How to Improve Your Brain and Have Fun Doing It

As I have been pursuing my journey related to mindfulness and stress-reduction, I've been applying things to my life and seeing what helps and what doesn't.

If I divvy up 20 - 30 minutes of meditation time and use 3 different biometric devices, am I getting the same value as if I just sat there for 30 minutes and meditated?

I'm probably not.

I think that a lot of meditation and mindfulness practitioners and experts would probably take exception to what I'm doing.

At the same time, it's fun for me to do it this way, I get to play amateur scientist and try out technology I'm interested in.

I also get to look at different signals from the body and understand a bit better how they work.

This is fun for me.

Also, I get to write blog posts about them and that is also fun.

On the subject of playing amateur scientist and HRV and mindfulness, I've started using Welltory.

When it comes to HRV, Welltory does a great job of providing interpreted results and education. They provide a lot of information and integrate with a lot of other products that I use (FitBit, Google Fit, Qardio).

Welltory very much encourages the 'try it and see' or 'amateur scientist' approach to quantified self, which aligns well with how I do things. They encourage you try things and see if they help.

All of this puts me squarely in the realm of 'Quantified-Self Nerd'. Which is OK with me, I think. I'm turning the stress and stress management into a fun and interesting activity, which helps reduce stress.