230 Relax With Winefulness Suggests Jordan Cowe

Jordan Cowe is a certified wine educator, a meditator, and co-founder of Be Wineful. Jordan is one of approximately four hundred people worldwide to achieve the designation of Certified Wine Educator since its inception in 1977, becoming the youngest to do so in 2015. Jordan has taught at 

conferences and events across North America spreading interest in unique and unknown wines. Jordan has also suffered for many years from Panic Disorder and agoraphobia [a fear of going outside]. His desire to succeed in the world of wine and live a happy life led him to create his system of Winefulness. He is now dedicating himself to spreading happiness, joy, and relaxation with wine.

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Contact Info

• Company: Be Wineful
• Website: BeWineful.com
• Facebook/Twitter: @BeWineful

Most Influential Person

•  Steve Abma, my therapist.

Effect on Emotions

• I've become much calmer, much less reactive, so I don't experience anger. Well I do occasionally, but it takes a lot. But I mean I don't experience much anger. I don't experience many extreme emotions. I'm just always pleasant and happy.

Thoughts on Breathing

• Breathing is essential. You're always breathing so you always have your breath with you.
• If I'm in an environment where I start to get worked up or start to get stressed out, I can always come back to my breath and I can just shut out everything around me and just focus in on the breath coming in and out of my nose.
• I can meditate in the middle of a crowded building at this point. I can sit down on a bench in the middle of the casino here. We went for dinner the other night, I freaked out and I just sat on the bench in the middle of all these people. I was able to go into meditation and I used the breath.

Suggested Resources

• Book: Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World by Danny Penman
• Book: Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn
• App: Headspace

The Science

• Bruce: So Jordan what's the science behind this? Is there science that tells us about the combination of wine and mindfulness. What is the science?
• Jordan: Well it's a mix of things. I mean the sensory side of meditation is very important. So as far as mindfulness meditation it's ability to help many things, that's been widely spread.
• As far as anxiety, high stress, as far as depression, mindfulness fits there. Now the one thing that has been noted in the past, especially for people with attention deficit disorder which is me, hence why I can get distracted easily. Typical breath, focus, and things like that doesn't always work well.
• I get distracted very easily and they get frustrated. So having another method into meditation is very useful for them. So I mean obviously in a clinical environment they're not going to be using wine, they're going to try and come up with other systems.
• For somebody who needs a stimulus that's intense to keep them on track, that's a wonderful side. The other side of it is, wine from a science point of view, for the meditation itself. Obviously a slight bit of alcohol does allow people to loosen up a little bit. It allows people to be open to new ideas. It allows people to accept something different. It puts people into a very happy and relaxed mode for the most part to begin with.
• The other cool side about wine, as a wine science point of view, it is one of the only fruits where when you ferment it, the complex sugars and the complex organic compounds, they break down into things that smell like other things.
• When you ferment a blueberry or a peach wine, they smell exactly like blueberries or peaches. But because of the way yeast evolved it can actually break down some of the other more complex components of wine. And so when you pick up a wine there can be hundreds of different aromas emanating from that glass.
• You're giving somebody something in front of them where there's so many possible reactions and there's so many things in front of them that it forces them to open up to the stimulus. So you just give them one aroma, they smell and they're done.
• The brain can shut off where you have them sit there with the wine, like up their nose and they're smelling it. They just sit there with it. It's constantly changing.
• There's constantly new things happening in their brain. It's triggering new memories, triggering new emotions.
• You can sit there for 15 minutes and your brain will always have a new stimulus. That's the important thing for me.