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Four Brain and Energy Hacks for Better Learning

January 11, 2022 by Eva Keiffenheim


Use these mental and physical shortcuts to increase learning efficiency.

Geralt on Pixabay

People tend to believe the more hours you learn, the better you become. And while the time you practice is essential, it’s only one part of the equation.

By gaining a deeper understanding of how the brain processes information, you can make all sorts of improvements in how you learn.

While there is no single solution, reading more than 40 books on learning has taught me there are general tips that apply to most people.

If you want to optimize your brain function and energy levels, you can use the following mental and physical tricks. Here are five evidence-based hacks to help supercharge your brain’s learning potential.


1) Augment Your Memory With This Free Tool

Ever wondered why you forget certain details over time? There’s nothing wrong with your brain — it’s human to forget information after specific periods of time.

But you can interrupt this so-called forgetting curve with a specific practice.

Forgetting Curve with Spaced Repetition (Source: Icez at English Wikipedia).

Spaced practice is the holy grail in terms of learning strategies to better remember and retain information.

All you have to do is repeat the same piece of information across increasing intervals.

“Spaced practice, which allows some forgetting to occur between sessions, strengthens both the learning and the cues and routes for fast retrieval,” learning researcher Roediger and psychologist McDaniel write.

Forgetting is essential for learning.

Spaced repetition helps you make the most from it.

To apply this hack, you don’t need to write flashcards. You can use existing, free, software that is optimized for interrupting your forgetting and strengthening your learning.

Anki is the best tool for applying spaced repetition (despite its outdated user- interface design).

Use Anki to effectively learn a language, study for exams, remember people’s names and faces, improve your geography skills, learn long poems, or remember everything you want for your entire life.

You can save time by using pre-built Anki decks, so you don’t have to create the cards by yourself.

A free, spaced-repetition tool (Source: Anki).

If you want to use spaced practise for language learning, you can also check out Lingvist or Memrise. Lingvist helped me learn 5000 Spanish words within three months.


2) Use These 4 Steps to Gain Momentum

“I’ll always be a procrastinator,” a friend told me while we were co-working.

I don’t believe in “natural” procrastinators. It’s either a failure of planning or a lack of motivation for the task (which often results from false planning).

Our brain is designed to solve problems. But to harness its power, the problem, time frame, and intention need to be clear.

What helped me the most in my learning journey is the following simple three-step process.

Make your learning goal achievable

If your goal is too big, you’ll never tackle it. Break your learning goals into micro-steps and focus on completing just the initial part of the task.

When I got accepted for an exchange semester in Santiago de Chile, the condition was to have a C1 Spanish level. At that time, I was at A1, and there were only six months left. What has helped me was breaking down the goal into achievable micro-steps.

If your goal is to learn Spanish, focus on learning 30 new words a day. If you want to write your thesis, focus on reading and summarizing five papers a day. Make the sub-steps so small you can’t help but start learning.

Set a time limit

If your task can take endless hours, you might never want to start working on it. Thoughts such as “It will take forever” or “I’ll never be able to do this” can prevent you from actually starting.

An easy yet powerful trick is to restrict yourself to the learning time.

James Clear writes: “Small measures of progress help to maintain momentum over the long-run, which means you’re more likely to finish large tasks.”

I always work in 50-minute chunks. Even if the overall project takes 5 hours, I won’t attempt to tackle it in one sitting. There’s nothing more encouraging than meeting your learning goal again and again.

Be clear about your intention

One of the most important things when you’re learning is having a clear intention.

Intentions help you not get distracted by the outcome and stay on track. They are commitments that you make by yourself, to yourself, for yourself.

Whenever you sit down, think about what you want to have learned in this specific period of time. This way, you make effective learning a game that you’re playing.

Reflect on your learning session

While this step might seem like it’s slowing you down, the opposite is true.

Progress starts with self-awareness. There is nothing more instructive than learning from your experience.

Metacognition Cycle. (Source: Abhilasha Pandey on the progressive teacher).

3) How You Can Reboot Your Brain During the Day

Do you ever feel like your brain is foggy? Even if you’re not learning all day, your brain is constantly processing information.

Learning legend Dr Barbaray Oakley explains how your brain creates metabolic toxins while being awake.

They’re flushed out only while you sleep.

Sleep is your superpower to keep your brain clean and healthy.

Sleep is crucial for your memory and learning process. Sleep improves your ability to learn, recall information, and solve problems.

During sleep, your brain cells shrink. This creates space between them so that fluid flows through them and takes the toxins away.

Moreover, according to researchers from Germany, the brain evaluates memories during sleep and retains those pieces of information that are most relevant for you.

That’s why for most people, the brain feels sharpest after waking up.

But what if you could wake up twice a day?

Taking a nap after a learning session is one of the best ways to create mental capacity and manifest what you learned. You can get a tiny portion of these benefits by taking a nap during the day.


“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” ― Jim Rohn


4) The Most Transformative Thing to Improve Your Brain Function

Neuroscientist Dr Wendy Suzuki used to sit, read, and study for hours. She published well-respected articles and was on her way to becoming a renowned memory researcher.

Still, she felt something was off.

Out of personal interest, Dr Suzuki joined all fitness classes she could find. The effects were transformative.

“After every sweat-inducing workout that I tried, I had this great mood boost and this great energy boost. And that’s what kept me going back to the gym,” she says in her TED talk. “I was able to focus and maintain my attention for longer than I had before. “

Because of the benefits she felt, Dr Suzuki did something unusual for researchers. She changed her research field — from memory pioneer to exercise explorer.

Dr Suzuki says exercise is the most transformative thing that you can do to your brain: “Moving your body has immediate, long-lasting and protective benefits for your brain. And that can last for the rest of your life.”

But how does exercise transform your brain? She shares the three main changes:

  1. Immediate attention increase
    A single workout will immediately increase your levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin and noradrenaline. This, in turn, improves your ability to shift and focus attention for at least two hours following your workout.
  2. Memory enhancement
    Long-term exercise changes the hippocampus (critical for your capability to form and absorb new long-term memories). You produce new brain cells that improve your long-term memory.
  3. Protective brain effects
    Your brain is like a muscle. The more you’re exercising, the bigger and stronger your hippocampus and prefrontal cortex (critical for attention, decision-making, and focus) gets. The two areas will grow and slow down the effects of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer and dementia.

Apart from Dr Suzuki’s research, there is more evidence on the effects of exercise on learning.

Researchers from Harvard have shown that exercise boosts verbal memory, thinking and learning. Plus, moving your body supports your ability to learn a new language by enhancing your ability to remember, recall and understand new vocabulary.

But don’t worry — you don’t need to become a marathon runner to unlock the benefits of exercise. As a rule of thumb, you want to exercise three to four times a week for at least 30 minutes.


Conclusion

There are so many excellent cognitive tips and tricks out there, but they’re only helpful if you apply them. Try the hacks you’re curious about, and stick with the ones that work for you.

  1. Use spaced-repetition software to enhance your memory
  2. Split your learning goals into micro-steps, set a time limit and intention, and reflect on your learning practice
  3. Get enough sleep every night and take a nap during the day
  4. Don’t sit at your desk for long hours — include regular exercise to boost your brain

May you enjoy your learning journey đꙂ

“Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, and a provision in old age.” — Aristotle


Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

Subscribe free to The Learn Letter. I read a book and 50 articles a week, and each Wednesday, you’ll receive the best in your inbox. This newsletter will make you find tools and resources that help you on your path to health, wealth, and wisdom.

Filed Under: đź§  Learning Hacks Tagged With: health, learning, tutorial

What I Learned from Meditating Every Day for 2193 Days

August 17, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim


Training your mind can transform your life.

Image created by the author via Canva.

It’s winter 2013, and I’m twenty years old. I’m walking through a corridor at university, heading towards my very first psychologist appointment. I’m hopeful because I don’t know yet that the doctor will diagnose severe depression and ask me to quit my studies.

It’s in this moment over my hopefulness that I wonder how I lost control over my life. I hate my job. My roommate just kicked me out, and my boyfriend left me. I feel unworthy, lonely, and lost.

“Time doesn’t heal. It’s what you do with time,” Edith Eger wrote. Weeks went by, but I still wished to get sick, so I had a reason to stay in bed. I had no courage for any kind of introspection.

Today, like most mornings this year, I woke up smiling. I love my life.

Meditation is a powerful way to heal. Here’s what I learned from meditating every day for six years.


Expect unexpected benefits

Athletes meditate to improve their focus, stock traders to circumvent cognitive biases, and CEOs to quieten their minds. I meditated to feel better.

People try meditation for various reasons. Most benefit from it beyond their expectations:

  • A meta-analysis with more than 1,200 adults found meditation can decrease anxiety.
  • In a randomized controlled trial, researchers found that mindfulness meditation reduces loneliness and enhances social interactions.
  • A study from the University of North Carolina showed individuals who completed a meditation exercise had fewer negative thoughts when seeing negative images.
  • This 8-week study showed workers who did daily 13-minute meditations reported better well-being and less distress.

The most unexpected benefits for me were better sleep, a constant feeling of inner calm, and being able to let go of the things I can’t control. I’m less stressed because I understand stress is the difference between reality and how I want reality to be.

Your experience will vary. But no matter your reasons, meditation will help you advance in life and improve your well-being on surprising levels.

“It’s not an escape from reality. It’s getting in touch with reality at least for two hours a day. I actually observed reality as it is, while for the other 22 hours I get overwhelmed by emails and tweets and funny cat videos. Without the focus and clarity provided by this practice, I could not have written Sapiens and Homo Deus.”

— Yuval Noah Harari in an interview with Tim Ferriss


Training your mind equals mind transformation

Long before learning from Eckhart Tolle, Tara Brach, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Sadhguru, Deepak Chopra, and Jon Kabat-Zinn, I watched a TED talk by Buddhist monk and Dalai Lam interpreter Matthieu Ricard. He said:

“It’s more to say that mind training matters. That this is not just a luxury. This is not a supplementary vitamin for the soul. This is something that’s going to determine the quality of every instant of our lives.

We are ready to spend 15 years achieving an education. We love to do jogging, fitness. We do all kinds of things to remain beautiful.

Yet, we spend surprisingly little time taking care of what matters most — the way our mind functions — which, again, is the ultimate thing that determines the quality of our experience.”

One year from my psychologist’s diagnosis, my circumstances had changed. I had an exciting job in New Delhi and fell in love with a boy who will become my husband.

Yet, my inner state of mind hadn’t changed as much as I thought it would.

You can land a prestigious job, earn tons of money, and find a wonderful partner — if you don’t change your mind and the lens through which you look at life, none of it improves your well-being.

Once you’ve meditated for a few months, you can see and interrupt thought patterns before you chase them down the abyss. You can see worry and let it go without sticking to it all day.

Research shows your brain physically grows when you meditate. Gray matter concentration changes in brain regions involved in learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective-taking.

When you train your mind with meditation, you rewire your brain for well-being. Again Matthieu Ricard:

“Well-being is not just a mere pleasurable sensation. It is a deep sense of serenity and fulfillment. […] Now, it takes time because it took time for all those faults in our mind, the tendencies, to build up, so it will take time to unfold them as well.

But that’s the only way to go. Mind transformation — that is the very meaning of meditation.”


Meditate first thing in the morning

Even with the clear intention to meditate during the day, skipping the practice is easy. Meditating never feels urgent, and timebound to-do’s get in the way.

When your mind is in full-speed working mode, pausing becomes harder and harder. Once you’re in the monkey mind zone, it’s tough to zone out into the zen mode.

I agree with Naval Ravikant, who said: “Everyone says they do it, but nobody actually does. The real set of people who meditate on a regular basis, I’ve found, are pretty rare.”

My six-year experience taught me: If you don’t sit down first thing in the morning, you likely won’t meditate all day.

Here’s how you can trick yourself into sitting down every morning: Put your phone on flight mode before you go to sleep. Turn it on only after you meditated.

Dr. Nikole Benders-Hadi, a psychiatrist, says: “Immediately turning to your phone when you wake up can start your day off in a way that is more likely to increase stress and leave you feeling overwhelmed.”

If you have an old device (I use my old phone), install nothing but your meditation facilitator (YouTube, a timer, or a meditation app). Alternatively, you can download whatever you need to meditate on your current device to have it available offline.

Get out of bed, brush your teeth, drink a cup of water, and sit down on a pillow (not in your bed; you likely fall back to sleep).

“All of humanity’s problems stem from people’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” — Blaise Pascal


Happiness is the absence of desire

Before I meditated, I thought happiness is something you attain. I thought I’d be happy once I had a specific income or spend a vacation in Bali.

But the opposite is true. You’re truly content and happy when you’re mind is free from desire. You’re full of bliss when you stop wishing you’d rather be somewhere else, doing or having something different.

Happiness is a by-product of complete presence.

You’re truly happy when you silence your inner chatter. You feel content when you stop judging what you’re experiencing and just experience.

“When we do not expect anything, we can be ourselves.”

— Shunryu Suzuki


Never skip two days in a row

As with all new habits, building a meditation habit is hard first. It requires the willpower to sit down every day instead of keeping yourself busy.

Meditating is like running or weight lifting. The more days you skip, the harder it is to get back into the rhythm.

What helped me to build a habit was a 30-day challenge. I set the intention to meditate every day for 30 days using Headspace. The duration didn’t matter. I started with 3-minutes and ended with 10-minutes.

I didn’t like it at first.

But I loved the effects the training had on my everyday life.


Life’s Only Constant is Change

When you sit still and scan through your body, you notice all kinds of sensations. Itchy toes, lungs expanding with air, the cold air flowing in through your nostrils. With every moment, your sensations change.

While meditating, you feel life is a constant state of change and that this change is okay.

In 2019, I went to a 10-day silent meditation course. During a Vipassana training, a Buddhist term that often translates to “insight,” you wake up at 4 AM and meditate for 10 hours every day. You don’t talk, write or speak.

The days were tough. I went to the course expecting relaxation and flow states. Instead, it felt as if I was nonstop working and doing tough inner work. But this practice helped me develop equanimity.

Instead of instant reactions, meditation helps you notice whatever is going on, become aware of it, label it, and then act.

Don Johnson, a meditator for 49 years, writes: “The purpose of meditation is not to control the mind. A quiet mind happens as a result of a connection to an inner experience of peace.”

Regular meditation is a mental tool that will allow you to deal with any hardships of life. By applying this technique, you’ll achieve and share true happiness with others.


You Need Thoughts to Do Your Mental Pushups

For a long time, I believed freedom of thought was the ultimate goal of meditation. So I talked myself down every time thoughts crossed my mind and thought my mind wasn’t made for meditation.

I was wrong.

The goal of meditation isn’t to get rid of thoughts. In fact, you need your thoughts to meditate. Without thoughts, you wouldn’t have any object of practice.

Thoughts are the weights in your mental gym. Your job is to return your attention away from them and back to your breath (or any other point of focus like a candle, a mantra, or a body part).

When I meditate, I follow my breath — inhales and exhales. Sometimes my mind will wander to thoughts or feelings. And when it does, I acknowledge them and come back to my breath.

This is the core of meditation. Catching yourself while being distracted. The more you practice, the better you’ll get at noticing when you’re unfocused.

Now I think of thoughts as mental push-ups. The more thoughts I have, the more opportunities for exercise.

Thoughts can be contradicting, harmful, wonderful, or crazy. But you are not your thoughts. They are the vehicle that carries you through life. When you meditate, you become the driver.

“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

— Mark Twain


In Conclusion

Meditation is a highly effective tool to train your mind. A regular practice can help you let go of fear and anxiety, focus on the present moment, and find inner calm. Meditation is the entryway to a more fulfilled and joyful life.

When building a practice, it’s important not to be too hard on ourselves. Skipping meditation once in a while doesn’t matter. What matters is consistency. You’ll only return to your practice if you don’t judge or push yourself too hard.

Most importantly, it’s your practice. Your habit can look different from mine or the guru’s recommendations. But once you find a ritual that works for you, stick to it.

Use a facilitator to get started. Meditation apps like Calm, Headspace, Waking Up, or Insight Timer can support you in building a robust habit. You can also start with guided meditations on YouTube, such as this one or this one.


Want to feel inspired and improve your learning?

Subscribe free to The Learn Letter. I read a book and 50 articles a week, and each Wednesday, you’ll receive the best in your inbox. This newsletter will make you find tools and resources that help you on your path to health, wealth, and wisdom.

Filed Under: 🎯 Better Living Tagged With: health, meditation, tutorial

How To Unlock the Promise of Meditation

May 11, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim




The benefits of meditation don’t come instantaneously—here’s how to make it a long-term habit and see real results

A woman smiles while sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat, meditating.
Image credit: Deagreez.

“When we do not expect anything, we can be ourselves.” 
— Shunryu Suzuki

Making meditation a daily habit was one of my goals for 2014. But a few months in, I still hadn’t managed to do it for more than two days in a row.

I was sitting in the middle of my room, eyes closed, trying to meditate. But my mind was racing, and my head hurt. I hated the silence. I tried this over and over again, but it never worked. I felt like a failure. In June 2014, I stopped forcing myself and ditched the goal altogether.

It wasn’t until I saw a TED talk by Matthieu Ricard about a year later that I considered a second attempt. Ricard earned a Ph.D. in molecular genetics but abandoned his scientific career and became a Buddhist monk and an interpreter for the Dalai Lama.

If you can spare 20 minutes, I recommend watching his talk on the habits of happiness. But if you can’t, here’s the quintessence:

“Well-being is not just a mere pleasurable sensation. It is a deep sense of serenity and fulfillment. […] The experience that translates everything is within the mind. […] Now, it takes time, because it took time for all those faults in our mind, the tendencies, to build up, so it will take time to unfold them as well. But that’s the only way to go. Mind transformation — that is the very meaning of meditation. It means familiarization with a new way of being, new way of perceiving things, which is more in adequation with reality with interdependence, with the stream and continuous transformation which our being and our consciousness is. [..] It’s more to say that mind training matters. That this is not just a luxury. This is not a supplementary vitamin for the soul. This is something that’s going to determine the quality of every instant of our lives. We are ready to spend 15 years achieving education. We love to do jogging, fitness. We do all kinds of things to remain beautiful. Yet, we spend surprisingly little time taking care of what matters most — the way our mind functions — which, again, is the ultimate thing that determines the quality of our experience.”

Ricard’s words touched me so much I gave meditation a second try. But like before, I struggled. A lot. I didn’t find the time, didn’t enjoy it, and couldn’t see the benefits the monk was talking about.

But this time, I didn’t quit. Ultimately I figured a practice that works for me. This article can help you find yours.

During the past six years, I meditated almost every day. My headspace app logs 15,500 minutes, and that doesn’t include the time I’ve meditated without using the app. I also once completed a ten-day silent meditation course where we meditated for ten hours every day.

Minutes meditated on the Headspace app.
Minutes meditated on the Headspace app. (Source: Author).

Meditation has changed many aspects of my life, such as:

  • Relationships. Meditating gave me more mental space, and I’m more present with the people around me. I feel more gratitude and empathy. I became a better partner, daughter, and friend.
  • Self-talk. I can let go faster of destructive thoughts and judgment. These thoughts still come, but I don’t get carried away by the train of thought. I can escape negative loops and choose most of my thoughts.
  • Mind-body connection. I can better read my body signals and have the mental space to follow them. I can differentiate whether it’s my ego talking or my body. For example, I can differentiate when it’s time to take a break vs. my mind wanting to quit.
  • Work. I can work for longer stretches of uninterrupted focus. I don’t procrastinate anymore. When I don’t want to do a specific task, I likely find the reason and act on it. I am also less reactive, which leads to better decisions.
  • Contentment. Meditation helped me let go of the things I can’t control. I’m less stressed because I understand stress is the difference between reality and how I want reality to be.

But there’s more than my personal account. A meta-analysis with more than 1,200 adults found meditation can decrease anxiety. Another study from the University of North Carolina showed individuals who completed a meditation exercise had fewer negative thoughts when seeing negative images than the control group.

But starting and sticking with a daily meditation habit is easier said than done. My impression is similar to Naval Ravikant: “Everyone says they do it, but nobody actually does. The real set of people who meditate on a regular basis, I’ve found, are pretty rare.”

So how can you build a meditation habit you stick with? This article will show you six mind shifts that helped me make it a habit for life. This is the article I wish I had read before trying.

What you get are the key insights from my long-term practice and the things I learned from books on meditation by Eckhart Tolle, Tara Brach, Thích Nhất Hạnh, Sadhguru, and Deepak Chopra as well as Jon Kabat-Zinn’s masterclass.


1. Transform Your Phone From Enemy to Ally

Whenever my phone isn’t on flight mode, I’m doomed to fail. Willpower doesn’t help. Red notification badges, infinite scrolling, and tiny dopamine shots make me check my phone impulsively.

Whenever I woke up and used my phone, I’d always end up in my emails. To-dos plopped into my head, and I’d grow too impatient to meditate. These mornings ultimately ended in self-judgment.

Environments shape our behavior. By checking our phones first thing in the morning, we condition our minds for self-interruption. Notifications and messages make thoughts bounce around like a ping-pong ball.

Dr. Nikole Benders-Hadi, a psychiatrist, says: “Immediately turning to your phone when you wake up can start your day off in a way that is more likely to increase stress and leave you feeling overwhelmed.”

Once you’re in the monkey mind zone, it’s tough to zone out into the zen mode. A study from Irvine University found it takes 20 minutes to refocus after distractions. That’s why meditation and impulsive social media checks don’t go well together.

Leaving your phone switched off will feel hard at first because it’s easier to indulge in the comforting noise and distraction. Your ego will fight back, whispering you should know what’s going on early in the day.

“The vast majority of push notifications are just distractions that pull us out of the moment,” Justin Rosenstein, the co-creator of the like button, said in an interview with Vice. “They get us hooked on pulling our phones out and getting lost in a quick hit of information that could wait for later, or doesn’t matter at all.”

What to do:

Put your phone on flight mode before you go to sleep. If you have an old device (I use my old phone), install nothing but your meditation facilitator (YouTube, a timer, or a meditation app). Alternatively, you can download whatever you need to meditate on your current device to have it available offline.

Don’t let your device get in your way. By keeping your phone on flight mode until you’ve finished your meditation, you’ll have the inner freedom and mental space to sit in silence.


2. Meditate First Thing in the Morning

In my first and second attempts, I learned that if I don’t meditate first thing in the morning, I won’t meditate all day.

Even with the clear intention to meditate during the day, skipping the practice is easy. Meditating never feels urgent. Any timebound to-do (even doing the laundry, in my case) can seem more important. When your mind is on full-speed working mode, pausing becomes harder and harder.

The earlier you meditate, the fewer the excuses to skip it. With your phone on flight mode, almost nothing can distract you. Over the years, I’ve met a few people who meditate every day, and all of them meditated in the morning.

What to do:

Think about the exact steps you will make tomorrow morning before you sit down to meditate. For me, it’s getting up, opening the window, oil-pulling, brushing my teeth, drinking a big glass of water, a full-body stretch, and then sitting down on my meditation pillow no matter what.

For you, the exact steps might look different, and that’s OK. Just make sure you know when you’ll sit down to train your mind.


3. Start With 3 Minutes a Day

When I started meditating, I set a timer for 20 minutes and forced myself to look at a candle. I tried to concentrate so hard, my head hurt.

If I had to name a single reason for quitting in my first attempt, it’d be trying too hard. Every session drained my energy and made me feel unwell, so I avoided meditating altogether.

No runner newbie pushes themselves through a 30-minute sprint. My goal of meditating for 20 minutes was unrealistic. I failed because of the goal rather than my willpower.

What to do:

When you start, 3 minutes can feel like a long time. Don’t push for more if you don’t feel like it. Take your time to extend the time to 5, 10, 15, or even 20 minutes of silence.

Even though I’ve meditated over 2,000 times, 15 minutes can still feel prolonged. Start small. Consistent baby steps are better than a single big leap.

Use a facilitator to get started. Meditation apps like Calm, Headspace, Waking Up, or Insight Timer can support you in building a robust habit. You can also start with guided meditations on YouTube such as this one, or this one.


4. You Don’t Need to Like the Practice

I don’t meditate for the sake of meditation or to become a better meditator. I meditate to enjoy my life and all the moments in full presence. I think of meditation similar to this quote by Abraham Lincoln:

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.”

Did he like sharpening the ax? Probably not. It’s a tiring activity that doesn’t really reward you while doing it. But when it comes to chopping the tree, you’ll be grateful you did it.

In the first two years, I almost always wanted the silence to be over. I thought about all the stuff I had to do instead of wasting my time. I remembered stupid things I said to someone some time ago. I felt a lot of impatience and regret.

But when the time was over, I often felt better than before. In the first years, meditating was a painful way to release pressure.

What to do:

Don’t expect to enjoy sitting down and meditating. Sharpening your mind can feel hard. We’re used to noise and a constant stream of input that sitting in silence can feel very hard.

Meditating is not about how you feel while doing it. It’s about the changes you feel during the rest of your day.


5. Thoughts Will Help You Practice

For a long time, I believed freedom of thought was the ultimate goal of meditation. Absolute inner silence. Zen.

I talked myself down every time thoughts crossed my mind. I felt like something was wrong with me. I thought my mind wasn’t made for meditation.

I was wrong.

The goal of meditation isn’t to get rid of thoughts. A wandering mind is human. In fact, you need your thoughts to meditate.

Without thoughts, you wouldn’t have any object of practice. They’re the weights in your mental gym. Your job is to return your attention away from them and back to your breath (or any other point of focus like a candle, a mantra, or a body part).

When I meditate, I follow my breath — inhales and exhales. Sometimes my mind will wander to thoughts or feelings. And when it does, I acknowledge them and come back to my breath.

This is the core of meditation. Catching yourself while being distracted. The more you practice, the better you’ll get at noticing when you’re unfocused.

“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” 
— Mark Twain

What to do:

Think of thoughts as mental push-ups. The more thoughts you have, the more opportunities for exercise. Meditation helps you notice whatever is going on, become aware of it, label it, and then deal with it.


6. Practice for 3 Months Before You Look for Benefits

Do you go running three times and expect to be able to run a marathon? Nope. I didn’t get to experience any of the benefits five, ten, twenty, even thirty sessions in.

If you notice the upsides of meditation early, then congratulations! I’m happy for you. But if you don’t see any results, don’t quit.

In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert shared a lesson from her favorite meditation teacher Pema Chödrön. According to Chödrön, the biggest problem with people’s meditation practice is they quit just when things are starting to get interesting.

Progress is slow and steady. Your mental muscles will grow day by day, but the results are invisible for quite some time.

What to do:

Be patient with your progress. Don’t quit because you don’t notice a change a few weeks in.

Whenever you feel like quitting, read inspiring meditation stories like the one of Yuval Noah Harari. In an interview with Tim Ferriss, he said without meditation, he wouldn’t have written his books.

“It’s not an escape from reality. It’s getting in touch with reality at least for two hours a day. I actually observed reality as it is, while for the other 22 hours I get overwhelmed by emails and tweets and funny cat videos. Without the focus and clarity provided by this practice, I could not have written Sapiens and Homo Deus.”


In Conclusion

Meditation is a highly effective tool to train your mind. A regular practice can help you let go of fear and anxiety, focus on the present moment, and find inner calm. Based on my experience, I’m convinced daily meditation is the entryway to a more fulfilled and joyful life.

When building a practice, it’s important to not be too hard on ourselves. Skipping meditation once in a while doesn’t matter. What matters is consistency. You’ll only return to your practice if you don’t judge or push yourself too hard.

Most importantly, it’s your practice. Your ritual can look different from mine or the guru’s recommendations. But once you find a habit that works for you, stick to it. If you do, you’ll feel the benefits within various areas of your life.

Filed Under: 🎯 Better Living Tagged With: health, meditation, tutorial

A Complete Guide to Doing a 10-Day Fasting Retreat

January 4, 2021 by Eva Keiffenheim


I’ve fasted twice a year for 3 years and find it essential to my well-being. Here’s how to do it yourself, day by day.

A selection of broths and tea.
Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

As a teenager, I thought my parents were crazy. Twice a year, they would avoid solid foods for two weeks. They survived on tea and vegetable broth.

And the weirdest thing — my parents enjoyed it.

As I grew older, judgment evolved into curiosity: why would somebody voluntarily skip food?

Fasting therapy has a long tradition in Europe. In 1917, a German doctor suffered from rheumatism. As a self-experiment, Dr. Buchinger fasted for three weeks. He cured his disease and devoted his career to fasting as a therapy.

But in May 2017, I hadn’t read a single guide on Buchinger fasting yet. I only knew what I saw from my parents. You take laxatives when you start and then consume liquids: vegetable broth, diluted fruit juice, plenty of unsweetened tea, and water.

I did my first 10-day fast, shockingly unprepared. I didn’t use an irrigator. I didn’t move and relax enough.

And yet, fasting had an incredibly positive impact.

Never before had I felt so happy and calm. I felt my body. My thoughts were clear. I felt grateful. And I improved my eating habits long after the fast.

In short: fasting had a lasting impact on my health and wellbeing. I see fasting as the most powerful natural medicine to heal the mind and body.

So, since 2017 I’ve fasted twice a year. My first four fasts were at home, my fifth in an administered fasting retreat, and the sixth during lockdown at home.

I made mistakes along the way and learned a lot during these six fasts. I read books, talked to my parents, exchanged experiences with others, and got a better fast step by step.

[Editor’s note: consult with your doctor before attempting a fast and/or taking a laxative. Especially do not embark on a fast if you are in any of the groups listed below.]

If you belong to one of the following, however, don’t do a long-term fast:

  • Pregnant and breastfeeding women.
  • Children.
  • People with hyperthyroidism.
  • People with circulatory disorders of the brain.
  • People with type 1 diabetes.
  • Cancer patients (due to the risk of malnutrition with permanent calorie restriction).
  • People with a history of eating disorders or being underweight.

Benefits from personal experience

To give you a background of my body: I’m a 27-year-old cisgender woman with a 21 BMI. I’ve never had health complaints or operations. Before my first fast, doctors said I’m healthy.

But I wasn’t healthy. I ate a glass of Nutella a week, hated cooking, and felt addicted to eating. Plus, I didn’t like my body. I worried about gaining weight and eating too much five times every day. I felt trapped in a vicious circle of negative self-chatter.

This is how fasting changed my life:

  • Food Appreciation: I started to enjoy cooking and seeing food as nourishment for my body rather than a threat.
  • Healthy Diet: After fasting, I didn’t like the taste of sugar and processed foods anymore. I changed my diet, but not because I forced myself. It felt only natural to become vegan and choose fresh ingredients.
  • Food Patience: I’m no longer hangry. I know my body can survive days without food, and another hour won’t hurt me.
  • Body Appreciation: I felt gratitude for my healthy body and mind. What I took for granted suddenly felt special. The gratitude always remains for some months after the fasting period.
  • Higher Energy Levels: I had high energy levels before my first fast. But after fasting, I’m able to tackle anything I previously avoided.
  • A Clear Mind: I felt laser-sharp focus. I could look at my life from a bird’s eye perspective. I saw toxic friendships and felt the need to end them. I changed my phone habits. I decided to become self-employed. A lot of major life decisions happened as a result of my fasting experiences.

Other friends had similar experiences. Not all turned vegan and not everybody started to love their bodies. But all of them reported a greater appreciation of mind and body.

This guide is the quintessence of what I learned from my at-home fasts, the administered professional fasting retreat, and knowledge exchange with friends and my parents.

If I could, I would force my younger self to read this tutorial before her first fast.

This article will show you exactly how to create a fasting retreat in the comfort of your home.

First, you learn about the health benefits. Then you get the schedule for your fast and answers to the most common questions, like “Will I feel hungry? Will I lose muscles? Will I lose weight?” Finally, you’ll learn how to overcome the biggest hindrances along the way.


The Benefits You Can Expect From Long-Term Fasting

During fasting, two mechanisms in the body help cleanse and detox it: ketone metabolism and autophagy.

Our body focuses on sustaining our brain, and it uses glucose to do so. Sugar is in our food, and our body can produce glucose itself. That’s why we don’t die when we don’t eat sugars, like in a low-carb diet.

But at around the second day of our fast, our body has used up the glucose reserves in the blood and the liver (and converted extent muscle protein to glucose). Then, the body switches to ketone metabolism.

Ketones are a backup fuel for cells and the brain. They save our body from degrading our muscles while supplying our brains with energy. You can detect ketone increase after a few days of fasting by a slight acetone smell in the breath.

Ketones nourish the brain and can protect the brain from inflammatory cells, which play an important role in degenerative brain diseases.

During fasting, the energy normally needed for digestion, resorption, transport, and storage of nutrients, is saved—the cell switches to a protected mode, where the aging pathways are deactivated.

“Up until the mid-twentieth century, it was more or less a rule of human life that food was not available 24/7. Hard winters and unpredictable circumstances could lead to bad crop harvests. Our body adapted to this regular deficit exceedingly well in its genetic development.“

— Prof. Dr. Andreas Michalsen

Yoshinori Ohsumi won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine because he discovered somatic cells have a recycling program’ that enables them to deconstruct old, damaged, or incorrectly folded proteins into the smallest structures and then rebuild them into new, healthy complexes. This process is called autophagy and is the second mechanism that happens during fasting.

Here’s why autophagy is great for fasting, according to Dr. Michalsen, a Professor of Clinical Complementary Medicine at the Charité University Medical Centre Berlin:

“This process is initiated in instances where the cell is in distress — during fasting, for example. That’s when the cell deconstructs components that have become unnecessary in order to release energy. This energy is then used to form urgently needed molecules. About thirty-five genes control the process of this internal digestion.”

In short, autophagy is a cleanup process in the body. During fasting, the body has more capacity to concentrate on recharging the cells with nutrients that are no longer being supplied.

What science says about fasting effects

“The positive effects of fasting begin after a period of fourteen to sixteen hours. You get those positive effects whether you fast consistently every night, or maybe one entire day a week, or seven to fourteen days,” writes Prof. Dr. Andreas Michalsen.

In his 2017 book, he explains how the body cleanses and detoxes itself during a long-term fast. Let’s look at specific parts of the body. The following list of effects of fasting is the result of ketone metabolism and autophagy.

  • Brain: Increases the growth factor BDNF; changes the messenger balance; enhances mood; stimulates the production of nerve cells; prevents dementia
  • Liver: Stimulates production of ketone bodies and breakdown of glycogen as an alternative source of energy; leads to the reduction of the growth hormone IGF-1
  • Pancreas: Decreases insulin production, recovery
  • Joints: Fasting counteracts rheumatism and arthritis; relieves pain
  • Cardiovascular system: Lowers blood pressure and cholesterol levels; lowers the heart rate; improves heart rate variability
  • Gastrointestinal tract: Increases diversity of intestinal bacteria
  • Fat tissue: Leads to fat reduction; changes to messengers (e.g., decreased production of leptin; anti-inflammatory

There are numerous scientific studies from researchers independent from Dr. Michalsen that attest to the benefits of a 10-day fast. My favorite ones include the ones that show fasting strengthens your immune system, improves your cognitive ability, enhances your mood, and alleviates major health complaints. Plus, fasting has empirically documented beneficial effects on rheumatoid arthritis, migraine, fibromyalgia, chronic pain syndromes of the locomotor system, and hypertension.


The Step-by-Step Guide to a 10-Day Fast

Long-term fasts have three phases. The first is the transition phase, where you eat low fat and high fiber. The second phase of food abstinence begins with a day for colon cleansing, followed by fasting days. After you break the fast, you enter the third phase for slow food build-up.

In the following, you’ll find the exact shopping list I always use and a guide on the three phases for your fasting schedule.

Before you start: The Shopping List

It’s nice to start with the right equipment. While doing my first fast, I wasn’t well equipped and had to go to the store every other day. It’s unnecessary self-torture to walk past a well smelling bakery store during your first fast.

With good preparation, you can easily avoid going to any grocery. Here’s what I found helpful to have at home before you start your fast:

Fasting equipment & helpful tools:

  • 20 g–30 g Glauber’s salt, Bitter salt, or laxative tea for a one-time intestinal voiding.
  • A running-in device (irrigator/enema) for colon cleansing during fasting.
  • Massage glove or massage brush for supporting your skin’s blood flow.
  • A hot-water bottle for a liver wrap (more on that later).
  • Basic mineral bath salt for a full bath or foot bath.

Food for the transition phase:

  • 2 l–3 l drinking water (without carbonic acid—that is to say, not sparkling/fizzy water).
  • Various unsweetened herbal teas.
  • Oatmeal, apples, cinnamon, rice or couscous, unsalted nuts, vegetables (e.g., broccoli, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, eggplant).

Nutrients for 3–7 fasting days:

  • 10 l –15 l drinking water (without carbonic acid).
  • At least three different kinds of unsweetened herbal teas (my favorite ones include camomile, nettle, and herbal blends).
  • 1 kg–2 kg vegetables for cooking a vegetable broth.
  • 2 lemons.
  • 1 l–2 l juice, not-from-concentrate (e.g., carrots, tomato, beetroot).
Vegetable juices, teas, and supportive tools.
Vegetable juices, teas, and supportive tools. Source: Author

Day 1: Transition

The better the preparation, the easier the fast. In the days before fasting, you want to do anything that helps your body. This initial adjustment period with light food prepares your body and intestines slowly and gently for the transition to fasting.

The first time I fasted, I skipped the transition phase. I was like, “I should eat everything I can because I will feel so hungry during the next days.”

Hence, I ate a lot. Like a lot of lot. At least I didn’t drink alcohol, but I ate a glass of Nutella, crisps, and high-fat processed foods. Binge eating didn’t harm me but made the first days a lot more difficult.

The second time I fasted, I included a proper transition phase. Once I felt how much easier fasting was, I knew I would never skip this phase again.

Including the transition phase makes the first fasting days a lot more enjoyable.

To get the perfect start, stop eating meat, refined sugar, and processed foods. Restrain from alcohol, nicotine, and salt. Instead, drink plenty of water and unsweetened tea.

What helped me the most was a positive mindset. I avoided thinking too much about what I shouldn’t eat but focused on the recipes I would eat during the days before the fasting.

It’s a great idea to plan your meals for the transition phase. The table contains meal suggestions and supportive activities.

Meal suggestions and activities for the transition phase.
Source: Author

Day 2: Colon Cleansing

This day is a bit tricky because there will be a lot going on in your stomach and gut. But in my experience, once your inner organs are clean, you will feel free and light.

On the morning of this day, you start with a big cup of tea and laxatives. I personally prefer “Glauber salt” over other options such as Epsom salt or a high-dose of magnesium because it always worked really well for me.

In the retreat, most people used magnesium as it’s a bit more gentle. It worked for them as well.

Whatever laxative you choose, make sure to drink a lot of water and unsweetened tea. And keep a toilet near you for the entire day. Remember your physical hunger vanishes as soon as your stomach and digestive system are empty.

Suggested food and activities for colon cleansing.
Source: Author

Day 3–Day 7: Fasting days with tea and broths

During the days of fasting, you skip any solid food (no macronutrients). Instead, you drink plenty of water, unsweetened tea, mineral water, and an organic vegetable broth (micronutrients).

For cooking the broth, choose your favorite vegetables, or use an existing recipe like this one or this one.

The second and third day of fast is the toughest day when it comes to energy levels. Your body changes its metabolic processes. You might feel tired, weak, hungry, and moody. But going through this day is worth it.

Many people experience a “fasting high” from day four and onwards. My experience confirms the words from Prof. Dr. Andreas Michalsen:

“From the third to fifth day, most fasting people are in a positive mood and feel satisfied, some even euphoric.”

After the first days, your mind and body feel light and free. The suggested activities aim for the right balance between exercise and relaxation. You don’t want to do sports at 100%, but keep your metabolism going by doing some lighter exercises. If you feel tired, it’s likely due to a lack of movement.

Suggested food and activities for fasting days.
Source: Author

Day 8: Fast-breaking

Fast-breaking is a gradual build-up to your regular calorie intake.

On the first day of fast-breaking, you start the day by eating an apple. Eating an apple may sound unspectacular, but I promise it’ll be the best apple in your entire life.

After days of fasting, your gustatory nerves are super sensitive. You’ll have a taste sensation. So, celebrate your first solid food. Enjoy every bite and marvel at the stimulating eating experience.

It’s best to eat the apple in the morning, so your body has enough time to produce digestive juices and switch the metabolism. Just like your body needed time to ease into the fast, it now needs time to start its digestive mechanism again.

Suggested food and activities for fast-breaking.
Source: Author

Day 9–10: Build up and reintroduction to ingesting solid foods

I know the urge to eat everything you craved for shortly after the fast break.

But resist this urge.

Give your body time to adjust.

The 2013 fasting guidelines state: “For successful fasting, a mindful and stepwise reintroduction of solid food intake is of importance and a cornerstone to successfully adopt a more healthy lifestyle following fasting.”

If you were to eat normal portion size again immediately, you would not only negate the positive effects of fasting but would actually harm yourself.

“Every fool can fast, but only a wise person knows how to break a fast.”

— George Bernard Shaw

During the build-up days, you eat easily digestible food high in fiber. The fresher, the better. The following days you proceed with a healthy whole-food diet. All ingredients should be as fresh and natural as possible.

Start with small food portions; your stomach is smaller and won’t need as much as before. Chew each bite well until there is only liquid in the mouth. Eat as slowly as you can; it might help to put the fork down after every bite. And most importantly, stop eating when you’re full.

Suggested food and activities for build-up.
Source: Author

Answers to the Most Common Questions

Many people have a lot of questions before they first start. Here are the ones I always hear from friends, as well as the answers to those questions.

Will I feel hungry?

Not as much as you think. You might feel physical hunger as long as your gut is not completely empty yet. But from day two onward, you’ll unlikely feel any hunger.

A 2019 study with almost 1,500 participants showed periodic Buchinger fasting wasn’t linked to a relevant perception of hunger. On the contrary, fasting was subjectively experienced as enjoyable, which is an important factor for compliance.

Will I lose muscles?

My boyfriend does weight-lifting six times a week. He didn’t join my first three fasts as he was afraid of losing muscles. In 2019 he did some research (he’s a 5th-year medical student) and joined fasting ever since.

Here’s how he explained to me what happens to our muscles.

From a purely evolutionary point of view, it’s logical our body doesn’t lose all muscles during a fasting period. Some 4,000 years ago, our species survived by hunting and gathering. We had no refrigerators to preserve our food. So we ate most of what we found immediately.

If we’d lose muscle mass anytime we hadn’t food around us, we couldn’t survive. With less and less strength, the chance of hunting and gathering new food would decrease. So, what happens?

A little muscle mass is lost during fasting but the extent of degradation is very small. In the first fasting days, the empty gastrointestinal tract and the lack of carbohydrate causes the insulin and thus the blood sugar level to drop.

This results in higher levels of glucagon (the antagonist of insulin) and adrenaline. As a result, more fatty acids are released from fat tissue and the absorption of these into our cells (as an alternative energy supply) is simplified.

Glycogenolysis also starts — glycogen stored in the liver is released and converted into glucose, which in turn supplies us with energy. Gluconeogenesis also starts — glucose is newly synthesized from lactate, amino acids, and glycerine.

The amino acids that are used here come primarily from skeletal muscles and represent the small part in which muscles are broken down.

It’s so small because after about 14 hours the ketone metabolism, ketogenesis, gets going and is responsible for the entire energy balance after 2–4 days at the latest. Glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis then go back to almost zero.

The substrate, i.e. the starting substance for the ketone bodies, are fatty acids, the amino acids of the muscles are no longer touched and consequently, no further muscles are lost.

Will I lose weight?

In the short-term, yes. But weight reduction is only a side effect. As Dr. Michalsen writes: “Fasting is not about reducing calories — if you simply eat less, the effect is not the same as fasting. Fasting is about using food deprivation to expose the body to small doses of stress, which leads to a stimulus reaction that detoxes the body and regulates it anew.”

Fasting can be a perfect start for changing your eating behavior. But ultimately, the kilos you lose while fasting will only stay if you manage to change into a healthy eating behavior.

Can I do fasting while working?

It depends. During those 10 days, you don’t want to have any social must attends, like weddings or birthdays. The temptation to eat makes the event unenjoyable.

You can fast while working. I fasted while I worked as a full-time teacher. I fasted while I built my startup. Here, the important thing is to do the colon cleansing while staying at home, like on the weekend.

Yet, the easiest way to fast is when you don’t have much work to do. The fewer external distractions and stress, the easier it will be for you to balance exercise and movement. It’s also easier to listen to your body.

If you have the luxury of leftover holidays, it’s a great time to use it because you can give your body all the time it needs. Home office during quarantine is actually a great time to do it, as you might be able to schedule your days more flexibly.

Is long-term fasting good for anyone?

No. Fasting is good for healthy individuals and can help treat skin diseases, rheumatism, and type 2 diabetics. But certain groups shouldn’t fast.

If you belong to one of the following, don’t do a long-term fast:

  • Pregnant and breastfeeding women.
  • Children.
  • People with hyperthyroidism.
  • People with circulatory disorders of the brain.
  • People with type 1 diabetes.
  • Cancer patients (due to the risk of malnutrition with permanent calorie restriction).
  • People with a history of eating disorders or underweight.
An apple sliced into four.
Photo by Nikolai Chernichenko on Unsplash

Biggest Obstacles and Tips to Overcome Them

Let’s be honest: even if you follow all of the tips and the preparation above — have all ingredients in the fridge, follow the activities, take time to be with your body — you might be tempted to break some rules or even entirely quit the fasting halfway through.

Knowing the name of these obstacles will make it easier for you to deal with each of them. The hindrances show up differently for everyone, and some don’t experience any of them.

Yet, a lot of people experience some side effects. Our bodies’ metabolic products and toxins are excreted during fasting through our detoxification organs, the intestines, liver, kidneys, and skin. Side effects like fatigue, headache, and dizziness can be natural side effects of the detoxification process.

1. Food cravings

Even if you don’t feel hungry, you might want to eat. Many people are emotional eaters and take a bite without being hungry. Anytime you smell food from a store nearby or think of food, you might experience cravings.

What to do: Start a “want-to-eat” list. Write down what you’re craving for and promise yourself to cook all these things once you’re done. By putting your desire on a sheet of paper, it’s out of your head.

2. Fatigue

You might feel a lack of energy. This might be a sign that your body wants movement. As this fasting study writes, physical activity causes a general stimulation of the macro-and microcirculation in the body, and also in excretory organs, and can enhance their activity

What to do: Move your body at 60–80% exposure. If you go running regularly, go for a light jog. If you normally jog, go for a brisk walk. Dance in your home, or do a guided yoga session.

3. Lack of concentration

Especially during the first days, focusing or sitting for a long time can be tough. You might think slower, or your comprehension isn’t that good at all. That’s why it’s a great benefit not to have a full-scheduled working week.

What to do: Be gentle with yourself. Give yourself a break and take time to rest or move. Accept that fasting can slow your brain in the short-term but know that it’ll ultimately support your body’s healing.

4. Headache

Your body and mind recover from food. When you fast, you free a lot of energy that was previously needed for digestion. You allow your body to repair and rebuild itself.

Yet, this rebuilding process also requires energy. Depending on the toxicity of your previous lifestyle (stress, processed foods, movement), the repair process will feel harder for some than for others.

What to do: If you have a headache, a large glass of water is a great first choice. Plus, using your irrigator can relieve your headache.

5. Dizziness

Especially after some time in bed, for example, in the morning, you might feel dizzy when you get up. During our last fast, my boyfriend got up so quickly in the morning that he fell back straight into his bed.

Your body’s metabolism needs more time to get going, and dizziness is a natural reaction.

What to do: You can easily prevent morning dizziness by sitting before you get out of bed. What also helps is preparing a bottle of water with some squeezed lemon, which you can drink before you leave your bed.

7. Boredom

You don’t have to go grocery shopping, cook, order food, and eat anymore. You gain one to three hours during your days, and boredom might arise. You can use this time to do something good for yourself.

What to do: If you feel bored, the first choice should be doing anything that feels good for your body. Pick your favorite activity. Go for a walk, do some yoga, journal, meditate, read, talk to friends, or sleep.

And, if you really don’t know what to do anymore, read some scientific papers on the health benefits of fasting. This is always a motivation boost.

8. Bad Taste

From day two onwards, you might experience a bad taste. Your body uses your tongue for detoxification, and bad taste is only natural.

What to do: Drink a glass of water with squeezed lemon. If you feel like it, you can also use a tongue scraper.


Are You Ready for Your Fasting Retreat?

Almost four years have passed since my ill-prepared fast in 2017. Six fasting experiences later, I truly understand why my parents stuck to this curious habit for most of their adult life.

Indeed, a liquid fast is a holistic, mind-altering, and cost-efficient way to improve your health, and thereby, your life.

However, I’d lie if I said fasting is easy and simple and like a great holiday because it isn’t. Fasting is a powerful tool that eases your body — often painful — toxins and feelings which our eating habits otherwise tend to override.

When it’s only your body without food for ten days, you’ll have not much to ease your emotions, which can be tiring, hard, annoying, and, frankly, also boring.

We’re so used to eating that our body and mind rebel like a child when we force ourselves to refrain from food intake.

But if you stick through the initial hurdles, your fasting retreat might become one of the most rewarding and grounding experiences you’ve done in life.

May your personal fasting retreat feel as rewarding and incredibly healing for you as it was — and continues to be — for me.

“Fasting is not just a physical discipline; it can be a spiritual feast.”

— Jentezen Franklin

Filed Under: 🎯 Better Living Tagged With: fasting, health, tutorial

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