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Do not dwell in the past.
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Do not dream of the future.
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Concentrate the mind on the present moment.
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Welcome to the Throttle & Rose Podcast. I'm your host Niels Meersschaert. Riding a motorcycle is a tension of two competing worlds. While riding requires a lot of senses and focus, many riders also say that it helps clear their head, something often thought of with being in a more relaxing environment. And the topic of mindfulness has been getting a lot more attention in recent years. And what is most surprising is how much of it applies to motorcycling. We'll cover what mindfulness is, how riders get in the flow during a ride, and ways to have practices outside of motorcycling that can actually help your riding. .
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So let's start with mindfulness and what it actually means. The thing is with mindfulness is it does have its roots in ancient Buddhist traditions. And sometimes it can be confused with meditation.
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Although it's a little bit different. You meditate towards mindfulness, but meditation isn't, that's not always the intention of meditation. So they're sort of interrelated in a way. But let me give you the key components of what mindfulness means. Because that's what it means. It's really about having a present moment awareness. And it's a nonjudgmental observation.
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You're noticing your thoughts without labeling them being good or bad. bad. And it's about acceptance. You're embracing your current experience, even if it's uncomfortable. You're making your sense of emotion I mean, like I said, you're going to be good or bad. And real critically, intentional attention. Sounds a lot like riding, doesn't it? This is what we do as we're riding a motorcycle. We have to be in the moment. We have to be focusing on what we're doing of that activity in the moment and almost embracing it. Just being part of being on a motorcycle, as we talked about in episode about being uncomfortable, is just by nature of the fact that you are exposed. You are going to experience things that may not be super comfortable, but part of the experience is embracing all of that and taking it collectively as being the wonderful thing that we enjoy about riding a motorcycle.
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Now, sometimes you'll get some people who will say, but that sounds a lot like just relaxing. And mindfulness is just like you're just sitting there in your thoughts. You're not really doing anything. And that's, I think, the real difference. So when you're relaxing, your thoughts might dwell on something, maybe something that's bothering you, maybe something that you're exciting about. And this rumination is really something that why, when we think of meditation, it can be with an intention towards mindfulness, or it could be just daydreaming.
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And, you know, you could get dwelled in your thought. You could have anxieties that are erupting. But, all these can sort of emerge as you are relaxing. And the big thing with relaxing is you don't have something active that you're doing. If you've ever just sat on the couch and maybe you're just mindlessly have the TV on, well, that's relaxing, but you're not actively doing anything. And that's really the distinction of mindfulness.
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Mindfulness is much more intentional. You're focused on the moment, on riding, for example. And if you're uncomfortable on the bike, you just accept that as part of the experience. Whereas if you were uncomfortable when you're trying to relax, you would change position. You would move. You would adjust it. a way of having an experience between relaxation and mindfulness.
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Now, psychologists describe when someone is completely absorbed in something, that they're in a mental state that they call flow. And it's a state of focus in which any other concerns fall away and only the task at hand is in the mind. And this focused mode, if you will, really allows you to be very, very productive. You can really concentrate on of what you are doing and learning doing as an activity. And when you're really fully in the flow, it's even been described as the ego falls away. Time flies.
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Every action, movement and thought falls inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. And your whole being is involved and you're using your skills to the utmost. And while it's often associated with the arts, it also happens when you're engaged in sports, including motorcycle riding. I mean, just think of that quote, how often have you had your whole being involved as you're riding on the bike and you're using your full skills just to be able to navigate the bike around that curve that's coming up ahead? Looking out for traffic that you see on the horizon. All of your skills are in the moment when you're riding that motorcycle. And there's a couple of things that can happen when you're really in the flow.
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And especially when you think about something of an activity that you're not doing that's work related. You're doing something that is external of work and the byproduct of being in the flow is you forget about that project that you have at work. You forget about that argument that you had with a friend or with a spouse. You focus on the moment. You focus on the ride. And how do you get through that next curve? What's happening at that intersection?
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Is that car about to turn in front of you? When you're in the flow, you can enjoy what you're doing even more. And it's a positive mental state, which can provide its own intrinsic motivation. This is why we may love to go riding. Because we get into that flow. And the positive components of it, not just physically, but mentally actually can really accentuate our experience and leave us hungry to keep doing it more and more and more. And I think this is the challenge that people who don't ride don't fully understand. And there's a bit of study that's actually been done about this where they have evaluated your brain waves of when you are in this flow. And they call them alpha brain waves.
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And it's a really sort of state of mind that allows you to really be focused and accomplish a lot of wonderful things without the distractions. Now, you might be listening to this and saying, but wait, I don't experience that on the motorcycle. I never do any meditation at home. I never have experienced mindfulness. I've never experienced flow. And that's, that can happen with people. It's not a thing that everybody is guaranteed to do on their motorcycle or in other activities that they may do in life. But there are some ways in which you can learn to get that moment to happen a little bit more easily for you. And mindfulness practice can be a benefit for when you're riding.
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Because what happens when you are in a mindful state is there's enhanced frontal lobe activity. And this is responsible for decision making and impulse control. as you're riding along, what do you do as all of a sudden you hit a little bit of a loose patch of gravel?
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What do you do to the bike to control? How do you make that decision in order to do it? How do you avoid that impulse control such that you may not, you know, get road rage towards that other car that just cut you off? And the other thing that it does is it reduces reactivity.
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And this is the brain's fear center. So it becomes less reactive and it can help you stay calm in unexpected situations. This is a really critical, critical skill to be able to have as you are riding a motorcycle, so that you can react intently and intelligently to whatever situations unfolds in front of you.
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So you don't panic, you don't grab that front brake, and now the front wheel locks up and you are just skidding along on the pavement into whatever you're gonna collide with. The more that you can be thoughtful and measured in your response to a situation, the better you can be as a rider. And so this is the reason why I think mindfulness can dramatically help.
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So if you're not already reaching a state of mindfulness on the bike as you're riding today, what can you do? Well, there are meditation exercises that can help teach you how to enhance your mindfulness or more to the point, kind of get into that state more easily, certainly at least when you're riding, but you could use this throughout other parts of your life as well. It's a, it's a very helpful, tool and the practice of mindfulness involves a few key tips, this can feel a little arbitrary when you're just coming into this and just beginning to learn about it. So just take a little bit of a step here with me as we start to describe through some of these steps because it is critical and, and each one of them is thoughtful in its own right of what you are attempting to do.
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So the first is setting your intention. Mindfulness really requires an intention. Now on a bike, it might be to successfully control the bike to your destination. Off the bike, writing an intention can help.
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Maybe you're trying to finish a chapter in a book that you're reading. Maybe you are trying to, finish that spreadsheet that you are doing for work, whatever the thing is that you are trying to achieve. Having a clearly set intention of what you're trying to do is helpful. And this can seem a similar to it, but identify what your goal is.
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What do you want to achieve? So the intention is kinda what you are going to do but that is different than what you want to achieve.
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So my intention may be to work on the spreadsheet, but my goal is to finish whatever on that spreadsheet So they are related, but different. And the big thing is if this is brand new to you, if you've never done any sort of mindfulness practice. Start small. Nobody meditates for 40 minutes on their first try. So even 5 minutes is a good start.
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Just to get a little bit of practice under your belt. Feel what it's like.
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So the big thing is find a comfortable position. Your back straight is a common sort of position that a lot of people will do, but some even do it lying down. Just find something that is a comfortable position for you. Now, focus on your breath. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Observe your thoughts. Any judgement, let it pass You might feel silly your first few times doing this, because you've never done a meditation or any sort of mindfulness training. Acknowledge that, but let it pass. And if you practice regularly, if you can do it daily, even for just a few minutes, it becomes easier. And when you get out onto that bike again, it will become almost second nature to be able to get into that flow much quicker than you had before. Or if you've never gotten in the flow on a bike, you'll suddenly find that you're getting into the flow on the bike And the last one that I want to focus on is, reflect on your practice. How did you feel after practicing this mindfulness? What did you do?
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Were you able to eliminate some of those other distractions Were you able to really be in the moment? Or, were you dwelling on other external things? Were you worrying about that meeting that you have tomorrow? Were you worried about taking the chicken out of the oven? All of those externaliites are things that really keeping you from being in the moment hand. .
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They are keeping you from really focusing on the intention at hand. So be aware of those and the next time in practice, you can remove those and really try to. stay in the moment. And I know this sounds metaphysical, I know it sounds like new age stuff.
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Now another one, and this is really very helpful as a tool, especially as we get older and a lot of us as motorcyclists aren't spring chickens anymore, but taking a look at body scanning, this is paying attention to how your body is feeling. Tingles in your toes, the wind against your skin. You can even direct your stress to fall away. Just take in a deep breath. And as you exhale, just imagine all the stress that you have at the top of your head falling down lower and lower in your body. And eventually it just falls out of the bottom of your feet. This really can do wonders for allowing you to take your mind to push your body into a way of eliminating some of those physical stresses and allowing you to concentrate on the task at hand. Because every time you have that physical stress, it can be that distraction. Journaling is another great way to emphasize your mindfulness practice because you write down your thoughts and then you can examine them from a distance.
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So bottled up stresses can pop up in the worst times. and this reflection can really help. It can make it such that when you get out onto that bike, when you want to take that ride and you don't want to worry about all the stresses, it is easier for you to achieve that Now there are guided meditations out there, so you don't have to feel that this has to be something that you have to do exclusively on your own and you are fumbling your way through. There's even a few apps that can help. A couple of examples include the Calm app, Headspace is another one that's out there. Apple Fitness, of course, has a number of meditation exercises. And each of these can be really helpful, especially if you're new to it, if you wanted to kind of get into the practice, it.
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But what I'd say is if you're looking for any of those meditation, because they're more general purpose meditation apps, look specifically activity in one of them that is emphasize on being mindfulness, because that guiding can really help you as you start to think of a distinction of meditation for relaxation versus meditation for mindfulness. They're not exactly the same. Another one that people have found really helpful for mindfulness is just going out for a walk. Many people have found that what happens when they go out for a walk and maybe they're just going out to quietly reflect on something and all of a sudden because you're doing a different activity as you're doing that walk, focusing on the walk, you're focusing on the steps that you take. But in the back of your head, you're actually concentrating on what you're trying to resolve. And many have had some wonderful realizations or ideas, creative sparks that arose from just taking a simple walk.
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So we started with a definition of mindfulness and then we gave a little bit of a comparison of relaxing and how you might confuse the two at first. But we looked about how getting in the flow on a bike is an example of mindfulness.
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Mindfulness, and the better you get at it, the more fulfilling your rides can be. Finally, we looked at some ways and that you might be able to add mindfulness practices, even when you're off of the bike, just to help you be easier to get into the flow when you get back on the bike. And this mindfulness really can accentuate your experience on the bike and it can make it feel even more fulfilling than it would have otherwise. So my question for you this week is, have you ever achieved mindfulness during a ride, such that all the stresses that you have seemed to disappear? Share your thoughts through the text, the show link in the show notes, or leave a voicemail at throttleandroast.com/voicemail.
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Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you next week.
