Massage Yourself to Sleep

Have trouble falling asleep? Try massaging your body to sleep or, if you wake up during the night, back to sleep. Just choose a single muscle, maybe your delts or pecs on one side of your body and massage the muscle slowly and deliberately as hard or as soft as feels good. Focus an easy attention on how the massage feels until the muscle relaxes. This will serve as a meditation, the only thing to think about is how the massage feels. Pretty soon you’ll become aware that your whole body has relaxed and with any luck, the next thing you’ll know it’s morning.

photo by planetchopstick
Suggested musical accompaniment: Brahms Lullaby

Barefoot Running Revisited

Chris McDougall, author of Born to Run, spoke at the Boulder Bookstore last night. It’s been a few years since he wrote the book that started the barefoot running craze. He’s refined his thinking a bit. Here are the highlights:

*If used properly shoes beat no shoes
*Running shoes should be protective not corrective
*Running barefoot is an effective way to correct injuries caused by poor running form
*There’s a right way and a wrong way to run
*To learn to run the right way, run barefoot and adopt that stride to a minimalist shoe
*Running evolved as a cooperative social activity, a group hunt
*Humans are slow, even the fastest one, Usain Bolt can’t outrun a squirrel