41: Heal Yourself with Music & Meditation

Narrator

How would you like to improve your health and keep your family safe? You're listening to the healthy home hacks podcast where we firmly believe enjoying optimal health shouldn't be a luxury healthy home authorities and husband and wife team Ron and Lisa will help you create a home environment that will level up your health. It's time to hear from the experts. listen in on honest conversations and gain the best tips and advice. If you're ready to dive in and improve your wellbeing and increase your energy, you're in the right place. All right, here are your hosts, Val biologists, authors, media darlings, vicarious vegans and avocado aficionados. Ron and Lisa Beres.

Ron Beres

�Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other than the integration of the human being. Because rhythm and harmony find their way into our inward place. All on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace and making the soul of Him who was rightly educated, truly graceful.� ~Plato

Lisa Beres

Someone who understands the power of sound, vibration and frequency is our special guest today. Murray Hidary is the creator of MindTravel, an immersive, meditative journey that has spanned cities across the world in the form of SilentWalks and silent piano concerts. Yes, guys, you heard that right. And we're going to explain what that exactly means as we go through today's show. And bringing MindTravel to a broad audience through his digital offerings, Murray's goal is to create the space for people to have a powerful journey, which is at once provocative and reflective, healing and transcendent. Murray�s experiences are a fusion of contemporary and classical music styles, wisdom traditions, theoretical physics and the power of communal elevation.

Ron Beres

Welcome to the show. Murray. T

Lisa Beres

Thank you, guys. That's a beautiful introduction. Great to be here with you, Ron and Lisa.

Lisa Beres

Oh, we're so happy to have you. This is an exciting show. You guys are going to love it. Listeners do make sure you stay till the end. We got a little surprise at the end for you. Actually.

Ron Beres

That's right. There we go. Let's dive right in. Murray, can you share with our listeners, what your background is in music and what led you to create mine travel?

Murray Hidary

Absolutely. And by the way, I love that you started out he kicked off with that Plato quote, because it really points to the fact that music as a phenomenon of human expression is something that dates back to 1000s and 1000s of years ago, it's the earliest human expression that connects us emotionally spiritually, physically. I was thrilled to hear that. And of course, it's evolved over the years. But it's something that remains such a powerful modality for healing and for connecting with each other as human beings, no matter what the age, no matter what the era 1000s of years ago or today. For me, I started with music speaking of 1000s of years ago, as a five-year-old, my mom put a cello in my arms and land. I started with a cello at about five years old, and then the piano at six. And I played those throughout my upbringing. By the time I got to high school, I knew I wanted to be a composer. I felt like I had my own thing to say with music, whereas other people might have wanted to perform the classics, the Beethoven the BA, Chopin. I loved playing that but I felt like I also had my own thing to say what is it and not just interpret the music of others. And that started for me in high school. And by the time I got to University in New York, it became kind of a bigger and bigger calling for me. And at the time, it also started to fuse with my other deep interest in passion, which started at around 1617 years old was Eastern ideas, Eastern philosophy, in particular meditation in the Zen Buddhist tradition, and I had the opportunity to travel to Japan and I lived in monasteries, and I Oh, wow. And I also pick up the music from Japan, the meditative music of Japan in the form of the Japanese bamboo flute called the shakuhachi.

Ron Beres

Oh, I played that, too, Murray.

Lisa Beres

Wait, that sounds like a sushi doesn't it? I mean, who doesn't play? I was going to say, is that a sushi roll?

Murray Hidary

What's amazing is that they developed this whole repertoire of music back hundreds of years ago, specifically for meditation. And the monks of the 17th 18th 19th centuries would play this music, it would regulate their breathing, and they would walk the countryside, and they would sit in these monasteries, and they would play this flute. So I was traveling in Japan found this flute, and found an incredible maker, and then found a teacher and studied with two of the great masters in the world, and really influenced my piano playing as a western classical player, those worlds fused together and created the language that I express in today at the piano through what we call MindTravel. And so, in my 20s, I actually was in the technology world to pay the bills and to make a living. And I had a piano in my office and I would play music. At the end of every crazy startup day with all the fires you got to put out and all the business and the pressure and the stress, I needed a way to balance that and turn to the piano. And I would play all the stress out of me at the end of the day, I knew I would go back to the music. At some point, I didn't know exactly what that was going to look like. But eventually it became what today is called MindTravel, which I tour around the world. Wow, that is so fascinating What an interesting life you've had. And good for your mom for getting you into music. So early. I always wanted to play piano and it just really didn't have until I was an adult, then that didn't last very long.

Lisa Beres

Right. But I know, it's such an amazing gift to give to your children and really to yourself. I mean, anyone can learn to play as an adult.

Murray Hidary

And I think Lisa, what I hear a lot from folks that come up to me after concerts or will write into me is that maybe they played a little bit as a kid. But then after they come to a MindTravel, there's something that is reignited inside of them. And they feel the call of the music again. And they'll write me that they dusted off their piano again, sat back down and started to play again and to feel the music go through them. Yeah, playing an instrument is not about necessarily performing on stage. We do it first and foremost for ourselves. And that's the real beauty of playing an instrument and being in music. And in a musical life. That's the real first and foremost the most important passion.

Lisa Beres

Right and not feeling like oh, I have to go out and be a musician and sing at coffee houses. This is just something I do for my soul. Another creative expression, whether that's cooking or painting, it's just another form.

Murray Hidary

Absolutely. You know, what really happened was 150 or so years ago, with the invention of recordings that really unfortunately killed most kind of amateur musicians. Because now why do you have to know how to play the piano at a certain level? If you can just get the recording of a Mozart or a Beethoven sonata.

Ron Beres

That's exactly why I quit when I was seven.

Lisa Beres

Ron did play piano. And he's a perfect example. So maybe this will inspire him today to dust off a piano, because he was a good player actually, when he was younger. Can you tell our listeners what exactly is MindTravel? For those who have never heard of this before?

Murray Hidary

Yeah, it started out as my own personal practice, it was what I did to kind of de stress balance and reconnect. And I would sit at the piano for half an hour an hour. And I would just play any emotional stress out of me. It was a form of improvisation that I would just kind of let it let it flow. And when I did my first public event, that's exactly what I did. I didn't change the format at all. And it was a little counterintuitive, dealing in a world right with everything is short form 15 second videos, one-minute videos, everything is super short. And here I was coming and say I want you to come and I want to kick back, get comfortable and listen to an hour long without interruption. No phones, no interruptions. And what was so beautiful. And even though it's counterintuitive, but what's so beautiful is that people were able to drop right into it. And so, it's very, very seldomly in our lives and we're so busy. We have so much distraction, especially digital distractions. Yeah, that we set aside the time to act Should we reflect and just be with our thoughts and be with ourselves, right? And that's very rare commodity. Now, we just don't have enough of that time, but it's so valuable. And so that's what my travel is. It's this space for reflection for contemplation, to allow the music to open something up. And music, as we know is especially Ron knows, given his moment to shine the child prodigy.

Right, exactly. But we know that music is the language of emotion. What do we say when we don't have the words for something, if it's just something maybe that's too painful to describe, we say what we don't have the words we turn to music? And that's the role that music can play. And it's certainly played that role in my life. back before I formally started mine travel, I went through the most difficult time in my life. And like many of us, we go through grief, we go through loss of a loved one. And that's what happened with my little sister, she was 23. And she died in a sudden and tragic accident. I was actually there witnessing it with her. And it was just a horrific situation. Nothing that anyone should ever go through, or you went through. But thank you, what did you do go through it, then what do you do with your life after that? I barely can even wrap my head around how to pick my life back up and get it back on track. But I turned to music. And of course, I had family and friends and support. And that is critical. Because you don't want to grieve alone. We want to grieve in community, this such healing of community. And music was the perfect complement to that because it allowed me to get the pain out of me and just be released from it. Because there will truly were no words for something as horrific as that as tragic as that.

Lisa Beres

Oh, my gosh, I'm sorry, that that happened. I did read that your story on your website. And I think we've all gone through some sort of tragedy, or whether it's a sickness. Yeah, no one's immune to a definition of being human.

Murray Hidary

We�re all going to be touched by grief, we're all going to be touched by loss. The real question is not whether it's going to happen. The question is, how are we going to react when it happened? Right? How are we going to show up in that moment? Yeah. Are we going to collapse into it and just disappear and dissolve and the rest of our lives are just kind of numb? Yeah, let many people take that road. And they numb themselves. Yeah. Alcohol, through drugs, through TV through sex through a million different distractions. Is that living? Or is that a form of the Living Dead in the way? Yeah. So why live my greatest life, even with this having happened? Right, despite this, yeah. And maybe in a sense, like, come through the other side, completely transformed. And music is what opened that up for me, you go through something like that. And again, it could be a breakup of a relationship, a divorce, it could be a business going under all these kinds of different species of loss and tragedy. And they're all heartbreaking, right? Yeah. And the question is, now that our heart gets cracked, open, what is the opportunity, and for me, it was okay, now that I've been cracked open, it was now the light that was within me, that I didn't even know I had, to that extent, was able to shine through to the outside world. And for me, it was through my music. Yeah. And that's what I discovered. That's what I just was your sister big into music, too. At the time. Oh, my gosh, she was a dancer. Oh, really a dance. Oh, wow. She would listen to my music all the time. And but she was a dancer. And also, even at such a young age, she started her own school to help little girls. It was a dance school. But really what she was teaching them within all the hip hop moves was actually positive body image and self-esteem, self-confidence. That was the real message. That was the real teaching in between the between.

Lisa Beres

Right, yeah, that's a huge. You guys are both pioneers. Like you were ahead of your game in a way because those two such major issues right now that people struggle with, you talked about kind of almost like the zombie type lifestyle. Are you surviving? Or are you thriving? Are you just getting through your day, and I read that, quote, we're not here to work, make money, buy things and die? And a lot of people do get stuck in that sort of survival cycle. And it's all just make the money do this. And what you're doing is so important in what you're talking about. And when you said that you would play music after your work day. Can you imagine if that was integrated into the workplace, and now they're putting music out of schools a lot. I hear so kids are getting less of that to let alone adults who really need it. So that's so important. It's just so more important now than ever. Wow. Oh, yeah. The MindTravel when I first found out about you, Murray, a friend of mine had gone to one of your events. And I believe it was up in Malibu in the hills. And I saw her pictures on social media. Oh, that's right. Oh my gosh, it's like, Guys, I want you to visualize this. If I'm saying this right, Murray, it's like evening, the baby grand is out on the hill in Malibu, the stars, the moon, and everybody's this beautiful area where everyone's laying down on I don't know, blankets, and they have these special headphones that you give to participants if I�m correct. And they're just in a Zen kind of state, as you play in, sort of transport them into this relaxation state. Wow. Did I say that? Right, Murray? Yeah. Okay, wasn't there.

Murray Hidary

Can we use that in our marketing?

Lisa Beres

I wasn't there. But that's what I felt when I saw the picture. I was like, I need to do this. When is the next one? But then COVID came? And it was like, Oh, no, I think you haven't had any actual live performances correct? No, we haven't done any in person events because of the safety issues and COVID regulations. But we can't wait to get back out there. And hopefully, a little bit later this year, now that the vaccines are well underway and things are hopefully settling down a little Yeah, get back out there. We've been doing them virtually, which actually has had its own incredible upside, because now people can join in cities that I just don't get to that often. And so, they don't have to be in the city I'm in now they can tune in right from anywhere. But to your point of these outdoor kind of nature-based concerts. One of the challenges of playing outside in nature on a piano is that it's an acoustic instrument, and you can barely hear it if it's out in nature, and you can't harness the sound.

Ron Beres

Murray, I hope you knew that because I'm a musician as well.

Lisa Beres

Star Wars anthem was Ron�s claim to fame.

Murray Hidary

So how is the audience going to really hear it and have an intimate experience with the music? And that's when I had this kind of eureka moment. I was like, Well, what if the whole audience was wearing wireless headphones, and I could beam the sound right into their minds. And it would be super intimate, super direct. And it's almost like Lisa, everyone in the audience has a front row seat no matter where they are. Yeah. Right. Because the headphones. And I did the first one at the beach, here in Santa Monica. And you're looking at hundreds of people with these headphones on. And some of them are lying down on blankets, and they bring beach chairs and all that. But what's cool is that at one point, you can walk around and some people stand up and they walk to the water. They're standing in the ocean up until their knees or even their waist with the headphones on and taking in the music. And they're connected like fully in nature. So cool. And we know that while music has healing power of nature is so healing, that we're combining the power of nature and music and community with everyone together participating together. And you look around and everyone's having their own experience. It's very personal, right? It's very intimate. Yeah, yeah. We're all having that intimate experience together. And that's the magic, right?

Lisa Beres

That is the magic. Yeah, who needs bought seats when you can have nature and you can lay down in the grass and look at the moon.

Ron Beres

That's fantastic. That's exactly right. I was curious. So, we are so much about meditation these days. Yeah. What is the importance of meditation? And do you recommend everyone incorporate this into their lives?

Murray Hidary

So, when we go through our lives, Ron, the most important thing is truly the mindset that we have in any given moment. And what I mean by that is kind of how we see the world, right? Our experience of the world is not an absolute thing, like the way it is out there. It's actually the way it is, in our mind. It's like our perception of it, right? It's our perspective on it. So that's why you can have two people in the same situation. But yet they both have two very different experiences of it, right? And that's mindset, right? It's like how you think about life. And it's all the stuff that goes on in your mind.

Ron Beres

Murray, I have to stop you there. You said people have two different experiences, I envisioned you playing the piano and me playing the piano as a seven-year-old. And we both felt the same by how well we played. That's true. It's exactly one person's not right. One person's correct. Everyone thinks he�s fantastic.

Murray Hidary

There you go. Okay, it. So essentially, the quality of our life is really dependent on the quality of our mindset. So if that's the case, how do we improve the quality of our mindset, we want to create space, because instead of being reactive from our conditioning, from the kind of stories we have, from how we grew up, or just the role modeling that we've experienced, versus having any real sense of choice in the moment, that's what we want. We all want more freedom in our lives. And freedom is defined by how much choice to act and behave in that moment Do you really have, and most of us are reactive, we just respond out of conditioning, we don't even think about something happens. And we just react without any space, just impulse. And there's no freedom in that we think free, but we're not truly free. And so meditation, what MindTravel does is it gives us the training, it builds the muscle of creating some space, even if it's a second, between stimulus and response, right? meaning something happens, someone cuts you off in traffic, and what's your immediate reaction, you want to honk, you want to flip them, you want to scream, meditate, meditate, right? Or you've got a second of, Oh, I can create a little space and be like, Okay, I'm cool, I'm not going to let that give me a rise, because then the other person has control, they are now controlling you. Yeah. And that additional stress is not going to help you. Because you're going to take that back into your life, you're going to go home, you're going to take it out on your partner on your kids want to. So yeah, to be freer to have more peace, more tranquility in our lives, we must build this muscle of creating space and choice in our life. And that's the whole point of mine travel is for us to realize that it's our responsibility. If we take radical responsibility of our own lives, and be like, my circumstances are 100% mine to control, and no one's going to change my life, except for me. If I sit back and wait for the circumstance in my life to change because of someone else, I'm going to be waiting a long time. Yeah, no one else's responsibility to change whatever I think I need to change in my life. And so, to do that, we have to kind of muster the energy and the opportunity for choice to do that. And we that means we got to sit back, reflect, and really tap into that source to that sense of our truest, most powerful selves. And that's my aspiration with MindTravel.

Lisa Beres

Wow, right. That's really well said. There's that place in Fairfield? Is it Fairfield, Ohio? It's the transcendental meditation. Yeah. The Marashi University. Yes, Marashi. I'm thinking, man, those are the people you want on the 405 with you.

Murray Hidary

By the way, I've trained in many meditation techniques. I've trained in the Vedic technique, the TM technique, they teach there. And then I was invited to perform in Fairfield, Iowa. I went about two years ago, I did a big concert in Fairfield, Iowa, Did you really? Oh, that's amazing I did for that whole community. And it was beautiful. Because here you have a community that actually is steeped in meditation, they're very well trained in meditation, yet had a tremendous amount of benefit from now this kind of musical field that I was able to lay out in front of them, for their imagination to open up for creativity to open up. I mean, the ideas that people have, I mean, I'm here in California, like you guys in Los Angeles. And there's so many screenwriters and authors who come to my concerts, and they tell me, they like, hey, during your concert, I finally figured out I cracked the code on the ending to my screenplay, or my script, or my book, oh, and had the breakthrough. It creates those neural pathways; we can connect the dots more because of what's actually happening in the brain through our neurotransmitters and all the neural activity that's going on through the brain power of music.

Lisa Beres

Yeah. Wow. I love that. We did a show. I think it was Episode 29 on frequency medicine. So, Ron and I are very abreast of and believers in the power of sound to heal. Yeah. And it turns out, we're not alone. Even Billy Joel has said, �I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by no matter what culture we're from.� Everyone loves music. So, explain to our listeners, how does music play a role in healing?

Murray Hidary

It's not metaphorical, either. Right, Lisa? This is not just kind of like a metaphor or analogy of some kind. No, it's literal. It's literally healing,

Lisa Beres

Right? It�s scientifically proven.

Murray Hidary

Yeah. And music is vibrational. By nature. By definition. It is vibrations were literally created with our instruments. And the whole universe is vibrational rate, a whole field of yoga. There are many different types of yoga, right? But there's one very ancient and Deep Field of yoga called nada, yoga, nada. And it is a field of yoga that is about sound healing, sound yoga, and its premise is that everything is vibrational. So therefore, the vibrations of sound have healing properties to them, like you said in terms of frequencies, right. So, the brain If you actually think about what's happening with music, in our brains, it is one of the true miracles of existence. Because what is sound right? And music, of course, what type of sound that we classify. But sound is the transmission of energy through a medium like air, right. And I hit a note on the piano. And that's energy, right, the hammer hitting the string, there's energy here, the string vibrates in the dissipation of that energy. And then the vibrating string moves, it literally moves the air molecules around the string. And then a cascade, like a domino effect happens, where one air molecule hits another, hits another hits another, all the way to my ear, okay, and it's just a movement of air molecules, it's just energy moving through the air. Now, when it gets to my ear, there are 1000s of little tiny microscopic hairs, about 3500 of them in the inner ear, which the air molecules hit, they touch it, and each one of them is at a different size to pick up a different frequency. Okay. Oh, wow, crazy. This is okay. Yeah. And then what it does is it translates that movement; the movement of the actual little hair follicle moves and translates that into an electrical signal going into the brain into the auditory cortex. And somehow, that little stimulus of a moving hair turned into an electrical signal. We quote unquote, hear as music, which moves us emotionally, somehow. Okay. So that's the miracle of music. Because the sound we hear is not happening out in the world, is like back to what we said earlier, right about how everything we experience in the world is really an internal experience. And music is no different. If we were to have a speaker just playing in a room, and we all leave the room, what is the sound actually happening in the room? Well, there is no sound in the room. It's just lots of air molecules bouncing around the wall. That's what's happening. Yeah, you need a human being in the room to actually experience music. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of energy bouncing around through air molecules, right. So when we talk about healing properties, that phenomenon, which is miraculous, in and of itself, taps into different parts of the brain, that some more ancient parts, like the hippocampus, and the amygdala, the parts of us that have emotional connection, and it allows us to connect with memories. People, when listening to music, have profound reflections and memory, things they can't believe they even can remember. It happens while listening to music. So, it opens up vast regions of the mind. And so, there's a lot of emotional healing available through music for reasons like that.

Ron Beres

That's incredible. Going from healing to movement. Can you speak about how you incorporate movement into some of your meditations, the guided walking meditations?

Murray Hidary

I'm glad you asked that, Ron, because this is one of my favorite formats of MindTravel. So, there's different kinds of MindTravel experiences. So, there's the concert like on the beach, and on top of mountains and beautiful nature spots that we talked about. But then I do these walking or silent walking meditation experiences. And there we bring music, guided voice, like guided meditation, together with nature, and actual walking, right and community. So, we would meet up in a certain location, maybe a park, or beach, or even a hiking trail. And everyone puts those same headphones on. And then I play some of my compositions in it that I've curated because I can't play live as we walk miles. I've tried.

Lisa Beres

You've already proven yourself as impressive as the grand piano up the hill.

Murray Hidary

So, I thought of maybe playing one of those keyboard guitars from the 80s. All the way up, here you go.

I can have a bunch of you know, assistants help me roll up the mountain. Yeah. So, we're listening to the music to open up the heart. And then I guide the experience creating like this narrative with poetry and guided voice, to let us have an intention around a theme around the subject, and connect us with the landscape that we're going through. And then we're all walking and walking is a powerful way to experience meditation. A lot of people think that meditation is just sitting on a cushion or in a chair. But that's one form of meditation. As a matter of fact, a lot of people are intimidated by meditation because of that, because they're like, Hey, you know what, I can't sit still I'm too busy. My mind is too busy. I got too much going on. Rather, get some stuff done my errands done or my work done in that 20 minutes, then sit there in silence. I feel more stressed if I sit there in silence. There are all kinds of excuses, right? Yeah, but what's amazing is that if we all know the benefits of walking and we go out for a walk; we know that it's incredibly physically healthy for us. But it's also emotionally healthy for us. And through this specific technique that I share, the walking becomes a meditation in and of itself. So, you don't have to be sitting down in perfect stillness with your legs in a certain way your arms or hands in a certain way, that's really not necessary. a profound state of presence opens up through these walking meditation experiences. And you have the music and you have the voice to kind of guide you and keep you in it. And we've actually been doing them virtually as well, because people can just zoom in and they put their headphones on and they're out walking in nature in their local park, wherever they are in the world. So, I love those because could get some of the greatest creative forces in human history. Einstein, for example, he would go on daily walks. Now I know Ron, you're also a physicist.

Ron Beres

I've dabbled Murray, just a little.

Lisa Beres

Just his minor, that was his minor.

Murray Hidary

That's right. It was his second minor. Einstein, he was famous for these thought experiments, just thinking about these incredible possibilities for the universe. And to really think them through he would go on a daily walk. And that's where these ideas opened up for him, then he goes back to his office and work out some of the equations. By the way, he also turned to music. He was an amateur violinist, a very good violinist. So, music and walking. Were both key ingredients to his breakthrough ideas, his creativity, and he attested to that.

Lisa Beres

He's such an interesting�Oh, yeah, I was going to say, I heard he napped every day.

Murray Hidary

He did. He was a prolific napper. I admire him for that.

Lisa Beres

There you go. everybody listening, you need more sleep and more music in your life. And more meditation.

Murray Hidary

By the way, if we really knew how healing sleep was, I mean, we know it, obviously, to a certain extent. But there's so much that gets done in our sleep. I mean, in a way the brain is doing the work for us in our sleep. And it really is true, I've experienced it in my own life. And by the way, without the proper sleep. It's like we're living life with a handicap. I mean, that's truly what it is.

Lisa Beres

Yeah. Right. It's like we're getting jacked up on caffeine and whatever people need to do to get through their day, because so many people are sleep deprived. And we hear it from our readers all the time.

Murray Hidary

And, by the way, that's why we say you actually created a whole MindTravel for sleep because I needed it for myself with all the jetlag from touring. But then I said, Hey, others can use it. And tons of people have told me that it helps them fall asleep faster. And there's specific kind of music I wrote just for that offering. But the other example I was going to use, besides Einstein was Steve Jobs. So of course, you know, the founder and CEO of Apple for so many years. And he was famous for going on walking meetings around the apple campus with his executive team. So, he didn't want to sit in the office. He didn't want to sit in his room. And he walked around with them. Because Yeah, walking and Stanford University Research shows this, that walking, actually opens up creativity by up to 60%.

Lisa Beres

I believe that. Yeah, I mean, and since COVID, I know we've talked about this on the podcast before. But since COVID, and our gyms shut down here in California for so long. We're really forced to get outside in nature and hike several times a week, or however often we did, because we couldn't go to the gym. And that was our exercise. And Whoa, exactly what you're saying. I mean, so many ideas have been sparked on those walks, you feel incredible, even after just 10 minutes. I mean, we like to go for an hour, but even after 10 minutes, you can feel your whole energy shift, you're getting that fresh air, you're getting that vitamin D from the sun, and you're getting the negative ions. So, your mood is automatically lifted. But yeah, I'm a big believer in that. And I think people spend 90% of their time indoors today. And that's actually before COVID. So, it's even higher now. And getting out in nature.

Murray Hidary

And the lymphatic system, as well as activated during walking because of our movement. And of course, the lymphatic system throughout the whole body is what actually helps get rid of any toxins in the body. So many benefits. And look, we say just the way we talk life, it's like if you're going through something, what do we say? Like just you know, walk it off, just go for a walk. Yeah, space opens up right. And back to that sense of freedom we talked about is going for that walk creates a little bit of space, a little bit of perspective. Maybe you're dealing with something with your partner like you get into a little TIFF, a little argument. Go for a walk, open it up, find some new possibility. Yeah, come back to the conversation. Come back.

Lisa Beres

Yeah, it will be a different conversation. Yeah, absolutely. So, we kind of touched upon anxiety and grief at the top of the show. But can you tell our listeners how mind traps If I can help them deal with so much grief, that anxiety and depression that's happening right now, especially during Coronavirus, and its very challenging times that everybody's going through?

Murray Hidary

So, the most important thing about whether it's grief or anxiety of some kind, is, it's so easy to want to distract ourselves from feeling it. And that's kind of a go to that most of us have, right? It's like, Okay, I'm feeling that kind of stress, I'm feeling anxious, or I'm going through grief, I just want to stop feeling that feeling. And so, we turn the TV on, or we go grab a drink, or whatever our go to is. And all we're doing is kind of kicking the bucket down the road, right? We're just delaying having to deal with that pain. So how can we confront it and bring it closer to us in a way that's actually going to be gentle and allow us to release it. And that's really, for me why music is so powerful, because it does that in such a kind of cradling and beautiful way, very comforting way. Now, we're all going through such difficult challenges with COVID. on many levels, whether it's on business level, financial level, whether it's family, relationships, whatever it might be at, there's going to be some level of stress and anxiety. So, we need to manage it on a proactive level and not let it accumulate too much. So even these little practices, these little things we do every day, even if it's a 10-15 minute walk, even if it's listening to some music, all these add up to kind of reduce that accumulate, the accumulation, that's what's going to get us because then the accumulation is what can embody right in terms of, you know, become somatically, embedded in our physicality, and turn into some kind of more chronic disease through that tension. So, we want to avoid that we don't want those long-term problems. But the only way to avoid those long-term problems is to have kind of short term, immediate daily maintenance, proactive actions that we take. So that's why I create all these experiences we create because then people can come, hey, every week, they can come check in and do something live with us or do something on demand, where they can just pop it in for five minutes or 10 minutes or do the full hour and really go for it are things for sleep so you get a better sleep because during sleep, we're processing so much of our anxiety during sleep, and wake up fresh, right? So, it all adds up. It's like the puzzle with a whole bunch of different pieces. And all we have to do is a bunch of easy things, simple things, but when you add them all up, they have a profound impact.

Ron Beres

Yes, well said. So, Murray, we get a few hours of sleep the night before and we're feeling anxiety. I understand that you have a few simple breathing techniques that you use daily to help yourself. Can you share that with us?

Murray Hidary

Absolutely. And of course, the power of breath. I mean, there's so much research now that shows how important kind of the way we breathe is. So of course, first thing is we want to limit the amount of breathing we do with our mouths. We want to breathe primarily through the nose, both in and out is really the best way to approach Marina.

Ron Beres

Sorry to stop you but does snoring count?

Ron Beres

If so, Ron's specializing in that as well, he�s starting to master it.

Murray Hidary

Well, snoring can be a pathway to awakening. Ron,

Ron Bers

I told her! See I told you, Lisa.

Murray Hidary

Lisa smashing you with the pillow, that�s the awakening. Exactly. But when we breathe through our nose, it serves two functions, but probably others as well. But two main functions. One is it actually filters the air. That's the nose does. So, we're getting rain air in us. And it also warms it up. So, we're getting, it's a more comfortable, less shocking experience for our lungs and our whole diaphragm system. So, if you breathe through the mouth, you don't get either of those. It's just too direct, right? There's no filtering and warming. So, it's much better for our whole nervous system to have the warm air going into us and out of us. What I like to do is.

Lisa Beres

It's the hair and our nose that actually filters it, right? That hair? Don't give nose hair. Such a bad rap. I mean, that's right. It has some place.

Murray Hidary

That's right. Everything has a purpose, everything, everything is the prettiest thing. So, we can do a few breasts together guys if you like but it's very simple. A five count in and a five count out. Let's do it at through the nose. So, you don't have to close your eyes or keep them open. And just gently breathing through the nose to a count of 512345 and gently out to 512345 just do one more. Breathe into five breathe in two, three, four, five, an out 2345. And this you can do anywhere. The other one I like to do is something if I'm really feeling kind of more stressed than usual, then I go to this other one, which is a three count in what I extend. And by the way, you don't even have to do three counts, you can just breathe in normally. But make sure to do an extended exhale really long. So, let's try that one. And then I'll explain why it's so beneficial.

Ron Beres

Hey Murray, to you exhale with your mouth? I'm sorry to cut you off.

Murray Hidary

So, exhale with the nose. Okay, Okay, here we go. We're taking just a nice, gentle, normal breath in with the nose. And then a long, extended exhale through the nose as well. Just nice, really extend the exhale really long. And then take another breath in normal breath into the nose. And a long, extended exhale through the nose. And try one more normal breath in, and really open the belly up. Don't breathe into the chest, but breathe into the belly. And then a long breath out.

Lisa Beres

Great, and I think you can feel the stress relief and that one, that one feels stress relieving.

Murray Hidary

And you really felt your impact on it, it just relaxes the body and that one because of the extended exhale is somehow triggers the nervous system to relax that parasympathetic state. That's the kind of relax, rest and digest mode of the body. Right? As opposed to fight or flight. We have this other mode, right? So, this parasympathetic nervous system, so this triggers the parasympathetic, which is that kind of rest and digest chill out part of our nervous system. And it all it takes is what does that take us? Five seconds. 10 seconds. Yeah, isn't that crazy. And it's a simple technique that we can do. Now you start doing that a few times a day, right? You don't need to have a meditation cushion, you don't need to put a scented candle on, you don't need to�

Lisa Beres

You should not put a central candle. Right, there�s my healthy home tip. No scented candles.

Murray Hidary

You can do it in your car, you can do it at a light, you can do it at a red light. I mean, you could do it in traffic. You need to do it in traffic. We should and available anytime. And we have with us because we can breathe wherever we are. Thanks for sharing. That was a good tip. These are the little things that add up. Right? Those are the little things now you start adding a little music to that and you breathing and suddenly your day is changed.

Lisa Beres

Yeah, that is so true. I use that first breathing technique a lot. Actually, when I'm nervous. When I have done a lot of national TV, if I'm going on a big show, and anxiety is hitting an all-time high, I'll do that. I'll slow down my breath. And I notice, whoa, how calm it makes me feel that. And I know I've heard of a lot of people saying they've had health issues that were linked to short breathing. It's always been there. But we're just now hearing so much about it. And you can see why everything becomes so fast paced, including our breath gets coinciding with as technology increases, and our schedules get busier and are breeding seeing faster. And so, this is really important. listeners. Make sure to slow that breath down. Absolutely. Oh my gosh, I love that.

Murray Hidary

Yeah, typically things that have the word faster that aren't necessarily the best. Like food. Yes. breathing. Not great. Sex. Yeah, I mean, sometimes it could be great. It depends. Right?

Lisa Beres

That's another show, Murray. That's a different show. Okay, so I noticed on your website, you have something called the MindTravel mastery program. What is that?

Murray Hidary

So, we've had so many folks attend the live events all over the world. But then what happens when I go to the next city or I come back home? How do they stay in connection with mine travel? Right? And how do we kind of maintain that community? And then of course, when COVID hit, it became even more pressing? It's like, okay, now I can't even who are out there and travel out there to go to people. We're in the cities they're in. And we had a schedule guys, that was 70 cities in 2020. Oh, wow. And I did 10 of them in the beginning of the year. And then mid-March, everything got shut down. So, we had to cancel it all. And that's, you know, lands and 10s and 10s of 1000s of people that was not to get in front of again, right. So, then I said, Okay, well, we're going to go to virtual but I want to create a real home for people not just come to a one off, zoom event or zoom concert, but real place where we can all learn from each other and grow together. And where we can remind each other of these kinds of practices just like the breathing we did and the music and not just that but also kind of ideas of how to live best life meaning how to bring mastery to day to day living. Right, what does that mean? So, we get a master's in a certain subject in university, but how about having some kind of mastery in life. And I described that the way I define that is bringing more and more excellence to the moments of each day. And that's really the key in the mastery community through these events we do throughout the month, we explore human topics like topics that we all relate to, such as love and relationships, such as the flow state, what is the flow state? How do we get into the flow state? How do we create more flow in our lives? We look at emotions like resentment and contempt, which by the way, are the number one emotion for the dissolution, the breakup of relationships? It's why relationships and so how do we like, wow, that's interesting. Yeah, resentment and contempt. Because once you feel that kind of resentment to your partner, he can then go to contempt. And then it's just there's no going back. Ah, and so you almost dehumanize the other person, because it's way past anger, it's way past anything like that. Those are the kinds of things we want to distinguish and build better emotional muscles with so we can identify it. And then what do we do we use music, and we use the meditation, we use the walking meditation, to then reflect on it, and then actively make a change in our life, to open up more choice. Ultimately, that mastery that excellence is about living a life of more freedom. that's truly what it is. Yeah, so it's about putting the music to work for us as a real tool for reflection, so that we can lead a deliberate life like a life well let not just by default, not just going through the motions, and all of a sudden, 80 -00 years goes by and we're like, okay, that happened. That's really the point. And that's what mastery is all about.

Lisa Beres

Murray, not to put you on the spot. But I'm curious about this, because Ron and I, as we were learning about frequencies, like I talked about with music, we did a lot of theta and by neuro beat type, healing sounds and things like that in our life. And one of the things that we have learned is the frequency that the music is set to this, why 440 hertz, whereas nature, it's 432, that I get that right. Nature operates at 432. We're listening to the right one. Yes, yes, no, and that a lot of musicians in the healing space actually change that they change the frequency of the sound. And you can find these, obviously, this healing meditations that are at this other frequency, that music, it typically is it?

Murray Hidary

Yes. So, I'll tell you, my take on that. And you're talking to someone who both is a lover of music. And I'm also a lover of physics and science and all that. So, your question really is, it has one foot in both one foot in the science of it, and one foot in the art and the music and the beauty of it. And this is what I've come up with in my research and delving into this issue because it goes back quite a long way. When we sit at the piano, for instance, orchestras tune to middle A, which most orchestras tune, and the frequency of that pitch is 440 hertz. Okay, that's where it comes from 440 is that note a, and some orchestras tune to something a little higher, like some of them even tuned to up to 450 or 460. And in other words, that A is 450 or 460. And some of them tuned to an A that's at 432. slightly slower. And this dates back, actually, to the days of opera. And this is something you'll never read anywhere, because I don't think most people know about this thing in the healing or virtual space. World of opera. Of course, you have an orchestra and you have singers. Now, Puccini, who was one of the most famous composers of opera back hundreds of years ago. He wanted the singer the soprano to sound so warm and beautiful, that he asked the orchestra to tune to 432 slower than 440. What is the impact of that? The impact of that is that the soprano will now sound rounder, warmer. And what are they singing? They're singing the most hauntingly beautiful love songs, right? Singing love arias. They're singing like the angels from heaven. Okay, right. And now he is tuning them. These messengers from heaven. He's tuning them, the singers, who for 32 so that they sound more open and loving, etc. that is deliberate musical and scientific choice on the part of Puccini. And now at the same time, you have orchestras like, I believe, the New York Philharmonic for many, many years. Would tune to a faster frequency to a higher frequency, like a 460. Even Why? Because that would produce more energy, right? If it's a little higher, it would be more charged, it would have more energy to it. And then the orchestra playing the same piece as another orchestra playing at 440. The orchestra at 460 would sound a little more energetic, a little higher. Yeah. And that was, again, an artistic and scientific choice for a different intended purpose. So, I think that's really what's going on here is that the slower 432, to our ear to our sensibility as human beings, it actually sounds warmer and more open. And that's why we attribute that kind of love frequency to it. And I think it goes directly to the age of opera, which was all about expression of love. Wow. That's my take on it.

Lisa Beres

What do you think the average person if they heard the two songs side by side? The exact same song with the different frequency? Would they notice it?

Murray Hidary

It would take a very subtle and refined ear to hear. You can put two wines once a $10,000 bottle of wine, that was a waste, right? I mean, all of a sudden you like everyone's picking a $12 bottle. Yeah, right. So, who knows? Yeah, I think it's whether they can identify it. Maybe it's subconscious. Maybe it's conscious, but I think it is. But there is a physical difference. And I do think most people will, if they can identify it, they can at least probably feel it on some level.

Lisa Beres

Yeah, feel something with that. Yeah, that's right. I think that's true. Yeah, right. I teased at the top of the show for the listeners that we had a special surprise. Murray has so generously offered to and wrap up the show with a little 10-minute, beautiful gift of his piano playing for us. But before we do that, yeah, thank you, Mark, for doing that. Before we do that. For those listeners who love everything they're hearing today and want to learn more. Where can they go?

Murray Hidary

We'll make it really easy. Just www.MindTravel.com. Super, everything is available there. Yeah, as well as a I believe there's a free one of the MindTravel walking meditations. There's a free 20-minute version for anyone who comes to the website there.

Lisa Beres

Yes, I actually downloaded we have a relative that is very ill right now. And I had actually sent him your healing, I think you have one for healing meditation that's complimentary that you also give to people in the healthcare space, which I thought was so wonderful. That's right, the stress of people.

Murray Hidary

Yeah, we do that for nurses and doctors and people on the front line or the healthcare workers on the front line. I actually had a nurse practitioner, and she's also a meditation teacher. I collaborated with her Pamela and she did the recording with my music. And it's just a very powerful replenishing of the energy, especially for folks on the front lines over the past year.

Lisa Beres

Yeah, so important. So important. Well, thank you for that. And head on over to MindTravel.com. And the listeners we�ll have all the links in the show notes, as we always do at RonandLisa.com/Podcast. So, without further ado, we would love to hear you play a little something for us.

Ron Beres

Thank you, Murray. Fantastic.

Murray Hidary

Thank you, Ron. Thank you, Lisa. And for everyone listening, just get comfortable. There's no right or wrong way to have this experience. You're welcome to close your eyes or keep them open, whatever you're comfortable with. And kick back if you want to lie down, even enjoy. And it'll be about 10 minutes of a musical journey and just see where your imagination takes you.

Ron Beres

I'll see you in the music. was so relaxing. Yeah, that was so nice.

Lisa Beres

Bravo. I was going to say that I'll come back to reality. That might be the first time I ever fell asleep on a podcast, Murray, but for a very good reason. That's the greatest compliment you can. That was so beautiful. I did transcendence during I mean, that was really, really beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for that.

Murray Hidary

For me, it�s about finding that stillness. Amongst all the movement. Yes, me that's one of the greatest kind of gifts of music is that it is movement. By nature, by definition, its movement. And yet there's such a stillness to be found within it. Yeah. And just like our lives, our lives are like music. And each one of us has our own unique song and piece. But there's a lot of movement in our lives every day, right? Sometimes it's overwhelming. But there's a stillness. Also, to be found, just like the music is a stillness that we can find to be found in the music of our lives. Right. Pay attention if we listen for it.

Lisa Beres

Oh my gosh, so wonderful. This was such a treat. Murray. Thank you again so much. I know our listeners are going to absolutely love this is a special podcast. Well, there you have it, friends. I hope you enjoyed today's show and that it was music to your ears as it was mine and Ron's I know. Thank you so much for being with us again, Murray. Thank you.

Murray Hidary

What a joy to talk with you both to be with you guys.

Ron Beres

Thank you so much. Absolutely. And to find all the links to today's show, head to run Elisa comm forward slash podcast. You can learn more about Murray at mindtravel.com. If you weren't moved, I know you were, go to MindTravel.com to get moved again.

Lisa Beres

Thank you for joining us, and I'll see you guys next week to find out what the heck is going on in your home. Bye, everyone.

Narrator

This episode of the healthy home hacks podcast has ended. But be sure to subscribe for more healthy living strategies and tactics to help you create the healthy home you always dreamed up. And don't forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best content. See you on the next episode.