice to be able to tell him 5 years later that his first word was Apple, and his second word was Duck. In case anyone is interested, Blueberry’s latest word is Teddy.
Mental resilience in sport
Whether you love it or hate it, when watching sport, (usually) you can’t help but be seduced by the sheer determination and strength of focus of its players. This month we’ve been watching the Euro 2024 (football/soccer) and Wimbledon.
In stark contrast to the team driven dynamic of football, where you have waves of fans chanting songs about their idols, tennis is a very lonely game. One that requires mental strength to stay focused when you can’t seek words of encouragement from a team member or from the mostly silent crowd.
If you can’t get your head out of the last point, then you’ll lose the game.
This summer of sport is a good reminder to surround yourself with people who will cheer you on when things get tough. There are enough people out there that will actively tear you down if the chance arises, but equally there are plenty who will lift you up and support you. And of course, we choose which of those roles we play for others as well.
Which one are you?
Mouth breathing in sport
Now that the Paris 2024 Olympics have begun, as parents we have an excuse to sit on the sofa for a change, convincing ourselves that the TV is ‘educational’ and opting to take a break from entertaining the children.
This past weekend we watched the rowing. If you pay close attention, you’d have seen every single rower had their mouths open. Since reading James Nestor’s Breath and Patrick McKeown’s The Oxygen Advantage, I keep noticing mouth breathers wherever I look.
What I have learnt, in simple terms, is that mouth breathing causes us to expel too much carbon dioxide from our lungs, blood, tissues and cells. Now, hold on - “isn’t carbon dioxide bad for us,” I hear some of you saying… Well, that’s what I thought too, but no. Carbon Dioxide is essential to allow us to release oxygen from our tissues and organs so that they can function more effectively.
As Patrick McKeown writes “the urge to take bigger, deeper breaths when we hit a wall during exercise does not provide the muscles with more oxygen, but effectively reduces oxygenation even further.” In contrast, when breathing through the nose, the volume of breath you intake is corrected, delivering enough oxygen, and allowing our muscles to work longer and harder.
So, as you’re exercising (or watching others exercising), pay close attention to whether you’re panting with your mouth open, and if this is the case, try to keep it closed and focus on breathing through your nose instead.
At the end of the day, the nose is also comprised of muscles, and like any muscle, the more you use it, the stronger and easier it becomes.
My AI experiment this month
Creating a ‘dinner is ready’ visual cue.
When I am the one making dinner, I’m forever shouting upstairs to whoever may or may not be listening to let them know dinner is ready.
Lo and behold, no one answers me.
After what feels like a lifetime’s worth of saying ‘dinners ready’ only to hear the echo of my own voice, it’s getting frustrating now. So, I’ve turned to AI to help me find a solution.
I’ve had it in my head for a few weeks now that I would like some sort of visual management system in place (my Lean Six Sigma background coming to the fore here - more on visual management cues in a future newsletter).
Now, I could have easily figured how to do this without the help of an AI, but there’s just so much out there and I don’t have the time to spend researching how to make this (probably simple) thing happen.
So, in about 30 seconds ChatGPT wrote me a comprehensive set of instructions, which I’ve followed and… ta-daa here is the finished product. An ordinary lamp linked wirelessly to my phone, with a shortcut created to allow me to tell Siri to initiate ‘dinners ready.’
The most challenging part about this experiment was getting ChatGPT to help me create the Siri shortcut on my phone. After several failed attempts, I had to resort to finding an appropriate YouTube video to do it instead.
Problem solved? I guess we’ll see in the coming month.
If there is a task that you keep putting off, no matter trivial it seems, why not invite AI to the table to see if it can help you? The only way you’ll know its capabilities is if you give it a task to do and see how it gets on.
I’ve just finished reading
Feel Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal. A science-based look at productivity and how feeling good makes you more productive. An interesting read and lots of studies to back up his points.
A couple of points that really stuck in my mind were:
When you teach someone else what you’ve just learnt, then you learn it better. I’ve heard that one before, but he goes through the science behind it.
If today isn’t going how you want it to go, it’s ok to write it off, and pick up the slack tomorrow.
What happened in your world this past month?
-Selda
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Catch up on this months’ posts:
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