Calm App Quotes

I believe that social media, and the internet as a whole, have negatively impacted our ability to both think long-term and to focus deeply on the task in front of us. It is no surprise, therefore, that Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, prohibited his children from using phones or tablets—even though his business was to sell millions of them to his customers! The billionaire investor and former senior executive at Facebook, Chamath Palihapitiya, argues that we must rewire our brain to focus on the long term, which starts by removing social media apps from our phones. In his words, such apps, “wire your brain for super-fast feedback.” By receiving constant feedback, whether through likes, comments, or immediate replies to our messages, we condition ourselves to expect fast results with everything we do. And this feeling is certainly reinforced through ads for schemes to help us “get rich quick”, and through cognitive biases (i.e., we only hear about the richest and most successful YouTubers, not about the ones who fail). As we demand more and more stimulation, our focus is increasingly geared toward the short term and our vision of reality becomes distorted. This leads us to adopt inaccurate mental models such as: Success should come quickly and easily, or I don’t need to work hard to lose weight or make money. Ultimately, this erroneous concept distorts our vision of reality and our perception of time. We can feel jealous of people who seem to have achieved overnight success. We can even resent popular YouTubers. Even worse, we feel inadequate. It can lead us to think we are just not good enough, smart enough, or disciplined enough. Therefore, we feel the need to compensate by hustling harder. We have to hurry before we miss the opportunity. We have to find the secret that will help us become successful. And, in this frenetic race, we forget one of the most important values of all: patience. No, watching motivational videos all day long won’t help you reach your goals. But, performing daily consistent actions, sustained over a long period of time will. Staying calm and focusing on the one task in front of you every day will. The point is, to achieve long-term goals in your personal or professional life, you must regain control of your attention and rewire your brain to focus on the long term. To do so, you should start by staying away from highly stimulating activities.

We’re not even breathing. Many of us suffer from “screen apnea” or “email apnea”—we stop breathing or breathe shallowly when we look at screens. The apps that we download might be “free,” but when we spend hours scrolling on social media, what we’re paying with is our attention and health—the most valuable things we have. What we pay attention to determines the quality of our lives. As twentieth-century Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gassett said, “Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.” We owe it to ourselves to look and listen closely to understand the systems and biological technologies that have created the conditions for life for the past four and a half billion years. We must first learn to listen and look to nature to see how we can design technology that is aligned to how the systems of the earth work.

If you have trouble focusing (or would simply like to learn more about this practice), try either the Calm or Headspace apps, which provide specific prompts that you can use to create a relaxed state of mind.

Seriously, everyone thought this shit was real. My makeup routine is three different types of foundation and fifteen minutes on the Facetune app, bitches. Calm the fuck down.

You may even want to experiment first with a meditation app like Headspace, Buddhify, or Calm, all of which can

University, where she is an adjunct professor of education and serves on the Veterans Committee, among about a thousand other things. That’s heroism. I have taken the kernel of her story and do what I do, which is dramatize, romanticize, exaggerate, and open fire. Hence, Game of Snipers. Now, on to apologies, excuses, and evasions. Let me offer the first to Tel Aviv; Dearborn, Michigan; Greenville, Ohio; Wichita, Kansas; Rock Springs, Wyoming; and Anacostia, D.C. I generally go to places I write about to check the lay of streets, the fall of shadows, the color of police cars, and the taste of local beer. At seventy-three, such ordeals-by-airport are no longer fun, not even the beer part; I only go where there’s beaches. For this book, I worked from maps and Google, and any geographical mistakes emerge out of that practice. Is the cathedral three hundred yards from the courthouse in Wichita? Hmm, seems about right, and that’s good enough for me on this. On the other hand, I finally got Bob’s wife’s name correct. It’s Julie, right? I’ve called her Jen more than once, but I’m pretty sure Jen was Bud Pewtie’s wife in Dirty White Boys. For some reason, this mistake seemed to trigger certain Amazon reviewers into psychotic episodes. Folks, calm down, have a drink, hug someone soft. It’ll be all right. As for the shooting, my account of the difficulties of hitting at over a mile is more or less accurate (snipers have done it at least eight times). I have simplified, because it is so arcane it would put all but the most dedicated in a coma. I have also been quite accurate about the ballistics app FirstShot, because I made it up and can make it do anything I want. The other shot, the three hundred, benefits from the wisdom of Craig Boddington, the great hunter and writer, who looked it over and sent me a detailed email, from which I have borrowed much. Naturally, any errors are mine, not Craig’s. I met Craig when shooting something (on film!) for another boon companion, Michael Bane, and his Outdoor Channel Gun Stories crew. For some reason, he finds it amusing when I start jabbering away and likes to turn the camera on. Don’t ask me why. On the same trip, I also met the great firearms historian and all-around movie guy (he knows more than I do) Garry James, who has become

Take a photo of something beautiful Do twenty push-ups and twenty sit-ups Do a ten-minute strength-training video Meditate with a five-minute program on an app Pray a memorized set of prayers Pray for a specific person (a new person each day) Send an email reaching out to a new or old connection Write 250 words in your memoir Practice for ten minutes with a foreign-language app Read a story in a physical newspaper (or a daily news digest) Read one article in a professional journal Listen to a short podcast or ten minutes of an audiobook

Natural Ways to Help Anxiety Don’t start something you may not be able to stop. After the pandemic, anxiety disorders more than doubled in children and teenagers.[1] Prescriptions for antianxiety medications, such as benzodiazepines like alprazolam (Xanax) and clonazepam (Klonopin) dramatically increased. The problem is that they are addictive, and once you start them they are often very hard to stop. Here are 11 strategies to consider before going on antianxiety medications. 1. Check for hypoglycemia, anemia, and hyperthyroidism. 2. Try an elimination diet for three weeks. (See day 257 for more detail.) 3. Practice meditation and hypnosis daily (research shows they can both calm stress and anxiety). 4. Try heart rate variability (HRV) training (anxiety is linked to low levels of HRV, but you can hack your way to a healthier HRV with biofeedback apps such as Welltory). See day 202 for more information. 5. Practice diaphragmatic breathing—deep breathing from your belly—when you feel anxious. 6. Eliminate the ANTs (automatic negative thoughts). See days 22, 116–117. 7. Incorporate a calming exercise, such as yoga or qi gong, into your week. 8. Take 200–400 mg of L-Theanine per day. 9. Take 500–1,500 mg of GABA per day. 10. Take 100–500 mg of magnesium glycinate, citrate, or malate with 30 mg of vitamin B6 per day. 11. Schedule neurofeedback to help retrain your brain. Anxiety disorders are very painful, but too often people reach for marijuana, alcohol, or prescribed benzodiazepines, which can be of short-term benefit but cause long-term problems with addiction and memory issues. If the above interventions are ineffective or only partly effective with my patients, I’ll try other nutraceuticals or medications targeted to a specific type of anxiety (take the test at brainhealthassessment.com).

Leaning back until I was lying on the bed, I rolled us over and hovered over her body. She dragged her hands through my hair and giggled when I bent low and kissed her stomach over and over. “What does it feel like?” “Nothing,” she said on a laugh as her fingertips continued to trail across my head. “You haven’t really been sick, have you? I remember that day last week, but I can’t think of anything else.” I felt shitty for not noticing, if she had been. I should have picked up on this, shouldn’t I? “Not really. There’s been times here and there, but from the horror stories I’ve heard, I don’t have it bad at all.” I nodded and kissed her stomach again before reaching over to the nightstand. Grabbing the ultrasound picture, I laid it down on the bottom of her stomach and hopped off the bed, looking for my pants. After I found them, and took my phone out of the pocket, I walked back over to Rachel and opened up the camera app. “What are you doing?” “Letting everyone know about my present.” That soft smile was back, before her eyes went wide in horror. “No! I’m in my bra and underwear!” “Calm down, Sour Patch. I’m not about to let anyone see the rest of you. You’re mine, not theirs.” All that you could see in the picture was her torso and the ultrasound picture. As soon as she gave me the okay, I set up a text to go to Mason, Candice, Maddie, Eli, and all our parents. Above the picture I typed out: MY WEDDING PRESENT, and underneath, I did a twist on Rachel’s words from the envelope: BABY RYAN 1 AND BABY RYAN 2 WILL BE HERE IN MARCH. Once