Mental Wellness in a Digital World

Sheffield Pulley:
Okay, we are going to go ahead and get started, here. It’s wonderful to be with you all this afternoon. I guess, morning or evening, if you’re joining us somewhere other than the east coast.

Sheffield Pulley:
Today is a bit of a diversion from our typical webinar. Up until now, we have been offering our experts to share their knowledge, their experiences with us, and with our audience. Today, not necessarily an expert at the helm, but we did want to take the chance to take an opportunity to express one of our deepest passions as a company, and I’m what you get. So, hopefully we’ll be able to, together, learn a lot. I know I have learned a ton through this experience of putting it together, and I look forward to sharing it with you. Hopefully it will bear some fruit in your own life.

Sheffield Pulley:
We are going to stick to the same format, so we’ll hold all questions until the end. You’re more than welcome to go ahead and ask questions in the chat, but I won’t probably get around to them until the end, at which point I will probably answer, “I don’t know, we should ask Google.” I’m guessing. You’ll get a copy of the webinar. We’ll send you a recording of it. You’re going to get my deck with resources. I’ll have added resources to the deck, and send it on. We’ll be sending an email to you, to the registered email you gave to us on sign-up.

Sheffield Pulley:
So, a little bit about me. My name is Sheffield Pulley. I am the director of growth here at Hive Digital. They pretty much allowed me to make up my name, which is awfully nice. I am big time into growth. I love seeing companies grow, I love seeing humans grow, so it seemed to fit.

Sheffield Pulley:
I grew up here in the Triangle. I’m a Triangle native, which for those of you not in North Carolina or on the east coast, that is Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, the RTP, Research Triangle Park area. Went off to school at Greensboro College, where I majored in basketball and religion and philosophy, and a minor in ethics. Took some business classes, but most of my business chops came from the real world.

Sheffield Pulley:
Been doing business since I was a teenager. Started a company, or was starting a company before I went off to college, was convinced to go to college, which I’m glad I was. But I love business. I love business mostly for what it can do for people. When I look through the different experiences I’ve been able to have, one common thread is that there’s been an element of wanting to have a positive impact on people’s lives. That has certainly been the case where I have landed here at Hive Digital, and I will get into a little bit further about how that has affected my life personally.

Sheffield Pulley:
I’m an author. Don’t tell anyone. I haven’t released the books yet. I have written a couple of books. One of them, I think, is going to be out soon. Relatively similar topics, health awareness, self-consciousness, or being conscientious of oneself, self-reflection, things of that sort. So, I guess I do have some chops in this arena.

Sheffield Pulley:
To my left is my 11-year-od guru, Forrest, my son. That shirt, I’m not sure if you can see it, but it says, “You never take the same breath twice.” He and I were waking in the woods, and all of the sudden, he blurted it out. And I looked at him like, “Yep, you’re right, buddy, we don’t.” So, he and his mom put it on a T-shirt for me, he picked out that mandala, and as you might imagine, it is my most precious piece of clothing.

Sheffield Pulley:
On the right there is my best buddy, my therapist. Where’d she go? She was sitting right behind me. Nama. A lot of our team members know Nama. She used to hang out with us quite a bit when we would get together. Forrest, my son, named her Nama, so that when you tell her to stay, you’re reminded to honor the part of her that isn’t necessarily physical, and to honor that part within ourselves, as well. Namaste. It actually works.

Sheffield Pulley:
I am a knucklehead. There are people in this webinar which will attest to my knucklehead-ness. I think that’s to your advantage today, because that means that we are just walking this path together, peer-to-peer, friend-to-friend, colleague-to-colleague. I’ll try to make this thing work, and I’m hoping that I can share with you some of the things that I have learned that have worked for me, or that I have heard worked for others.

Sheffield Pulley:
I have been at this wellness thing for 15 years-ish, trying to better myself. Pass, fail, pass, fail, back and forth. But I have learned a ton. I’ve learned a ton from other people, I’ve learned a ton about from other people’s experiences. And so, I’m hoping that encapsulating that into this webinar will serve you in having a more fruitful life.

Sheffield Pulley:
So, why the heck are we here? Why is a digital marketing agency having a webinar about mental wellness? We are not your mama’s digital marketing agency, and in fact, if your mama does have an agency, that’s pretty freaking cool, but we’re still not her agency. Because we do things a little bit different. When the executive team, our current executive team, took the reins of the company, one of the foundations, the pillars on which they build this new organization was that team members’ wellbeing was going to be held paramount. That, yes, profit was important, of course, but the people are what we’re really in business for, and that starts with us internally.

Sheffield Pulley:
And I can say, since coming here, I guess three and a half, four years ago, I have never been nurtured in this way by any other professional experience. We have internal mental wellness seminars. The commitment to a family-first mentality is relentless. I have never, ever … I’ve only been encouraged to go to Forrest’s stuff. It’s an encouragement, versus something that they would frown upon.

Sheffield Pulley:
When COVID hit, we each were gifted two different meditation, mindfulness apps. JF told us that we were required to take mental health days, and he was going to hunt us down if we didn’t. And he, again, gave us internal seminars about what we could control, what we couldn’t control. Incredibly helpful, just words of encouragement.

Sheffield Pulley:
One of the ways of which they have integrated this mental wellness value into our organization is by allowing us flexible work hours, fitting around our schedule, our family. Flexible location. I could be working from Italy right now if I wanted to. It’s an incredible, incredible freedom to be able to live your life in a way that’s going to make you most fruitful, which in turn will make you the best team member that you can be.

Sheffield Pulley:
We also have internal chats, where we share inspiration and humor and perspective on current events. Truly, it is at the heart of who we are as a company, and we wanted to take an opportunity, as best we could, to share that passion with you today. Later on in this webinar, I’ll explain to you a little bit further the ways in which we’ve been able to serve the mental health community through this last decade or so.

Sheffield Pulley:
But as for today, what are we going to learn? I’m going to be touching on a lot of stuff, scratching the surface on quite a bit of stuff. There’s one thing in particular I want to dive into first, but as a whole, we’re going to be scratching the surface on quite a bit. I would encourage you to reflect on, if there are three, four, five pieces to this puzzle, or recipe, as it has come together, that make sense for you, and focus in on them. Taking on all of them probably would be silly, and we don’t want any silliness around here.

Sheffield Pulley:
So, we’ll get to those here in a second, but one of the things of which we’re going to be diving into a little deeper is breath, and I’ll talk to you a little bit further about that in a couple of slides. But the crux of what we’re going to be discussing today are the challenges of which technology has brought to our lives, and trying to wrap a bow around how we’re being affected. Our mental wellbeing, our physical wellbeing, even our spiritual wellbeing is being affected through technology.

Sheffield Pulley:
And then, we’re going to dive into the solutions of which technology gives us to cure some of those challenges, even enhance some of those challenges, so that they can even become strengths.

Sheffield Pulley:
So, what is mental wellness? The WHO … I looked up a bunch of definitions, a bunch of different perspectives, and I thought the WHO had the best one. Not the band. I’m sure that they have a better one than even the World Health Organization. But the World Health Organization framed it as a state of wellbeing in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.

Sheffield Pulley:
It affects how we relate to others, how we relate to ourselves, how we navigate stress, make choices, how productive we are at work. It affects whether we realize our goals, our aspirations. It affects our contribution to our families, to our communities. Other than that, it’s no big deal.

Sheffield Pulley:
All right, so I mentioned we were going to dive deep into one particular subject, the one of which I am personally most passionate about. I really like breathing, and I have yet to meet a human that wasn’t into breathing, to one degree or another. It’s pretty, like a crucial piece to that human puzzle. Which is beautiful in a way. It’s unifying. It’s one of the only few things that we as humans require to be a human, is a breath.

Sheffield Pulley:
And Allah would say it’s really all we have in life, is the breath. It’s oxygen for our bodies, for our organs. Always there to be utilized. It’s really great for when you’re waiting for something. And for me, it helps me get back to the basic gratitude of, holy mackerel, I’m alive. That’s pretty freaking cool. That’s pretty amazing. And the breath, the simplicity of the breath, can bring that focus to me.

Sheffield Pulley:
One of the things I hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t known, I should say, was how the breath can be a tool for consciousness. We don’t breathe when we’re in front of devices. Next time you’re hanging out at your computer, on your phone, pay attention. You won’t breathe unless you make yourself breathe. We don’t breathe when we’re stressed. Anybody been stressed the last year or so? We don’t breathe unless we tell ourselves to breathe.

Sheffield Pulley:
Deep breathing, which I’m going to get into a little bit further, has some pretty good benefits. I made a list. I looked up a list. I want to read it to you. Here it is. Well, first of all, I think this is a really good point. It sort of disrupts … a lot of people with meditation it’s some shanti, or you have to chant, or whatever. This is just breathing. We’re just breathing here, and we’re just breathing in a certain way of which brings balance to certain parts of our being.

Sheffield Pulley:
But in addition to that, it feeds our organs, restores balance, provides stress relief, pain relief, relieves tension. It gives us heightened focus, concentration, altered states. Aids in positive self-development, boosts immunity. Process emotions. Develop life skills. Develop self-awareness. Enrich creativity. It eliminates toxins, improves personal and professional relationships, increases confidence, self-image, joy, happiness. Helps you overcome addictions. Releases negative thoughts. And this one I added: It makes you way cooler.

Sheffield Pulley:
So, how do you do it? My dad, I think he was around 60 at the time, he came out of his first yoga class, and he said, “I feel like I just learned how to breathe correctly for the first time.” And I remember, the same thing happened to me. I didn’t know the way of which our diaphragm was supposed to react to our breaths. And so, it’s basically like a balloon.

Sheffield Pulley:
The vast majority of the deep breathing we’re going to be talking about, and the vast majority of people will tell you to keep your breathing below your chest. There are certain breath techniques, and there are certain times when breathing into your chest is appropriate, but the vast majority of the time, and in the case of today, the stuff we’re going to be doing, it’s chest and below. So, you want to expand your stomach and your lower ribs, just like a balloon.

Sheffield Pulley:
First breath. You’ll find, if you choose to dive deeper into deep breathing, or breath work, as sometimes we call it, that 80-90% of the different sequences start with a 4-5 breath intake. You can’t be exact on the breaths, so somewhere in between four and five is usually where we’ll start, and where you’ll start in any sequence.

Sheffield Pulley:
Short and long. So, you have that 4-5 second neutral breath, we’ll call it. Anything below that 4-5, so three, two, or one second breaths are going to be stimulating. Anything above that, so five, six, seven, eight, and above are going to be more relaxing. That is not foolproof, but as a general rule, that’s the idea. If you’re having a longer period of time, it’s going to be more calming. Shorter period of time on your breath, and it’s going to be more stimulating.

Sheffield Pulley:
Which is the beauty of it, you can do both through the sequencing. When you do some of these sequences, you can literally feel, and some of it’s immediate, some of it, it takes a week or a month or so to really see the full benefits. But you see in these sequences, and these techniques go back millennia. These are developed through people that sat around and studied this stuff way longer than we ever could, and have discovered these techniques, passed on these techniques that work. And now we have science, we have technology to prove their worth.

Sheffield Pulley:
So, let’s do one. In fact, let’s do three. We’re going to do these pretty quick, because I’m concerned about time, and I don’t want to go too crazy here, but I wanted to teach you three that I think are kind of the starting place. My favorite app, I’m not going to mention too many specific apps, but this one in particular has been just really, extraordinarily helpful for me, and it’s called Breathwrk. It’s Breathwrk, without the O. I highly recommend you checking it out, but it will teach you … I don’t know how many they have. At least 50 different sequences. I haven’t dove into all of them.

Sheffield Pulley:
But this is where most people say to start, is with the five in, five out breath. Some people call it the home breath. Some people call it the balance breath. But it’s going to bring your body into perfect balance. And it can be utilized any time. Some of these sequences, they only encourage you to do once or twice a day. Some of these … But this is your home breath. This is where you come back to when you need to just settle in.

Sheffield Pulley:
And if you do it, if you do at least six of this breath, then you will reach, obviously, the minute threshold, and most will say that a six breath per minute ratio is the perfect ratio from a long-term perspective. So, five in, five out is a breath cycle that will bring an element of balance, and an element of calm and comfort. I think that’s what it does for me, as much as anything else.

Sheffield Pulley:
Four, seven, eight breath. This was my first … nope, my second introduction to the next one. My first introduction to breath work, I didn’t even necessarily know I was being introduced to it. A guy by the name of Andrew Weil, Dr. Andrew Weil. Really cool dude. If you’ve never looked into him, it’s W-E-I-L. He is world-renowned in integrative medicine, but he, this, again, goes back millennia.

Sheffield Pulley:
But you use it when you want calm, when you want focus, when you want to settle yourself. If you’re feeling a little out of control, this will bring you back into the moment. And you only do it in four cycles. So, it’s a maximum of four cycles to start. There’s an element of it being a little frou-frou, in that he encourages you to put your tongue at the roof of your mouth. That opens up your jaw, which will allow for better breathing. That you, on the out, which is the eight breath, I’ll get to here in a second, do a “whoosh” sound, like a “whoosh” sound. So, that gets a little weird, but not really, if you’re alone.

Sheffield Pulley:
So, the way this works is you breathe in for four, you hold for seven, I’m not going to do it now, and then you breathe out for eight. Breathe in for four, hold for seven, breathe out for eight. And you do four cycles.

Sheffield Pulley:
Now, he encourages everyone to only to two per day. I’m not exactly sure why, to start, but maybe it’s just too much of a good thing? I’m not sure. But after the first month, you can shift into eight cycles each time, and you can do it as frequently as you’d like. He has a great 2-3 minute video where he introduces it. I would encourage you to look at it. He will provide any other additional clarity that might be helpful.

Sheffield Pulley:
SEAL breaths. You may have heard about the Navy SEALs and their breath work. This is what they use when they are getting ready to go into a situation that’s going to be difficult. They bring calm to themselves with this SEAL breath. This is actually the first breath, it was introduced to me as a box breath, and it immediately helped, and I have found this to be my saving grace in times of … It really just, again, settles. There’s an element of settled-ness that it brings, especially long-term. I think the more that I do it, the more that I realize how helpful it is.

Sheffield Pulley:
So, it goes … Backing up a step, there’s actually four pieces to our breath cycle. There’s the inhale, there’s the space in between, there’s the exhale, and then there’s the space in between. So, each of those are going to be utilized here in this breath, and they’re going to bring balance to each of those breaths.

Sheffield Pulley:
So, you would do four in, and you would hold for four. You would do four out through your mouth, and then you would hold for four. And then, typically, 4-7 cycles. They do 20 cycles. Once you start doing it, you kind of want to keep doing it, because it feels so natural and nice, and you feel, there’s an element of concentration, and of balance, of energy, that you just kind of want more of.

Sheffield Pulley:
Okay, so digging in a little bit further into this whole technology thing. I was talking with Jeff, our CEO, Jeff Staub, our CEO, the other day, about company culture, and his vision for Hive Digital when he took the reins, from a wellness standpoint, specifically a mental wellness standpoint. And he had all kinds of amazing things to say. I actually have a blog that I think we’re going to be sharing about some of it, hopefully, some time soon.

Sheffield Pulley:
But one of the things of which he said that really actually helped me shape this webinar was, he talked about technology’s problems. Which is to say that we made a deal sometime back with technology that we were going to give part of ourselves, part of our time, part of our energy, to it, and in exchange, it was going to give us an easier, more fruitful, happier life.

Sheffield Pulley:
Has it delivered? I think per usual, it’s up to us. And today, we’re going to be going and exploring some of technology’s solutions, which my hope is that it will allow us to make that choice more clearly.

Sheffield Pulley:
So, technology’s challenges. With its conveniences, and it certainly has brought with it credible conveniences. I don’t go to the grocery store anymore, which is tremendous. That being said, those conveniences have brought with it quite a bit of challenges. They’re affecting us, our wellbeing, both mentally and otherwise. It probably would benefit us to dig in a little bit deeper, take a moment to focus in on some of those challenges, and really hone in on where it is that we as individuals are being pushed and pulled, with these notifications and constant communication and such.

Sheffield Pulley:
A guy by the name of Jim Kwik, K-W-I-K, I highly recommend you check out Jim Kwik. He’s a brilliant performance and accelerated learning expert. He came up with this idea, the four horsemen of the digital world. He actually included a fifth. I’m not exactly sure why he didn’t change it to some sort of … something with five, but anyway, he came up with a fifth, which I’ll talk about today, as well. But he, in his book … I can’t remember the name of the book. It could be Googled, of course. He outlined these four horsemen of the digital world, and I wanted to give a quick synopsis of what they are.

Sheffield Pulley:
Deluge. Too much. There’s just too much, like constantly too much. Eight hours of media, they say, a day. That’s just media. That’s just too much. Jim says, “There’s a growing body of evidence to suggest that if we never let our mind wander or be bored for a moment, we pay a price: poor memory, mental fog, and fatigue.” I’ve certainly found that to be true in my experience.

Sheffield Pulley:
Distraction. Anybody’s attention fragmented? I know mine is, oftentimes. This, I think, is something that’s running rampant. We are too connected to our devices. They’re cute, shiny, addictive, and endless, and unfortunately, sometimes we lose ourselves in them. We lose presence. We lose happiness. And shifting attention from thing to thing is exhausting.

Sheffield Pulley:
Digital dementia. I don’t know, but I haven’t had a paper map out in a while. I know about 10 phone numbers in my phone. I’m pretty sure I could autocorrect some words, but I don’t have to. Unfortunately, that over-reliance is resulting in us breaking down our cognitive abilities. As Jim put it, “Too often we outsource our brains to our smart devices, and our smart devices are making us a little bit stupid.”

Sheffield Pulley:
Digital deduction. There is an abundance of information and opinions that we can find, just go on Reddit, to inform ourselves on any issue, but the problem is that we can lose our own process of deduction, our own critical thinking, problem solving, creativity. We’re letting technology do the deduction for us.

Sheffield Pulley:
And the fifth that he added was depression. The constant comparison. Never enough. They’re always going to look better, and it’s definitely not real, but it feels weird, and it doesn’t feel good, and it’s running rampant. And if we leave it untamed, we’re seeing what it can do.

Sheffield Pulley:
And I actually added one myself: disruption. I have found here recently, in particular as I’ve gotten more focused to the way I’m integrating with my phone, too often I’ll be in the moment with Fo, we’re doing this or that, and then I’ll go to my phone, and I’m out. Like, immediately, the moment is gone, and that’s not good. So, I’m becoming more and more, I’m trying to become more and more conscientious of allowing it to disrupt the beautiful moments of which I’m engaged. And it’s subtle, and it’s sneaky. We think it’s just a simple little news push, or something like that, but they’re a distraction from what it is we’re experiencing in the midst of the moment we’re in.

Sheffield Pulley:
Okay, are you depressed yet? Luckily, fortunately, tech has also brought with it innovations, ways of which we can relate to it and ourselves that can help cure some of these challenges. We can leverage technology to help assist us into becoming better selves. The best self we can possibly be, or as we would call it, [Tao 00:28:16].

Sheffield Pulley:
Specifically today, I want to talk about the way of which we can utilize that on our mobile devices, first of which is applications. There is literally one for everything within the mental wellness space. I have been studying these for probably three months, some 2-3 months, now, just wanting to get … I became fascinated, almost obsessed. They’re so beautiful. They’re so savvy and credible. There’s gamification. There’s free versions. What they’re doing with these applications from a mental wellness standpoint is mind blowing, and I think it’s a opportunity for us to really reflect on how it is that, again, we are relating to our devices. I’m going to get into that a little bit further in a moment.

Sheffield Pulley:
Connections. Again, what an opportunity we have. We like to pooh-pooh on social media quite a bit, but there are such amazing opportunities out there to find social connection online. Real connection. You can find real connection, real fellowship, real support, in a way that we couldn’t in the past, and you can do it through apps, come to find out. And then, hopefully, there’s a balance, right? With the real world, where we find community there, as well. But both are important, and I think there’s an opportunity to embrace and engage the opportunity, what technology has afforded us.

Sheffield Pulley:
And then, finally, notifications. Don’t forget to remember. I can’t tell you how helpful this has been to me. I did it, I started, again, when I was, it was probably three months ago, I started allowing all these things to start notifying me. Yeah. And I just sort of allowed these mental wellness apps just to kind of infiltrate, and it was incredible. It was incredible, getting the reminders. I forget to breathe. I forget to check in. I forget. And they’ll send you motivating quotes, and I’ll get into this a little bit further, but notifications can be an incredible tool, come to find out.

Sheffield Pulley:
Okay, so I promised a recipe. Here is the recipe. Let’s get to the meal. As I mentioned, there’s going to be quite a bit. Not sure it’s going to be best to take them all in at once, so maybe pick out a few, focus in on them. I’m not going to mention too many apps specifically, just because I didn’t want to single out one over the other. I will, if I have personal experience, I may speak to that, but literally, it’s a Google away, typing in whatever it is you want to cook up, and then looking into the apps. Because, you know, different apps are going to resonate with different people.

Sheffield Pulley:
Focus. Short sprints. I’m sure a lot of you a little have heard of the pomodoro, I think I said that right, time management, where you do, I believe it is 25 minutes, and then five minutes off. Which I have tried, and I think others have tried, and found to be very rigid. I utilize something called flow time, which is, essentially how I do it is ratio it out. So, it’s a 15% ratio. Don’t call me out if I get this math wrong, guys. But 25 minutes, you take a five minute break; 15 minutes, you take a seven and a half minute break? You could probably go ahead and take a 10 minute break.

Sheffield Pulley:
But you build into these deep focus work moments, these strategic breaks that give your brain the relief from that focus. But for that focus, you have one task, and one task only. Period. You bring yourself fully to it, no distractions. Doesn’t matter if somebody chats you. Doesn’t matter. You’re in it. Then you take a break, find something, and hopefully breaks aren’t going to check your phone. And you don’t have to do this all day, but the time of which you’re really engaging with your work, be strategic with it, and when you can be strategic with it, there’s an element of deep focus I have found that is helpful from a productivity standpoint.

Sheffield Pulley:
And there’s such cool apps. There are apps, one is called Forest, with one R, where you can set the timer of which you want to stay focused. There’s another one, too, I can’t remember the name of it. It does something similar. But you can say, okay, I want to focus for 25 minutes. Set the timer. If you reach your goal, they’ll give you a tree, or a bush, or something like that, to plant in your forest, and you get to build your forest. It’s gamified. It’s really fun.

Sheffield Pulley:
The brain training games are a blast, like I don’t know if you’ve played with Peak or Lumosity. Elevate is another one that I have utilized, and they are so much fun. There’s mental fitness apps, literally like mental fitness. It’s just teaching you how to focus, and working out that focus muscle.

Sheffield Pulley:
Life log. Journaling. It could have been called journaling, but that wasn’t as fun. I heard someone recently say that journaling is the windshield wipers to life, and I have definitely found that to be true. There are so many times, including in relation to talking today, where I had a chance to talk to myself, remind myself what’s really going on, and it’s incredibly helpful to take the stuff out of your brain and put it onto paper, and you can see it in real life, and it gets out of your brain onto, again, onto paper, onto a screen, in this particular case.

Sheffield Pulley:
But many different types. You can find traditional journaling, or life logging, if you want to call it that. Question prompts. There’s video journaling. There’s chat bots now, a super cute chat bot owl that will talk to you, different owl that will chat with you. Super intuitive. It’s actually kind of freaky, but really, really sweet and cute. There’s a lot of different, fun journaling. I would highly encourage you to kind of go down that rabbit hole, because it’s amazing, it’s absolutely amazing what they’ve done.

Sheffield Pulley:
Therapy. Help is helpful. Just last night, I wasn’t feeling it. Sat down with my therapist, I was feeling it. It is so, for my life, it is so incredibly important to have someone to talk with that’s not biased, and knows how to navigate these type of things, the things that I might be navigating, and to each their own, but for me, and I know for a lot of people I know, having that professional help has been incredibly helpful.

Sheffield Pulley:
And there are ones for everything. Every behavior therapy you can think of, CBT, DBT, everything that you could imagine, you can find it all there. And they’re inexpensive. It’s not … You can find it cost effective.

Sheffield Pulley:
Support. I mentioned this earlier. We need each other. This isn’t easy. It’s not for me, at least. This is not easy. So, finding people within these apps, like-minded people, is a really beautiful thing. And so, I would encourage you to also utilize these apps, and opportunities outside of the apps, to connect to your people. Find like-minded people, people with similar motivations or interests. And again, lean into the apps and their notifications for support.

Sheffield Pulley:
Rest. Don’t have to talk much about sleep, but I will say that there are amazing sleep apps. Jeff and Tripp and I were chatting the other day about how much fun it is to every morning wake up and be like, “I got an 80!” “Oh, I got a 97! Yeah! I feel good!” And you can feel it. I’m telling you, they work. I can feel the difference when … But they’ll tell you all kinds of cool insights, and if you’re into sleep, which if you’re not, you may want to get into it. They’re fun, and they’re, again, inexpensive. I’m sure there’s free ones out there, as well.

Sheffield Pulley:
Meditation. You may have heard of this. There is literally, any type of meditation you want to try, you can find it there. It is mind blowing. It’s overwhelming how much meditation out there. I mean, obviously, here internally, we have our own apps that we utilize, and a lot of those are comprehensive, they’ll offer you multiple different meditations within the app. So, it’s just kind of what you’re into. I would encourage you to, again, search it up, see what resonates with you, and try it out. They make it fun. A lot of them make it fun.

Sheffield Pulley:
Energy. There are apps, I mentioned the focus, that’s an obviously piece to this puzzle, but there are apps that will help you tap in from a nutrition standpoint. They’ll help you really gauge … you know, we need fuel, and we need proper fuel, and it’s not easy to manage that. And so, there are apps that will help you do that in great detail. I don’t actually use Health on my phone, ironically, but I’m sure it will do it, as well.

Sheffield Pulley:
Affirm. As I mentioned, these aren’t easy times. It’s actually a pretty hard time. So, I think we all could use some reminders of some higher, or more fulfilling ideas and thoughts. And I have discovered some that are just incredibly inspirational. Incredible facts. They’re funny. There’s gratitudes. There’s mindfulness ones. It has really just enriched my journey. I mean, when you learn something, it feels good. You get a little dopamine hit, right? When we hear something funny, of course it feels good. Having an opportunity to break up these days with some deep breaths and some opportunities to reflect on the other angle of things has proven to be very helpful for me.

Sheffield Pulley:
Along the same lines, there is quite a few apps now that will consolidate books, philosophies, big ideas, into digestible 15-30 minute Cliff Note type of things, where you can assimilate the knowledge, the wisdom, in a quick and efficient way, and those are super cool. And in the same breath, I mentioned earlier the word of the day, facts, things of interest, whatever. Every time you learn, something cool happens, so the more we learn, the better, right?

Sheffield Pulley:
I would highly encourage you to … There’s one in particular, I’m going to go ahead and mention the name. It’s called Monkey Taps. Monkey Taps. Excuse me, Taps, T-A-P-S. They have four apps in particular, and they are tremendous, just fantastic. Text me, “Thank you,” once you’ve enjoyed them.

Sheffield Pulley:
And then, finally, as far as the main course goes, sound. We all have experienced the power of sound, and obviously these devices have come with an incredible opportunity to allow sound to meet the moment, whether it be calming or uplifting. I utilize this technology called brainwave entrainment, which essentially sounds stimulate the brain to operate at a certain state of consciousness, so to speak, focused, relaxed, that type of thing, and I’ve found it to be helpful.

Sheffield Pulley:
There’s such an opportunity to tap into sound, and to be conscientious of how am I … how is this sound, of which I am assimilating into my life, affecting me? And do I want to shift that?

Sheffield Pulley:
All right, meals are gross without spices. I’m going to throw out a few more little spices. This should probably be a main ingredient, but gratitude. I mentioned saving grace. This is one of them. Someone once told me, it takes seven seconds for a memory to really soak in, and how often is it that we take at least seven seconds to let the fear and the burden soak in? And how often do we allow the beautiful moments to settle in? Seven seconds will reap more things to spend seven seconds about.

Sheffield Pulley:
And so, I mentioned that five in, five out breath. I think that’s a cool way to do it, right? Something beautiful happens, your kid does something, your dog does something, you’re feeling good, whatever. Breath in five, breathe out five, and stay focused on that moment, because it’s worth it.

Sheffield Pulley:
A couple of quick things on gratitude. There’s two main ways of which I have utilized this that’s been helpful, is one, by making a list. And a lot of people will encourage you that quality is better … or, quantity … quality is better than quantity. You want to go deep on a few, versus scratching the surface on maybe 10 or so. And the other way, and this sounds kind of weird, is to call to mind other hardships in the world, things that you’re not experiencing and others are, and ground in the gratitude of being in your skin, experiencing life the way you’re experiencing life. And that, in and of itself, is worth as much gratitude as we can give.

Sheffield Pulley:
Sit much? Sitting is the new smoking. I’m sure everybody’s heard that ad nauseum at this point, but I think there may be something to it. I think it’s just being conscientious. Stand up from time to time. Maybe set a timer. Maybe this whole flow time thing might be helpful. The other thing that I’m trying to implement is different desk areas, so taking my laptop and standing somewhere, and then go sit, maybe sitting in a different chair. Just change, get up. We’ve talked about [inaudible 00:42:22] over here internally. I would encourage you to do a little Google on that front, as well. You can stretch, connect your breath while you’re sitting, but movement is crucial.

Sheffield Pulley:
Self time. I can tell you, there is a different chef if I have woken up early and taken time. Pro chef or not. Some of you probably know the difference. So, I would encourage you, whether it is in the morning, or whenever it is, that you can find a window to have some of these self-reflective moments, to do the journaling, to do the sitting. Make it a priority, because look, it’s like, as I mentioned earlier, pretty freaking important. There’s a lot of life here that is affected by our mental wellbeing.

Sheffield Pulley:
Screen control. I cannot tell you how good it feels when you tell your phone you’re the boss. When it’s asking you to come and play, and you say no. It feels so good, and it’s so helpful. So, I would encourage you to at least interject some control, and try as best you can to make some progress, and have regard. I know for me, if left unchecked, it’s going to push me from thing to thing. When I keep it in check, show it who the boss is, it’s incredibly empowering. And then, I consciously choose when to go and engage with it.

Sheffield Pulley:
And then, I mentioned movement. Physical activity. You know the deal. I like to dance. Don’t judge. If you don’t like to dance, find some dance in you. Dancing is so good. Yoga, I’m into that. Pilates, walking, playing with children. Just move it. Move it, move it, move it. We can’t … I don’t think we can move enough.

Sheffield Pulley:
So, that being said, there is my recipe for a sound mental wellness. Going to move into questions here. Let’s see if we’ve got any here in chat. I have cut out some stuff that I may end up interjecting if we don’t have any questions. Give you another 30 seconds or so.

Sheffield Pulley:
Okay, excellent. Well, you are welcome to reach out with any questions you may have. I will … my information is here. I’m going to back up a step. I want to tell you a little bit about us as a company. I mentioned earlier that I wanted to share a little bit further about us, more in a general sense.

Sheffield Pulley:
We are a mission-driven organization, which is to say we love to work with people that are having a positive impact on the planet, and on one another’s lives. So, we, as best we can, align with companies … well, not as best we can. We do align with companies that are living out those ideals, and hopefully within their business structure having a positive impact on that.

Sheffield Pulley:
We are a full service inbound, which means that we, our four departments are our website analytics, search engine optimization from an organic standpoint, paid ads, both organic and social, and then we also do some social media management.

Sheffield Pulley:
We have been afforded the pleasure of working with quite a bit of companies over the last decade in the mental wellness space. We have worked with online therapists. We’ve worked with companies promoting mindfulness. We’ve worked with mental health practices. We are currently working with a venture capital firm that invests in mental health companies. Mobile app, practice management solutions. We’ve supported an international entrepreneur network that supports mental health. Meditation companies. All of which we were assisting to increase the traffic to their site, and hopefully build exposure to mental wellness, and the solutions which they are promoting.

Sheffield Pulley:
So, I would love to talk to you further. If there’s anything we can do to help, we are always looking for companies to align with, companies to partner up with. We’re here if you need us.

Sheffield Pulley:
I see some Q and A. Is that a question? Oh, there it is. Oh, good point. Yeah, therapy. I think you said … let me see, here. This is fun. Oh, holding yourself accountable. Friends, loved ones that love you, and appreciate you, and truly want what’s best for you, I would say, would be a great way to do that, that will hold you soft when you fail, because we will.

Sheffield Pulley:
And I would say taking it in small chunks. You take on all of this, then you’ll probably not take on any of it. So, maybe just take it easy on yourself, and in all the different forms and fashions, and maybe even just take up one. Maybe don’t take up any. Who knows? But I would say … And you know, the truth is, is that a lot of these practices will breed self-compassion. A lot of these practices will inherently connect yourself to the part of you that will show yourself grace.

Sheffield Pulley:
What else we got?

Speaker 2:
I do see a question on here where it looks like somebody’s asked, what’s your favorite app?

Sheffield Pulley:
Breathwrk [inaudible 00:48:47]. It’s pretty much changed my deal. Yeah, Breathwrk. Bleacher Report doesn’t count, right? I don’t think Bleacher report counts. Breathwrk, in regards to mental health, yeah. It has really changed the way in which I operate.

Speaker 2:
Awesome, and you’ve already answered this one here, but just so the panelists have … I mean, just so our attendees have some context, the question where you were talking about asking friends, family and loved ones to help hold you accountable, the question was stating, obviously all of this takes a lot of self-discipline, and holding yourself accountable to take the time to do these things, that can be difficult. How do you do that without beating yourself up when you fail? And so, I think it was a good idea to talk about reaching out to family, friends, loved ones, and so on, and seeing if they can assist in that process.

Sheffield Pulley:
Yeah, and not taking on too much at once.

Speaker 2:
Exactly.

Sheffield Pulley:
All right, well, we are perfectly wrapped, I think. Let me remind you that we will be sending out a recording. I will have resources attached to this deck, as well. We’ll send it to your registered email. You’re welcome to reach out. There I am. There’s my email. LinkedIn, once you get the deck, or you could just look me up on LinkedIn. I would love to connect and chat further. You’ll also have our previous webinar page in the email, as well.

Sheffield Pulley:
Next webinar is April 22nd, 2021. I guess that was a given. Tripp Hamilton and Matty Apps, Matthew K., will be sharing about local SEO, specifically as it relates to reviews and growing reviews that affect your SEO footprint.

Sheffield Pulley:
Okay, well, thank you all very much. Hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your day.

Breath:
The Importance of Breathing
Breathing Exercises
Seal Breath
Health Benefits of Deep Breathing

Today’s Challenges:
The Four Digital Horsemen

Today’s Solutions:
Healthline.com: Top Meditation iPhone and Android Apps
Self.com: Mental Health Apps
Self.com: Best Journal Apps
Prevention.com: Best Apps for Mental Health
Design Epic Life’s ’20 Best Book Summary Websites & Apps’ (2021)
VeryWellMind.com: Best Sleep Apps
PCMag.com: Best Workout Apps
Monkey Taps App—”A Daily Dose of Motivation” for you and your team, along with self-care reminders