Coherent Relaxing (The ultimate way to regulate your autonomic nervous system)

This is the last nervous system regulation instruction you may ever need.

This process is predictable. Reliable. Repeatable.

You can experience a profound meditative state if you follow it for long enough.

Here's what to do:

1) Sit on the edge of your chair, feet firmly planted on the ground, spine straight 

2) Set a timer for 10 minutes and tell yourself that you will not move for the remainder of this session

3) Close your eyes

4) Inhale to the count of 6

5) Without pausing at the top of your inhalation, immediately start exhaling to a count of 6

6) Without pausing at the bottom of your exhalation, immediately start inhaling to a count of 6

7) Repeat this cycle

8) While inhaling and exhaling, relax the 6 bridges.

What are the 6 bridges?*

1. Your head and face

2. Your neck and tongue

3. Your hands

4. Your diaphragm and intercostals

5. Your pelvic floor

6. Your feet

Imagine that your body is a cup that can hold a golden fluid. 

As you inhale, that fluid starts from your feet and rises all the way up your body until it reaches the top of your head at the top of your inhale. 

As you exhale, imagine that fluid falling back down from your head back down to your feet.

When the fluid reaches one of the bridges, like your head and face, consciously relax that area.

This leads to better nervous system balance, incresed HRV, less stress, and a very deep meditative state.

* I first learned about the 6 bridges through Stephen Elliot, he is the originator of this phrase.

Spiritual Significance

Finding Spiritual Significance

Modern productivity often feels empty and pointless. 

An example of this is school. There are processes in my body-mind system. Parts of me that worry— "if I don't worry about schoolwork and assignments, they're not going to get done".

If that doesn’t happen, I'll get a bad grade. A bad grade means wasted money. It means my parents might yell at me, or worse, feel disappointed.

Shame. Avoiding shame drives so much of the emptiness. Part of me can't stand the shame.

But creating a sense of spiritual significance could help. That's the hypothesis at least.

Because it lets you see the shame and contextualize it— letting it move and process by itself.

It helps you understand why "mind" resists. Because a mind without context, is a mind that cannot make sense of why it exists.

It needs significance.

The knowledge in our brains works in this way. Knowledge needs connections. If there's a neuron that isn't connected to others, it gets pruned away.

To create significance, you need to increase its relationality. Take something that feels isolated, like schoolwork, and connect it to something greater:

  • How does this new thing fit into the story of your life so far?
  • What significance does this thing have in relation to your ancestors?
  • What devotional rituals can you start doing to make this task less mundane?

It becomes more than a task; it becomes a part of the tapestry of life.

The key is to keep exploring how to make these connections stronger. Adding more and more layers of significance.

To keep finding ways to make life spiritually significant.

How to build great product experiences with AI

principle 1: user experiences are probabilistic, not deterministic

you can’t control how someone experiences your product. experiences are personal and subjective. all you can do is increase the likelihood that they’ll have a positive one. AI’s role is to optimize the odds—it doesn’t guarantee anything, but it can shape the environment to make a positive outcome more likely. it’s about shaping probabilities, not dictating experiences.

principle 2: AI is the gardener, not the architect

AI isn’t building rigid systems or telling users what to do. it’s creating a flexible, adaptive environment. think of it like a gardener, not an architect. the AI helps set the right conditions for users to succeed, but it doesn’t control how that success happens. over time, it adapts as users interact with it, growing and evolving alongside them.

principle 3: create a dynamic, learning environment

a great product is a living system. the product experience should constantly learn from its users, adjusting and improving based on how people interact with it. right now, we rely on human feedback to do this, but the future is a product that can learn directly from its users. it evolves, refines, and adapts in real-time, cutting out the middleman and making the feedback loop faster and more direct.

principle 4: co-regulate with the user’s nervous system

one of the most powerful things a product can do is sync with the user’s nervous system. your product should be able to regulate stress and calmness in the user. by paying attention to how users behave (like when they’re frustrated or taking too long on a task), the AI can adjust the experience to keep them either engaged or calm, depending on what’s needed. this creates a more personalized, responsive experience.

principle 5: start broad, refine subtle

when building a product, you start with big adjustments. you need to see what works and what doesn’t. but over time, as the AI learns more about the user, it should begin making smaller, more subtle refinements. these marginal gains are where the real magic happens, turning a decent product into a great one. it’s the little things that often make the biggest difference.

principle 6: reveal hidden constraints

users don’t always know what’s holding them back. sometimes they’re limited by things they can’t see—whether it’s mental, emotional, or something else. the AI’s job is to identify those hidden constraints and surface them in a way that helps the user move forward. by watching for patterns in behavior, AI can help users overcome obstacles they might not even realize they have.

principle 7: the product is always evolving

there’s no such thing as a finished product. users change, expectations shift, and the world moves forward. your product has to keep evolving. AI should be built to continuously learn and adapt, so the product stays relevant and valuable even as the world around it changes. it’s a constant cycle of evaluation and improvement.

principle 8: fail gracefully, iterate rapidly

not everything will work right away, and that’s fine. the key is to iterate quickly and learn from failures. even when things go wrong, your product should still provide value and recover gracefully. AI helps by speeding up the iteration process, making adjustments smarter each time. it’s about learning fast, failing fast, and improving faster.

Relaxation is the ultimate sadhana

The practice: relax as much tension in your body as you can.

By relaxing, you automatically enter the present moment. 

As you move your attention around your body, finding areas to release tension, you build more presence. 

Which allows your body, your fascia, to resonate, like a tuning fork, with the present moment.

All you have to do is relax and resonate.

Love all the parts

Love all the parts. Even the painful ones. Especially the painful ones. 

The tired ones. The scared ones. The worried ones. The hurt ones. The angry ones. The shameful ones. The guilty ones. The sad ones. The disappointed ones. The ones that think they aren't good enough. The ones that don't want to get into trouble anymore.

The ones who just want a break.

Love all your parts.