Hold your horses! Discover the secret of slow

[Guest guest]

Hold your horses! Discover the secret of slow

The secret to success in life, work and at home may be hitting the

brakes

By Hugh O'Neill http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26136773/

It was one of those shining days. The azaleas were peeking out as

spring came to the Chesapeake. I was in my car, tearing it up in

hopeful duet with Canadian crooner Bublé, when I noticed

something interesting. Throughout " Come Fly With Me, " I was just a

little bit out in front. Bublé held each note a nanosecond longer

than I did and waited just an extra half-instant before sliding into

the next phrase. Though my voice was every bit as velvety and my

attitude even more ring-a-ding-ding, I was always a shade faster than

the master. Hmmm ... a voice inside me said.

Later, that night, I noted Letterman's patience as he ambled through

a scripted joke. His easy pace, his confidence, his willingness to

meander toward the punch line seemed central to the mirth. Hmmm...

the same voice purred.

And then, sleepless with incipient insight, I stumbled on the last

note of my eureka chord in Bob Dylan's memoirs. " I did everything

fast, " wrote the troubadour of his early struggles to marshal his

skills. " I needed to slow my mind down if I was going to be a

composer with anything to say. "

" Aha! " I muttered to the 2 a.m. silence. All these years, I had been

searching for the same thing every man desires: fast answers to all

of my dilemmas. And therein lay the problem. Apparently, slower is

the secret to success.

While I've got no beef with the easy-goers — the meditators with

their mantras, the slow foodies with their local yams — let's be

clear that, from its first flicker, my slow wasn't theirs. No, my

slow was less about savoring than succeeding. I didn't want to stop

and smell the roses. I wanted to tear out the garden and replace it

with a sweet post-and-beam cabin in which I could pursue every

conceivable form of excellence and pleasure.

And so, in the past few years, I've traveled my own private road to

slow in search of more: more money, more muscle, more laughs, maybe

even more satisfaction. I've found that professionals across many

disciplines had found that immense benefits accrue to those who ease

off the accelerator. This is how I left the hurried go-go-go path to

which we've been habituated in search of the most highly evolved man

I could possibly be ... at any speed.

Romance: Score slowly

Mae West was right that anything worth doing is worth doing slowly...

very slowly. " Women l-o-o-o-n-n-n-n-g for slower sex, " says sex

therapist Lori Buckley, PsyD, of Pasadena, California, as

emphatically as possible. " Often, the first thing to disappear from a

sexual relationship is the long, lingering, teasing kiss. Lots of

women miss the run-up to arousal. " If you want great sex on a

Saturday night, Buckley suggests starting with brief, soft, tender

kisses throughout the day, offered as if there's no agenda. Try the

back of the neck.

Slow is also female-friendly once the cuddling commences. " A slower

penetration and withdrawal often leads to more stimulation for both

her G-spot and clitoris, " says Buckley. And don't just slow your

hips. " If I could give men one piece of physical advice that would

improve their partner's pleasure, it would be to slow down their

fingers and tongues. "

Of course, it's tough to go slowly when Barney is almost over and the

kids will run in any minute. But slower sex is a win-win. In one of

nature's sweet coincidences, what appears to be unselfishness

(deference to her arousal rate) is actually self-serving. If you can

render her pie-eyed with lust, your chances of getting another at-bat

soon — maybe even later, after SportsCenter — spike. Incidentally, if

you'd ever like to keep the party going, remember this: " If, just

before orgasm, a man slows and deepens his breathing, he can delay

ejaculation, " according to Buckley, thus prolonging the pleasure for

both of you.

Wealth: Succeed slowly

" The secret of investing is to get rich slowly, " says Jeff Fischer,

cofounder of the Complete Growth Investor, an investment advisory

service. Our gender's need for speed can undermine our plans. High

levels of testosterone may make men impulsive and prone to trading

too frequently. A study by the University of California at

showed that, on average, female investors outpaced men by 1.4

percentage points a year, mainly because they traded less often. " Men

see the market as a game, and our taste for gambling leads us to

chase the quick score, " says Fischer.

Instead of jumping in and out of the market, dollar-cost average your

way in. Every month, without thinking, put the same amount of money

into a well-balanced index fund or two. " You'll end up buying more

shares when they're cheap, and fewer when they're pricey, " explains

Fischer.

Consider this counterintuitive thought. " Do your best not to take

advantage of the streaming information that's everywhere, " suggests

Fischer. " Don't check quotes every hour or day, or even every week if

you can help it. " Remember the wisdom of Warren Buffett, who aspired

not to trade. A celebrated study done a few years ago found that

successful traders didn't do as well after they switched over to

online trading. Why? Overconfidence and " the illusions of knowledge

and control " led them to trade too often, wrote the authors.

" If you're confident enough to admit you know nothing and plod

tortoiselike along, " says Fischer, " you'll end up with a significant

net worth. "

Health: Breathe slowly

Doctors who embrace both Western medicine and Eastern healing often

point to slower breathing as the simplest way to better

health. " Humans have two nervous systems: an accelerator, or the

sympathetic nervous system, and a brake, or the parasympathetic

nervous system, " says Mehmet Oz, MD, director of the Cardiovascular

Institute at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center

and coauthor, with his wife, Oz, of a new CD on optimal

breathing.

" In our hectic lives, we spend more time hitting the gas than the

brake, and our breathing becomes quick and shallow. " Consequently, we

don't draw optimal amounts of oxygen deep into our lungs, down to the

smallest airways, the alveoli, where oxygen exchange is most

efficient. " If our breathing is quick and shallow, our bodies release

less nitrous oxide, a vessel dilator that helps oxygenate our organs

and tissues, " says Dr. Oz. The fix is called belly breathing.

Place your hand lightly over your belly button. If you're like most

bad breathers, when you breathe in, your stomach goes in. Wrong! It

should puff outward a bit. If you fill your lungs fully, your

diaphragm, which sits between your lungs and your stomach, is pushed

down by your expanding lungs, forcing your gut out. On exhalation,

your diaphragm moves back and, in the process, helps your lungs move

air and your heart pump blood. Practice breathing so that your abs

rise toward your hand on slow inhalation and deflate as you slowly

exhale. Start small. Make a point of doing some belly breathing now

and then, maybe when you feel especially stressed. Over time, try to

add a few more daily sessions. Gradually, you may teach your body to

take care of itself by breathing more slowly. (If I didn't know how

angry it would make you, I'd recommend studying meditation and

breathing technique. But never mind.)

The list of health benefits that radiate outward from slower, deeper

breathing is long. A study done at Rush University Medical Center, in

Chicago, shows a correlation between how much time patients spent

practicing slow breathing and a drop in systolic blood

pressure. " It's clear that by managing the stress response, " says Dr.

Oz, " proper breathing can slow your heart rate and control

hypertension. It also enhances lymphatic drainage, the removal of

toxins from the blood. "

Nutrition: Eat slowly

Slowing down can help you shed the 20 pounds standing between you and

the ramrod you were when you played strong-side safety at A & M.

Our stomachs are lined with nerve endings called stretch receptors.

When our guts are filled by that filet with gorgonzola, they signal

the brain to step away from the feeding trough. " But there's a time

lag between the signal and the translation of the message by the

brain, " says Katz, MD, director of the Yale- Prevention

Research Center. So our forks keep right on moving.

You can cut calories by eating slowly, especially toward the end of a

meal. Pause now and then to tell a charming story about how you

crushed a colleague today. Get up and walk around. Use a smaller

spoon. Somehow, slow your intake. " There's also reason to believe

that the more pleasure you take in each bite, the more full you

feel, " says Dr. Katz. " If you chew food well and take care to savor

it, you may want less. "

Want some numbers? Research done at the University of Rhode Island at

Kingston found that, on average, people who ate slowly consumed

almost 70 fewer calories per meal than people who didn't. Multiply

that by three squares a day and you'll drop 20 pounds by this time

next year.

Like a lot of lousy golfers, each time I address the ball, I tell

myself to take an easy, fluid pass. The gorilla-like lurch that

ensues once led an orthopod companion to warn me about spinal damage.

Leadbetter, swing coach to greats such as Nick Faldo and

Masters champ Trevor Immelman, says the secret to better scores is

slowing down.

" Anxiety makes high handicappers move their arms and torsos far too

quickly, which actually leads to less velocity for the club head, "

explains Leadbetter. The problem often stems from too much grip

tension. It's tough to feel the ideal medium pressure, so as you

address the ball, squeeze the grip too tightly for a moment, and then

relax your grip so that it's clearly much too loose. " The tactile

difference between the two extremes helps your brain guide your hands

to the perfect tension-free grip in the middle, " says Leadbetter.

While you're at it, try that breathing thing again. " I'm amazed by

how many golfers hold their breath during their swing. Stress speeds

them up, " he says. Let your breath be a metronome. As you take the

club back, start to exhale slowly. And then, as you start down,

exhale a little more strongly and allow a nice whoosh of breath to

escort you smoothly through contact to a full finish.

If you have trouble finding the brake, try these Leadbetter slow-down

strategies: On your way to the course, drive a little more slowly

than you normally do. As you walk between shots, stroll rather than

striding purposefully. As you draw a club from your bag, do it

gracefully rather than with a quick jerk.

Fatherhood: Steam slowly

I'm not against all paternal anger. In fact, I think anger gets a bad

rap in these be-their-buddy days, and a righteous father's wrath can

actually be useful to a child. But I was often guilty of instant

anger — the flash, the instinctive bark that can be our gender's

default response to vexation or dread. Here's the line that sees

right through me, courtesy of psychiatrist Bruno Bettelheim: " We

become very upset when we believe we see in a child aspects of our

own personalities of which we disapprove. "

When you feel anger rising, slow yourself — maybe for just a beat or

two, or maybe for a night to sleep on it — and consider whether the

child has really earned your anger. If, on reflection, the answer is

yes, so be it. But be sure he's not just a handy target for the scorn

you feel for the guy in the mirror.

Brainpower: Absorb slowly

We're encouraged to read fast. Those kids who zipped through the SAT

got four years at palaces such as Princeton and Duke. But reading

slowly will not only help us remember more, but may also make us more

creative. " If you go so fast that you don't focus, you're wasting

time, not saving it, " says Barry Gordon, MD, PhD, professor of

neurology and cognitive science at s Hopkins Medical School and

the author of Intelligent Memory. The best way to focus more

effectively is to slow down.

If you have some reading to do — let's say your attorney insists you

read the whole indictment — make time for two passes. " The first read

is to absorb the general themes, " says Dr. Gordon. " Once you have

those organizers in your head, you'll be able to store more details

from the second pass. " Think of making memories as a weaving process,

suggests Dr. Gordon. " The more threads of cross-connections, the more

context you can create for a memory, so the more durable it will be. "

Slowing down can also lead to frame-breaking ideas. " A boost in

creativity connected to a slower, more methodical approach is

reported in much of the problem-solving literature, " says Dr. Gordon.

He cites a famous film of Pollock at work, specifically

moments when the artist pauses, seemingly to assess what he has done

and to allow himself the time to " see " differently, to jump out of

the grooves of going on automatic with his faster mind.

So whether you're trying to reinvent microfinance or break down a

match-up zone, if you slow your mind's momentum, you may allow it to

find a new way.

Fitness: Sculpt slowly

If personal trainers, as a group, were allowed to give their charges

only one piece of advice, they might well choose the importance of

maintaining form when lifting, which often means going more slowly.

" Many people lift weights too quickly, which interferes with their

ability to reach their peak performance, " says Suzanne Meth, who runs

E, the VIP fitness studio at Equinox health club. " They have a get-

this-over-with urge, and they lose form and control of the weights. "

If you do reps too fast, you can get a bounce effect, meaning the

weight rebounds off the bottom of the movement. It short-changes the

muscle. " Come to a full stop at the end of each rep, " advises Meth.

Slowing down and keeping your form is the best way to isolate your

muscles and maximize your strength potential.

Another way to slow down is to do exercises that require holding a

position for a period of time, which is an effective way to train

important muscle groups. Tired of hundreds of repetitions of

crunches? Brown, a San Diego-based personal trainer, recommends

the plank and the vacuum exercises for the transverse abdominus. " The

muscle fibers of the transverse abdominus run across the abdomen, and

when the muscle contracts, it stabilizes your pelvis and thoracic

spine, " says Brown. " The plank and the vacuum create a virtual weight

belt to support your lower spine. " Spinal stabilization comes in

handy when carrying drowsy children in from the car or lugging a

recycling barrel to the curb on newspaper pick-up day.

Style: Dazzle slowly

Stylish men move just a heartbeat more slowly than the ho-hum

majority. Your Uncle Ned is fidgety; Cary Grant was graceful and at

ease. Woody is frantic; ny Depp, even as the gaudy Captain

Jack, seems to have a private cadence in his head. Style moves with

dispatch, but never rushes. It doesn't scurry or blurt things out.

Its wisdom won't wilt while waiting. The wile known as style may

require a barely-there across-the-board deceleration. Walk just a

little less quickly. Talk as though people will give your thoughts

some time. Never hurry wine into a glass, or beer into a mug. Even

loosen your tie with languor. Style savors the journey, not just the

destination. Remember the age-old wisdom: He who has command of

others is powerful, but he who has command of himself is mighty.

Craftmanship: Saw slowly

" Every job-site accident since time began is traceable to hurrying, "

says Norm Abram, master carpenter and host of This Old House and New

Yankee Workshop, both on PBS. " If you slow down, you'll save time,

prevent injuries, and do better work. " Consider your handsaw

technique. " Lots of guys use too short strokes, " says Abram, " and

they fall into a too quick back-and-forth action. Most saws are

designed for a longer push-pull, and extending the stroke gets you

more efficiency. "

Want to hammer a nail just right? " Fight the get-this-done attitude

lots of men have. Focus on the nail head, remind yourself to go more

slowly, and you'll find a rhythm that is quick but unhurried. "

Craftsmanship is slower than less skilled work. " Remember the

carpenter's methodical mantra: Measure twice, cut once, " says Abram.

Friendship: Sip slowly

" People have a million different ideas about how to drink bourbon, "

says Dave Pickerell, a bourbon distillery expert who prefers it

poured into a shaker with ice, rattled around for three seconds, and

then poured off the ice into a double old-fashioned glass. " But none

of it matters if you don't drink it slowly. Bourbon is about sharing

and sitting around at the end of the day. There's something about it

that encourages fellowship and good humor. It's a sipping whiskey. "

Career: Speak slowly

" The most common mistake people make in presentations is speaking too

quickly, " says Tollefson, lecturer and director of the

teaching improvement office at the University of California at

Berkeley. " We go too fast because at the top of the talk, we don't

make a connection with the audience and we get anxious. You have to

start with a linker, a sentence that links you to the crowd. It

doesn't have to be anything particularly brilliant, just something

that humanizes you. " So in Kansas, you've been a fan of the Wichita

State Shockers since you were a kid. (By the way, it has to be true.)

" Reading a speech is also a speeder-upper, " says Tollefson. " If you

need the text typed out, print it in large all-caps, highlight the

key points in yellow, and then 'converse' your way from one

highlighted passage to the next. " And don't get locked in place

behind a podium. Movement will relax you and slow you down.

Since I've gone slow, I've started to feel my new pace polishing up

my life. My amusing stories, which I now ease through, are just a tad

more amusing. My golf game has improved dramatically. Not long ago,

my wife, while naked, asked me to do " that slow thing you did last

time " and she seemed to enjoy it... several times. As I've slowed

everything down — from slicing carrots to shaving — I've felt my

serenity and, more important, my competence, growing. Now, whenever

I'm having a tough time with something, whether it's drilling a pilot

hole or getting a point across in a meeting, I just do it a touch

more slowly. Invariably, improvement ensues.

I find myself inspired by the hopefulness shared by many of the

experts I spoke with, their sense that we're obliged by our enormous

potential to take our time. " We think we don't have time to care for

ourselves, to cook well, to eat slowly, " said nutritionist Dr. Katz,

of Yale, " but if we don't take the time now, we'll just spend it in

hospitals later. " When golf man Leadbetter said, " You have to dance

with the club, " there was longing in his voice, a hope that we might

find a deep life rhythm as well as a birdie now and then.

And now I've moved past strategy to the softness that I had first

eschewed. Maybe there is something in taking the time to notice the

shape of a woman's clavicle or the quality of the light in the late

afternoon. Maybe our hearts and lungs and taste buds and professional

plans would all work better, and maybe our lives would be sweeter and

more successful, if we stopped lurching and rushing movements or

emotions or sentences that could benefit from just another moment to

ripen on the vine.