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Mindfulness via the MotivAider
Filed Under (mindfulness, motivaider, promotion, tools) by admin on 19-11-2007
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I have now been wearing my MotivAider for some days now and I’m both disappointed and very happy. (read on, it has a happy ending 
)
This is my usual state, to be honest. I almost always look at both angles and I am not easily satisfied.
But let’s go to the MotivAider again. If you read my previous post, you will see that I decided to attach 3 deep breaths to my MotivAider signal. I did not quite follow the procedure they outlined in the manual, but that seemed to not be a great problem, as in every case I felt the buzz, I reminded what to do and took 3 deep breaths.
But here immediately comes my main problem: I seem to not always feel the vibration. I experimented with several time intervals and vibration strengths, but also the location where to place the little pager. I shortened and lengthened the duration of the signal, but it seems that the problem I had before with mindfulness was also present with the MotivAider: if my mind is so absorbed, it tends to ignore the signal. Or sometimes, it get to the back of my awareness field, but I repress it that quickly because I am doing something else that I forget about taking 3 breaths.
So is it useless, I asked myself?
Well, it turns out that it is very useful. And delivers almost as promised. The thing is that my expectations were probably set too high.
What I noticed is that where before, I could stay engrossed in my mental sleep for a fairly long period, this is now broken by the action of the MotivAider as soon as there is some space left to process the buzzing. I mean by this that as soon as I engage in an activity in which I do not need to pay full attention, I can start to feel the vibration, and correctly act on it. I set the timer to 2 minutes, so very soon after leaving my PC, I am reminded to take 3 deep breaths. This is a very good thing, because it is easy to go unaware for 15 to 30 minutes without noticing. This is no longer the case.
So what happens is that I start to be aware during more periods in the day, and this is (slowly) starting to spread out. Slowly, yes, but maybe only because my expectations were set too high? I have no idea.
The truth is that my mindfulness practice has become better and I hope deeper. I start feeling the deeper peace that one feels when truly relaxed and in harmony with the surroundings.
So in conclusion, I think that, at least for now, I can really recommend the MotivAider for anybody wanting to be more aware or mindful, but I guess that it works as well for the change in habits for which the tool was designed. I will not test this feature, as I intend to change any bad habit through being mindful. I think in this way I will have a better control and be able to go faster.
Be Well. Be Rich. Be Great.
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interesting, but I’m just wondering - how is it different from a countdown timer? it seems that the only difference is in the silent, vibrating alarm; it seems a kitchen timer would work, although noisily. I guess I was hoping for something that would give 10 distinct alarms, e.g. (using your list) one for “drink more water”, a different one for “watch my breath”, one for “relax muscles”. maybe via a message on the screen. It seems that the MotivAider basically says - “Hey - remember the thing you need to remember” Is that true?
Hi Ferd,
yes, you are right, it is somehow like a kitchen timer but the difference is that is very discrete.
You are right though that you still need to impress the though on yourself and that a display would be nice. I once found a site where they sell a stopwatch that does just that: it vibrates and then displays the message. You can then store different messages. The problem is that I cannot find it back. If I ever do, I will put it in the comment section here and you will receive the update.
Take care.