Somatic experiencing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_experiencing


Trauma therapy -- move between zone 1 (stress) and zone 2 (relaxed ease) parts of the body. Spend more time in the pleasant/neutral areas.

minor insights during meditation

Q: Why do I do good acts?
A: anticipated regret of not having done something when I could have


What I want:

• to be happy
• to learn
• to reduce the stress of others, in terms of {emotional, intellectual, logistical}
• globally
• locally

logistics of coordinating a week-long silent meditation retreat

I attended a week-long (7 day, from Friday afternoon at 4pm to the following Friday at noon) silent meditation retreat. The logistics of enabling this are non-trivial.

I live about 20 minutes away from the retreat center. Other participants came from all over the country and the world -- Europe and Australia were represented! There were 100 participants, 4 teachers, 2 facilitators, 1 yoga instructor, and a full staff of cooks and cleaners.

The 3 meals per day were prepared by staff and served buffet style.

There was 1 yoga class per day for students.

Participants are given a printed schedule (below) and a printed map of the grounds.
Printed schedules were hung everywhere with painter's tape.

There were two message boards available to enable communication during the silent retreat: one for facilitators and teachers to provide instructions to participants, another for participants to post notes to facilitators and teachers. Communication among participants was frowned upon.

The "instructions to participants" board had a schedule posted for one-on-one meetings with teachers and group meetings with teachers.

Arrival on Friday evening (day 0):

• check-in, 4pm to 7:15pm
• dinner, 5:30pm to 7pm
• new yogi orientation, 7pm
• bell ringer orientation, 7:30pm (targeted at returning participants)
• "further practice or sleep", 9:30pm

Upon arrival, additional information was provided about which instructor we would be meeting with (on either Saturday or Sunday) in small groups for an hour.

Daily retreat schedule, Saturday to Thursday (days 1-6):

• 5:45 to 6am, wake up
• 6:15 to 6:45am, mindful movement
• 6:45 to 7:30am, group seated meditation
• 7:30 to 8:15am, breakfast
• 8:15 to 9am, walking meditation
• 9 to 10am, instructions by teachers; sitting, Q&A
• 10 to 10:45am, walking meditation
• 10:45 to 11:30am, sitting meditation
• 11:30 to noon, walking meditation
• noon to 12:30pm, seated meditation
• 12:30 to 2:15pm, lunch and rest
• 2:15 to 3pm, seated meditation
• 3 to 3:45pm, walking; yoga for last names A-K
• 3:45 to 4:30pm, guided meditation
• 4:30 to 5:15pm, walking, yoga for last names L-Z
• 5 to 5:30pm, seated meditation
• 5:30 to 6:45pm, supper and walking
• 6:45 to 7:15pm, seated meditation
• 7:15 to 7:30pm, walking
• 7:30 to 8:30pm, dharma talk
• 9 to 9:30pm, seated meditation, chanting
• 9:30pm, further practice or sleep

As an exception to this schedule, each student was part of a pod of 6 fellow students who met with an instructor 3 times during the week (either Saturday-Monday-Wednesday or Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday). There were 4 teachers and 100 students, so about 16 pods total. Each pod stayed together and rotated among 3 of the 4 teachers.

Alternative logistics used for a different retreat: Group meetings Sunday and Thursday (10 people, lasting 30 minutes and 1 hour); additionally, individual meeting 1-on-1 for 15 minutes.

Departure on Friday morning (day 7):

• 6 to 6:15am: wake up
• 6:30 to 7:30am: sitting, closing announcements (attendance is required)
• 7:30 to 8:15am: breakfast
• 8 to 9:20am: packing, check out of room, tip the instructors
• 9:30 to 11:30am: closing ceremony
• 11:30 to 1pm: lunch

topics to contemplate that I currently don't have insights on

dilemmas

• suffering, pleasure
• future, now
• work, rest
• differentiation, unification

principles

• golden rule
• no principles, just react
• epicurean: good feels good, bad feels bad
• Maslow's hierarchy + game theory + behavioral economics

modes of interaction: avoidance, attraction, ambivalence

avoidance includes fear of missing out, fear of loss

touch triggers emotion for me

motivating questions:

• "what do I want?" This will have different questions for different people
• "how will I accomplish what I want?" This will have different questions for different people
• There's no requirement that either of the above questions be asked or be answered

How do people work?

My fundamental question right now, my passion, is, "How do people work?"

The relevance is I want to figure out how to get what I want from other people. I recognize that this requires learning, which I also like. Learning this also helps inform how I interact with other people.

I think the best way to approach interactions is with loving curiosity. 

I interact with people on a single or few aspects, rather than the whole person.

notes on touch

http://www.in-mind.org/article/that-human-touch-that-means-so-much-exploring-the-tactile-dimension-of-social-life

mindful touch (as a sense similar to hearing, speaking)
--> Combine touch with individual meditation

Research to do: What are the modes of success and failure? We probably aren't the first group to explore this...

Reaction from a participant before we've even begun: too much analysis is causing a feeling of building up too much thought

Why touch is complicated

The channels for interaction that I'm aware of are intellectual, emotional, and physical. I'm interested in talking with people to connect intellectually, emotionally, and physically. I'm interested in touch for people who I want to interact with emotionally and physically.

I do not seek touch with people who I want to connect with intellectually. I do not seek to touch or talk with people who I do not find desirably intellectual emotional or physical.

Initial honest intent may change dynamically as the situation evolves.

Attendance

• need to participate in initial process
• need to not miss too many meetings in the sequence
• initial group will be hand-selected to minimize risk

Problem with this: causing feelings of exclusion.

Other participants will be less comfortable -- we are biasing the initial group towards people who are comfortable with touch and have thought more about the issue.

Boundaries

• participant may not know what their boundaries are
• participant may not alert others that their boundary is crossed in the moment
• jealousy: what is the role of participant's partner's (boyfriend's/girlfriend's) boundaries?

Build process of consent with exercise not focused on touch

Facilitator: explicitly talk about the role of trauma, boundaries

Goal: no surprises.
Explicit consent

Rather than interact with humans, start with animals

Activities/exercises

Activity that is about physical interaction and not touch:
Walk with eyes closed and forearms crossed over chest. Wander slowly until bump elbows, then pause and open eyes.

Guided forearm.  Walking person has eyes closed, one arm acts as both steering and head tilt. When hand is squeezed, then flash open eyes for a moment. Focus is visual, but touch is a component

Topic to discuss before starting: What's our baseline of touch experience?

Fingers only, not palms. Looking into eyes (or not). Fingers only is intentionally restrained -- you clearly could do more

Holding hands in a circle 

• religious connotations 
• group pressure 

Contact improv

Have a dyad in which the topic is touch (ie participant history)

• dyad with no knees touching
• dyad with one knee touching
• dyad with two knees touching

Sanitation: wash your hands

Sit back-to-back to feel other participants breathing

Explore touching back-of-hand to other person's back-of-hand
contrast with palm-to-palm

Do common touch (ie handshake, hug) but very mindfully (slowly)

Hugs

different types

• church hug
• bro hug
• friend hug
• long hug
• collapsing hug

fitness trackers for measurement of meditation

Psychophysiology is defined as “the branch of psychology that is concerned with the physiological bases of psychological processes.”

I already have a pulse oximeter, so I can already measure heart rate. Other metrics of interest:

• heart rate variability
• skin conductivity
• breathing rate,
• breathing depth

Muscle tension

MyoWare Muscle Sensor - https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13723

Fit bit (heart rate variability)

https://www.fitbit.com/compare
--> I arrived at Alta HR, Charge 2, Blaze.
All three feature sleep tracking and continuous heart rate.
https://www.wareable.com/fitbit/fitbit-alta-hr-v-fitbit-charge-2
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/140467-fitbit-alta-hr-vs-charge-2-what-s-the-difference
http://wearaction.com/fitbit-alta-vs-fitbit-charge-flex
http://gadgetsandwearables.com/2017/04/24/fitbit-alta-hr-charge-2/

https://www.fitbit.com/charge2
https://www.amazon.com/Fitbit-Charge-Fitness-Wristband-Version/dp/B01K9S247E/
$130
VO2 Max measurement.

https://www.fitbit.com/altahr
https://www.amazon.com/Fitbit-Alta-Blue-Small-Version/dp/B06X3Z13PM/
$150

https://www.fitbit.com/blaze

exporting data:
https://www.fitbit.com/fitbit-premium
https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Fitbit-com-Dashboard/Download-HeartRate-data/td-p/1212798
https://github.com/simonbromberg/googlefitbit
https://www.squashleagues.org/fitbit/fitbitdatadownload
https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1133

Jawbone

monitors a user's bpm, respiration rate, body temperature and galvanic skin response.
https://www.wareable.com/jawbone/jawbone-up3-review
reviews are that the sleep tracking is inaccurate.

Cheapest is $30.60
https://www.amazon.com/Jawbone-Heart-Activity-Sleep-Tracker/dp/B00N9E6DUK/
https://www.amazon.com/Jawbone-Heart-Activity-Sleep-Tracker/dp/B017WL5PUY

https://jawbone.com/up/trackers
Only the UP3 looks like it would be useful.

https://jawbone.com/fitness-tracker/up3

• Sleep tracking
• Resting and Passive Heart Rate

Exporting data:

https://jawbone.com/support/articles/000011483/historical-data

https://forum.quantifiedself.com/t/jawbone-up/701/2

Mio Fuse

https://www.digitaltrends.com/fitness-apparel-reviews/mio-fuse-review/

https://www.wareable.com/fitness-trackers/mio-fuse-review

No sleep tracking

Withings

https://www.digitaltrends.com/fitness-apparel-reviews/withings-pulse-o2-review/

Sona

https://www.caeden.com/sona/science/resonance/

Pip Biosensor

"Pip detects electrodermal activity (EDA)"

https://www.amazon.com/Pip-Management-Biosensor-Understand-Everyday/dp/B00MBCMMBU/

Spire Mindfulness and Activity Tracker (breathing)

https://spire.io/
https://www.amazon.com/Spire-Mindfulness-Activity-Tracker-iOS/dp/B00TH3SQOI/

"measures breathing patterns"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhochman/2015/06/21/does-the-spire-stress-tracker-actually-work/

"Spire tracks the frequency and magnitude of your breaths, as well as the ratio of in to out."
https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/17/spire-breath-taker/

More

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602988/these-wearables-detect-health-issues-before-they-happen/
https://md2k.org/about/

finding a decent EEG (Electroencephalography)

I'm looking for an EEG. Not necessarily medical grade, but better than a consumer toy.

Good review:
http://scienceforthemasses.org/2014/04/11/selecting-an-eeg-device/

Build your own

http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/

Consumer toy EEG

https://store.neurosky.com/

"decent" EEG

https://shop.openbci.com/collections/frontpage
https://shop.openbci.com/collections/frontpage/products/ultracortex-mark-iv

https://mfimedical.com/collections/eeg-ltm-psg-systems

https://www.emotiv.com/epoc/

medical grade EEG

http://www.medwow.com/used-eeg-unit-equipment/104.med

https://mfimedical.com/products/cadwell-easy-ii-eeg-psg-system

Not sure about these

https://bio-medical.com/electro-caps.html

https://www.eegsales.com/

rental:

https://www.lifelinesneuro.com