When we open up space in our lives, we can start to fill it with very interesting creativity. And with that, it happens like neurophysiologically. What’s going on is your brain waves are changing. Your brain is slowing down its activity levels. It’s it’s relaxing a little bit and we shift. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast, the show that helps swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. My guest today is Dr. Greg Wales, and this episode couldn’t have come at a better time, because right now you’re probably forced to be slowing down to not be doing as many things as you’d normally do and getting out of the busyness cycle. And on today’s podcast, we discuss some of the things that he talks about in his book called Rest, Refocus and Recharge. We’re going to share with you some strategies on why doing less will

actually help you achieve more, how you can stop reacting to things and be more deliberate and take full control of the things in your life so that you can do more of the things that you love and less of the things that you don’t love, because in the end, it’s you who has the final decision. I’m going to talk about how you can refocus your attention, some ways that you can really dial into the tasks that you want to get done. So you can do that task in a quarter of the time. I’m also going to talk about how you can stop becoming a slave to busyness. And this is what I think we’re finding was really happening right now where where people are able to get out of that busyness cycle and just focus on the things that give them more purpose and the things that really matter to them. So let’s jump into the chat with Dr. Greg Wells. Well, Greg, thanks very much for being on the podcast. I think your book couldn’t have come at a better time.

It’s called Rest, Refocus and Recharge. And after reading through it, I think everyone’s pretty much forced to do exactly that. There’s not much else that they can do at this time. It’s the most bizarre experience ever, like watching the entire world shut down. Rate as I, you know, release a book about taking a moment to pause and breathe. And it’s like happening enforced at scale globally. It’s so bizarre. And anyway, I hope it helps people get through this pretty crazy time. Yeah. And I think one of the things that I’ve found and just speaking with with a lot of friends is it’s really forced this time has really forced them to slow down and just and watching people just like go for a walk or sit on a park bench and just like just not looking at their phone, just kind of staring out into space. It’s a really weird thing where people are forced to to do nothing. And I find that like that would be one of the real positives to come out of all of this.

I think so, like I was out for a bike ride the other day because we’re still out to do that sort of stuff is, you know, keep your distance from people. But people were out cycling with their families. People were out in the parks as you were talking about. Like obviously respecting each other’s distances as you absolutely need to. But yeah, it was it’s amazing to watch people and they’re just kind of like chilling out. Their people are like staring off. People are thinking people are having meals with their families. People are reading books. People are taking online courses. People are learning to cook. Like it’s it’s amazing what’s happened now that we’ve paused for a moment just to take a step back. And it’s funny. You don’t appreciate what you have until it’s taken away. And so much of our normal lives has been taken away from us. And I think a lot of the really interesting thing is going to be like when things

ramp back up again, can we be a little bit more deliberate about what we put back into our lives so that we don’t end up where we were even two weeks ago, you know, burned out, stressed, fatigue, depression, anxiety, all that sort of stuff. So yeah, I think that there’s tremendous opportunity to knock on wood like healthy and all that sort of stuff. And obviously a lot of people are going to get sick and and are sick. And so there is no question going to be some pain as we go through this time. And I want to respect that deeply. But I think that there’s some incredible potential benefits or, you know, different courses that we can go on in the future, which which is interesting to behold as the world goes through this crisis. Yeah. And one of the things that I’ve personally found is that like I’ve been sleeping until seven o’clock most mornings, where before that I was normally up at five o’clock. So that the sleep things are massive one.

I know you talk about that in your book where using sleep as a tool to to recharge and a number of other things like for me, that’s probably been one of the most interesting things. I’ve been sleeping for eight or nine hours a night, which rarely happens. And look, it might be a change in the in the time of year as well. Like it’s not light until about seven o’clock or it was light at five thirty in summer. But I’ve noticed that is a big change and also just simplifying. It’s like, all right, what do I really need in life to be to be happy and to be fulfilled? And it’s like, it’s pretty simple, I think. And this is really shown that where we’re forced to just really get rid of and purge all of the things that that are unnecessary that can really come into your life when you do get busy. Isn’t it crazy? Like I’m also sleeping so much right now. I I wear an ORA ring. ORA, if anyone wants to check it out, it’s pretty interesting technology.

It’s tracking all sorts of data. And I was kind of feeling a little bit sick the other night. So, you know, given the current environment is like, OK, well, I’m going to sleep as much as I possibly can, because I know sleep is related to the immune system. I was like, I do not want to get sick right now. So I slept for nine hours. I haven’t slept for nine hours in like years. I felt amazing the next day. And I’m not setting an alarm in the morning. Like I wake up when I wake up this morning. I had to get up early because I did a call through to the UK from Canada where I am. But I think that it’s great to see that, you know, we are actually like sleeping and we’re able to sleep in because maybe we’re not commuting as much as we were before. Maybe we don’t need to get to the office by eight o’clock or seven o’clock or nine o’clock or whatever it happens to be. And so that is giving us a chance to recover, regenerate.

And, you know, I know you’ve got a lot of swimmers and triathletes listening. And we know that recovery and regeneration is one of the things that’s so important for all of us at all ages. And the way that we recover and we regenerate is through sleep. You know, when we sleep, our brains wash themselves out. We’ve learned about the the glial lymphatic system over the last few years, which is the system inside the brain that washes the brain out. We’ve learned about how growth hormone is released from a structure that and that growth hormones circulates throughout the body while we sleep. And that’s what repairs and regenerates all of our tissues, like our muscles and our bones and our skin and our eyes. And then we have hormones that are controlled and regulated, like leptin and ghrelin, and those are the hormones that control our appetites that we’re better able to make good decisions around food the next day.

So when we sleep, when we actually take that time to recover and regenerate, obviously, it improves our immune system, which is incredibly important right now as everyone’s paying attention to that. But it also improves like the way that your brain works. It also speeds your recovery from exercise. It also makes you able to learn better and be more creative. So it’s pretty cool to see what’s happening. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s it’s just so it’s been such a weird experience. And that’s what a lot of friends have said for them. It’s just really, really weird. But I think I know when everything goes back to normal, will we sleep as much as we are now? I’m not sure. Probably not because we we will get busier with work and all that sort of stuff. But I think it’s been a really, you know, a real awakening for for a lot of people. And one of the I guess that the crux of the book is bookies really about doing less to achieve more.

And one of the things I find going on holidays and last year went on a trip to the Maldives for a surf trip. And what I found there was like all we did during the day was wake up, eat, surf and just and relax. And I sort of just keep on top of emails and that sort of thing. But from that, I found that I was able to choose the one or two things for for the business for effort of swimming that were most important going forwards. And I wrote these things down and wrote an action plan and the steps that I needed to do to achieve them. And it allowed me to get really clear on the things that were important going forwards. And that was by doing very, very little for a week and just taking a step back and getting out of my normal environment and normal routine. And how do you like to to use that that way of doing things like doing less to achieve more? What how do you use that in your day to day life? Yeah, I’m also like I’m a business person.

And so I’m usually firing on all cylinders and, you know, driving forwards as fast as I can. So I get what you experienced in Maldives. Judith, my wife took me there three years ago, and it was, you know, the 10th anniversary and it was one of the most spectacular places I’ve ever been in my entire life. We did a lot of diving, not surfing, but it was it was incredible. So imagine this. You’re getting a great night’s sleep. You’re eating incredibly healthy food. You’re out in the ocean. You’re out in nature. You’re exercising and you’re resting and in that rest time. Yeah, you got a clear email just to keep on top of things. But then that opens up hours a day for you to just basically daydream and contemplate and to when we have space in our lives, when we have space in terms of space, like actual space in location and also space in terms of time. When we open up space in our lives, we can start to fill it

with very interesting creativity. And with that, it happens like neurophysiologically, what’s going on is your brain waves are changing. Your brain is slowing down its activity levels. It’s relaxing a little bit. We shift from beta brain waves, which are these fast, sharp, quick movements of electricity throughout the course of the brain down into theta brain waves, which are slower, larger waves that are reflective of more sort of ideating creativity, daydreaming. And that’s where we get amazing insights about what we need to do differently about how we can solve problems, about how we can consider what it is that we’re doing in our lives. And we only have that opportunity when we pause, when we take a moment to consider what’s going on and maybe think about doing something a little bit differently, interesting the entire planet’s getting that opportunity right now because we’re confined and sheltering in place at home.

But when you’re on that beach, when you’re staring out at the ocean, when you’re watching the waves rhythmically or repetitively come to shore and you’re thinking about what you’re doing and really contemplating what’s important to you and opening up the gateway to contemplating that maybe there is a different way of doing things that you could then carry forwards into the future, I think you end up in a place where you have a lot more control over your life. And I think that a lot of people don’t realize just how much control we all have over our lives and that we can make the tough decisions and we can change the trajectory of our lives and we can do more of the things that we love to do like swimming and surfing and running a business that’s aligned with what it is that you care about or going to work, getting work done and then going to your kids sports games, right? Like whatever it is that matters to you

is what you can end up spending a lot more time on. So yeah, I think that what you experienced in Maldives was what a lot of people can experience when we pump the brakes a little bit, slow down, pause, breathe, give yourself a little bit of space in terms of location and time. And then all of a sudden you come up with whole new ideas about how to potentially run your life or overcome challenges or solve whatever problem is that you’re trying to deal with. Yeah, and I’ve been over the last few years one of the things I’ve had to get accustomed to is not feeling guilty when I’m not working. And I think I’m still probably going through that today but there’s this, I think we’ve been conditioned particularly from school, it’s like, yeah, if you’re not busy, if you’re not doing work then you’re not achieving anything. And it’s just, it’s not the case. It’s just something that we have been conditioned over over many years, but as you said,

we’re in full control of what we’re doing. And so if you wanted to quit your job tomorrow, you’ve got the choice to do that. I’m not saying come and do it but you’ve got the choice to do it and then you’ve got the choice to do whatever it is with your life. And I think it’s easy to lose sight of that when we’re going through the motions and we’re in our routine. And something like this where we actually get to take a step back and take a bird’s eye view of everything that’s happening. It’s a lot easier to see those things that are most important to us and see that, yeah, look, we actually do have full control of our lives and it’s not, it’s, we don’t need to do what it is that other people are expecting of us. It’s really in our full control. You know, that last thing that you said is probably the single most important thing that we’ve either of us have said so far in this conversation that is like, you don’t need to do what other people expect of you.

That is the key to this entire thing. When you let go of other people’s expectations, then all of a sudden you are free to do what it is that you want to do. And by other people’s expectations, like we’re talking about friends, family, co-workers,

society in general, like once you liberate yourself from trying to meet other people’s expectations, you can wear whatever clothes you wanna wear, you can do whatever work you wanna be doing, you can exercise as much as you wanna be doing, you can learn what you wanna do. And I think that that’s something that so many people struggle with in this era where we’re all, well, up until this point now, it seems so silly, but you know, in three weeks ago, there was, you’re trying to get likes on social media or you’re worried about how you’re perceived on whatever picture’s been taken of you. Like now that stuff just seems completely ludicrous and so short-sighted in the face of what, you know, the global sort of challenge that we’re all faced with at the moment. But yeah, once you liberate yourself from external validation, external rewards, you can shift towards intrinsic motivation, which in the sports psychology literatures

very consistently shown to be better at long-term motivation to do something. So yeah, pivot to what you want to do, think about what it is that you want to do, think about what it is that you love to do, what you’re great at, what brings you energy, what lights your fire and just spend your time on that as much as you possibly can. And then all of a sudden amazing things start happening in your life when you do that. And that kind of goes into one of the points that you’re talking about in the book, it’s talking about how to stop reacting and start being deliberate with the things that you’re doing. And I mean, it’s so funny, three weeks ago, it’s like the things in the book would be like, I’d say for 95% of people would be, probably not a challenge to do, but it’s something that is probably really, could be really beneficial in their lives. And now it’s like 95% of people are being forced to go through each of these,

a lot of these steps in the book. And for you, like how, what are some tools that you use to stop reacting to things that are happening day to day and be less reactive and more deliberate? Yeah, it’s so important. And I learned this from a gentleman named Sat Guru who’s an Indian gentleman who does some really interesting work and just reading some of his stuff and taking a couple of his online courses and working through some of his thinking. And what I learned from him was the idea of responsibility, so response dash ability versus reaction. And so so many of us, when something happens to us, let’s just say someone says something and you get frustrated with them for what they just said, we have this reaction to it. And the reaction could be emotional, it could be something that you think, it could be something that you do. So it’s feel, think, do type, explosion that can come out of you. And so that usually doesn’t go well.

Like there’s been so many times when I’ve composed emails to someone and I ask my wife, I’m like, Judith, do you think I should send this? And she looks at me and goes, you absolutely must delete that email right now. Go to sleep, try it again tomorrow because if you send that right now you’re gonna be undoing the damage for months, if not years. And so reaction usually causes problems unless it’s sort of like you’re reacting from the start on a gun, to go at the swim meet, that’s a positive reaction in its reaction time. But like when we’re reacting to things that are coming at us very quickly, that is usually extraordinarily problematic unless it’s a trained response that you’re deliberately trying to do. Military examples for military, for example. But what we find works so much better for people when you actually train this in is to respond. Respond to the threat, respond to the challenge. And response means that you have this responsibility

and like response dash ability, not response ability. And so what you do in that case is you consider what’s happened, you outline a course of action, you think about what you need to do and then you actually are able to do the right thing, not the quick thing. And there’s this idea called metacognition and metacognition is thinking about how you think it’s another brain state and generally it’s associated with alpha brain waves which are sort of not quite as fast as beta waves when you’re hustling and performing and not quite as slow as theta waves when you’re ideating. This is sort of the learning and reflection zone and the contemplation and strategic thinking zone. So you’re relaxed but you’re definitely consciously considering what to do. And a really cool study on this and I can flip all these references to you afterwards for the show notes, but there was a really cool study that looked at students who practiced metacognition

thinking about how you think. And when they ask themselves what do you need to do, how are you going to do it and why are you going to do it? They improved their performance on assignments and tests by three to 5%. Now that might not seem like a lot three to 5% but if you add that up over time it can end up in a very, very different place in a very, very different mark. And so if you’re thinking about something right now and there’s a challenge that you’re faced with that simple pattern of asking yourself what do I want to have happen? How am I going to get there? And so what am I going to do basically? How am I going to get there? And why do I need to do it? Can make all the difference in the world in terms of guiding your actions. And what we can control is very limited. Like literally all that we can actually control is what we think, say and do. And when we practice metacognition that enables us to take control

of what we think, say and do. And that establishes a radical level of control over what we’re able to do in our lives. And then we begin to move in the direction that we want to be moving in very, very consistently rather than just reacting to the environment and getting pushed around by life. Which is I think how I was probably operating up until very, very recently. So this is not easy to do and it takes practice and work but the outcome is that you end up totally moving in the direction of what you want to be doing and loving every second of it as much as possible. I really like those three questions that they pose to the students. Looking at what, I guess how we kind of structure the clinics that we do and even just looking at how I’ve been going about, I’ve been surfing a lot more and one of the things that I noticed, so we’ve got this wave pool near the airport that just got built so it’s like a, you can basically book in for an hour

and you end up catching 14 to 16 waves an hour. So it’s the first wave pool in Australia and I’ve been going there quite a bit and I’ve noticed that my surfings improved dramatically but one of the things that really made a difference was they’ve got these photographers there and they’re there every session they’re taking photos and they post them online. And one of the things I noticed about my technique in when I was surfing was one of the first things was I wasn’t looking at where I wanted to go which is one of the key things on being able to turn and I was always looking down. So over the last couple of sessions I was looking at where I wanted to go and that really just helped me shift my weight and be able to do tighter turns and to be able to surf better. And the way, what I’m sort of getting at here is in terms of my surfing technique which can really relate to your swim technique is like, all right, what do you want to do?

Well, I want to surf better. All right, what does that look like? Well, for me I want to be able to do tighter turns, I want to be able to do some different maneuvers and what do I need to be able to do that? And so kind of breaking it down and actually having this environment in the wave pool where you can really practice this stuff and you can learn it and you can repeat these movements over and over again. My surfings improves dramatically over the course of the last three months or so. And when we’re looking at running clinics, the way that I like to sort of explain things is, all right, well, the goal is you want to swim fast and you generally want to swim longer. That’s what most people want to be able to do. And so we try and keep it really simple. We look at how you can do that while you can reduce drag, increase propulsion and you can also look at your stroke rate as another lever that you’ve got to work on.

And then we just kind of go through all of the drills, all of the ways that you can do each of those things. And so just keep it really simple and thinking about what you’re actually doing. I think it’s such a great approach and I just said that three to 5% can really accumulate over time. So it’s really interesting to see that, just actually thinking a bit more about what you’re doing. And I mean, for you, your background was swimming and you had quite a bad accident when you were younger and then you came, you were able to sort of come back from that accident. Do you want to talk a little bit about that and how this sparked your want to sort of learn more about all of this stuff? Yeah, sure, since we’re talking about surfing, might as well go there.

Also, just to like leverage off the analogy that you just threw out there before we move on, but when you talked about seeing those pictures of yourself and noticing that you were looking down and you needed to be looking where you wanted to go rather than where your board was at, I mean, that’s a perfect example of reaction versus response, right? Like if you, the threat is you might fall off your board or what’s going to happen to you in the immediate environment, that’s the threat. So you’re looking there as a result, you’re reacting to what’s going on and maybe you’re not surfing to your capabilities. But as soon as you extend your vision beyond the immediate and you start to think about where do I want to be going in a 10th of a second, half a second or one or two seconds down the road, it shifts you out of that reaction mode into the response mode and you’re suddenly doing very, very different things and you’re able to execute a whole bunch of new skills

that you wouldn’t be able to do before. So this applies to absolutely everything. It applies to business, music, drama, sports, arts, math, like all of it. So it’s super cool that just, you know, even in a couple of minutes we were able to throw a few ideas out there about and surfing analogy is perfect because that’s what you asked me about when I was younger, I was a swimmer with the Canadian youth team and I was with my club team down in Florida. We were training in March when I was like 15 years old and we buddy, a bunch of my friends and I went out into the waves to do some body surfing before the meet we had that afternoon. And so while we were out there, it was a particularly big wave on a particularly a beach with a bad break that was like quite steep. And so I just got picked up by the wave and just driven into the sand, ended up breaking my neck in a number of different places. So I got out of the water,

my muscles all seized up to hold the bones in place. I wasn’t paralyzed, managed to get to the hospital and then once in the hospital, they x-rayed me and I saw all of the, they saw all of the broken bones in my neck. So that was obviously pretty difficult to have happen when you’re 15 years old, but spent three months in a halo brace and then had neurosurgery to repair all of the bones and put some metal in my neck to hold it together. Neurosurgeon said you’re never gonna swim again. I was basically like, screw that, I’m gonna swim. So that spent the summer in physiotherapy and then came back the following year, got back into the pool and just sort of swam my way into shape, rode my bike into shape, you know, the stationary bike cause it couldn’t really turn my head too much, lifted weights and just, you know, got myself back and assuming was able to sort of swim up to the national final level and in Canada and swam all the way through college,

which was great. Most of my friends made the Olympic team and I ended up having a cool experience at the Barcelona Olympics with Canadian television and subsequently in 2010 and 2012 when we were in Vancouver and London as a commentator. So that was super cool and I had my Olympic experience. That was really great. But that whole breaking my neck thing really started to spark an interest in how the body worked. So I ended up taking kinesiology in my undergrad while I was swimming and then after that did a masters in PhD in physiology and sort of transferred things from swimming into cystic fibrosis, which was a respiratory disease. We applied what we learned about swimming to help kids with breathing problems. Cause, you know, swimming, you can’t breathe whenever you want. You’ve got to breathe in time with the stroke. So we applied that to help kids with CF and then that led to an understanding of what was going on with children who have cancer

and go through stem cell treatments, which then affect the lungs. So we, you know, looked at that. So it’s been a long journey into this world of the human body, but it’s pretty fascinating. And, you know, I’m still involved in swimming to Iron Trathlon. And I was training fireman this summer. I’m actually probably training better now that all of this stuff has shut down than I was before. But who knows when we’re going to have the next Iron Man, probably be 2021 before I do one. But yeah, swimming’s been part of my life and training and science of the human body and physiology and all that sort of stuff and continue to play in that world. And it’s just been, I’m very, very fortunate. Like if you asked me to go back right now and be like, if you, you know, 15 minutes before that happened, if someone came up to me and said, you know what? You can change the trajectory of life by not going in the water and not breaking your neck.

I think right now, knowing what I know, I would probably go in and go through the whole thing again, cause it’s put me in a very cool direction with where I’ve ended up. And that’s how I’m trying to look at all of this coronavirus stuff. It’s like, right now, everything’s really strange, really weird and it’s, and nothing is normal. And it’s very easy to kind of get down about that and not being able to go out and see friends and do all the normal things. But then six months, 12 months and 10 years in the future, I think we’re going to look back at this time in a way and go, well, wasn’t that an amazing time I think we might miss a lot of the things that we’re doing now, where spending more time with the family, going a little bit slower in life. Like that stuff, there’s a good chance that we will look back at it and go, that was pretty incredible. Aside from all of the obvious stuff that’s happening with it. So I’m just trying to look at the positives

in the time where it’s very easy to be negative about it.

Couldn’t agree with you more. Even just like talking to neighbors as they walk by, you can really see who’s taking this as an opportunity and really see who’s struggling with the negativity of it. Just now I was outside and someone, one of my neighbors was like, this just continues to get worse and worse and worse. Like now it’s another week, we’re going to be isolated. And she said, how are you guys doing? I’m like, I think we’re doing great. Like we’re healthy, we’re happy. We’re doing school at home. We’re all exercising every single day. Like we’re doing story time. Like we’re actually enjoying this time. Again, you know, fully respecting people are sick. People are going to die. This is very, very, very challenging. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to be affected by this. Like I don’t want to minimize that in any way, shape, or form. But in the microscope of my little world in this house, we are trying to take the time to have the family dinners

which we weren’t doing before because I was traveling and everyone’s quote unquote so busy, you know, swim practices at night for my daughter and stuff like that. We’re reading the books. I recently have been taking a lot of courses on photography at night just for fun, to learn something new was not doing that before. And you’re right, I think we will look back upon this as a time that provided us with a new perspective

on what was going on and a gratitude, a level of gratitude that I don’t think existed three weeks ago. And it’s amazing how people come together in this time. Like even in the United Kingdom, the National Health Service put out a call for people to help elderly people in the country. And so 400,000 people in the United Kingdom this week volunteered to go help elderly people, maybe go grab them some groceries or go do a couple errands, maybe go pick up some medicine. But 400, almost half a million people volunteered to go help people in the community. That would not have happened three weeks ago. Right, if the NHS put out a call for people to go help elderly people in the community, they would not have gotten the response that they got now. And I think that we should, as much as possible, take care of ourselves, be safe, be healthy, pay attention to all of the things we need to do in order to minimize the effect of this globally,

like social distancing and physical isolation, so that we flatten the curve and we minimize the duration of this crisis. But at the same time, also pay attention to the fact that we can be grateful for what we have, pay attention to what we have, given that so much of it’s suddenly been taken away and really take this time, like this is the time to get healthier, this is the time to eat better, this is the time to take up meditation, this is the time to practice your ability to stay focused, this is the time to have those conversations with your family members who are with you. Pick up the phone, make that phone call to a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while, because I’m sure that they’re looking for something to do and getting a call from you at that moment might be something that’s really cool for them to experience, so I think that you’re right, we’re gonna look back upon this and it’s going to be obviously a time of tremendous pain,

but also a time of tremendous opportunity. Completely agree. And one of the things I was reading about in the book was about focusing your attention and I mean, I’m a great procrastinator, I can do that really, really well. And I remember, I don’t know if it was a video or a podcast I was listening to, but it’s one day I was having trouble just sitting down and doing the thing that I really wanted to do. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but I’d put it off for days and I remember hearing someone say, whatever task you’ve got in front of you, do it. And that means shut your phone off, get rid of all distractions, just sit down and do the task. And typically when you do that, a task that could take four or five hours, I can get it done in 30 to 40 minutes if I’m focused purely on that task. An example was this morning I got up at six o’clock an hour before the kids woke up and we’ve got this, I’m running a live training,

like a webinar for our members. And I was able to sit down, schedule it, put together about 80% of the slides and it didn’t take that long, but I’d sort of, I’d sat down and I couldn’t really get much done. I got about 5% done over the course of four or five days but I decided no, I’ll just wake up early and do it before the kids are up when there’s no distraction. So I left my phone, didn’t check my phone when I woke up, I just got up, had a coffee and just got to work. And it was so, like, and now I feel great about it because I’ve finally got it done. So what are some strategies that you like to use to be able to focus your attention and do the thing that’s in front of you? Oh yeah, a lot of people consider, I’ve been speaking about the book and saying, okay, so you’re talking about like, rest, refocus, recharge, that means slowing down and yes, that’s all true. But I also believe that we need to go absolutely flat out at certain times,

like perform at 100%, perform at 110%, get the work done, do the presentation, hammer the practice in the pool, like do the training, execute like crazy because we need to do that in our lives. Like whether you’re a musician, if you’re an actor, if you’re a business person, if you’re an athlete, whatever, there’s moments to perform, there’s moments to get the job done. And I think there’s a way of doing that that is hyper effective. And I think that there’s a way of doing that that’s exhausting and the way to do it that’s hyper effective is once you start into it, getting rid of every single distraction, having a laser clear focus on what it is that you want to do and getting that in front of you, eliminating all distractions. When you’re working on a project, turn off email, turn off messaging, turn off social, get rid of your phones, you can’t see it. Turn off all of the audio notifications on all of your devices forever,

so they’re not going off, they’re not pinging you and you’re not a slave to someone else’s attention demands. You are controlling your own attention so that you can drive it into whatever it is that you’re trying to accomplish at that time. I’m hyper busy, I’ve got a lab at a hospital, I’ve got a business that I’m running, I write books, I’ve got a podcast and social media flying around, but when it’s time to get stuff done, I’m pretty good at turning off absolutely everything and deeply focusing on what it is that I’m trying to accomplish. And I think that that’s something that we can practice. So basically it’s like the opposite of multitasking, right, so often we think that we can accomplish a lot of multitasking, do many things at once, that just leads to exhaustion. It’s hyper inefficient for the brain in the way that it works. And when we eliminate those distractions and do one thing and basically single task,

we’re able to do a lot more in less time. The other really interesting thing to think about is like, when are you at your best during the day? For me, I know that mentally I’m at my best sort of 6.30 in the morning until 10, 10.30, maybe 11, so I do all of my work at that time. And I’ve actually in this time right now where I’ve got more freedom, I’ve moved my workouts the afternoon and I’m feeling so much better when I wake up, sort of get myself organized, take a shower, meditate for a couple of minutes and then dive into work and just crush it when I’m totally clear. And then once I get a little bit burned out on work, grab my IT, rest for a little while, clear my head, do a workout and then I’m good again for a little bit more later on. But eliminating the distractions, thinking about when you are at your best, I’m a morning person, but there’s night owls that would work better in the evening. So pick and choose which one of those

that you think you go into and do your best work, do your most important work at those times. And I think that if you eliminate distractions and align your work with your circadian rhythms that you’ll be noticing that you have a lot more energy, you’re getting a lot more done with a lot less fatigue, you’re gonna become a lot more effective in whatever it is that you’re trying to do and that can make a massive difference for you. One of the weird experiences I had recently was I was in Sydney a few weeks back and I was staying in the city, I had a conference there and I got up early, five o’clock and got an Uber down to the Bondi Icebergs Pool which is that ocean pool. Favorite pool in the world, love that place. So it’s unreal and I went down there and I trained with the squad and went for a swim, got out of the water and I couldn’t find my phone and looking for it, couldn’t find it anywhere. And so I asked at the desk, they didn’t have it.

I thought it’s either been taken from my bag which was unlikely, especially at that time of morning or I’ve left it in the Uber and that’s what I eventually found out had happened. So I’m in Bondi, I needed to figure out a way to get back to the city with no communication, no maps or anything. So look, there’s a lot more remote places that could be stuck but it was just, it was a really freeing experience. Like my mind eventually after I sort of got over the whole, oh crap, I’ve lost my phone, I really sort of need it for the next couple of days after I got over that, being in Bondi and then just having to figure out, okay, how do I get home, all right? I went to a bus stop, I got that as far as I could and then I found at that station that that stopped at then I had to get a train to the closest train station and this is just, I actually had to talk to people, ask them where does this bus go to this location

and then when I’m sitting on that bus, I’m looking at people, 90 cent of people are on their phone and there was maybe one or two that weren’t now just sort of wandering off into space and it was actually a really freeing experience like my mind was able to just take this big, big deep breath and then exhale and for the rest of the morning while I didn’t have my phone, it was actually really nice, it was peaceful and I thought, okay, I need to do that a little bit more often because I’m just a lot more aware of what’s happening and you’re actually looking at other people and you’re noticing a lot of things that are happening around you whereas with my phone in hand, I’m typically just, I’m focused in on, I’ve got this routine where you open my phone, it’s check emails, check social media and just going through that routine day after day. So what I’ve tried to do since then is just turn my phone off and just leave it in my bedroom

or leave it somewhere where I’m not looking at it for at least an hour at a time and surfing I think is a great thing for doing that where if I’m in the water for two or three hours, I’m not looking at it, not checking it and the mind just really opens up and then get a lot more ideas about what you can do, what I can do with my swimming and training and then with effortless swimming and it’s a great way I’ve found to just be able to be a lot more creative. Brent, that’s so important and I love the fact that it took you losing your phone to make that happen. I also was out paddle boarding this year and dropped my phone in the lake. Why I had it with me? I don’t know, I don’t know what I did. It was, and it was dead obviously. So I had a few days without it and it was great. It was great. And I realized, oh my gosh, I actually don’t think I really need it that much. So I’ve been trying to take time to not use my phone to turn it off.

Little things like when you’re having dinner with your family, make sure all the phones are away. That’s an easy place to get started. One hour a day, put away your phone and just don’t like turn it off, put it away, get away from your device, whether that’s you go for a walk without it, which is a radical idea these days. And it’s also one of the great things about swimming. Like you cannot take it into the pool with you. You are free from it at that moment in time. And another really cool thing people can experiment with is a weekend a month. So one weekend a month, turn off your device. See if you can get through an entire weekend without a screen and that’s a huge challenge. But believe me, it will open up lots of space for journaling, for running, swimming, biking, all the things that we love to do if you’re listening to this podcast.

Spending time with friends, going for coffee, like whatever it happens to be, you will have a lot more time when you’re not mindlessly scrolling through social. I’ve summarized it as sort of the one, two, three tactics, like one hour a day, just disconnect two days a month, disconnect. And then if you can get to three weeks a year when you go on vacation, like you said to Maldives, and turn it off while you’re on vacation, just put the auto responder on, let everybody know you’re gonna be on vacation, and see how good your team is at handling business while you’re away. That can also be quite liberating and freeing once you realize that you can actually go away and the world will continue without you for a few days while you’re away and not necessarily checking your email. So a few strategies for you, but the one, two, three practice is something that people might be able to use to put that idea that you brought up into practice.

And what do you think it is about the water that aside from obviously no phones and a lot less electronics in the areas, what do you think it is about the water that helps people sort of, I guess, meditate in a way and feel and mentally just come out so refreshed? Like I was talking to the mum of a kid that I’ve been doing some coaching with and he hadn’t been able to swim for, it was only a week that he couldn’t get in the pool and then he finally found a friend where they have an outdoor 25-meter pool in their backyard. So he’s been able to swim there by himself to just, well, all the pools are closed. And she said to me that he was just a different kid as soon as he got out of the pool after that week off. And like it’s, I mean, I know what that feels like. It’s if I’m out of the pool for two or three days and then I finally get in, it’s just, I’m able to just feel much different. And I think it’s, yeah, it’s certainly something to do with exercise,

but there’s something about being in the water, whether it’s at the beach or in the pool that can really have that effect. And what do you think it is? I don’t know specifically what it is. We know that it exists. They just think about real estate prices. You know, if you’re right on the beach, you’ve got a certain price. If you’re across the road, it’s much, much lower. You know, even in a hotel, ocean facing views are priced higher than garden facing views. Like we know that when we look at the water, it makes us feel better. And I know as a swimmer that when I’m in the water, I am healthier and happier. Like everyone can identify that with that feeling of after a good swim, you get up out of the water and you just stand there and your body just feels so great. I think the person who has dug into this the most is Dr. Wallace Nichols. He wrote a book called Blue Mind, which gets into the psychology of being near water.

And that’s a fascinating read for everyone in the audience today, because if you’re into swimming and triathlon, that’s a window into your mind when it’s near water. So check that one out. But specifically, like what’s the neurophysiology of it? I’m not sure. I just know that I’ve gravitated to water my entire life. I know that when I’m in and around water, I am infinitely happier. I live on a beach here in Toronto, Canada. It’s right near downtown, but we wanted to be on the water because I know that’s where I’m happiest. When I’m paddle boarding, I don’t surf anymore because I broke my neck. When I’m open water swimming, I’m so happy. There’s a 50-meter outdoor pool near here that we swim in all summer long. It’s just spectacular. Obviously not in the winter in Canada, but yeah, when we’re near it, it just makes us feel better. We’re so lucky to have this sport of swimming and open water swimming in triathlon because there’s unique benefits to being in the water.

Probably worth digging into that a little bit more. Maybe that’s the next book. I’m not sure, but yeah, it’s an incredible sport and the water is definitely something to understand. I guess the final thing to leave with is the new evidence that’s coming out around this is sort of emerging. There’s a research project going on right now in Los Angeles with soldiers who have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq, who have had horrific post-traumatic stress disorder, and what they’ve done is created something called the Veteran Surf Project where they’re taking veterans with PTSD out into the waves and evaluating surfing as a tool to help people to mitigate their anxiety and depression and panic and the other conditions that are associated with PTSD. And they’re finding that the surfing has tremendous benefits, not just while they are in the ocean, but for hours afterwards. So that’s an interesting project for people

to look up around the psychological benefits of being in and around the water, especially for people who have undergone some sort of trauma.

There’s certainly something to it. And I got to go for an open water swim last week with some friends and after being out of the water for a week and it was just, it was awesome day. It was sunny, water was really clear. Finally got to catch up with three friends. Like it was only a small swim that we did, but just afterwards like we were all like, we messaged each other at night. This is probably five, six hours after the swim and we’re just like, how good was that swim? Like it was just, we really appreciated being able to do it when we, it’s not something that we’re able to do for a while. So yeah, there’s certainly something to it. And I’ve even seen a lot of friends that don’t necessarily, they’re triathletes, but they don’t necessarily love the swim part of it. They’ve been saying, I’ve really missed the pool. Like I want to get back in the pool. So that’ll certainly be a positive that’ll come from it. Where I think people will start to actually appreciate it

when they’re not able to do it. I know those triathletes. I know you guys, I know who you are. You’re gonna love it. When next time you’re back in the pool, when you remember how it feels, get back in and just swim. Like don’t worry about the black line. Don’t worry about, you know, that just going up and down the pool. Bring your attention right back into the present moment and how does it feel to be in the water? Your body has supported your weight list. How does it feel for the water to go over your skin? How does it feel as you’re moving down the pool and you can feel the water go from your head, through your chest, through your back, down over your quads and out off of your toes? And how does it feel with the water on your hand? When you get your hand in the right position, so you can actually put pressure on the water and move yourself forwards. And how does it feel when your muscles contract, when you’re swimming and when you take that deep breath

and you blow it out underneath the water and do that over and over and over again? Like it is an incredible feeling. And sometimes we get so caught up in the lactic acid or the sets or the training that we’re doing. All of this external stuff that we forget about it, you know what, it just feels really good to be in the water and to swim. After I quit swimming, after university, I don’t think I touched the water for like six years and then one day I jumped into the pool and I was like, oh my God, I totally forgot that I love to swim. I haven’t felt like this since I was like 14 years old. This is incredible. And ever since then, I am all over swimming in lakes, swimming in oceans, swimming with every marine creature that I can possibly find and also swimming in outdoor pools as often as possible. I don’t love indoor swimming quite as much. The smell of chlorine still gets me after all those years of 5 a.m. wake-ups

and all those sets that I did. But yeah, I think that there’s definitely something for all of us to take advantage of and to really lean into being quote-unquote somers or triathletes or people that are into endurance sports. It is an incredible thing for us, especially when we bring our attention right back into the instantaneous present moment. And sometimes that’s what it takes to re-inspire us now that we’re all out of the pool because they’re all closed all over the world. You know, the next time that we get in, I’m sure it’s gonna be a pretty special moment for all of us. I’m putting together a six-week training program for when people are able to get back into the pool. And what you said about just remember how good it feels, like that sort of prompted me to think like this, with this six-week program, do not worry about what your times are doing for the next six weeks because there’s a good chance, a really high chance at least for the next three

or four weeks that you’re not going to be swimming anywhere close to what you were before. Even if you’ve been doing all of the dryland stuff and keeping fit, it’ll take you a while to get back into it and to be able to maintain some good times over some distance. So if you can just think about how it feels and it helps you so much with your technique as well when you haven’t got the distraction of your watch or you’re looking too much at the time, just think about how it feels. You might be thinking about your stroke. That is gonna get you so much further, especially in the first six weeks of when you do get back into the pool, then worrying about how much you have slowed down in that time because I think in six weeks time, and this was sort of my benchmark for when I was, when I went to university, like I’d be doing a bit of rowing and a little bit of gym work, but we weren’t swimming much. But then I came back during the,

I think it was a mid-semester break and I trained really hard for six weeks with my old squad and I was able to get back to pretty much where I was when I finished school, when I finished me competitively. And so with six weeks of some decent training, you can really get some good fitness back, but the first three weeks or so was horrendous. I felt like crap, I was slow. But after that, like it does come back pretty quickly after those initial couple of weeks. It’s process not outcome, right? Like you’re not worried about what the time is, you’re not worried about your fitness, you’re just simply back in the pool and swimming. So take off the watch, turn off the pace clock, just get through the miles, fix your technique, enjoy the process of getting fitter again. And ultimately, I mean, we’re all going to be hopefully doing something like this for the rest of our lives. We’re going to be racing for the rest of our lives.

We’re going to be testing ourselves for the rest of our lives. Like there is no end point here, which is all about process. So I guess there is an end point, but we’re not too worried about that. You know, that’s like long, long, long, hopefully like when we’re 120 or whatever. And then we can just upload our consciousness into the cloud and carry on. But like it’s the process of getting fitter. It’s the process of going to practice. It’s the process of doing the sets, of fixing the technique, of building the discipline, of getting mentally stronger, of eating the healthier foods, right? Like it’s just process, process, process. And the people who are enjoying the process are the ones who end up doing best. Like Michael Phelps is a great example of that, actually just popped into my brain. Like people forget that, you know, after the 2012 Olympics, even though he’d won, you know, a record number of medals and had a chance to go to London

and while I watched a lot of swimming, I saw him swim and he was very businesslike. Like he got the job done, but he was not a happy person. Like he wasn’t touching anyone on the podium. He was just getting the job done. He was at work and you could tell that he was interested in getting medals and doing the sponsorship stuff and all that sort of thing. And then two years later in 2014, he was deeply unhappy. He really struggled with mental health and he was depressed and even ended up being suicidal at one point as coach got him checked into rehab because he’d been abusing alcohol and drugs. And while he was in rehab, he went one day to the little tiny pool that was in the rehab facility, put on his shorts and went for a swim and rediscovered the fact that he just loved to swim. He just loved to train. And he said he got so caught up in the money, the medals, the fortune, the fame, the sponsorships, all of that stuff that he completely forgot

about the love of swimming. And if you look at him in 2016 in Rio, just look at the pictures of him on the blocks. Like he’s happy. Look at the picture of him in the water after he wins medals. He’s smiling ear to ear. Those pictures do not exist from 2012. Like he was not happy. He was not hugging people. He was not high-fiving. He was not having a good time. So even Michael Phelps has to rediscover this love of swimming and the practice of training, right? Like the practice of the mindset of process, not outcome. So if it can happen to Michael Phelps, it can happen to any of us. And it’s something we all need to work on and play with and learn from and move our lives forwards. What a great place to end it. Greg, thanks so much for being on the podcast. Your book is called Rest, Refocus and Recharge. And we will put all the links in our show notes to where’s the best place for people to get in contact with you?

And I know you’re working on a couple of ways that people can learn the things that you’re teaching online. So you’re not speaking as much at the moment, but working on the online stuff. Yeah, so where’s the best place to get in contact? Yeah, if anyone wants to get in touch with me, the best place is through my website, drgregwells.com. You can check me out on social at drgregwells. We have a new app coming out soon called Vivio. It’s Latin for life that will use Apple Watch and iPhone to track your physiology and give you individualized recommendations. Pretty cool app. So we’re super psyched about that. It’s got sleep tracking and stress. So check that out as well. And if you want to pick up my book, I would be infinitely honored. And that’s on Amazon. So you just search Dr. Greg Wells on Amazon. You’ll find all the books there. Awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. I just had so much fun

and great to talk to swimmers. So it’s all good. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.