The Robot, the Rat, and the Artist

In my last couple of blogs, I've written about the pervasiveness of habit in my life.  I've written about the need to accept this pervasiveness, to accept my "inner robot" making decisions automatically throughout the day because I always do THIS when THAT happens.  From the moment the alarm clock rings until I go to bed, more decisions than I care to admit are made by my "inner robot".  My "auto-pilot", to a large degree, flies the airplane.

And my habits get their power, their ability to dictate my actions with or without my conscious agreement, from my "inner lab rat", my tendency to behave in whatever way I find most rewarding, my tendency to do whatever I need to do to get my "cheese".

So where does this leave my "inner artist", the being that creates my experience and my accomplishments?  Is it possible for life to be filled with both unconscious habit and conscious creativity?  Can I be a robot, a lab rat, and a human?

I think so.  I think that habits create a framework within which I can be as skillful and spontaneous as I want to be.  Habits get me out of bed.  They feed me, exercise me, give me perspective through meditation, get me to work, and get me to check my e-mails and review my To-Do List.  If they are healthy habits, I end up relaxed, well fed, physically fit, and clear about my priorities and plans when I face each challenge that arises in my day.  And it is when these challenges arise that my inner robot and inner rat step back and allow my inner artist to take over.

Embrace my Inner Lab Rat

I mentioned in my last blog, that I feel cultural pressure to deny my "Inner Robot", to deny the idea that most of the choices I make each day are automatic responses to my alarm clock, to hunger, to arriving at work, to my mid-morning lull, to more hunger at lunch, to my mid-afternoon lull, to everything that happens from after leaving work.

I also feel pressure to deny my "Inner Lab Rat".  I feel pressured to deny the fact that I respond to "cheese". I respond to rewards.  I'd love to think that I'm motivated to do something if it is "the right thing to do".  I wish I was always motivated by logic, that I picked all my actions based on reason and willpower.  But the reality probably is that I do most of what I do because in one way or another I find it rewarding.

The idea that what we choose to do is based mainly on rewards and punishments is the basic premise of "Behaviorism", a theory of psychology developed by B.F. Skinner in the 1930's.  I read several of his books in the 1970's and 1980's when Behaviorism was still in vogue.  According to a recent article by David Freeman in Atlantic magazine, "Behaviorism" fell out of favor for a while because of discomfort with the idea that our choices are based so deeply on rewards versus reason and willpower.  But behaviorism, says Freeman, is now coming back because its principles are the best explanation for the most successful programs aimed at changing behaviors such as Weight Watchers, Alcoholics Anonymous, and certain exercise programs.  Here's a link to Freeman's article:  The Perfected Self.

So, if I accept my "Inner Lab Rat", if I accept that I behave based on rewards more than I do based on willpower and logic, what should I do?  If I want to make a certain choice more often, I guess I'd better figure out how to make it rewarding.  If I want to use the treadmill more, then watch an action movie on DVD or Netflix.  If I want to get through paperwork at home (something I hate doing), then listen to music while doing it.  If I can't make the task inherently rewarding, treat myself afterwards.  Don't just say, "From now on, I'm going to ______ more often" and expect willpower and memory to take it from there.  Figure out how to make the experience so enjoyable that I can reward my "Inner Lab Rat" with some "cheese".  

Embrace my Inner Robot

I recently read The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.  The book is about research into how people develop habits, how they change them, and how big a role they play in the choices we make from moment to moment.  The book persuaded me that many--if not most--of my choices are driven by habit.  They are automatic responses to recurring triggers.  I respond to the triggers with little thought, like a robot behaving as he was programmed.  But this doesn't have to be bad.  I can embrace my inner robot, as long as I'm aware of my habits and, over time, replace bad habits with good ones.

Duhigg describes research on laboratory rats.  When they are first learning to get through a maze, they expend tremendous mental energy.  When they have repeated the maze so often that they move through it out of habit, their mental activity relaxes greatly.  Their actions become effortless.  This is what I can value about my "inner robot".  Habits allow me to do routine things effortlessly so that I conserve my mental energy for the really challenging, creative tasks.  Also, good physical, social, spiritual, and mental habits can make me happier and healthier.

I feel cultural pressure to deny my "inner robot".  It feels to me that our culture idealizes a life in which we make conscious, thoughtful decisions about everything we do.  It is as if we should always be behaving deliberately and thoughtfully.  Duhigg's book makes a strong case that humans are NOT designed to put a lot of thought into every decision.  We don't need to think about what we will do when the alarm clock rings, when we drive our cars, when we first arrive in the office, when we get ready to leave for the day, etc.

I'm convinced that it's better accept my "inner robot".  Accept the fact that many or most of my decisions will be based on habits--automatic responses to triggers.  Don't expect to change that; to suddenly find ways to make all of my behavior deliberate and willful.  Instead, analyze the habits I have and find ways to improve them.

Layers of Meditation

I love the SleepStream 2 iPhone app.  It's so easy to add layer after layer to the meditation experience:

• The first layer:  a binaural beat.  I talked about binaural beats in my last blog post:  Brainwaves "beat" at a higher frequency when stressed, lower when meditating, lower still when relaxed, and even lower approaching sleep.  Listen to a meditative binaural beat with headphones and your brainwaves measurably change to match the beat.  Meditation becomes easier.
• The second level:  sound effects.  SleepStream offers multiple categories of high definition recordings of waves, wind, fireplaces, rain, forests, white noise, and--one of my favorites--"dry drones", which are space-age electronic sounds.
• The third level:  overlays.  Meditative music such as piano or soft electronic/spacey music or spoken guided meditations.  Huge number of options available for free and more for low-cost download
• The fourth level:   visualizer.  The iPad can cycle through gorgeous photos of Autumn, Spring, Summer, Winter or places like Norway or video of waves crashing on the shore under a huge moon.

I don't always use the visualizer because the other three levels are usually enough to provide a rewarding meditation experience.  But there are times that I listen to one of the many "Waves" soundtracks, go to the "Shamanic Meditation" binaural beat (my fave), put on the "Deepspace Ambient" music, and watch the video of "Midnight Waves".  It is easy for me at these times to pretend that I'm on a real beach, listening to crashing waves, breathing in the ocean air and feeling the power of the waves running through me.

Mental Drumbeat

Some of my iPHone meditation apps feature "Binaural Beats".  In theory, if you listen to a "Binaural Beat" with headphones, the sounds can change your state of mind.  Depending on the frequency of the beat, you might relax deeply, feel sleepy, feel alert, or enter a meditative state.

I did some very cursory research into how these "Binaural Beats" are supposed to work.  Here is a link to one of the more interesting articles:  Stanford study of brainwave "entrainment".  Basically, brainwaves--like any waves--occur at regular intervals or frequencies.  These frequencies tend to be very slow for sleepy states, faster for relaxation, faster still for meditation, faster for normal "wide awake" states, and still faster for extreme focus.  A recording with a "Binaural Beat" is designed to match, for example, the rhythm associated with meditation.  When you listen to the recording, your brainwaves start to "dance" to the rhythm you are hearing.  This is called "entrainment".  Your brainwaves switch from an alert, or an even higher frequency stressed drumbeat, to a meditative drumbeat.  Meditation then becomes easier.

Does it work?  I haven't done enough research to claim any expertise.  But it sounds reasonable, I know that brainwaves can be measured, and I've read that the shift in brainwaves to match the "Binaural Beat" has been measured repeatedly since they were first discovered in the 1970's.

My personal experience with "Binaural Beats" has just been in the last few months.  One of my favorite meditation apps for iPhone and iPad is "SleepStream2".  This app gives you high-definition recordings of sounds such as ocean waves, fire, and wind, and lets you choose a variety of "Binaural Beats" to play at the same time.  I THINK it makes a difference for me.  It seems to make it easier for me to go quickly from a hyper, task oriented state of mind to a meditative state of mind.   This morning, I was even able to do something I can't normally do:  meditate while walking the dogs.  Normally, I'm too distracted by sights and sounds, negotiating traffic, keeping the dogs under control, and dealing with other dogs and pedestrians to ever feel as if I was able to achieve any kind of meditative state.  But this morning, listening to the ocean sounds with a meditative "Binaural Beat" in the background, I think it worked.  For the first time ever, I walked the dogs and meditated at the same time.

Experiences out of nowhere

Mindfulness meditation is really about stopping all tasks to notice EVERYTHING that comes up during your practice:  thoughts, emotions, muscle tension, noises, aches, pleasure, and pain.  It's about being passive and watching what experiences arise spontaneously like clouds moving in and out of the sky.

I've practiced this much more often in the last couple of months because I've been too busy NOT to meditate.  It's the only thing that got me through some major deadlines both at work and outside of work co-chairing a large fundraiser for my neighborhood.  Without meditation, my mind would have constantly been bombarded by thoughts of tasks I needed to do, deadlines, unanswered e-mails, and the feeling that I could not possibly get it all done.

Mindfulness meditation gave me at least two breaks per day when I could let it all go and get grounded again in my body, my heart, and my mind.

The major deadlines are done, but this is a habit I intend to keep.  Meditating once per day--my old habit--is not enough.  Once in the morning starts me off on a relaxed tone.  By the early evening, however, the constant drumbeat of task after task after task has usually caused me to lose much of my self-awareness.  Another shot of meditation gets me grounded again for the evening and for a more restful sleep.

Sensations out of nowhere

Bodily sensations also pop out of nowhere when I meditate.  I never knew I had so many little itches and aches until I meditated.  I'm sure they are there all the time, but I only "hear" them in the silence of meditation.

This is part of the practice:  to notice how the senses dart around from my right leg to my forehead to the pressure of my body against the chair to breath moving in my belly to breath in my nostrils.  In Buddha's most famous sutra (teaching) on mindfulness, he said, "Breathing in a long breath, I know that I'm breathing a long breath.  Breathing in a short breath, I know that I'm breathing a short breath."  As if it doesn't matter how you breath.  It just matters that you notice the way it is right now.

I used to think that the goal was to maximize the pleasurable moments--those times when a long deep breath opens the belly, chest and shoulders and then comes out slowly and you feel all the tension melting away.  Those moments are fine, but sometimes I find that they will not come unless I first notice the shallow, constricted breathing when I haven't relaxed yet.  I notice the aches, the tension that, for some reason, often remains in my legs long after I've deeply relaxed my upper body.  When I notice and accept these imperfect sensations, I seem to be able to tune in more deeply to the subtleties of my breathing exactly as it is happening right now.  And then I'm more likely to feel the euphoria that sometimes comes with meditation.