Even Monkeys Fall From Trees

Climbing, swinging, sitting, eating, socializing, playing, and living in trees isn’t just second nature to monkeys.  It’s their way of being.

But … “Even monkeys fall from trees”. – Japanese Proverb

Humans fall from “trees” too.  We slip, stumble, and fall literally and metaphorically.  Many times we’re embarrassed and our confidence takes a hit.  We hope no one noticed, we assess the damage, take emotional and physical inventory, and mentally process the moment.  Sometimes we’ll dwell on what just happened; “should I ever go back up in the tree?”

Well … do you know what the monkey would tell us?  Not much, I’m afraid.  It’s a monkey and they tend not to speak.

But, they would be back up in that tree, looking down at us, not understanding why we’re still sitting there.  Because when monkeys fall from trees, they shake their head, regroup, and get back up there, because it happens.   

Even experts make mistakes.  It happens. 

Kids are experts at playing.  And they’re experts at making mistakes.  It’s their nature.  It’s how they learn, develop resiliency, make adjustments, build confidence, and realize that falling or making a mistake or misstep is not the end of the world.  Sure, we might get a little embarrassed, but we shake that off too and the other monkeys quickly forget.

As we get older, we tend to hold on to those mistakes and lose some of that resiliency.  The best thing we can do is keep playing.  Just because we become adults, as if it’s some kind of cosmic transition, doesn’t mean we stop playing.  The activities and approach might be different, but we need to maintain our ability to fall and get back up in the trees.

Keep playing.  Keep climbing.  Stay resilient.

Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash

The Positive Health Benefits of Our Uncommon Thanksgiving Traditions

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and you know what that means.  Yep, you guessed it: John Madden tournaments with the cousins!

Wait … what? Bear with me; I’ll bring it back around. Did you know that there’s more to thanksgiving traditions than turkey, the Macy’s parade, and Black Friday? 

With just a little research we found close to a hundred not-so-uncommon Thanksgiving traditions, such as: Playing a board game with family, hanging by the fire pit, cornhole, running a turkey trot, bocce ball, or other outdoor leisure games, and taking the kiddos to the playground just to name a few.

In our family, the John Madden trash talk starts right around this time.  Then on Thanksgiving day, first thing in the morning, you can hear John’s voice, “Boom”!  And the gaming has started, followed by lots of yelling.  At some point during the day, John’s video game character will say something like, “Here’s a guy who’s 6’,4”; which means at his height, he’s taller than the other players who are shorter than he is.”

Great stuff.  We’ll play Madden all day, only taking a break to eat with the whole family. 

The common theme here is quality leisure time with family and friends.  Whatever the activity, the benefits come from social interaction while letting go of the pressures of everyday life.  Laughing, playing, interacting, and just enjoying each other’s company is so good for us.

Leisure, recreation, and play with others reduces stress, decompresses our mental pressures, alleviates anxiety, enhances positivity, and heightens happiness.  Overall, our mental, emotional, psychological, and even physical health is restored and upgraded.  Literally, our joints, muscles, blood pressure, heart, brain, immune system, lymphatic system, organs, digestion, and so much more are all positively affected through play and leisure with others. 

Maybe not a cure for eating turducken, but it helps. 

Thanksgiving gives us a reason to do all this, but once a year isn’t nearly enough.  We can’t go to the gym for nine hours once a year and expect to be healthy and fit.  But going for 30 minutes every day will.  Same with play and leisure time.  All those benefits come from relaxing and decompressing on a regular basis.  Still do the full-day on Thanksgiving of course, but throughout the year, we really need to play.

Taking our kids to the playground for 30 minutes on a regular basis increases their learning capacity, alleviates stress, enhances focus and attention, and it positively affects their overall productivity.  But more importantly, all those health benefits. 

Regular bouts of play and leisure with others isn’t just for kids and it’s not just for Thanksgiving.  Neither is turkey, by the way.  And neither is Madden NFL Football. 

Let’s play.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Photo by MART  PRODUCTION: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-brown-sweater-sitting-on-brown-leather-couch-7330165/

The Human Benefits of Mindless Play

Mindfulness is a popular go-to term these days: “We need to be more mindful”.  Maybe, but it’s grossly misunderstood. 

Mindfulness is not a mind full of chatter, thoughts, worries, expectations, multi-tasking, distractions, perceptions, ego, and a thousand other things.  That is overwhelming and most of us kind of live that way.  We don’t “notice” it, because we think it’s normal, but it does take a detrimental toll. 

So what then?  Mindlessness? 

That’s actually hilarious, but no.  Mushin.  In the movie, “The Last Samurai”, Tom Cruise’s character while being trained in the way of the sword, is getting thrown all over the place, no matter  how hard he tries.  After one of the hard falls, he’s approached by a fellow student, who tells him “Too many mind.” 

“Too many mind?” 

“Hai; you mind the sword, mind the people watching, mind your enemy.  Too many mind.  No mind.”

“… no mind.”

This is Mushin.  Mushin is the Japanese concept of mind of no mind. When a person’s mind is free of thoughts, judgement, fears, ego, anger, and so on during combat, as well as everyday life.  This is acting accordingly to the situation at hand, without the burden of conscious thought. 

How do we do that?  Mindfulness.  Wait … what?

Mindfulness and Mushin are like yin and yang.  YinYang is not about balance between opposing forces.  It’s about interrelated harmony of those forces.  This is the same with mindfulness and mind of no mind.  We cannot be mindful, if our head is full of “too many mind”.  Mindfulness is being in the moment, within reality in real time, as in unfolds dynamically.  Mindful of being there in the now.  Do this so well, we achieve Mushin.

We may not see it, but this is what happens in children as they play.  Climbing a net, traversing a horizontal ladder, swinging, spinning, balancing, sliding, and running while interacting with others.  No adulterated egos, worries, or outside distractions.  They are there.  Completely. 

It calms the nervous system, we uptake and utilize oxygen better, our brains are more powerful (because they’re not clogged up), pain is reduced, sleep is better, concentration, balance, and emotional and psychological health is better.  It keeps us more youthful. 

This kind of play is harder for adults, because we have adult responsibilities, problems, and so on.  True, but sometimes we can allow too much or blow things out of proportion.  So we practice Yoga or Martial Arts, which both require Mushin/Mindfulness to do effectively.  But even in pickleball, if our head isn’t in the game, we’re not going to do very well.  Same with everyday life. 

Mindfulness, yes.  Mushin, yes. 

Be there or be square.

Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash

Get Out

We humans spend most of our time indoors, under artificial lighting and most of that lighting is highly efficient fluorescent tubes and LED bulbs.  But, efficient hardly ever means better. 

We can’t sense it, but the flicker from CFL and LED lights can lead to eye strain, headaches, stress, poor concentration, and fatigue.  In fact, according to an article from the National Library of Medicine, a 2010 study found that exposure to fluorescent lighting causes a heightened central nervous system arousal.  Not good. 

LED bulbs may be even more irritating to the eyes and brain, whereas although not detectable, LEDs dim by 100% with each flicker, while fluorescents dim about 35%.

Beyond that, there’s artificially conditioned air, electronic white noise, wifi signals, computer screens, and lots of sitting. First-graders, high school students, college students, and most adults all the way through retirement age. 

So, what do we do when we’ve spent most of our day in this environment?  We go to the gym where there’s artificial fluorescent lighting, reconditioned air, electronic white noise, wifi signals, and even more screens to stare at.  And, unless we’re on a treadmill, we’re probably sitting on some machine. 

Hmm … we need a better place to decompress and recharge, and it’s outside.  In Florida?  Yes, even in Florida where we love our air-conditioning. 

Just being in a natural environment has been shown to decrease tension, blood pressure, anxiety, and depression. Natural sunlight elevates mood, happiness, positivity, and mental health.  Fresh air raises serotonin levels, which helps regulate natural sleep cycles, and it’s an anti-depressant.

And that’s just being outdoors but, add exercise and movement and we’re positively stimulating the cerebellum.  This part of the brain that processes movement is also the exact same part of the brain responsible for learning.  Movement makes us smarter.

So many studies have shown aerobic exercise improves many aspects of cognitive function, such as memory, decision-making, problem solving and attention. 

Resistance training has been shown to improve “executive function,” such as the ability to selectively pay attention to your professor instead of our iPhone and the ability to think before we act – inhibitory control – cognitive flexibility, and the capacity to hold information in our mind and manipulate it.

You see where this is going:  Outdoor fitness helps us to decompress, relax, improve sleep, fight depression and anxiety, while elevating mood, positivity, and overall mental health. It improves brain function, neuroplasticity, memory, problem solving, attention and cognitive flexibility.

Rick Ruben said, “a painting is just a painting until we put a frame around it and hang it on the wall”.  Then, it becomes art.  It attracts our attention, draws us in, and becomes more valuable.

When we create an outdoor fitness space with the right equipment, that space becomes more valuable in ways that are immeasurable to all the human benefits it provides.

Let’s get outside.

The Real Reason that Prince and Burke Live Purple

Microsoft’s default or core color is blue.  The official Apple colors are black and grey.  And Google covers basically everything, everywhere, all at once with the primary colors of paint and light. 

But really, what’s in a color? 

Microsoft’s blue represents security, trust, and loyalty.  Apple’s black is about sophistication, power, and mystery.  Hmm … mystery.  And Google?  It’s plausible that the real reason is Google’s first server was built with Lego, in blue, red, yellow, and green. 

So, what’s with Burke’s purple? 

The tagline of Burke’s playground and recreation products is “Play that moves you.”  But, not just in a physical way.  So much goes into research, design, and development in each play element and product and how it fits into an overall system to ignite cognitive, social, emotional, and imaginative skill development.  It’s more than just a “playground”, but we’re not supposed to know that.  We should see it as an awesome thing to climb on, slide on, swing, jump, and laugh on, while leaving the technical stuff to the experts.

Purple is a color that encourages the mind, body, and soul to live in harmony.  It brings together balance of mental clarity with emotional stability.  It’s the color of enlightenment, welcoming all schools of thought.  It’s unbiased and civilized, as it promotes understanding and acceptance.

Yep, colors have meaning.  I didn’t know how much, until I went down this rabbit hole.

Did you know that purple is the most powerful visible wavelength of all the colors of the rainbow?  It stimulates our mood while it calms the mind and nerves.  It’s uplifting, as it encourages imagination, creativity, playfulness, and uniqueness.  This is why many musicians, writers, poets, and artists respond well to purple. 

But, that’s not why Prince embraced the color.  Purple represents royalty and according his sister Sharon Nelson, it made him feel more “Princely”. 

Royalty, strength, prestige, ability, and innovation are all represented by purple, while on a more human scale, empathy, peace, happiness, compassion, spirituality, and inspiration.

What’s in a color?  Well … more than meets the eye, apparently.

Wait, I hear Prince playing in the background; “I only want to see you laughing in the purple rain …”

Walking has many positive biological benefits, such as blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol regulation.  It helps in body fat management, improves mood, reduces stress, and improves brain health, and so much more.  Walking is good for the human body and mind in so many ways it should be a part of our daily routine.  But it’s kind of a passive movement.  It’s so natural, we’re sort of on autopilot, even though our brain is calculating and coordinating so many functions to move us forward.

Our brain tells our body how to move.  Movement improves the health of our brain.  MOVMNT by Burke encourages the focused, active interaction between the brain and the body and the benefits are beyond measure.

How?

1. Kinesthesia, of course.  What?!  Kinesiology is the study of movement and kinesthesia is the ability to know where parts of our body are and how they are moving.  Spatial awareness, timing, coordination, focus, precision, and adjustments in real time.

The more we do it, the better we become.  This is kinesthetic learning. 

According to an article by the National Math Foundation, kinesthetic learning encourages, physical activity, bolsters cognitive, social, and emotional development, enhances the brain’s capacity to retain information, and develops not just individual capacities and strengths, but also self-confidence in those capacities. 

2. When we focus our attention while moving, neurons stop signaling in sync with one another and start firing out of sync.  This sounds bad, but it’s a good thing.  This helps us to respond accordingly to different types of sensory information, allowing us to identify, categorize, and respond to sensory input that’s more important or less worthy of our attention. 

This is our cholinergic system at work, which is involved in the regulation of attention and higher-order cognitive processing. When we “exercise” our cholinergic system, we improve brain health and stave off cognitive decline.  It improves skill, reaction time, decisive action, visual acuity, hand-eye coordination, physical ability, problem solving, reflexes, and so much more. 

3. Then there’s neuroplasticity, the brain’s capacity to continue growing and evolving in response to life experiences.  Our continued ability to form new connections in learning, maintain a healthy brain, and improve cognition.  Functional neuroplasticity is how well our neuronal connections are performing.  While all forms of exercise and movement improve neuroplasticity, focused, attentive movement, engaging the mind and body together can be even better.

Focused attentive movement engages the mind and body together to perform physically skilled tasks.  MOVMNT encourages, engages, and exercises our cholinergic system, kinesthesia, and neuroplasticity.  It burns calories, and improves our strength, flexibility, and cardiovascular health. 

We hear and see the lighted button, quickly move towards it, position ourselves to perform a spatially aware skill that involves dynamic focus to effectively press the button to score and immediately get ready for the next one. 

In other words, it’s fun and really good for us.  So, let’s MOV!

Stress Keeps Us from Falling Over

Inside Arizona’s Biosphere 2, the trees grew very rapidly, more so than they would outside of the dome.  But, before they reached full maturity, they would simply fall over.  They would reach a certain height; and, it’s not that they reached the literal glass ceiling, but at a certain height, they would fall over. 

At first, the scientists couldn’t figure out why.  But after some research, they found the answer.  It was a complete lack of stress that made the root system, the bark, and the entire tree weak. 

In the real world outside of the dome, trees have to withstand wind and other elements, position themselves in a way to get more sunlight, and grow a deep and wide root system to get enough water. 

In Biosphere 2, the trees didn’t have to do any of those things: no wind, plenty of water, no elements like heavy rain, never too hot or cold, and there was always enough UV light.  All that comfort and ease produced weak trees that fell over.

Humans are kind of the same in this respect.  When we play, climb, swing, slide, run, jump, lift, pull, crawl, and move our body and use our mind to maneuver in ways that “stress” us to a certain degree, we get stronger, more flexible, less fragile, and more resilient.  We learn to make smart choices, mitigate danger, and safely navigate risk.

A well-designed playground, with challenging play elements, inspires children to grow stronger.  While there are biosphere reserves in Florida, there’s nothing like the Biosphere 2 dome.  Although a playground in mid-summer in Central Florida can feel like a greenhouse without air conditioning.  But, that’s part of risk navigation as well.  Awareness of the elements and making smart choices, is all part of the strengthening and resiliency process.

A Biosphere-2 tree would not survive in the real world; it doesn’t even “stand” a chance. 

Becoming stronger and more resilient in our formative years, helps us to handle stress and even distress in the real world, outside of the protective dome.  This is just as important in adults as well.  Instead of finding ways to completely avoid stress or stressors, it’s better to learn to engage with stress, manage it, and even use it to our advantage.  We’re less reactionary, we’re not devastated when the cheese is moved, we’re calmer, and more in control of our emotions.  Our temperament becomes more temperate. 

Outdoor exercise, even in Florida, is better than any pharmaceutical or supplement.  So, let’s go play.