Manage Your Attention, Not Your Time

With so many stimuli competing for attention, any hope for making it through the day without our brains feeling like scrambled eggs rests on being more conscious of how you parse attention over specific tasks. Here are three ways to keep your focus flowing.

By Jeremy Hunter | July 5, 2016 

retrostar/Adobe Stock

If there is any one ‘secret’ to effectiveness, it is concentration.
—Peter F. Drucker, management philosopher

“At the end of the day, my brain feels like scrambled eggs!” admitted Phil, an attorney at whose firm I teach. He, like many, was living out the effects of what it means to not prioritize attention in the workday. When distractions abound how do you find focus to get something done?

Make Attention a Priority

My previous post explored what attention is and why it’s important to both quality of life and fundamental effectiveness. Attention is the basic resource or energy you have to invest in your experience. You are what you attend to. It’s that simple.
Let’s go “Big Picture” for a moment. Managing attention has not been on our radar screens because until recently most of us took it for granted. Education has largely emphasized skills for thinking and underemphasized, or ignored altogether, the skills of attending, seeing, and perceiving (let alone feeling). Look at what gets cut from school budgets when times are tough: Arts, sports, and music are the domains that cultivate perception, focus, and their relationship to performance. For good or for ill, we are an “I think therefore I am” culture. Given that, it’s easy to see how even the so-called “well-educated” can overlook attention.

A New Way to Think about What “Well-Educated” Means

Management philosopher Peter F. Drucker understood that going forward truly educated (and effective) people “will need trained perception fully as much as analysis.” In a quickly-changing world, effective people will need to clearly see as much as clearly think. The starting point of this is managing attention and focus. So many stimuli compete for attention, any hope for effectiveness rests on being more conscious of how you use it alone and together with others.
This series of posts intends to create the talking points for you to have a conversation with those you work and live with to make a priority around attention. The more you do that, the better able you will be to stay true to your goals, perform toward your best, and engage the world in a meaningful way.

So many stimuli compete for attention, any hope for effectiveness rests on being more conscious of how you use it alone and together with others.

1. Manage Attention Not Time

People tend to think managing time forms the foundation for able action. Even Drucker thought, “Time is an executive’s scarcest and most precious resource.” However, I believe this is a misperception. Who actually can manage time? Can you make the future come faster or return to the past? Unless you’re a sci-fi hero, no. What people actually do in the flow of time is manage attention.
For example, Phil may block off several hours to work on a case, but if he spends those hours obsessing over baseball stats, we say he mismanaged his time. In reality, his attention wasn’t where it needed to be. No one manages time. We manage our attention.
This point may seem like nitpicking, but I believe it is vital because it gives you a lever you can actually pull. What follows are real-life strategies developed by my students and clients that have worked for them.

2. Name Your Priorities

This sounds simple, but I’ve observed that we don’t name them frequently enough. All too often, we allow the momentum of whatever we’ve been doing to make our decisions for us. Habits are great as long as they’re serving our true intentions or a situation’s real needs. Otherwise, we wake up and go through the motions while missing the important things.
So, the first and most essential step is knowing what your intentions are. Ask yourself: “What’s vital for me to put energy on right now”?” or “Is this the best use of my energy?” These questions can help clarify what’s essential. Intentions also help to say “no” to the less important (but perhaps more urgent). Clarifying intentions brings greater direction to investing energy.

Habits are great as long as they’re serving our true intentions or a situation’s real needs. Otherwise, we wake up and go through the motions while missing the important things.

Ask yourself these questions to clarify your priorities:

1. What are you doing to prioritize your day and develop an action plan when you are inevitably interrupted?
2. What is okay to say “no” to?
3. How will you handle interruptions when they arise?
4. Do you hold an assumption that you must respond to any interruption?
5. Are you afraid you will be disliked/unloved/fired if you fail to respond immediately to an email?

I’ve consistently found that people have far more latitude in saying no or “later” to incoming requests than they realize.
Priorities apply both to the short- and long-term. In the moment, it means choosing where attention should focus right now. Finish this memo due tomorrow or look-up that Yoda quote you can’t quite recall?
In the long run, where we put our attention is central to a sense of meaning and purpose. Is Phil’s diversion into baseball stats and not writing law briefs a sign that maybe he’s bored with being a lawyer? Is there something else he’d rather be doing?

In the long run, where we put our attention is central to a sense of meaning and purpose.

3. Conduct an Attention Audit to Improve Focus

Knowing where attention should go isn’t going to help if you can’t stay there. Distractions destroy focused attention. While I’m not convinced it’s possible to entirely remove them, it is possible to make great strides in creating an environment that promotes and protects attention.
Look at your environment and what is there to support focus or hinder it. Evelyn, a frustrated marketing executive, looked at her workspace through the lens of attention. She immediately noticed that the office copy machine was placed outside her door. The dots connected. She was frustrated because while waiting for their copies, her well-intentioned colleagues would stick their head in her door and chat. This happened several times an hour and she could rarely find focused flow. Eureka! A phone call to facilities to move the machine and she finally enjoyed a day of satisfying concentration.
Look around, what can you do right now? Do you work in an open office environment? What signals can you send that say, “Don’t bother me?”
These steps are only the beginning. Each of these strategies can be built out and expanded upon. The next post will dive into deeper detail.
Remember, be patient with yourself as you start this process. These essential skills take time to cultivate and explore to find the strategies that help each of us stay effective in turbulent times.

5 Ways to Build Resilience Every Day

Discovering ways to adapt to what life throws at you makes you more able to cope.

By Shamash Alidina | August 2, 2016

ldep/Adobe Stock

Resilience is the process of effectively coping with adversity—it’s about bouncing back from difficulties. The great thing about resilience is that it’s not a personality trait; it involves a way of paying attention, thinking, and behaving that anyone can learn.
World-renowned neuroscientist Richard Davidson has found evidence that mindfulness does increase resilience, and the more mindfulness meditation you practice, the more resilient your brain becomes. The emotional soup that follows a stressful event can whip up negative stories about yourself or others that goes on and on, beyond being useful. For example, if you have an argument with your partner before leaving for work, you can end up replaying that conversation all day, which continues to proliferate anxiety or low mood far more than is necessary. Mindfulness reduces this rumination and, if practiced regularly, changes your brain so that you’re more resilient to future stressful events.

The emotional soup that follows a stressful event can whip up negative stories about yourself or others that goes on and on, beyond being useful. Mindfulness reduces this rumination and, if practiced regularly, changes your brain so that you’re more resilient to future stressful events.

When I was a school teacher, sometimes the stress was incredibly high. I had SO much work to do and not enough time to do it. On top of that, dealing with difficult behaviour, demanding parents and requests from the management team, I certainly felt under pressure.
Fortunately, I had mindfulness to help me cope with the challenges. And I later discovered that mindfulness and related strategies were helping me cope.
There are several key aspects of resilience:

• Positive relationships—is the most important factor.
• The ability to make plans and take action to solve problems.
• The capacity to manage difficult emotions—mindfulness is an important aspect here.
• Effective communication skills.

Here are five ways to build resilience:

1. Nurture relationships. Have a range of positive, supportive connections within and outside your family. If you don’t, take steps to improve the situation. Join a club, local group, volunteer group, or an evening class.

2. Find meaning in difficulties. When faced with adversity, see if you can discover some positive way in which you’ve dealt with the challenge. People often report improved relationships, greater consciousness, or appreciation of life in the face of great difficulties.

3. Be optimistic. Use mindfulness to shift your attention from negative rumination to more positive thoughts about the future. Hope and optimism is a choice. Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable. You can’t change the fact that very stressful events happen, but you can learn to change your response to that. The tiniest of changes counts, and meditation can help.

Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable. You can’t change the fact that very stressful events happen, but you can learn to change your response to that.

4. Be decisive. Make decisions and take action rather than hoping things will get better one day. If you’re not good at this, read about how to improve this skill or ask a trusted friend to help. Not making a decision is in itself a decision.

5. Accept that change is part of living. Expect things to change and adversity to occur, rather than pretend all will always be well. Change is part of life. Your goal is to cope effectively rather than avoid loss or pain.

When it comes to resilience, flexibility is the name of the game. Discovering ways to adapt to the changes that life throws at you makes you more able to cope.
Reflection: What simple action can you take to begin increasing your resilience? It can be as simple as picking up the phone and making a call every day.

A Daily Mindful Check-In Practice

How to get fully in touch with your internal experience in the moment.

By Bob Stahl | April 28, 2016

Adrian Niederhäuser/Adobe Stock

The mindful check-in is a brief, one- to five-minute formal practice of checking in to how you’re feeling in the present moment and acknowledging what’s here. Think of it as taking a scan of the internal weather you’re experiencing: noticing physical sensations, your state of mind and any thoughts that are arising, and any emotions that are present. These three realms—physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions—provide a direct connection to your lived experience and are a resource that’s constantly available during your mindfulness practice.

Think of the mindful check-in as taking a scan of the internal weather you’re experiencing: noticing physical sensations, your state of mind and any thoughts that are arising, and any emotions that are present.

Try incorporating this practice into your daily routine. As best you can, do this practice in a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed or distracted. This might mean closing your office door, turning off your phone, or pausing in your car in the driveway when you get home from work. You can do this practice either lying down or sitting. If sitting, aim for a posture that’s supported, balanced, and upright but not rigid. We recommend closing your eyes if you’re comfortable doing so, but it’s also fine to simply lower and soften your gaze.
Read through the entire script below first to familiarize yourself with the practice, then do the meditation, referring back as needed and taking three to five minutes for the practice.

The Mindful Check-In

• Appreciate your time: Take a moment to appreciate yourself for giving yourself the time and space to do this practice. Amidst the hustle of our daily demands, it’s rare for people to consciously and deliberately set aside even a few minutes to just see how they are. Most people are more apt to do this for a close friend, their children, or their partner. Turning this generosity toward yourself warrants some acknowledgment and recognition. With this small gesture, you’re exercising a shift: resisting the tendency to just move along and instead making time and space to take care of yourself. You’re making and honoring an intention to see what’s really within you.
• Kindly attend to the moment. Now bring your full attention to the experiences of your body, your mind, and any thoughts or emotions that you’re aware of, just as they are. There’s no need to judge, analyze, evaluate, or assess your experience. The focus here is simply being with yourself fully, in the present moment and letting it all be. If a tendency to judge or figure things out arises, simply notice and acknowledge that, then gently return awareness of how you are. Continue directing your attention to the experiences of your body, mind, and emotions for about three minutes.
• Acknowledge yourself. As your practice comes to a close, once again acknowledge your willingness to show up and be present to yourself and for yourself, knowing that, in this way, you’re contributing to your wholeness and well-being.

Train Your Brain to Boost Your Immune System

New research suggests mindfulness can strengthen our natural defenses.

By Jennifer Wolkin | March 23, 2016

zenina/Dollar Photo Club

Running half-marathons barefoot in the snow. Climbing mountains while wearing only shorts. Standing in a cylinder filled with 700 kilograms of ice cubes.
Self-proclaimed “Iceman” Wim Hof, claims that he can do all of these things by influencing his autonomic nervous system (ANS) through concentration and meditation. The “Wim Hof Method,” is an intensive meditative practice that includes focused concentration, cold water therapy, and breathing techniques. Until recently, the idea that anyone could influence their autonomic nervous system was thought impossible given its assumed “involuntary” nature. The ANS is the system that controls all of our internal organs and regulates body functions like digestion, blood flow, and pupil dilation.
Our brains also uses the ANS to communicate to our immune system, which might explain another of the Iceman’s recent feats: suppressing his immune response after being dosed with an endotoxin (a bacteria), which in most people leads to flu-like symptoms and high levels of inflammation in the body. When researchers looked at the Iceman’s inflammatory markers after being exposed, they discovered the markers were low, and his immune response was 50% lower than other healthy volunteers. Basically, he showed very few signs of infection.
Hof is definitely a statistical outlier, though one recent study followed students trained in his method. Apparently, they replicated Hof’s results and experienced no symptoms after being injected with Escherichia coli, a bacteria that normally induces violent sickness.
So, outlier though he may be, researchers are intrigued by the mounting evidence showing that mindfulness has a positive impact on our immune system.

The Floating Brain: Our Best Defense

The immune system is one of the most critical purveyors of our physical wellness. It’s our defense system, our armed forces that work to protect us from foreign invaders like viruses or bacteria. It is so precisely designed that it can distinguish between harmful unwanted pathogens and our own healthy cells and tissue.

When our immune system struggles, it’s like a welcome sign for infection and disease.

It is so wise that the immune system has even been referred to as our “floating brain,” aptly named for its ability to communicate with the brain through chemical messages that float around inside our body. This means that if our immune system is weakened, perhaps as a result of chronic stress or invading pathogens, our whole body system won’t operate as usual. When our immune system struggles, it’s like a welcome sign for infection and disease.

Mindfulness and the Immune System

Beyond the Iceman’s superhuman experiences, there is increasing evidence that mindfulness meditation does impact our immune system.
A recent and groundbreaking review looked at 20 randomized control trials examining the effects of mindfulness meditation on the immune system. In reviewing the research, the authors found that mindfulness meditation:

• Reduced markers of inflammation, high levels of which are often correlated with decreased immune functioning and disease.
• Increased number of CD-4 cells, which are the immune system’s helper cells that are involved in sending signals to other cells telling them to destroy infections.
• Increased telomerase activity; telomerase help promote the stability of chromosomes and prevent their deterioration (telomerase deterioration leads to cancer and premature aging).

These results need to be replicated with more rigorous methodology, but they are promising, and potentially pave the way for using mindfulness-based techniques to boost the immune system, enhancing our defense against infection and disease.
And this isn’t the only study showing positive results. In another eight-week study, researchers at UCLA had 50 HIV-positive men meditate daily for 30-45 minutes. Doctors found that, compared with a control group, the more training sessions the men attended the higher their CD-4 cell count at the conclusion of the study (remember, CD-4 cells are the immune system’s helper cells). This study links mindfulness with a slowing down in CD-4 cell count drop, which is associated with healthier immune system functioning.
Richard Davidson, esteemed professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison, also conducted a study investigating whether mindfulness meditation could alter brain and immune function.
In his study, people were injected with the flu vaccine and were either part of a group receiving mindfulness training or a control group. After eight weeks, the mindfulness group showed greater levels of antibodies available to respond to, and prevent, potential illness.

Mindfulness Meditation and Possible Mechanisms of Increased Immunity

It’s tempting to get carried away by the implications of the research suggesting that mindfulness can help improve immune functioning. However, the question still remains as to the exact mechanisms involved in the mindfulness-immune system connection. Ask any researcher and they’ll tell you they don’t know yet. Some possibilities have been suggested, and it is likely that a convergence of all of these play a role. Here I present three possible ideas:

1. Decreased Stress, Increased Emotional Regulation: It has been confirmed through research that what we think and feel impacts our immune system via chemical messages from the brain. Therefore, stress, negative thinking styles, and certain emotional states can have a negative impact upon our immune system, creating an environment increasingly susceptible to disease. Mindfulness’s mechanisms toward greater well-being are complex and multifold, but practice is implicated in decreased stress, decreased rumination, and increased ability to deal with difficult emotions. In this way, practicing mindfulness might stave off impaired immunity.
2. Targeted Brain/Immune System Communication: Another link between mindfulness and the immune system is mindfulness’s direct impact upon brain structures responsible for talking to the immune system. More specifically, research indicates that mindfulness meditation increases activity in the prefrontal cortex, right anterior insula, and right hippocampus, the areas of the brain acting as our immune system’s command center. When these parts are stimulated through mindfulness, the immune system functions more effectively.
3. Activation of the Second Brain (the Gut): Mindfulness can boost immunity via the gut microbiota. As per a previous article I wrote here on Mindful, the human body is comprised of trillions of micro-organisms, most of which reside in the gut, which are called the gut microbiota. It turns out that the gut microbiota are key players in the development and maintenance of the immune system; the bacteria in the body that helps distinguish between intruder/foreign microbes vs. those that are endogenous. Studies have shown that stress tips our microbial balance, putting us at risk for dysbiosis, (a shift away from “normal” gut microbiota diversity), stripping us of one of our prime defenses against infectious disease, not to mention the cascade of reactions that ensue, which potentially wreak havoc on the central nervous system (CNS). Mindfulness-based stress reduction impacts our immune system by helping to maintain healthy gut microbiota diversity that is often upset by stress.

No matter the exact mechanisms, there is viable evidence that practicing mindfulness meditation helps boost our defense against disease, and fosters wellness. And while we are a long way from this becoming a mainstream treatment practice—given possible egregious side effects if not done properly and the fact that very few of us can be an Iceman—this research paves the way for the addition of a new wellness adage: “Meditation each day keeps the doctor away.”

Subscribe t

how do settle the mind

How to Settle the Mind

Three ways to rest the mind so you can experience the joy of mental stillness.

By Chade-Meng Tan | September 14, 2016

Yury Velikanov/Adobe Stock

Sometimes, you get lucky in life, when the most important thing you need to do turns out to also be the simplest. One example is breathing. Breathing is the most important thing we need to do in our lives, and for most of us, it is also the easiest thing we ever do. If you belong to the population of people who can breathe effortlessly, you are so lucky! The same turns out to be true for meditation, that the simplest skill in meditation is also the most important. What is it? The simplest, most fundamental, most basic, and most important meditative skill of all is the ability to settle the mind.
What does it mean to settle the mind? Pretend you have a snow globe that you are constantly shaking. If I ask you to settle the snow globe, what do you do? You put it on the table, or the floor, or any other stationary surface. One of the literal meanings of the word settle is “to come down onto a surface.” You literally settle the snow globe down, that is all. So easy. Once the snow globe is settled, then over time, the water in it becomes still, the snow flakes fall to the bottom, and the snow globe becomes calm and clear at the same time.

The simplest, most fundamental, most basic, and most important meditative skill of all is the ability to settle the mind.

Settling the mind is similar. To settle the mind simply means resting it so that it approaches some degree of stillness. There are many ways to settle the mind, but I like to suggest three methods that are easy and highly effective.

Three Ways to Settle the Mind

1) The First method is anchoring. This means bringing gentle attention to a chosen object, and if attention wanders away, gently bringing it back. Think of anchoring as a ship dropping anchor in choppy seas. The ship stays close to the anchoring site despite the movement of wind and water. In the same way, when attention is anchored to a chosen object, it stays close to the object despite other mental activity. For the object of meditation, you may choose any object that affords the mind some measure of attentional stability. The standard meditation object (and my personal favorite) is the breath, but you can also choose the body or any sensory experiences such as sights, sounds, touch, or internal body sensations, or even the entire sensory field all at once as a single large object. One person I know found the sensation on the soles of his feet to be his favorite meditation object. That guy is obviously very grounded. And, yeah, I think his idea has legs.
2) If anchoring is too hard for you, here is the second method: resting. Resting means exactly that, to cease work or movement in order to relax, that is all. When I’m physically tired after a hard workout, I sit down on my comfy chair and rest. Similarly, to rest the mind, all I do is sit down and allow my mind to relax. One way to rest the mind is to use an image. Imagine a butterfly resting gently on a flower moving slowly in the breeze. In the same way, the mind rests gently on the breath. Another way is to use this saying, “There is nowhere to go and nothing to do for this one moment, except to rest.” Resting is an instinct—we all know how to do it. The idea here is to turn resting from an instinct to a skill.

As long as you know you are sitting, you are doing it right.

3) If resting is still too hard for you, here is the third method: being. Being means shifting from doing to being. It means not doing anything in particular, just sitting and experiencing the present moment. You can think of it as non-doing, or sitting without agenda, or simply just sitting. The key ingredient of this practice is being in the present moment. As long as your attention is in the present, you are doing it right. Alternatively, and slightly more poetically, you can think of the key ingredient as knowing. As long as you know you are sitting, you are doing it right.
All three practices above, and all practices that settle the mind in general, have two features in common: they all involve some degree of mental stillness and attention to the present moment. Because of that, they all lead to the basic meditative state, which is the state where the mind is alert and relaxed at the same time. When the mind is alert and relaxed, over time, it will calm down the same way the snowflakes in the snow globe settle down, and the mind abides in a state where it is both calm and clear.
Let us give it a try.

Formal Practice: Exploring Ways To Settle The Mind

Let us do a short, five-minute sit. We will spend the first three minutes exploring each of the three methods of settling the mind, for one minute each. We will then spend the last two minutes freestyling, practicing any of the three methods that you most prefer, or any combination of the three.
The Setup:
Sit in any posture that allows you to be alert and relaxed at the same time, whatever that means to you. You may keep your eyes opened or closed.
Anchoring (1 Minute):
For one minute, bring gentle attention to the breath, or the body, or any sensory object that affords the mind some measure of attentional stability. If attention wanders away, gently bring it back.
Resting (1 Minute):
For the next minute, rest the mind. If you like, you may imagine the mind resting on the breath the same way a butterfly rests gently on a flower. Or say to yourself, “There is nowhere to go and nothing to do for this one moment, except to rest.”
Being (1 Minute):
For the next minute, shift from doing to being. Sitting without agenda. Just sit and experience the present moment, for the duration of one minute.
Freestyle (2 Minutes):
For the next two minutes, you may practice any one of the three methods above, whichever your favorite is, or you may switch between them at any time.
After doing one or a few rounds of the above exploration, it is useful to decide which method of settling the mind is your favorite. This will be your primary method for settling the mind. Don’t worry about making a “wrong” choice—there is no wrong choice, plus you can change your mind anytime. It is sort of like choosing your favorite flavor of ice cream—there is no wrong choice, and you can change your mind anytime.
I recommend doing the exercise of settling the mind at least once a day, for at least one minute a day. Most teachers I know recommend twenty minutes a day, but you may do it for any duration you want, knowing that no duration is too long. Even seasoned meditators on formal retreats may choose to do this one very basic meditation for ten or more hours a day, so don’t be shy about practicing settling the mind for as long as you want.

“This excerpt has been adapted from Joy On Demand  by Chade-Meng Tan, reprinted with permission from HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2016. joyondemand.com“

A basic meditation to tame hour inner critic

A Basic Meditation to Tame Your Inner Critic

An in-the-moment exercise for confronting the nagging voice in your head.

By Mark Bertin | May 9, 2016

Illustration by Mindful

Over the next several weeks practice noting your Inner Critic as you go about your daily life. Give this voice a nickname if you’d like.
1. Ask yourself, if someone were actually standing next to me and supplying the same commentary, how would I handle it? You’d probably respond with something like, Thanks anyway, but I’m leaving now.
2. Without getting sucked into debate, each time you notice the Inner Critic, take a pause.
3. Breathing in, recognize the voice of criticism, and whatever it’s implying about you or doing to your emotional state. Acknowledge that experience without needing to either banish it or rationalize it. This is how I feel right now: tired and insecure and angry.
4. Breathing out, let go. Instead of wrestling with self-judgment, see it for what it is, and turn your attention somewhere more useful. Focus only on the sensation of breathing as best as you’re able, without striving or forcing anything.
5. Wish yourself well, like you would a close friend in distress. Picture freedom, relief, or ease with each exhalation as an intention for now or sometime in the future.

How to Avoid the Trap of Self-Improvement

Recognize the inner critic who wants nothing to do with compassion.

By Bob Stahl | April 19, 2016

kris_art/Adobe Stock

In the healing work of self-compassion, it’s important to avoid the trap of getting caught up in self-improvement. When you have a pervasive sense of unworthiness, this can be tricky. The identity of unworthiness is formed of self-blame and a deluge of self-judgments offered by an inner critic who wants nothing to do with self-compassion. It’s far more interested in masochistic endeavors like self-improvement projects that it’s never satisfied with. But this just gets you more stuck in feeling deficient for several reasons, the foremost being the very idea that there’s a faulty and unworthy self that needs to be improved.
Although it’s important to seek therapy and health promoting modalities when you need support. You can also be filled at times with the belief, that you can fix your unworthy self through more workshops, new therapies, or a better diet or exercise program. In many ways it’s no different from always striving for more money or more things. It’s just another variation on eternally wanting something more or better.
Here’s how the trap works: Setting a goal of a better self calls forth wanting. Wanting calls forth striving. Striving calls forth judging. And judging becomes a way of life that brings a critical orientation to everything: “Oh, I like that! Oh, I don’t like that! Oh, that’s good! Oh, that’s bad!” It never stops, and while the mind is thus engaged, it isn’t in the here and now; it’s preoccupied with getting somewhere else. This craving to be somehow better can fill up a lifetime yet never be fulfilled.

The mind that’s perennially striving for a better place or condition creates suffering by leaving the present moment, which is the only place we can experience love, peace, or happiness.

Remember, this moment truly is the time of your life, and what’s important is to be here for it, to actually live in the here and now. There is no other moment to live in. The mind that’s perennially striving for a better place or condition creates suffering by leaving the present moment, which is the only place we can experience love, peace, or happiness. When you are somewhere other than now, you can miss the most precious experiences of your life. This can be akin to searching for your camera to preserve an experience that you end up missing because you’re searching for the camera. A mind that is extended toward the future is focused on some goal, and even if this goal is reached, the striving mind will then measure how the new condition compares with the past, thus ensuring that you remain perennially preoccupied with the past and future and rarely, if ever, actually live in the here and now.
Living in the present moment doesn’t mean that you discard your goals, whether that means having a nice car that’s paid for, moving your family to a better home or safer neighborhood, or losing weight. It means remaining oriented to the here and now as you work towards your aspirations.
The judging mind can always find something that isn’t quite right, particularly when it’s looking from this nebulous thing called “self.” We tend to get the standards by which we judge ourselves by looking around and comparing ourselves to others. But if you consider how many billions of people there are on this planet, you can see that this is a no-win proposition. There will always be someone thinner, fitter, nicer, more accomplished, more attractive, more popular—whatever.
Noticing what you do with your mind and these comparisons can help you see how much suffering is caused by this endless stream of judgments and the violence of self-criticism. You may hate your potbelly and want to get rid of it, or you may despise the way you chicken out and fail to say what you really think. But hating and criticizing things about yourself only creates more suffering. This is like a military strategy based on the idea that war can create peace—that if you can blast the inadequate self to smithereens, or maybe just threaten to do so, you will finally feel okay and have peace. This way of thinking just etches the neurological pathways of suffering more deeply into your brain and colors your thoughts with narratives about what’s wrong with you and how you need to improve.
As you grow in mindfulness and compassion, you may begin to realize that contentment is the greatest of wealth and that no money or things can buy it. Being content with who you are is the greatest of treasures. The way to peace is never through war, and the way to happiness is never through hatred. Peace is the way to peace, and happiness comes from happiness. If you want compassion to grow in your life, practice compassion. If you want criticism to grow in your life, practice criticism. It’s simple, really: Your attitude is the water of your life. You can promote feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness by pouring on self- blame and criticism, or you can promote feelings of happiness and well-being by pouring on self-compassion.
The quality of your attitude is influenced by many things, but especially by your mood and your orientation to life itself. If you have a critical orientation, you’ll find unlimited things to criticize and may find yourself caught in the trap of self-improvement for much of your life. If you have a compassionate orientation, you’ll find many opportunities for compassion and may discover freedom and happiness in your life right now. The attitude of self-compassion can grow even as you’re attending to your pain and woundedness, or even as you reflect on mistakes you’ve made that hurt you or others. You grow self-compassion by practicing self-compassion, just like a pianist becomes more skilled by practicing the piano. Small errors, such as forgetting something at the store, or large errors, like forgetting your wedding anniversary, can become opportunities for you to grow a little more in self-kindness and self-compassion.
Yes, there tears to cry, as well as embarrassing errors and sometimes shameful choices to take responsibility for, but even as you’re shaken to the core by difficult emotions that flood through you, you can attend to your wounded heart with acknowldgement and self-compassion. In this way you can enhance the values you would like to grow in yourself, even as you attend to suffering with friendly and kind attention. In time, suffering subsides, just like a child’s tears subside after she’s been rocked and sung to enough. As the pain is lifted, her face changes and becomes beautiful with the calm after the storm. Know that for you too there will come a time when you have cried yourself to the end of your tears and a feeling of peace may surround and embrace you. This is one of the greatest treasures of mindfulness and self-compassion.

Mindfulness Practice: Self-Compassion Meditation

Self-compassion allows you to be with and care for your own woundedness and pain and live with your heart wide open. The moment you embrace the disowned and wounded parts of yourself, the husks of your old narrative-based self can fall away.
All of us sometimes act unskillfully and make poor choices that hurt others, and we are all sometimes hurt by the actions of others. Rather than pushing thoughts and feelings about these things away, and rather than trying to correct anything or anyone, simply be with the thoughts and feelings that come up for you with curiosity and acknowledgement and let them be . As you practice self-compassion meditation, the intention is to be open to all of your thoughts, emotions, and sensations, to let all the streams of perception flow through you unfettered. It’s a practice of being with yourself just as you are.
Give yourself at least twenty to thirty minutes for this practice. Choose a place to practice where you feel safe and at ease. If you like, place some objects that are special and comforting to you on a shelf nearby, or light a candle or arrange some flowers in this space that you create for yourself. Know that you’re giving yourself a gift of love.

• Breathe: Begin by practicing mindfulness of breathing for ten minutes, returning to the breath with self-compassion every time you leave it. Let your thoughts and emotions come and go. Being present…

• Recall and notice: Staying in touch with your breath, recall an emotion that came up for you during the ten minutes of mindful breathing. Please be wise in picking an emotion that feels workable to you—you don’t have to choose 10. How about a 5 or 6? If no prominent emotions came up for you, simply recall a recent experience of one. Notice what happens in your body as you feel into this emotion and acknowledge any parts of your body that are affected. Be open to and present with any other emotions that may come up. Perhaps shame feels like a rope wrapped around your chest that keeps getting tighter and makes it hard to breathe. What does the emotion you’re having feel like? By feeling more deeply into it, you may discover other thoughts and emotions—perhaps self-hatred that reaches into your gut, where it churns and twists and hurts. Keep paying attention. Feel more deeply into what’s happening and stay present in your body. Let whatever happens in your mind and body happen. Notice if old unwanted memories that have lain hidden arise. If they do, let them come, and notice how they feel in the body.

• Be kind to yourself. Let everything be in this unrestricted kind of attention; don’t block anything out. Don’t let the trance of unworthiness swallow your heart. Stay near the pain with compassion. It’s the awakened heart that stays with and heals. It’s all happening right here and now, where your body is. Stay with everything you’re experiencing, and remember that this practice is about offering compassion to yourself and feeling that compassion. It’s not about figuring anything out or fixing or getting rid of anything. Remember, it all comes down to love, including love for yourself. It all comes down to what you’re doing in this moment. Use the breath as your way to remain anchored in the present moment, letting it come and go as it will.

• Let your emotions come and go. In the same way that you allow your breath to come and go freely, allow your emotions to come and go freely. Notice any judgments that come up for you as you allow strong or unwanted emotions to arise. Notice how the judgments affect your emotions, perhaps blocking them or washing them out, perhaps calling forth other emotions. Welcome all of your emotions as you observe and acknowledge the judgments without indulging them.

• Stay with compassion. Be with whatever emotions come up for you with compassion. Welcome each with kindness and meet all of them with gentleness and tenderness. Hold yourself in the arms of self-compassion and be present with what you feel. Stay with this practice and your emotions for as long as you like.

• Breathe. When you’re ready to end this practice, return to practicing mindfulness of the breath for ten minutes.

• Be grateful. Offer a measure of gratitude to yourself for taking the time to care for yourself in this way.

Take a little time to write in your journal about what came up for you in this practice. Write about any emotions you noticed being attached to one another, such as helplessness bringing up fear, or fear evoking anger. Write about all of the emotions that came up for you here and whether or how they changed when you held them with self-compassion.
As you continue to practice self-compassion, you may notice more and more things about the self you’ve created with all of your old stories. Perhaps you tried to be especially good to counterbalance the problems in your family. Perhaps you learned to be generous of yourself as a way of earning the value you felt you lacked. Self-compassion lets you be with all of the hurt, loneliness, and fear that the narrative-based self has concealed. In the wide-open heart of self-compassion, the wounded child within you will begin to heal.

New Elderly MOvement (from baba mail)

Advice From a 104-Year-Old Doctor

Views: 41148

Likes: 1677

Font Size:

A+ A-

Join Us Share Send to friends

User Content: Meredith D.

Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, from Japan, turned 104 recently. One of the world's longest-serving physicians and educators, Hinohara's magic touch is legendary. Since 1941, he has been healing patients at St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at St. Luke's College of Nursing. He has published around 15 books since his 75th birthday, including "Living Long, Living Good", which sold more than 1.2 million copies.

Image source
As the founder of the New Elderly Movement, Hinohara encourages others to live a long and happy life - a quest in which no role model is better than the doctor himself. Nearly 10 years ago, he was interviewed, and gave his advice for a long and healthy life. Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara's main points for a long and happy life are: 

1. All people who live long regardless of nationality, race or gender share one thing in common: None are overweight.

For breakfast I drink coffee, a glass of milk and some orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil in it. Olive oil is great for the arteries and keeps my skin healthy. Lunch is milk and a few cookies, or nothing when I am too busy to eat. I never get hungry because I focus on my work. Dinner is veggies, a bit of fish and rice, and, twice a week, 100 grams of lean meat.

2. Always plan ahead.

My schedule book is already full until next year, with lectures and my usual hospital work.

3. There is no need to ever retire, but if one must, it should be a lot later than 65.

The current retirement age was set at 65 half a century ago, when the average life-expectancy in Japan was 68 years and only 125 Japanese people were over 100 years old. Today, Japanese women live to be around 86 and men 80, and we have 36,000 centenarians in our country. In 20 years we will have about 50,000 people over the age of 100...

- Advertisement -

4. Share what you know.

I give 150 lectures a year, some for 100 elementary-school children, others for 4,500 business people. I usually speak for 60 to 90 minutes, standing, to stay strong.

5. When a doctor recommends you take a test or have some surgery, ask whether the doctor would suggest that his or her spouse or children go through such a procedure.

Contrary to popular belief, doctors can't cure everyone. So why cause unnecessary pain with surgery? I think music and animal therapy can help more than most doctors imagine

6. To stay healthy, always take the stairs and carry your own stuff.

I take two stairs at a time, to get my muscles moving.

7. My inspiration is Robert Browning's poem "Abt Vogler."

My father used to read it to me. It encourages us to make big art, not small scribbles. It says to try to draw a circle so huge that there is no way we can finish it while we are alive. All we see is an arch; the rest is beyond our vision but it is there in the distance.

8. Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way to forget it.

If a child has a toothache, and you start playing a game together, he or she immediately forgets the pain. Hospitals must cater to the basic need of patients: we all want to have fun. At St. Luke's we have music and animal therapies, and art classes.

9. Don't be crazy about amassing material things.

Remember: you don't know when your number is up, and you can't take it with you to the next place.

10. Hospitals must be designed and prepared for major disasters, and they must accept every patient who appears at their doors.

We designed St. Luke's so we can operate anywhere: in the basement, in the corridors, in the chapel. Most people thought I was crazy to prepare for a catastrophe, but on March 20, 1995, I was unfortunately proven right when members of the Aum Shinrikyu religious cult launched a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway. We accepted 740 victims and in two hours figured out that it was sarin gas that had hit them. Sadly we lost one person, but we saved 739 lives.

11. Science alone can't cure or help people.

Science lumps us all together, but illness is individual. Each person is unique, and diseases are connected to their hearts. To know the illness and help people, we need liberal and visual arts, not just medical ones.

May also interest you:

A Practice for Connecting with Pleasure

Focused attention that brings your whole body into awareness is hot.

By Pam Costa | May 5, 2016

FRAN/Adobe Stock

My partner and I had been together for twenty years when we finally sought help for the long-term discrepancy in desire between us. I simply didn’t want sex as often as he did. You know how you don’t want to go to the gym, but always feel good after the workout? Sex was like that for me. It just wasn’t something I had the innate desire to do.
My body was disconnected from sexual pleasure. Throughout my entire life, I heard messages from the world like “women don’t like sex” and “women who like sex are sluts.” Truth be told, guys don’t have it any easier. They are constantly asked to “be a man” and at the same time are receiving messages that they should not show their desire, because that could be creepy or predatory.
A great part of being an adult is that we get to choose which messages we want to believe, including messages about sexuality. However, just choosing to replace these messages with more permissive beliefs was not going to automatically reconnect my body with desire.
So the first thing I did was talk to my doctor. But my gynecologist was unable to offer a solution. So we started seeing a sex and relationship coach, and that’s when the real progress started. You might be reading this and saying: “What the heck is a sex coach?” Turns out, it’s this awesome person that you can spill your heart out to, who will then look at you and say, “That makes sense. Those are the beliefs you’ve been taught. But what do you actually believe? And based on that, what do you want to do about it?”
My answer to that question was that I believed, buried under the mountain of negative social messages I had heard my whole life, and my long and distracting to-do list which previously always seemed to take precedence over pleasure, that I was a human being with sexual needs and desires. And I wanted to connect with that part of myself. What happened next was life-changing for me, so I’d like to share how focused attention helped me learn to connect with my own sexual pleasure.
I affectionately call this mindful practice “Breathing Down to There.”
The goal of this practice is to connect your breath from your lungs all the way down to your pelvic floor. The first time I did this exercise, I couldn’t make the connection. However, after a few more tries, I began to notice some warm and tingly feelings in places that, as I mentioned earlier, seemingly had been on hiatus. It was as if through this practice I was giving myself permission (maybe for the first time ever!) to truly enjoy my own sexuality. Inviting my whole body to become more fully integrated into my overall awareness practice has not only increased my sexual desire, but given me a greater sense of overall well-being in life. Sound interesting? Try it out yourself:

• Take a few moments to get comfortable, either sitting up or lying down and then close your eyes.

• Spend a few minutes breathing into your chest, noticing your breath in your lungs and the spread of oxygen from your lungs to the far reaches of your body like your fingers and your toes. Placing a hand over your chest may help you be with your body.

• Then move your hand down to your belly and breathe there for a few minutes, noticing whether this is difficult or easy and any other emotions, sensations, or thoughts arise. As adults, we often tighten this area of our body unconsciously, so invite those muscles to relax with each inhale and exhale.

• Next, spend time breathing down to your genitals, once again observing your experiences without judgment. If you begin to feel warmth and pleasure, give yourself permission to acknowledge those feelings.

• Finally, bring your attention back to your whole body by feeling the outbreath from your belly for a few breaths and then from your lungs for a few breaths. If it feels right, take a moment to appreciate each part of your body before opening your eyes.

Each of us has a different set of sexual experiences and needs. When we feel disconnected from pleasure, simply bringing non-judgmental awareness to our bodies can help us clear away the baggage of cultural narratives. And in doing so, we can uncover our own unique sexual story and gain compassion for ourselves, wherever we are at in our sexual journey.

Subscribe to learn more about the best mindfulness practices.

How Taming the Mind is Like Riding a Horse

When we engage with the mind and body, we learn how to listen and respond with skill.

By Ed Halliwell | May 4, 2016

patrimonio designs/Adobe Stock

In traditional descriptions, meditation is likened to training a horse. The sensations, impulses, and reactions in our bodies are like the untamed instincts of an animal, and when we take our seat in practice, we learn how to ride this energy with skill. As good equestrians know, the best way to ride a horse is not trying to control it with fear, force or frustration, but by confidently offering a partnership. We listen and respond to the horse’s needs for reassurance, guidance and gentleness, as well as recognizing its intuitive connection to the earth and environment. Based on what the horse tells us, we adjust our journey as needed, not losing sight of our intended destination. In this way, rider and horse can travel in harmony, each taking charge according to its strengths.
The analogy helps as we understand more about the workings of mind, brain, and body together. Much human stress comes from our clumsy handling of animal drives. Whereas a horse just acts in a horse-like way, following its instincts for better or worse, we are blessed (sometimes cursed) with the cognitive capacity to reflect on what’s going on. This brings great power, as we no longer have to follow every feeling within us, but also great suffering, because our deeply-rooted drives remain strong, not easily managed by the more recently evolved skill of self-mastery. When experience is painful, not only does our body produce urges to fight or flee, but our thinking mind joins in the act, with desperate attempts to get rid of the pain, usually with ineffectual problem-solving. Because thinking doesn’t trump feeling, we’re left in a stressful loop—the frantic ruminations of the mind can be felt by the body as something else to fear, creating more stress, pain, and rumination.

By noticing what’s going on in our bodies and minds, we step out of the loop of reactivity. Instead of being like a horseman or woman in a frenetic and futile battle with a frightened mount, we stop trying to grapple our way to steadiness.

This is where our horse-riding helps. As well as greater cognitive powers, humans also have access to awareness. By noticing what’s going on in our bodies and minds, we step out of the loop of reactivity. Instead of being like a horseman or woman in a frenetic and futile battle with a frightened mount, we stop trying to grapple our way to steadiness. Instead we relax and settle in our seat, bumpy though the ride may be. We might start talking to ourselves kindly and softly, like a horse whisperer, saying something like: “It’s OK. I know this is painful right now, and scary too. So let’s work together to move through this. I’ll hear and acknowledge your distress, recognizing that you’d like to get away from where we are, and you can trust that I’m steering well.” Responding to this calm confidence, rather than panic or anger, our bodies may begin to settle too.
As a species, we find ourselves in an “in-between place” (to borrow a phrase from Pema Chodron). Conscious enough to realize our suffering and maybe the patterns that lead to it, but not always aware and resilient enough to respond to that suffering wisely. Fortunately, just as our bodies can be strengthened with exercise, so we can train our minds. By learning how we add stress to our suffering, and training our minds to do things differently, we can start to step out of the struggle. Life becomes less like being bucked by a bronco, and a little more akin to Olympic showjumping. Plenty of hurdles, but a bit more poise.
Try working with this “Horse-Riding” practice, a few times a day, for a few minutes at a time (or longer if you like).

Horse-Riding Practice

1. Take your seat. Sit on a sturdy chair, if possible with your upper body upright (not stiffly so) and your feet in contact with the ground. Imagine yourself taking the dignified posture of a rider on a steed.
2. Listen to the horse. Notice what’s happening in your body right now. As best you can. bring an attitude of kindly interest to your investigation. The intention is not to judge or change or what’s happening, but to hear what ‘your horse’ is saying, with attentive respect. Be aware of gut reactions, impulses, and emotions, which signal your intuitive, animal relationship with what’s going on. Listen to and acknowledge these powerful feelings, knowing that though they are powerful and offer important, intuitive information and motivation, However, also remember they aren’t in sole charge of the ride.
3. Acknowledge the rider. Bring awareness to the cognitive mind, your thoughts. Let go, for now, of creating or following ideas—just observe, with a friendly curiosity: “What’s going on in my mind?” Notice any thoughts about how your “horse” is feeling or reacting, any tendency to want to reject, resist, or try to force the experience to be different from how it is.
4. Notice the terrain. Open awareness to the environment around—notice what can be seen, heard, touched, smelled, and any corresponding sensations in your body and thoughts in your mind. What’s it like to be horse-riding in this space, this terrain, here and now?
5. Come back to center. Check your posture and state of mind—is your body still steadfastly in touch with the ground? Upright? Not tense? Is your mind present, awake, attentive? If needed, re-settle by connecting your attention to the breath in your belly for a time.
6. Decide how to ride. Now, ask yourself: Based on what’s here, in this body, mind, and the world around me, what course would be helpful to take right now? In which direction, toward what or whom, shall the onward journey take? Listen to your gut, your heart, your head, and the feedback you receive from the environment and people around you. They can all be factored in to deciding your course, though they may all have different and sometimes apparently conflicting contributions to make. As best you can, let choices come from a place of awareness and response to the whole situation—your inner and outer world. Recognize that there may be no one right course to take, and you can re-navigate at any time, by checking in again with the rider and horse. Allow yourself to be still, and not to make a move, if this is what’s most needed for the moment.

I’ve written more about this horse-riding metaphor in a new book, Into The Heart of Mindfulness. For more on the mechanics of the mind and meditation, I’d also recommend James Kingsland’s new book, Siddhartha’s Brain: The Science of Enlightenment.

Subscribe to learn more about the best mindfulness practices.

A basic meditatilon to tame your inner critic

A Basic Meditation to Tame Your Inner Critic

An in-the-moment exercise for confronting the nagging voice in your head.

By Mark Bertin | May 9, 2016

Illustration by Mindful

Over the next several weeks practice noting your Inner Critic as you go about your daily life. Give this voice a nickname if you’d like.
1. Ask yourself, if someone were actually standing next to me and supplying the same commentary, how would I handle it? You’d probably respond with something like, Thanks anyway, but I’m leaving now.
2. Without getting sucked into debate, each time you notice the Inner Critic, take a pause.
3. Breathing in, recognize the voice of criticism, and whatever it’s implying about you or doing to your emotional state. Acknowledge that experience without needing to either banish it or rationalize it. This is how I feel right now: tired and insecure and angry.
4. Breathing out, let go. Instead of wrestling with self-judgment, see it for what it is, and turn your attention somewhere more useful. Focus only on the sensation of breathing as best as you’re able, without striving or forcing anything.
5. Wish yourself well, like you would a close friend in distress. Picture freedom, relief, or ease with each exhalation as an intention for now or sometime in the future.

This featured practice appeared in the June 2016 issue of Mindful magazine

Subscribe to learn more about the best mindfulness practices.

Miondfulness changes how we process sadness

Mindfulness Changes How We Process Sadness

What brain science reveals about the different ways we experience emotions.

By Zindel Segal | May 3, 2016

a_lev/Adobe Stock

One of the central teachings of mindfulness is that it’s possible to “know” our emotions in different ways. With sadness for example, depending on how we pay attention, we can become aware of the momentary, subjective experience of sadness, or we can follow a conceptual, largely thought-infused view of what it means to feel sad. We use mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) to help people experience the distinction between these different modes of thinking (we’ll call these modes the narrative and experiential modes.) For the past 10 years researchers have been trying to identify the specific brain regions that become engaged as people experience their emotions in these different ways. Sounds like a worthwhile endeavor, but how do we actually go about investigating these two modes in the brain?
An early approach by Norman Farb and his colleagues trained study participants to ask themselves a number of questions about personal traits such as if they felt they were stupid, smart, trustworthy, or lazy while being scanned by a functional MRI machine. These questions activated either a narrative/analytic mode (“What does this say about me as a person?” “Is this a good or a bad thing?”) or an experiential/concrete mode (“What is occurring from one moment to the next?” or “What am I aware of in my body?”). Once people were trained, the researchers looked at how mindfulness training interacted with these two modes to see whether each had a unique brain response. Two groups were tested, the first just before enrolling in an MBSR program and the second after completing the program.
What did they find?
People who were practicing mindfulness showed marked reductions in activity in a region of the brain often linked to self-evaluation and analysis (the medial prefrontal cortex). They also showed increased activity in regions linked to direct, moment-by-moment sensory experiences (the lateral prefrontal cortex, especially the insula).

Why we get caught up thinking about ourselves

In non-meditators, there was a strong connection between the two parts of the brain I described above (right insula and the medial prefrontal cortex), whereas in those trained in mindfulness these regions were “uncoupled.”
Here’s what that means: The fact that these two regions are tightly connected prior to practicing mindfulness suggests that it is usually very difficult for a person to focus on the moment without setting off thoughts about the self.
The “uncoupling” of these two parts of the brain that is associated with mindfulness suggests that the person is now able to maintain attention on body experience, without automatically activating “stories” about the self. Having actual data showing this phenomenon is hugely important, as it supports the notion of a fundamental neural dissociation between two distinct forms of self-awareness—narrative and experiential modes—that are habitually integrated but can be uncoupled through mindfulness training.

Can we learn to be less self-reflective?

Building on the findings of how mindfulness practice can heighten the contrast between the narrative and experiential modes of processing, the next question is whether people can learn how to do this when they are feeling sad and not just reflecting on self-descriptive adjectives.
Farb and colleagues now returned to the fMRI scanner and asked people who were about to start or had recently completed Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) to watch sad and neutral film clips while being scanned. For all participants, the sad film clips were again associated with medial prefrontal cortex activation (self-evaluation and analysis) as well as in language centers and regions that direct self-focus and reappraisal. Lower levels of activity were also found in areas that convey information about present moment awareness and bodily sensations (the somatosensory cortex and right insula). What is interesting is that when the effects of mindfulness training were examined, the group that completed the 8-week program were less likely to get mentally caught up in feeling sad than those who had not undergone training. Their brain patterns changed: the frontal regions that direct self-focus were less activated, and their moment-to-moment sensory awareness activation of the insula increased.

How to be present with sadness

If you’ve ever sat in on an MBSR or Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) class you will know that the practice of mindfulness is used to help you access information about what is occurring in your body when emotions like sadness are present. Through the practice, you learn to allow yourself to watch emotions as they arise—without getting caught up in thinking about them—and to create room for bodily sensations that accompany emotions. Considering the impact on the brain, this practice may help restore the balance between neural networks that support both problem-solving and body-based representations of emotions, especially when they are tipped too strongly toward the former. In fact, when we are focusing exclusively on self-referential problem-solving when we’re sad, we’re more likely to fall into a cycle of depression.
The practice of mindfulness allows us to make a key attentional shift—we can approach our experiences from an experiential mode rather than a narrative mode. The brain research indicates that this shift makes tangible changes to our minds and that training in mindfulness enables this shift to occur even in the presence of sad thoughts and feelings. In this way, mindfulness helps us create space for both the emotion and the self to co-exist, moving in tandem into the coming moment with a greater capacity for choice and self-care.

This article was adapted from Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, by Zindel V. Segal, Ph.D., C.Psych.

Joy on Demand

The art of discovering the happiness within.

By Chade-Meng Tan | May 26, 2016 There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that meditation can lead to happiness in real life. I know this because I am myself a rather extreme example. My baseline happiness used to be misery, which meant that when nothing was happening, I was miserable. It meant that if something good happened, I would feel happier for a while but then eventually return to misery. And it meant that despite the prosperity and recognition and other kinds of worldly success that came as I grew up, I wasn’t happy. In a couple of years after I started mind training, my baseline had shifted to jolly, which means that when nothing was happening, I was jolly. When I experience something painful, it’s painful, but I eventually return to being jolly.
Wow.
People used to assume that baseline happiness is unchangeable, but I am living proof that it can be moved from high negative to high positive with only a few years of practice. It is really about the training.
In my Search Inside Yourself class, for example, the vast majority of participants did little or no meditation before the class, but after just a few days or weeks of meditation, many of them reported meaningful increases in happiness. A 2003 study yields a similar finding, that just eight weeks of mindfulness training is enough to cause significant changes in the brain associated with increased happiness.
These days, I recently realized, I almost never lose my sense of humor anymore. Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “If you want to become an agent of change, you have to remember to keep your sense of humor.” I agree: joy is an immensely powerful resource.

Joy Independent of Sensual and Ego Pleasures

There was a man who had a skin condition that made his skin itch all the time. Every time he scratched his itch, he felt good. Then one day, a skillful doctor cured him of his skin condition, and he didn’t have to scratch anymore. He realized that scratching his itch had felt good, but not having to scratch an itch at all feels even better.
We have a mind condition that makes us itch for two types of pleasure: pleasure of the senses and pleasure of the ego. When our senses are pleasantly stimulated, as when we eat something tasty, or our ego is pleasantly stimulated, as when we are praised for something we did, we feel joy, which is good. What is even better is if we can feel joy independent of sense or ego pleasure. For example, when we are eating chocolate, we experience joy, and when we are just sitting there not eating chocolate, we still experience joy. In order to do this, we train the mind to access joy even when it is free from stimulation. This is also the secret of raising your happiness set point.
To train the mind to access stimulus-free joy, we need to understand how joy arises independent of sensual stimulation and then cultivate those skills. They are three: easing, inclining, and uplifting.

1. Easing into Joy
   The first skill we need in support of joy on demand is resting the mind to put it into a state of ease. When the mind is at ease, joy becomes more accessible, so part of the practice is learning to access that joy in ease, and then in turn, using the joy to reinforce the ease. I call this easing into joy: being joyful at rest, no ego stroking or sensual pleasure required. Cultivating this form of inner joy begins to free us from overreliance on sense and ego stimulation for pleasure. This means joy becomes increasingly available anyplace, anytime.

2. Inclining the Mind Toward Joy
   Next, we learn to notice joy and give it our full attention. We learn where to look in order to see and appreciate joy that is already available to us, in moments that we hadn’t noticed before. There is joy to be found in a calming breath and in the pleasures of ordinary activities. We invite this joy in. Inviting and noticing joy become part of our meditation practice as well as habits in everyday life. In time, with practice, the mind starts to get to know joy. It becomes familiar with joy like a close family member we can count on. The more the mind becomes familiar with joy, the more it perceives joy, inclines toward joy, and effortlessly creates the conditions conducive to joy.

3. Uplifting the Mind
   Here, we learn to uplift the mind with wholesome joy, especially joy arising from goodness, generosity, loving-kindness, and compassion. The wholesomeness of such joy benefits mental health the same way wholesome food benefits physical health. Such joy also leads the mind into a more stable, collected state because it doesn’t have to fight with anything like regret or envy. In turn, the stable, collected mind is more conducive to wholesome joy, thus establishing a virtuous cycle. With training in easing, inclining, and uplifting the mind comes the increasing ability to access joy on demand in most normal life circumstances (i.e., in the absence of overwhelming difficulties such as losing a livelihood or a loved one).

After Google director Jonathan Berent learned these skills, he noticed a profound impact on his life. He told me, “I have found that I can at any moment take a conscious breath and access joy. In fact, this has been so helpful that I use my watch’s chronometer to remind me to take at least one breath per hour when I am fully present to it. A couple years ago, I would have thought this was pointless. Joy on demand? You have to be kidding me. Now it is a reality to me, and I know it’s possible at any moment.”
Someone else I know experienced a change from doing one small practice in this book for a very short time. Janie had been unable to sleep well for many years. After practicing attending to the joy of loving-kindness for two minutes, that night she slept better than she had in years. Now she practices loving-kindness daily and has been sleeping better since. But wait, there’s more. The same mental equipment we use to train in uplifting our minds, inclining toward joy, and easing into joy gives us the strength and skills we need to deal with difficulties and emotional pain. I cannot promise that your life will be nothing but joyful in one breath or hours of training or by the time you reach the end of this book, but I can promise that whenever you can do these three things—easing, inclining, and uplifting—what appears to be painful will be less painful, what is neutral will become joyful, and what is joyful will become even more joyful.
(This is where you say, “Wow.”)
If you have been unhappy, or you are happy and aspire to be even happier, know that your happiness set point can be upgraded. I know because I did it and I have seen many others do it in the mind training program I taught at Google. I have also seen scientific studies that have measured it. Of course, Buddhist monks and other contemplative people have been doing it for thousands of years, but it’s not something in the water in the Himalayas—it’s something you can do too, wherever you are.

The same mental equipment we use to train in uplifting our minds, inclining toward joy, and easing into joy gives us the strength and skills we need to deal with difficulties and emotional pain.

You may well ask, if this kind of reliable and lasting joy is so accessible, why haven’t more people found it? Why does it seem so elusive? I think the main problem is most people aren’t aware that joy independent of sensual or ego stimulation is even possible. Or if we’ve heard of it, many of us think it is unattainable so we don’t even try. We don’t know it’s something that every single one of us can learn. Some believe you need a lot of money to experience joy, while others believe you can only find happiness if you give up everything and live in a hut in the woods. You might think you need to meditate for many years to access joy, but you can begin to experience benefits in one breath. If we think joy comes only from buying stuff, consuming stuff, becoming a sleazy tycoon, or running for president after becoming a sleazy tycoon, then joy will be elusive.
In modern society, with modern technology, pleasure is more accessible than ever, all around us, on demand. Our lack of joy is certainly not for lack of ways to gratify our egos and senses. However, the joy that comes from these sources is inherently problematic since it depends on external factors out of our control.
By contrast, joy that comes from within—from a peaceful mind as a result of taking a few breaths, joy from being kind toward others (which involves other people but does not depend on them), joy from our own generosity, joy from doing the right thing—all this joy is ours to have, independent of circumstances. If we do accidentally lose our joy, or something really bad happens and overwhelms us, there’s still joy in knowing we can get it back. We all have an infinite resource at our disposal, no matter how constrained or difficult our circumstances, and that resource is joy. Joy isn’t elusive when you know where and how to look.

“This excerpt has been adapted from Joy On Demand  by Chade-Meng Tan, reprinted with permission from HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2016. joyondemand.com“