DentaltownUK July 2017 - 62

Go with the flow

charity called against malaria, and for an
approximate donation of $3,500 USD, you're
statically likely to save the life of a child.
I used to date a dentist who thought in
monetary units of designer dresses. She would
prep a crown and say, 'That's another dress
I can afford'. I found this a fairly onerous
way to measure her surplus earnings, but if
you're inclined to think like that, wouldn't
it be better to say, 'That's another life I've
saved' every time you finish a big case?
Why not balance your own life by saving
a child's?

Meditate
I hope you realise by now that I am not
a crystal gazer; I do, however, believe that
mindfulness meditation-more specifically,
Vipassana meditation-is the most empirically
sound and secular approach to becoming
more present in every moment.
I am by no means an expert and am still
a bit of a novice meditator, but I practice
most days for approximately 20 minutes.
I have found the majority of literature on
meditation to be either polluted by dubious
religious hocus-pocus, too steeped in New

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JULY 2017 // dentaltownuk.com

Age f luff, or just touting resources that
represent a pure bandwagon jump'. (Such
content has become to be known as 'McMindfulness', peddled by people trying to make
a quick buck.)
The only two mediations books I can
currently recommend are:
* The Art of Living by William Hart,
which expounds the Vipassana
teachings of S.M. Goenka. I was ready
at every page to discredit the enterprise-one sniff of irrationality and
I'm out-but I didn't find anything.
All of its tenets seem to hold up to the
type of rational scrutiny drilled into us
by a bachelor's degree in science.
* The second book is Letting Go by Sam
Harris, an American neuroscientist.
I also like the Headspace app. It's clean,
fresh and accessible.
If you read these books and purchase the
app, you'll save a lot of time rummaging
around in the bargain basement of pseudomystical psychology like I was forced to. It's
a deep, deep bin, unfortunately!

This is a simple one. You have probably
heard of the concept of 'flow'. Find it in your
pastimes. It is beyond mere 'fun'; it's the
feeling of time sort of melting away from an
experience. I find it when I am playing music;
listening to audiobooks or podcasts whilst
running or walking; reading; snowboarding;
the list goes on.
I feel incredibly grateful that because of
my new line of work I can now add a few
things to the list-namely, editing video
productions, interviewing clinicians for
camera, productive psychotherapy sessions
with addicted clients, and actually just
writing.
For example, I've written this article
straight in one go, and it's well past my
bedtime-I didn't even notice the time! I
feel privileged that as communications
manager in my current job, I get to experience
this flow in daily work. I used to feel like I
was indulgent when I spent time on these
pastimes, like a grown man shouldn't 'play'
so much. But the opposite-playing too
little-actually leaves your dopaminergic
pathways open to other behaviours.
I have seen how people who don't connect
with states of flow in their pastimes start
seeking that satisfaction from a drug or a
pathological behaviour. A lot of the new
neuroscience about behavioural addictions
is about how to help addicts retrain their
brains, from a neuroplasticity point of view,
to approximate the deep synaptic connection
they feel to their drug or behaviour of choice.
This isn't as tangential as you think; we
can all learn from addicts and how their
addiction makes their life go off-kilter. We
are all prone to this compulsive behaviour,
which robs us of variety in our life-and
also our precious time. For example, how
much time do you spend on Crackbook ...
I mean, Facebook? What's your record for
number of episodes in a row on a Netflix
binge?
You need to have a smorgasbord of ways
that you can access states of flow, of relaxation,
of pleasure. Otherwise, your brain will latch
on to an exclusively few proven ways, and
true balance in life is then very difficult to
find.
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