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Become fully alive to the present moment using the sensations of body and breathing as a method of cultivating mindful awareness.
The body is a wonderful touchstone for meditation. Use it to help guide your attention inward and to train it to notice what’s right happening in the moment.
Add to this that we have entered what many people are calling the “attention economy.” In the attention economy, the ability to maintain focus and concentration is every bit as important as technical or management skills.
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We could always meditate to reset ourselves before our last work meeting or after we drop the kids off at school. Anytime we feel overwhelmed, we can take a break and meditate instead of pushing through.
“It’s about living your life as if it really mattered, moment by moment by moment by moment.” Here are a few key components of practicing mindfulness that Kabat-Zinn and others identify:
Incorporate meditation into other areas of your life: Try it on the bus or train on your way to and from work; take 5-10 minutes at the end of your lunch break to meditate; take 10 minutes to meditate before turning off the lights to go to sleep.
Note that we’re not saying it necessarily reduces physiological and psychological reactions to threats and obstacles. But studies to date do suggest that meditation helps mind and body bounce back from stress and stressful situations. For example, practicing meditation lessens the inflammatory response in people exposed to psychological stressors, particularly for long-term meditators.
This basic meditation technique uses an anchor, such as the breath or a sound, to help steady our attention and allow our awareness to come more fully into the present moment.
Mindfulness changes our brains: Research has found that it increases density of gray matter in brain regions linked to learning, memory, emotion regulation, and empathy.
Meditation creates the conditions for us to see things more clearly, feel calmer and content, and be kind to ourselves and others no matter what’s happening in our lives.
Any amount of meditation is better than pelo meditation at all. But the benefits of meditation are compounded when you do it regularly. And daily? Even better. A daily meditation practice will yield benefits that will reverberate into every area of your life.
JM: There are many different approaches, from apps that provide audio of guided meditations to on-site workplace training programs run by outside zen buddhism facilitators. A growing number of companies are offering mindfulness workshops. The earliest model, developed by Kabat-Zinn, is an eight-week course run by a trained facilitator, with mindfulness exercises that participants practice on their own.
There are many, many studies that find a positive link between mindfulness and relationship quality, which is probably a byproduct of the effects we’ve already described. For example, in one 2016 study, researchers measured mindfulness in 88 couples. Then they took cortisol levels in each couple before and after they discussed a conflict in their relationship. Unsurprisingly, cortisol levels spiked during the discussion, a sign of high stress. But levels in the most mindful people—both men and women—were quicker to return to normal after the conflict ended, suggesting they were keeping their cool. This result is echoed in many studies of mindfulness in romantic relationships from the beginning to the very end—in fact, there are quite a few studies that find that mindfulness makes breakup and divorce easier. Mindfulness is also linked to better relationships with your kids. Studies have found that mindfulness practice can lessen stress, depression, and anxiety in parents of preschoolers and children with disabilities. Mindful parenting is also linked to more positive behavior in kids.