Get Some Headspace: 10 minutes can make all the difference

Meditation is like doing focused reps for your mind. Focus on the breath, lose your focus, bring it back to the breath, repeat. This is the whole game. Keep bringing your mind back to the breath.

How to meditate: sit somewhere comfortable, keep a straight spine, focus on a spot, and bring your focus back to your breath whenever you lose it.

Meditation helps you shut down your monkey mind for a moment.

We have 3 habitual responses to everything we experience: 1) We want it. 2) We reject it. 3) We zone out. Mindfulness is a fourth response. Viewing what happens in the world without an emotional response about it.

“Mindfulness represents an alternative to living reactively.”
Interesting self-sabotage insight: many people worry that if they meditate they will lose their edge and no longer be competitive or driven.

“When you squelch something you give it power. Ignorance is not bliss.” You should not run from your problems and pain. You should acknowledge them.

The R.A.I.N. Technique for meditation: Recognize. Allow. Investigate. Non-identification. 1) Recognize: Acknowledge your feelings. 2) Allow: Where you lean into the pain. Let the pain be. 3) Investigate: Check out how the situation is impacting your body. Is my face hot? Is my back tight? Etc. 4) Non-identification: Realize that just because you feel pain or frustration or guilt or anger right now does not mean you are an angry or broken person. It is simply a phase happening at this moment, not your identity as a person.

Mindfulness seems to be about awareness of the self. You recognize and acknowledge the things going on around you and the emotions you are feeling. Rather than let the emotion drive everything, you step outside of it and see it from afar.

Being mindful doesn’t change the problems in your life. You still need to take action, but the key is that mindfulness allows you to respond rather than react to the problems in your life.

Hedonic adaptation: the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.
A simple question to ask yourself when you’re worrying: “Is this useful?”

“I do meditation because it makes me 10 percent happier.”

“Everything we experience in this world goes through one filter — our minds — and we spend very little time bothering to see how it works.”

Meditation will make you more resilient, but it is not a “cure all” that fixes your problems or relieves all stress in your life.

One Harvard study shows that gray matter grows in meditators. This is known as neuroplasticity.

Scientists have developed a term for the consequence of all our multitasking: continuous partial attention.

The Dalai Lama has a theory on selfishness: We should strive to be wise selfish rather than foolish selfish. Foolish selfish is when you focus on self-centered and shallow activities. Wise selfish is when you show compassion and help others because it benefits you and makes you feel good. Compassion is in our own self-interest.

Make eye contact and smile at people. This simple habit that will make you feel more connected and much better each day.