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Yoga(Me-WII)

Colleen’s post yesterday–and more specifically the last interview questions she asked (“[H]ow can power yoga be particularly helpful for professors or students?“)–inspired me to write about some work that I have recently done in studying the benefits of mindfulness to lawyers and in lawyering, and more specifically in business lawyering.  Colleen’s entrepreneur yogi noted the obvious benefits of power yoga to physical health.  But she also noted what she termed “clarity of mind.”  More specifically, she said: “I practice yoga to allow time away from devices and work emails, which in turn creates some distance to clear my mind and create clarity in how I want to interact with my environment.”

I do, too.  And I have noticed that it makes a difference in the way I interact with people.  I am not alone.

I recently was challenged by my friends at the Tennessee Bar Association to present an hour of continuing legal education on mindfulness, reflecting on some of what I learned in my yoga instructor training last year and linking it to law practice.  Three of the eight limbs of yoga–asana (poses), pranayama (breath control), and dhyana (object-focused meditation)–are traditional mindfulness practices that I studied in that…

Yoga(Me&Jordan)

A bit over three years ago, I publicly noted in this space that I am an active yoga practitioner.  In a post on “Mindfulness and Legal Drafting for Business Lawyers (A Yoga Analogy),” I wrote about common touchpoints in an asana practice (what many folks just call “yoga”) and contract drafting, sharing thoughts that had first come to me after a yoga class one weekend.  In my three-part 2017 series of “Traveling Business Law Prof” posts on packing for business travel, I also mentioned my asana practice here and here.

Today, I set out to start posting a bit more on the intersections of yoga and business law teaching and practice.  I will have help from BLPB co-blogger Colleen Baker, a fellow yogi.  In fact, it is Colleen who has spurred this on.  We have shared a bunch of ideas on things to write about.

I begin with the news that I now am a Registered Yoga Teacher with a 200-hour certification.  I set out to achieve that goal about 18 months ago, after a discussion (at the wedding of a former student) with the life partner of a UT Law alum who is about 30 years…

Miraval2019-1

Back in November, my sister invited me to join her for the second time for a three-day break at Miraval, a resort in Tucson, Arizona.  I accepted her invitation with the understanding that I needed to recharge a bit after a rough 2018.  A visit to Miraval, I thought, would be a great way to do that and jumpstart my research this spring. I signed on.  Then, my sister had to back out on the trip late-in-the-game for professional reasons.  My dilemma: to cancel/reschedule the trip . . . or just go by myself?  I decided to go anyway.

Miraval’s distinctive claim to fame as a resort is mindfulness.  Among other things, it promotes “Life in Balance.”  Mindfulness has been a hot topic for the legal profession, law schools (see, e.g., the University of Miami’s Mindfulness in Law Program), and the American Bar Association (the “ABA”) in recent years.  Among other things, mindfulness may help attorneys process difficult situations in a healthier manner, acting as an antidote (in some circumstances) for lawyer mental health issues I wrote about a few weeks ago. (See also Marcia Narine Weldon’s follow-on post.)  Berkeley Law has…

 

 

It’s the  start of a new year and a new semester. As Joan wrote earlier this week, we need to step back and take stock of our mental health. I’m the happiest lawyer I know and have been since I graduated from law school in 1992, but many lawyers and students aren’t so lucky. In fact, I probably spend 25-35% of my time on campus calming students down. Some have normal anxiety that fades as they gain more confidence.  I often recommend that those students read Grit or at least listen to the Ted talk. Others tell me (without my asking) about addictions, clinical depression, and other information that I should not know about. I know enough to refer to them to help. Closer to home, my 22-year old son has lost several friends to suicide. Many of those friends went to the best high schools and colleges in the country and seemed to have bright futures. And as we know, the suicide rate for lawyers is climbing.

Thankfully, the American Bar Association has gathered a number of resources for law students here. Practicing lawyers can find valuable tools for lawyer well-being here and a podcast for lawyers…

As I have written about in past posts (see, e.g., here and here), I fall among those who do New Year’s resolutions.

In 2017, I was 25 out of 34 (73.5%). (Yes, I set 34 resolutions; I may be crazy).

The biggest realization I had this year was that I struggled with resolutions that required daily/weekly tracking. A daily/weekly resolution has at least three issues: (1) if screw up once, you’ve blown the resolution for the year, (2) just tracking the resolution takes habit formation and daily/weekly time, and (3) creating a daily/weekly habit is generally difficult.

So, instead of a resolution to run 5x a week, I had better luck with an achievement goal like “run a mile under 5 minutes by the end of the year.” If the achievement goal was tough enough to require roughly 5x a week running then the achievement goal could get you to basically the same place as the weekly goal without the meticulous tracking requirement and with allowing occasional time off. The bigger achievement goals, however, may need to be broken into smaller steps.

My toughest resolution for 2018, and I “only” have 22 resolutions this year, will probably…

Below are a few wellness tips, with a focus on student life. I didn’t do all, or even many, of these things consistently well when I was in school, but I was better off when I did, and I paid for it when I didn’t. Many of these things are obvious, but many are also ignored.

Consistent Sleep. Sleep is incredibly important. So many of the things we do during waking hours depend on getting good sleep. Shoot for going to bed at a consistent time and waking up at a consistent time. This might be difficult with roommates and you may need to request new roommates. All-nighters, either from studying or social events, are relatively common in college and law school, but all-nighters almost always produce more poor results than if the studying or social events were more evenly distributed across the semester. Sadly, I see too many students sleep walking through the day, armed with caffeine to self-medicate.

Eat Well. I am always in search of fast, healthy, and inexpensive meals. The options are not plentiful, but I can really feel it when the quality of my food slips. Thankfully, most colleges…

From August 31 to September 10, I participated in an excellent 6-week online boot camp called Miler Method. The camp is led by 2x Olympic medalist in the 1500m, Nick Willis, and his wife Sierra. The camp led up to the New Balance 5th Avenue Mile in NYC. 

As I have posted about before, I have enjoyed taking some massive open online courses (MOOCs), and I think all educators should familiarize themselves with this form, as the online world is already impacting even the most traditional courses.

The Miler Method, like MOOCs, taught me not only valuable substantive information, but also further instructed me on the art of online education. Below are a few reflections on the pros and cons of the online format as applied to the Miler Method running training camp. My thoughts follow below the page break.

Gabriel (“Gabe”) Azar and I graduated one year apart, from the same law school. He has an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech and started his legal career as an associate practicing patent law at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP. He moved from Finnegan to Paul Hastings and from there to an in-house position with FIS. Currently, he is Senior Patent Counsel at Johnson & Johnson. I’ve admired, mostly from a distance (he lives in Jacksonville, FL now), how Gabe has balanced family, work, and health. We recently reconnected on Strava, and it has been inspiring to see a dedicated husband/father/attorney taking his fitness seriously.   

 

The interview is below the page break.

There has been quite a lot written about the relative lack of women on boards of directors (and their impact on boards of directors). See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Women hold slightly less than 20% of the board of director seats at major U.S. companies, depending on what group of companies you consider. See here, here, and here.

In this post, I am not going to discuss the vast literature on the topic of women in the boardroom or the quotas that some countries have established, but I do want to point out the curious lack of fathers at playgrounds in Nashville this summer. I am including this post in the Law & Wellness series because I think men and women would both benefit if we saw more fathers at playgrounds during the week.

During ten trips to our popular neighborhood playground, during weekday working hours, I saw 6 men and 72 women. Now, it is probable that some of the people I saw were nannies or grandparents, but I excluded the obvious ones and quite a large percentage seemed like parents anyway.

This…

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I am delighted that Dr. Jeff Edmonds has agreed to be interviewed for this blog. Jeff and I graduated from the same high school in Chattanooga, TN, a few years apart. We both ran track, though Jeff ran a good bit faster than I ever did, and Jeff continued his running career at Rice University and Williams College. Jeff earned a PHD in philosophy at Vanderbilt University and is currently the high school academic dean at the prestigious University School of Nashville. Jeff coaches a running group called the Nashville Harriers, and he recently revived his excellent philosophy and running blog, The Logic of Long Distance.

The interview follows under the break. In the interview, Jeff shares wisdom on running and education that are well worth your time.