Observe Thoughts Like Clouds
Watch intrusive thoughts pass instead of fighting them, to protect your biochemistry
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 72%
Under extreme fatigue the brain acts like a press secretary, spinning raw discomfort into vivid fear stories: have you trained enough, what if you drown, remember how bad last time was. Edgley's method, taught to him by musician friend Benny Gordon, is to sit with eyes shut and picture a clear sky. Each thought is a cloud drifting across it. The job is simply to observe each one without reacting. A thought pops in, you note it, it passes. The mechanism is biochemical: shouting back at the thought, the Goggins-style 'you don't know me' response, spikes cortisol and destabilises the body over long durations. Passive observation keeps the chemistry flat. It is mindful resilience rather than combative resilience, chosen because the aggressive approach stops working past roughly 15 hours.
Origin
Taught to Ross Edgley by his friend Benny Gordon, drummer of the band Parkway Drive, and reinforced by Edgley's reading of Eckhart Tolle. Edgley adopted it after finding that combative, cortisol-spiking self-talk failed him beyond about 15 hours of continuous effort.
Core principles
- 01The brain delivers worry as a personified narrative, not as raw pain
- 02You do not have to react to a thought to acknowledge it
- 03Shouting back at fear spikes cortisol and wrecks your biochemistry
- 04A clear mind is the default; thoughts are passing weather
- 05Observation costs nothing; reaction costs chemistry
How to run it
- 1
Picture the clear sky
Establish a baseline mental image of a calm, clear sky representing your default state at the start of the effort, before fatigue clouds it.
- 2
See each thought as a cloud
When a worry or fear narrative arrives, frame it as a dark cloud drifting into that clear sky rather than as truth or instruction.
Pro tip Naming the thought ('there is the drowning thought again') creates useful distance.
- 3
Observe without reacting
Acknowledge the thought and let it pass. Do not argue, suppress, or shout it down. Your only task is to watch it move through.
Pro tip Curiosity helps: treat it as 'isn't that an interesting thought' and let it go.
Watch out Fighting the thought spikes cortisol and throws your biochemistry out of whack.
- 4
Return to the process
Once the cloud has passed, bring attention back to the immediate physical task in front of you and continue.
In the wild
Forty-five hours into the Loch Ness swim, hallucinating, Edgley perceived the treeline as a cruise ship whose branches looked like passengers waving. Rather than fight the delusion or panic, he observed it, thanked the imagined crowd for their support, and kept swimming. His team, who had learned not to deny his delusions, let the harmless hallucination run while watching for genuine danger signs.
→ He stayed calm and afloat through a hallucination that could have triggered panic.
Common mistakes
Shouting the thought down
Responding to fear with aggression ('you don't know me') feels tough but spikes cortisol and destabilises your chemistry, which is fatal to a multi-day effort even if it works for a marathon.
Trying to suppress the thought entirely
Attempting to block thoughts rather than let them pass creates resistance and tension; the cloud only clears when you stop grabbing at it.
Is it for you?
Best for
Long-duration performers under sleep deprivation or stress where sustained calm matters more than aggression.
Not ideal for
People who genuinely perform better on anger and chip-on-shoulder fuel, or very short efforts.
From the transcript
“your thoughts are like clouds that come into this clear sky ... every cloud that comes across is just a new thought and your job…”
“a thought that is like punching it in the face or saying no you don't know me ... that is going to do nothing but…”
From the episode
317 Miles: Breaking The Longest Non-Stop Swim Record - Ross Edgley - #824
Ross Edgley