There's a magic number that so many people literally go out of their way to reach every single day. Don't know what I'm talking about, You will in a moment.
I want to know if it's important to get ten thousand steps a day or if it's just a bit of a useless goal.
The fitness apps make.
Us too, Yes, the ten thousand step rule. Are you one of these people who tries to reach this number every single day? We're going to dig deep into where this rule around ten thousand steps started and answer this question later on. This is the Wood Life. I'm Sam Wood. We're making health and fitness simple by answering your questions to help you become healthier, fitter, and happier. First up, though, we're going to talk about something that is relatively new
in my wellness routine, and that is mindfulness. In fact, we're going to talk to the person who first got me into mindfulness, and I'm so grateful she did. Let's get into it today. We are going to get into mindfulness and I'm happy to admit that mindfulness is a relatively new part of my wellness routine. It's something that I am working on and will continue to work on, and rather than me tell you about it because it's not my area of expertise necessarily. It's something that I'm
learning about as I go. I've brought in someone who I have an amazing amount of admiration for. This is Jane Martino, who is the founder of Smiling Mind. Smiling Mind is an incredible meditation wellness app. It is the biggest wellness app in Australia. It has over six hundred thousand monthly users and it's a complete not for profit business that Jane founded nearly ten years ago. So welcome Jan to the WODLFE.
Thanks Sam, great to be here.
What is mindfulness because there's probably some of our listeners saying, are you just talking about meditation or does mindfulness go beyond that?
Yeah, so I think you're right. It's a really important question. Mindfulness is really just acknowledging and being in the present moment, so literally being really mindful of what we are doing. So therefore that definition means that meditation is a mindful activity, but it's not mindfulness as a definition. So meditation is one very very good practice that we can do to be mindful, but there's lots of other things that we
can do. In our every day to be mindful. We can as I'm sitting here, I can really listen to what you're saying when you ask me a question, and basically use all of the senses, all of my senses to really make sure that I'm paying attention in.
The present moment.
So that's also why the practice of mindfulness and meditation helps, almost like lifting weights build a muscle, that helps us build a muscle in our mind and in our brain to pay attention to the present moment. But actually it's a form of attention training. So what it does is it helps us train our brain to bring our attention back. So our minds wander because our minds think that's what
they're born to do. We're born to think. But to be mindful and truly in the present moment, even if our minds are wandering or we're distracted, we need to bring it back to the present moment. And that's the benefit and the power of meditation.
I actually love that you've used the analogy that it's similar to lifting weights or becoming a runner or whatever it might be, because I have so many people say to me, Sam, you tell me running is good for me, But I just can't run around the block. And if I said to them, we too bad, you just need to run five kilometers tomorrow and deal with it, they'd never do it. It would be a terrible, unenjoyable experience and they'd give up. And it's the same with mindfulness.
You have to start small, you have to practice, and the good news is with practice you get better at it, like the physical stuff. And I think that's where I came unstuck. I didn't have the capability, particularly as I was younger, to concentrate for long enough without all these other ideas coming into my head to be present for long enough to think that it was actually doing anything. And I've got a bit frustrated by it, and it seemed to have it more of a negative impact on me,
and I just sort of gave up. And it wasn't until you know, two or three years ago where I really sort of stuck at it for more than three days. I didn't really give it a good crack the first time round, if I'm being honest, but you know, stuck at it for a few weeks that I did start to feel the benefits. And it's like you say, you know, once you feel the power of that tool, and you say to yourself, damn it, I wish I'd done this earlier.
Imagine what I could have achieved and conquered if I had or would have been a part of my usual routine. I think, I think that you know, that's all the more reason to do it. And then you look at the world that we live in, this crazy world, and you know, whether it's our world or our teenagers world, or our partner's world, or whatever it is, it's only getting crazier. It's only getting busier, more frantic, more information,
more stress, more anxiety. It's not going anywhere. And I think, if you know, if it was hard to be present twenty years ago, it's fifty times harder now. So I hear exactly what you're saying, and I think, if there are tools out there to help us be present in this crazy world, we should be taking advantage of those. So I can I can understand why Smiling Mind is as popular as it is and growing rapidly in popularity. What did COVID do to that rise in awareness and where do you see it going?
Well, COVID definitely had a huge impact. So we saw literally within twenty four hours of the first lockdown, we saw probably a five hundred percent increase in demand and usage at that day. Yes, we would always have spikes, huge spikes when lockdowns were.
Announced, So that's an anxiety thing.
Correct, And I think the first lockdown, if we're all honest, was where we.
Were all the fear of the unknown.
Correct.
We didn't know what was happening, we didn't know how long it was going to go for We're feeling, you know, pretty frightened by it all and unsure. So that made complete sense. So we saw that sort of move and change throughout the last few years, but overall and on average, probably a two hundred and fifty percent annualized increase in demand.
We've got a couple of questions from our Woodlife listeners that I think are really indicative Jane of perhaps people's confusion or frustration around mindfulness. So we've got a question from Page and here's what she wants to know. I'd like to know whether meditation is something that I should be trying and has actual benefits or is it one of those fads that will be gone in the next few years. So you've probably heard that before or words to that effect. What are your thoughts.
Yeah, so meditation is absolutely something you should try and sam for the reasons you mentioned before.
It's definitely not a fad.
It's been around for thousands of years in various forms of practice. Actually, everything from prayer and contemplation to actual formal mindfulness practices and smiling mind We designed to be really agnostic and to actually just use the breath and the body, simple practices to introduce people to meditation and take away that sort of stigma and make it really much easier.
Im bite sized, which I love because I think people think you have to sit on a cliff, you know, for thirty five minutes, and it's no, that's not what it has to be exactly. So two minutes in your car when you're pull into your driveway before you go in and your crazy families everywhere, you.
Know, exactly.
So there's also the length of practice that you can start with and work up. But also one of the misconceptions is that your mind needs to be still, and the whole purpose of mindfulness really is acceptance and just being okay with anything that is happening and letting go of the need to strive, you know where so and particularly when things are busy, and we're also geared up to be fairly competitive. We tend to strive for this
nirvana experience in meditation. But what meditation is a form of attention training that's training our mind to be able to be in the present moment, which is better for our body. So to answer the question, yes, you should absolutely give it a go. You can start small, but don't put an expectation on yourself that you won't have thoughts. Thoughts are okay, they come and go, and the training will help you be aware of those thoughts and be
able to move back to the practice. And in conjunction with that, the by products of the practice that you do, even if you have a really noisy meditation, which by the way, been doing it for more than a decade and still do have noisy meditations most days, practice helps your brain recognize when it's noisy and move it back to the present moment. It doesn't take it away, so I think that's really important.
But also the by.
Products are not just you know, stress relief and feeling better in your body, which you definitely do, but also things like you're able to regulate your emotions more so, putting space in between feeling an emotion and reacting to that emotion, which helps you in all aspects of your life. You're able to focus more and be more productive at work, so you actually can have a much more efficient day
and feel inflow and really feel effective. It also helps build empathy, which is great for you know, the connections you have with other people, and particularly in a work space or at home from a leadership perspective, or connecting with your partner or your young people around you. So you know, that's why you should give it a go as well, because it's not just a stress relief.
I was sold, but now I'm really sold. Now I've got a little question from Missy. We'll go to Missy's question.
I've done some meditation in the past. It just seems a little bit overwhelming for me. So how can I just include a little bit of mindfulness in every day?
So this is interesting because this was me and as you answered Page's question, you spoke about it's okay to not be still, that was me having the realization that that's why I never made it.
Well.
I think if you step back, that's just such a common way, and I do this all the time. It's about expectation. When you put this expectation on yourself or activities you're doing, or things that you're engaging in, you set yourself up exactly for something that you just don't need to do. And so as much as possible, I always say, like, start small and go slowly, you know,
and give yourself a break. And by the way, if you like people say to me all the time, oh, you must meditate every day, it's like hell no. Like just like with exercise, some days I hit the snooze button and I just don't get there. But guess what, the next day, I get back on and I'm there. Just like cut yourself some slack. So that's the first thing. The second thing is.
There's actually really.
Simple things you can do to bring mindfulness into you every day. So yes, a two minute practice or three minute bite size practice, which are definitely on our platform, good place to start. It's over before you know it, and you wish that it had gone longer, and so then you can move up in your time frames. But also brushing your teeth, having a shower, like feel the bristles on your gums, feel the water wash over you, what kind of temperature is it? So just find little things.
If you're making a cake, like look at all the ingredients mixing together. Taste the mixture. How does it actually taste? Is it smooth when you taste it? You know, have that sense of curiosity to things and start to notice more, and that is being mindful.
I'm sure all of our listeners who were a little bit dubious or skeptical or scared about mindfulness and are more educated and more likely to give it a try, which is what it's all about, taking that first step into the unknown and seeing how it can change your life. I encourage all of them to do it. And thank you so so much for your time today. It's been wonderful.
Thanks Sam, been great to be here.
Make sure you stick around to the end of the episode because we have a bite sized mindfulness exercise just for you. Next we're uncovering where the magic number of ten thousand steps really comes from. So there was a comment made about a celebrity Australia celebrity recently and it spread like wildfire, as these things tend to do in the media, of articles getting published claiming that the miracle drug for weight loss has been found and drum roll,
the miracle weight loss. A drug was this new thing called walking, and we all know walking's not new. And the celebrity I'm talking about was none other than Rebel Wilson, who's an absolute legend, a big fan, and she had lost thirty kilos or has lost thirty kilos. Now I know for a fact that Rebel actually started training properly in the gym, resistance training with a good maide of mine, johnno up there in Sydney, and changed her nutrition as well. And I'm sure the walking was the icing on the
cake rather than being the cake. But it's interesting how everyone thinks there has to be one thing, there has to be one magic thing that is the thing that you have to do in the moment. So the interesting thing here is, you know, you can't just read the headlines and think that you're getting the full picture, because if you just read those headlines, you would be thinking that all Rebel did was walk, and by the sense of things, she was walking halfway across Australia and back
every single morning to get her in morning coffee. So when you read on a bit further, you see that Rebel started doing resistance training, changed in nutrition and she really enjoyed walking complimenting those things, and in fact, it was the walking that she enjoyed the most from an
exercise perspective. And I love that because for me, walking with my dog Hendrix every single morning, or walking with my babies when they were babies, you know, either in the little baby carrier in the pram was a meditation for me. It was the most beautiful way to start every single morning, rain, hail, shine, no matter how hot or cold it was, and it was a great way to clear my head, great way to get my thoughts together for the day that was about to come. And
you do get your steps up. And we don't move very much in today's world, you know, we sit down for hours and hours and hours in the car, in the office, working from home, whatever it might be. And it's good for us to get up and move out body. Now that's where this whole ten thousand steps thing has come from, giving ourselves a target to hit day in, day out. So interestingly, and this is where I was going to head anyway, a lease from the Woodlife community has a question about walking.
I want to know if it's important to get ten thousand steps a day or if it's just a bit of a useless goal the fitness apps makers do.
I wouldn't say it's a useless goal. We tend to think of it as a new number, or a new phenomenon, or a new goal. It's been around since the nineteen sixties. It was originally created by a Japanese pedometer company where they did some research and discovered that right back then and it's probably worse now, but right back then in the sixties, the average sort of steps being achieved by most people per day was around the four thousand mark. So they came up with this magic number of ten
thousand as this goal for us all to strive from. Now, I did a bit of digging, a bit of research to find out why ten thousand, what's the why is it such a magic number? And it really wasn't anything other than we chose ten thousand, and we sort of stuck to it, and here we are sixty years later,
still going for ten thousand. But I like it. I mean a lot of people go, oh, that sounds ridiculous, But if you're getting your ten thousand steps or close to every single day, on top of some form of resistance training and eating well, you can have a pretty good balance, and you're going to be burning some good calories, you're going to be getting outside, getting some fresh air, getting some vitamin D. And I'm all four people trying
to build their way up to ten thousand steps. It is a really good number to try and aim for. And the apps actually can be a really good tool to see how close you're getting, both on a day in, day out basis and a week in, week out basis, because you can not only see your daily steps, so you can see the average of your steps, So anyone can find out how many steps that they're doing at any time. It's just there's a little health part of
your iPhone. You just tap on the little heart and it opens up and it not only tells you how many steps you've done today, but how many averages this month or even throughout the whole year. So why don't I put myself on the spot. Now, I do walk Hendrix, my labrador a lot, so I should have a relatively good number here. But let's look it up something a little health heart part. Now I've done fifteen hundred a day. I haven't done much today, but my average steps is
nine two hundred a day, and in twenty twenty. That's for the year so far, and in twenty twenty one I averaged over ten thousand a day. So check that out if you're wondering where you're at from a step perspective, because it's often a really good little wake up call, or it can be a really good little pat on the back because you're getting close to that number. As it might be, But like anything, you build up slowly.
You might be at four thousand steps and your goal for this month is to get to five thousand steps to six thousand steps, and you build it up gradually until before you know it, it's become a really, really nice addition to your workout routine. And with walking, I would say use it as complementary, use it as a great way to get some fresh air and some vitamin D, but don't have it as your only exercise component because you do want to get some form of resistance training
in there. So if you are doing two or three resistance workouts a week and lots of walking, then you're going to have a pretty good balance. I'd love to know how many steps our listeners are doing and if they are achieving increasing those daily steps, so make sure you send that in. There's always a link in the show notes, and I'd love to hear from you and make sure you stick around because we've got a small meditation from smiling mind.
Welcome to this short practice designed to help you pause, check in with yourself, and then proceed mindfully. We are going to work through the stop acronym together. The S is for stop, literally putting things down for a moment and pausing. If you haven't already, I invite you to do that now. T take a few long, slow breaths gently in through your nose, expanding your chest and belly, and then exhale slowly. Extending the outbreaths slightly can help
calm the nervous system. Now, oh, try observing what thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations are showing up for you in this moment. Try to notice what's showing up with openness and curiosity rather than judgment. There's no need to try to change anything, simply noticing and trying to make room for whatever is arising, and finally, p proceed with something that will support you. Ask yourself, what do I need at this moment? A break, a chat.
To move.
What would be a helpful response in this situation and as we come to the end of this practice, can missing to going gently and taking it one step at a time.