SAVOUR EVERY MOMENT

Offered the opportunity to sit quietly for a quarter of an hour, would you welcome it, take a deep breath and gladly settle down? Or would you quiver in fear at the idea of being alone with your thoughts? A group of participants in a study at Harvard University were given two options: for 15 minutes, they could either sit without distraction or self-administer painful electric shocks. Incredibly, 67% of men and 25% of women chose to electrocute themselves. Pain was preferable to sitting quietly with their own thoughts. Are we making a similarly perverse choice when, despite having no specific efforts on the schedule, we inflict pain on ourselves in training?

The prospect of quiet time alone may provoke the worry that the mind will wander to places we don’t want it to go – towards thoughts that don’t feel safe. Some people would rather actively hurt themselves than take that psychological risk. Another US study found that only 17% of people actively engage in relaxing or deliberate thinking;