Just to underline the fundamental question: if pain isn’t a good metric (and I agree that it isn’t) what is a good metric?
I’m recommending Bruce Frantzis’ tai chi, qi gong, bagua etc. classes at Energyarts.com.
One of the fundamental principles is to put out reliable 70% effort—this is enough to create progress without much chance of injury or burnout. Considerably less effort if you’re sick or injured.
This is harder than it sounds, if you’re from a culture which assumes that more effort = better results and is a sign of more virtue.
Your effort level is what you can do that day. You aren’t competing with yourself. You aren’t expecting that you can make yourself do today what you could do yesterday. You may not be able to do as much with one side of your body as the other. Respect that. In fact, let the stronger side match the weaker side.
I tend to think of overvaluing effort as an American issue, but it appears in other cultures, too. Frantzis teaches water method—the 70% approach—but there’s also fire method in Chinese tradition, which involves pursuing enlightenment or whatever with as much force as you can muster.
This sort of steady effort might be best for sports and qi gong, but it’s my impression that high effort followed by relaxation is better for intellectual work.
Just to underline the fundamental question: if pain isn’t a good metric (and I agree that it isn’t) what is a good metric?
I’ll just paste this from my comment in case you find it useful to that question:
Psychology has good evidence that there is an “optimal level of effort” you need to reach to improve optimally at something. If you find something to be easy that’s good for you and means you can do what you needed to reach your goal quickly, but your brain won’t likely be improving much when you are doing it.
Usually this “optimal challenge” feeling is pretty pleasant, you get the feeling of being totally immersed in what you are doing and of having meet a tough, fun challenge.
If you are in any pain you feel discomfort about it, you’re generally past this point and I’d agree you need to turn back, I don’t think someone can genuinely confuse the two feelings, but people seem to reason “bit of pain = bit of progress, lot of pain = lot of progress.
I think that the right amount level of effort leaves you tired but warm inside, like you look forward doing this again, rather than just feeling you HAVE to do this again.
I think that the right amount level of effort leaves you tired but warm inside, like you look forward doing this again, rather than just feeling you HAVE to do this again.
This is probably true in a practical sense (otherwise you won’t sustain it as a habit), but I’m not sure it describes a well-defined level of effort. For me an extreme effort could still lead to me looking forward to it, if I have a concrete sense of what that effort bought me (maybe I do some tedious and exhausting footwork drills, but I understand the sense in which this will carry over into a game-like situation, so it feels rewarding; but I wouldn’t be able to sustainably put in that same level of effort if I couldn’t visualize the benefits).
It seems to me like to calibrate the right level of effort requires some other principle (for physical activity this would be based on rates of adaptation to avoid overtraining), and then you should perform visualization or other mental exercises to align your psychology with that level of effort.
Just to underline the fundamental question: if pain isn’t a good metric (and I agree that it isn’t) what is a good metric?
I’m recommending Bruce Frantzis’ tai chi, qi gong, bagua etc. classes at Energyarts.com.
One of the fundamental principles is to put out reliable 70% effort—this is enough to create progress without much chance of injury or burnout. Considerably less effort if you’re sick or injured.
This is harder than it sounds, if you’re from a culture which assumes that more effort = better results and is a sign of more virtue.
Your effort level is what you can do that day. You aren’t competing with yourself. You aren’t expecting that you can make yourself do today what you could do yesterday. You may not be able to do as much with one side of your body as the other. Respect that. In fact, let the stronger side match the weaker side.
I tend to think of overvaluing effort as an American issue, but it appears in other cultures, too. Frantzis teaches water method—the 70% approach—but there’s also fire method in Chinese tradition, which involves pursuing enlightenment or whatever with as much force as you can muster.
This sort of steady effort might be best for sports and qi gong, but it’s my impression that high effort followed by relaxation is better for intellectual work.
I’ll just paste this from my comment in case you find it useful to that question:
I think that the right amount level of effort leaves you tired but warm inside, like you look forward doing this again, rather than just feeling you HAVE to do this again.
This is probably true in a practical sense (otherwise you won’t sustain it as a habit), but I’m not sure it describes a well-defined level of effort. For me an extreme effort could still lead to me looking forward to it, if I have a concrete sense of what that effort bought me (maybe I do some tedious and exhausting footwork drills, but I understand the sense in which this will carry over into a game-like situation, so it feels rewarding; but I wouldn’t be able to sustainably put in that same level of effort if I couldn’t visualize the benefits).
It seems to me like to calibrate the right level of effort requires some other principle (for physical activity this would be based on rates of adaptation to avoid overtraining), and then you should perform visualization or other mental exercises to align your psychology with that level of effort.