2 pointsby eatitraw4 hours ago1 comment
  • PaulHoule3 hours ago
    Most of the time I maintain a "glamour" by consciously breathing slowly and deeply while paying attention to the kinetic chain between my breathing to the ground. This activates the parasympathetic nervous system, puts a soft smile on my face, and changes the way people perceive me in various ways: commonly people say "he's smiling all the time!" (i tell my wife this and she says "how do they know? they only saw you once!") but sometimes there are other effects like people mistaking me for somebody else or all of a sudden talking about very personal things, etc.

    That sort of breathing doesn't work when I am tilted and never has ever since I was 10 and my best friends' mom taught me yoga.

    Maybe a year ago when I started using the glamour to do fox-photography [1] I discovered why it doesn't work in "emergency" situations and it is that if your mind is messed up it messes up the body and if your body is messed up it messes up the mind and the mind-body connection is a problem and not the solution.

    What I did learn to do is picture a barrier in a plane parallel to the ground at heart level, brace myself so there are no breathing motions above that line, allow automatic breathing below that line but try to pay no attention to it. A lot of times I feel like "I cant breathe" for a minute but I stay the course, continue to ignore my breathing -- often my heart rate drops dramatically, like one time I stood between two people who were screaming at each other and had a heart rate around 55 recorded by my biofeedback system. [2] And then I am not tilted anymore.

    [1] e.g. I play a character that charms people and takes down their boundaries to take better street photos

    [2] ... ok I am athletically trained and take Nebivolol