I was introduced to Emily Fletcher by Robb Wolf after I was talking with him about my issues with traumatic brain injury and he said the Ziva meditation method that Emily has developed totally changed his life. He describes it now as Life Before Ziva and Life After Ziva. Before actually talking to her, I got her book, Stress Less, Accomplish More and immediately became aware of the fact that although we are always talking these days about the fact that it is not just a diet, but rather a lifestyle change, that we need to embrace. And a big part of that is to develop effective strategies to deal with stress so that we limit the deleterious effects of excessive cortisol and other stress related hormones in our bodies. So even though I was still a little skeptical of the efficacy of meditation, I thought it was worth investigating further and so I set up this talk with Emily.

She has done great things by learning about meditation in detail (including a 3 year period in India) and then developing a whole new practice which she calls the Ziva technique. The important thing that sets the Ziva technique apart from others is the fact that it teaches us to be self sufficient and enables us to be able to do it anywhere, in an airport, on the train, anywhere (just not while we're driving). There no reliance on funky positions or meditation apps that have become so popular these days. After talking with her I agreed to enroll in her online course which teaches the technique (very effectively, I might add) over a period of 2 weeks.

I have to say that I have not seen or noticed any big changes (as some people have experienced) but I do find that I look forward to the meditations so that must mean something? I literally go to bed at night looking forward to the fact that I get to meditate as soon as I wake up. I have always slept well so it is hard to judge if it has helped me in that respect and the LowCarb Lifestyle already results in massive improvements in cognitive function and mental health so it is hard to say now whether there is an even greater improvement since I started with Ziva. If I look at it, I have noticed small things like a couple of times I have remembered things that I wouldn't normally expect myself to remember (because of the TBI). The other day I was in Costco and came around the corner into a massive checkout queue and I just stood there patiently and waited my turn. Normally I would have imploded (Pam will attest to that) and I didn't even become aware of it until I got back to the car and thought, "Wow, that didn't even stress me out, maybe this Ziva thing does work!" I believe that we are the sum of all things in our life so adding in a practice that seems to make me happy and is probably drastically reducing my stress levels is a good thing to keep in place.

You can learn more about Emily's online course here.