The Wild Hunt Challenge – Meditation and Fasting

Below are the instructions for the new Wild Hunt Challenge.

The challenge is for a month (or 30 days, you can start whenever it suits you best). The main points with this particular challenge is to incorporate meditation and fasting into your everyday life.

15 minutes of meditation each day

Meditating is a great way to train your ability to focus. It is also a good habit to incorporate into your everyday routine as it can serve as a pleasant mental break. Meditating is easy in theory but a bit harder in practice: the key is to not follow your thoughts and instead try to make the mind not think. If a thought comes to you; acknowledge it but do not follow it. A good way to refrain from following a line of thought is to return to the focus of your breathing. You can also focus on other things in your surroundings; if you are outside you can focus on the sound of the wind. If you are inside you can focus on meditative music (there are plenty of meditation music clips on YouTube). You can also focus on your body; the sensation of feeling yourself.

To meditate: sit down in a comfortable position, put on a timer (or put on a 15 minute meditation music on YouTube) and try to let your mind go still. Focus on your surroundings and your breathing in case your thoughts start to drift.

Two 24-hour fasts

Fasting is beneficial for your entire being, mentally and physically. Mind and body being one it can simply be concluded that it is good for you. Doing a 24-hour fast is easier if you are already used to doing intermittent fasting (i.e. only eating between ca 12:00-20:00). But even if you are unused to any type of fasting doing a 24-hour fast is not all too hard. The procedure looks as follows:

Train in the morning.
Eat a big meal at lunch, or your standard lunch (i.e. an omelette or something similar) and add two scoops of whey to the meal in addition to something else (a fruit for example).
Do not eat anything for the rest of the day. You can drink coffee and tea (without anything added) during the fast should you wish.
Go to sleep. Perhaps you will feel hungry at night but going to sleep whilst being hungry is a comfortable sensation once you get used to it.
Next meal is lunch the day after.

There are plenty of scientific evidence for the benefits of fasting (example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5153500/). Moreover, fasting is a reoccurring trend in many religions, which can be seen as reinforcing anecdotal evidence of the benefits of fasting. Traditions that have been with a society over a long period of time usually have at least some merit.

Abstaining from detrimental addictions

Since this challenge is to optimise the mind it would be pointless to do the steps above if still under the influence of negative habits.

Train hard and read hard

This goes without saying, you should train hard, preferably gym or MMA but other athletic endeavours are also accepted. If you, for whatever reason, cannot train in the gym or MMA, you should go on daily walks of about 45-60 minutes.

Reading books is a true pleasure of life. There is so much knowledge to be had in the world, and it is yours for the taking.

Final words

I hope you participate in the challenge and find it to be an improvement in your life.

Aesthetic salutes, 

Marcus