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.
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.
By
Chade-Meng Tan
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.
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.
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.
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“
It is absolutely normal to experience some challenges when practicing mindfulness meditation.
Your mind will wander; this happens to everyone. Since you’ve begun
practicing mindfulness with the approaches earlier in the book, there’s
no doubt that you’ve already experienced this. Your mind can be just
like the weather often is—changing all the time. You’ve probably noticed
that you tend to get lost in memories or thoughts about the future,
even in everyday life. For example, when eating breakfast you might be
planning the day ahead or remembering the past, whether marveling at how
wonderful last weekend was or how painful that interaction was that you
had with your spouse last night. It seems that most of our waking hours
are spent thinking about the past or the future, and that we seldom
live in the here and now. As you look closely at the workings of your
mind during mindfulness practice, you’ll start to see how often you
aren’t present.
If you find it difficult to resist criticizing yourself,
consider this: If you weren’t mindful, you wouldn’t even know you’d
wandered off.
Your job isn’t to berate yourself for this, but to simply acknowledge
the wandering and come back to the meditation. If you find it difficult
to resist criticizing yourself, consider this: If you weren’t mindful,
you wouldn’t even know you’d wandered off. What’s important is that you
came back to the present moment. Working with the wandering mind offers
three benefits:
You’re training the brain: Every time you bring the
mind back from wandering, you’re building the muscle of concentration.
It actually is like lifting weights. The mind wanders off and you bring
it back again and again. Through repetition you build muscle mass—and
concentration.
You begin to notice thought patterns: When you come
back into the present moment and notice where you drifted off to, you
can discover elements of doubt, desire, or anger that you were caught up
in. This offers insight into hindrances and difficulties, including how
the judgmental mind creates feelings of deficiency and inadequacy. You
may also become aware of worry, sadness, or confusion, perhaps signaling
that you need to pay closer attention to or deal with certain things in
your life.
You find out it’s not all in your head: You gain an
understanding of the mind-body connection and how the thoughts you
think and emotions you feel have a physical reflection in the body. You
begin to understand how a tight jaw or upset stomach, for example, is
the expression of certain thoughts and emotions in your body.
Other challenges show up in the form of the five hindrances: desire,
anger, restlessness, sleepiness, and doubt. These problems are so
common, predictable, and prevalent in mindfulness practice that many
books on meditation address how to work with them.
Desire or the craving mind, is an aspect of mind
that’s preoccupied with things like wanting to feel good. It spends a
lot of time in fantasies, daydreams, and plans. When you feel unworthy,
you may be consumed with the desire to be better or different. It’s like
a thirst or hunger that seldom lets up.
Anger reflects not being okay with the way things
are. You may feel mad at yourself for being so inadequate. The angry
mind becomes engrossed in aversion, resentment, or hatred.
Restlessness is like a pacing tiger. When your mind
is filled with shame, it becomes unsettled and seethes with unharnessed
energy that’s uncomfortable to sit with and stay with. It can make you
feel like you want to crawl out of your skin, like you need to do
something or go somewhere else.
With sleepiness, your concentration will be dull
and you’ll feel listless or tired or have low energy. Unworthiness,
shame, or inadequacy may feel so overwhelming that you just want to
collapse, disappear, not be here, and go to sleep.
With doubt, you may wonder if meditation serves any
purpose or can help you in any way. You may become filled with
self-doubt and believe that it isn’t possible to heal and be okay with
who you are. This makes it all the easier to fall into the other four
hindrances.
All five hindrances are challenging and can get in the way of your
practice. That’s why it’s so important to notice when they’re occurring
and to be able to name and acknowledge them. As you learned in regard to
the practice of noting, naming in and of itself helps create some
distance, and this will help loosen the grip of the five hindrances. The
moment you realize you’re trapped, you’ve become mindful and can begin
to step out of the trap.
Sometimes the metaphor of a clear pond is helpful in understanding
how to work with the hindrances, as each hindrance obscures your ability
to clearly see the beautiful pebbles at the bottom of the pond. When
you’re in a state of desire, the pond doesn’t appear clear; it’s colored
with the red dye of passion. Your desires color everything. Try to stay
still and breathe mindfully to calm your body and mind. If you’re
angry, the water freezes over and becomes hardened with ice, and this
too obscures your view. Maybe this is a signal to open to the warmth of
compassion. With restlessness, the waters are choppy. Begin to harness
that energy in a constructive way, rather than letting it bite you in
the butt. If you’re sleepy, the waters are covered with algae. Perhaps
it’s best to wake up and recognize that you aren’t going to be here
forever. With doubt, the pond appears cloudy or muddy. This is a signal
to reflect on why you’re doing this practice and what you’ve learned
about yourself so far. May this give you incentive to persevere.
When you become mindful that any of the hindrances are present,
notice how your body and mind feel. Sense the texture of these states
and notice what happens when you become entranced by them. Are you more
at ease with yourself or less?
Mindfulness Practice: Meditation on Breath
If you’re new to meditation, we’d like to offer you a few general
pointers on body position and other physical aspects of practice.
Sitting is generally preferable, but you can also lie down if you’re
able to remain alert, and you can even stand if you like. In any
position, keep your head, neck, and body somewhat aligned. If you sit,
aim for a posture that’s self-supporting, rather than leaning back
against a chair, and make sure your legs can rest comfortably, without
requiring muscle tension to hold them in place. Find a place where you
can rest your hands. Look for your middle way—not too tight and not too
loose, a position where you can be comfortable and alert for the entire
practice. Feel free to have your eyes closed or partially open—whichever
you feel most at ease with. If you keep your eyes partially open, your
gaze should be more inward, on whatever you’re focusing on, rather than
outward, where you may get lost in what you’re seeing. If you find
yourself getting sleepy, you might want to open your eyes or stand up.
The breath is an excellent focus for mindfulness practice. Your
breath is always there, always coming and going. It’s also something
that’s available to you anytime, anywhere.
Give yourself ten to fifteen minutes for this practice.
Begin by bringing your attention to the breath in either your
nostrils or your belly—wherever you feel it most distinctly. As you
breathe in, be aware of breathing in, and as you breathe out, be aware
of breathing out. Let the breath come and go as it will, normally and
naturally. Let the felt sense of the breath coming and going be your way
to be present for the full duration of the in breath and the full
duration of the out breath. Letting yourself be…
There’s no need to visualize anything or regulate the breath in any
way. There’s no need to engage thoughts or words or phrases of any kind.
Just be mindful of breathing in and breathing out, without judgment,
without striving. Just watch the breath ebbing and flowing like waves in
the sea.
Notice the inevitable moments when your attention wanders from the
breath. When this happens, don’t criticize or berate yourself. Simply
acknowledge where you went, perhaps into the future or the past, or
engaging in some kind of judging. Just return to the breath, again and
again, every time you leave it.
There’s nothing to accomplish, nothing to pursue, nothing to do but
simply sit and be where you are, noticing your breathing. Living your
life one inhalation and one exhalation at a time…
As you come to an end of this meditation, please extend some
appreciation and congratulations to yourself for giving yourself this
gift of mindfulness.
Curiosity killed the cat. Or did it? Research suggests it keeps us—and other animals—sharp.
By
Sharon BegleyIllustration by Sébastien Thibault
Is actor Kirk Douglas alive or dead? When did Tom Cruise and Nicole
Kidman get divorced? What’s U2 frontman Bono’s real name? Unless you’re a
close personal friend of any of these celebrities, knowing the answer
has no meaningful effect on your life—yet if you’re anything like the
office full of people I tried this on you’re at least a little itchy to
whip out your phone or dash over to your computer for answers. There’s
even a website (or two… or three… ) devoted entirely to informing you
which famous people have shuffled off this mortal coil.
Curiosity. It has “its own reason for existing,” physicist Albert
Einstein wrote, and is, according to 18th-century English writer Samuel
Johnson, “the first passion and the last.” We all know what killed the
cat, so perhaps 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes was right when he
called curiosity “the lust of the mind”—since in a lustful state we
(and perhaps felines?) toss self-preservation to the winds. But
considering how common curiosity is, scientists who study the mind are
only beginning to fathom where it comes from, what it’s good for, and
what happens when we have a lot or not much of it.
Although there are tantalizing hints to all these questions,
definitive answers remain elusive, which is… curious. “Curiosity is a
basic component of human nature,” said Benjamin Hayden, an assistant
professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of
Rochester. “Just think of how much time we spend browsing the Internet,
reading, or just gossiping. Nature seems to have endowed us with a
desire for information that’s so strong it operates even when it doesn’t
help us go out and hunt down a woolly mammoth.”
This need to know propels children to look under rocks and behind
curtains, dogs to sniff a stranger, busy people to look up answers to
trivia questions. In many cases curiosity is not in service of our basic
needs for food, reproduction, and overall survival. That’s all
evolution supposedly cares about. So how can curiosity be such a
central, unshakeable mental trait that it is wired into primate brains
by eons of evolution? When lab monkeys are given a choice between two
games, each of which has a 50-50 chance of winning them a sip of juice,
they prefer the game where they learn whether they won or lost
immediately, thus instantly satisfying their curiosity, even when the
actual payoff (juice) arrives no sooner. “The monkeys’ choice of an
option that immediately resolves uncertainty suggests how strong the
drive is to satisfy curiosity,” Hayden said. Monkeys are even willing to
pay for that: They’ll give up 25% of the promised juice reward if they
can learn immediately whether or not it’s coming. As Hayden and his
Rochester colleague, Celeste Kidd, explained in a 2015 paper in Neuron,
“Monkeys choose information even when it has a measurable cost.”
Pigeons, too, will pay to satisfy their curiosity, giving up one-third
of a promised food reward if it will buy them information, a 2010 study
found.
People behave much the same. Study after study shows we are willing
to pay for answers to trivia questions right now even though we could
have looked up the answers for free later. Trivia information “is
demonstrably useless,” Hayden said. Yet we’re wired to want it anyway:
Brain regions that become active when contemplating the arrival of a
reward are also active when people feel curiosity. “We’re just starting
to open up the brain with neuroimaging and see where curiosity is
happening,” Hayden said, “but the fact that it’s associated with reward
circuits supports the idea that curiosity makes us anticipate a reward,”
satisfying our cognitive hunger.
With its deep evolutionary roots, curiosity can be so compulsive it makes us binge-watch Breaking Bad
(what happens next??!!), and feel anxious and deprived if one of
our favorite shows is cancelled before all the plotlines are resolved (Forever,
I’m looking at you). Such a strong drive, some biologists believe, must
have benefits. Otherwise evolution would have snuffed it out,
especially since too much curiosity, or misplaced curiosity, can be
deadly (I wonder what these wild mushrooms taste like?). “The perils of
curiosity suggest it must have some real, and important, survival
benefits to balance out risks,” said Hayden. “We think curiosity
activates learning systems in the brain.”
That jibes with what the founder of American psychology, William
James, proposed in 1899: that curiosity is “the impulse toward better
cognition.” That idea has stood the test of time. The best way to
understand curiosity, cognitive scientists believe, is as the mental
analogue of physical hunger: Just as the feeling of an empty stomach
drives the search for food (good for survival), so the feeling that
there is a growling hole in your store of knowledge drives the search
for information. This feeling of cognitive deprivation, and the
attendant urge to sate that intellectual hunger, is “associated with
persistence and solving problems,” German and American researchers
reported in a 2013 study in the Journal of Individual Differences.
That may be why the most curious children are the best learners. A
2011 review of about 200 individual studies concluded that, although
intelligence is the strongest predictor of academic success, curiosity
plus effort “rival the influence of intelligence,” scientists in Britain
and Switzerland wrote in Perspectives on Psychological Science. “A ‘hungry mind,’” they concluded, “is a core determinant of individual differences in academic achievement.”
The link between curiosity and learning persists well into adulthood.
In a 2015 study, scientists had younger adults (average age: 20) and
older adults (average age: 73) read 60 trivia questions such as, “what
product is second, only to oil, in terms of the largest trade volumes in
the world?” and “what was the first nation to give women the right to
vote?” Everyone rated how curious they were about the answer, which they
were given. Curiosity had a substantial effect on how likely the older
adults (but not the younger) were to recall the answers a week later,
psychologist Alan Castel of the University of California, Los Angeles,
and colleagues reported in Psychology and Aging.
Curiosity is the mental equivalent of physical hunger:
Just as the feeling of an empty stomach drives the search for food, so
the feeling that there is a growling hole in your store of knowledge
drives the search for information.
And about that dead cat: Research suggests curiosity can keep us
young. A 1996 study of 2,153 70-ish men and women found that the more
curious they were, in general as well as when presented with questions,
the more likely they were to be alive in five years. It was the first
study to identify curiosity as a predictor of longevity.
How might one stir up curiosity, and boost not only memory but
longevity? Since curiosity reflects cognitive deprivation, the analogy
to physical hunger applies: “A small amount of information whets the
appetite for more,” said Hayden. So sample lots of what information
sources have to offer and let your curiosity run wild.
Oh, and if you’re curious about the answers: The researchers posit
that coffee is the second-most widely traded global commodity and New
Zealand led the way in women’s suffrage. If you’re wondering about those
celebrities I mentioned, indulge your curiosity. It’s good for you.
The more periods of low moods we have in life, the more likely we are to fall back into them again.
Here's a mindfulness practice to break the cycle of ruminating thoughts that keep us stuck.
Mindful recommends that anyone
with depression or mood disorders consult a mental health professional
before beginning or altering any course of treatment. Our articles do
not constitute professional medical advice for your precise
circumstances.
Everyone at some point in their life will be affected by depression
whether it’s their own or someone they are close to. Almost 19 million
Americans alone have periods where they feel a lack of pleasure or
interest in their usual activities combined with feeling tired and
heavy, potentially overly emotional or numb, and an onslaught of negative and self defeating thoughts that can keep invading the mind over and over again.
The more periods of this depressed mood we have in life, the more
likely we are to fall back into them again. Why does this relapse occur
and how can mindfulness offer hope?
Falling into a depression feels traumatic. Just like getting bit by a
dog causes us to be fearful of and oversensitive to dogs, our minds and
bodies become oversensitive to associations with the depression causing
us to react to any sign of it. Feeling low mood is normal for everyone,
but if we’ve experienced depression in the past, this may be a trigger
for thinking depression is about to set in again.
If we feel tired or if we notice sadness, the mind pops up with the worry “uh oh, that is how I felt when I was depressed,
maybe I’m getting depressed.” Our minds begin to go into overdrive with
negative self judgments, “I am a failure” or “I am weak” or “I am
worthless.” It then tries to solve the mystery as to why we are becoming
depressed again. The more it tries to solve this puzzle, the deeper it
sinks into depression. Think of a worried, judging person coming at you
trying to solve your problems when you’re already not feeling well.
Probably not what you’re looking for.
You see, it’s not the low mood that’s the problem here, it’s the way
we get stuck in habitually relating to it that pours kerosene on the
fire, with our minds continuing to fan the flame with rumination rolling
us into a full blow depression.
How does mindfulness help?
The practice of mindfulness teaches us a different way to relate to our thoughts, feelings, and emotions as they arise.
It is about learning to approach and acknowledge whatever is happening
in the present moment, setting aside our lenses of judgment and just being with whatever is there, rather than avoiding it or needing to fix it. It’s the mind’s attempt to avoid and fix things in this moment that fuels the negative mood.
If sadness is there, instead of trying to fix it or figure it out, we
might just acknowledge the sadness and let it be. If self-judgments
arise (e.g., I am weak, I am a loser) out of past sensitivities to
having been depressed before, we can acknowledge that they are
associations from the past, let them be, and then gently bring ourselves
back to whatever we were doing. In doing this, we’re stopping the ruminative cycle that might occur between our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations that can play off one another leading us to a relapse.
Now, this is easier said than done and it takes practice.
It’s the mind’s attempt to avoid and fix things in this moment that fuels the negative mood.
A classic, natural antidepressant practice
One way to practice mindfulness is to use the breath as an object of
awareness. You can place attention at the tip of the nose or the belly
and as you breathe in, just acknowledge the breath coming in and as you
breathe out, acknowledge the breathe going out, as if you were greeting
and saying goodbye to an old friend. When the mind wanders—as it will
always do—just say to yourself “wandering” and then gently bring your
attention back to the breath, noticing it coming in and going out. Most
of us catch the mind wandering and gently repeat this several billion
times, so know that it is normal for the mind to wander often. You can
do this for as little as one minute or as much as 30 minutes or more.
Practice this when you’re feeling well and you’ll be better able to
recognize when your mind wanders off to ruminations and self judgments
when you’re not feeling well. If you’re not feeling well and the mind
begins to ruminate, as you practiced with the breath, just label it as
“ruminating” and then gently bring your attention back to whatever you
were doing. Being more present may also give you the ability to be more
flexible and call a friend or do something that then gives you pleasure
or connection with others. This is an act of self care and helps stop
the cycle of rumination. It cultivates more patience, compassion, and
peace.
It’s often helpful to be guided with a voice in doing these practices with audio guidance or in person, however, you can absolutely do this on your own as well.
I’m
writing this article in a state of meditation. And there’s no editing
required (for the first round, anyway). How am I accomplishing this? And
how could you join in the fun? Follow these instructions to find out:
Set a timer for 30 minutes.
Carve out some dedicated time for this practice. This is because the
initial part of your writing is a bit of a detox—you’re releasing
superfluous thoughts. And as time goes by, you’ll find your train of
thoughts will begin to expand…with a bit of curiosity and experience!
Keep your eyes closed. If
you’re able to touch-type at your computer keyboard, great. If that’s
not possible for you, you might want to try this exercise on a notepad
with a pen or pencil. But in that case, unless you’re some kind of
writing genius, keep your eyes open.
At the end of every sentence, stop for a full in-breath and out-breath.
Really. Every single full stop means: inhale and exhale. Try to bring
feelings of warmth, kindness, and friendliness to each breath. Not so
much thinking positive thoughts, but feeling that feeling you get when
you look at a little cute puppy or baby. If you find yourself yawning,
that’s okay. You probably need some rest to unwind. Good news: a writing
meditation is a perfect way to do that. If you do somehow fall asleep
on your keyboard or notes, congratulations—you really needed that sleep.
Begin with no clear aim. So
what to write about? I started with no clear aim. I wasn’t planning to
write this particular blog post. The first 15 minutes of my writing was
pretty funny and random and centred around my present moment feelings in
my mind and body. And then this blog post emerged. That is the beauty
of this meditation. No forcing. Just letting things emerge naturally.
Finding your own way. And just because I used this method, doesn’t mean
you need to copy. You may prefer to write on paper and pause every
paragraph rather than every sentence. You may like to start with a clear
aim, or at least a general idea of what you’re going to write about.
Use your gut feelings and do what feels right for you.
I write a sentence after every
breath. By that I mean, I keep writing. I don’t just sit in the silence
waiting for inspiration. I write whatever emerges in my head. And if
there’s nothing in my head, I write that there’s nothing in my head.
That helps to keep the flow. Sometimes, especially at the beginning,
when I stop writing to breathe after every sentence, I feel like I’m
losing my flow. But after about ten minutes or so, I get used to it. My
body relaxes and words emerge.
Try to find time to write regularly—perhaps
once or twice a week if it suits your schedule. I’d do this practice
daily if I had the time. You’ll find writing topics that suit your
style, too: maybe you’d enjoy writing in a gratitude journal,
where you keep a physical recording of a few things during the week
that made you feel great. Or maybe you’ll want to keep things loose and
tuned to whatever rises in the present moment.
You may be wondering, “What’s the point of journaling, Shamash?” Here are some the benefits I’m enjoying right now as I write:
My body feels happy and relaxed.
My mind feels calm and peaceful.
I’ve gently entered into a meditative state without having to fully stop “doing stuff.”
I’m doing something different, so it feels fun and exciting. And having fun is a really important value and experience for me.
So go ahead and give this mindful
writing exercise a try and let us know how it goes for you in the
comments. And if you already have a different kind of mindful writing
practice, let us know too—I’m curious!
