Win your Morning Key #2: Mindfulness and Meditation
KEY POINTS:
1. The next key to mastering your morning is mindfulness and meditation.
2. Incorporate mindfulness and meditation into your morning routine to improve stress levels, focus, and overall well-being.
3. If you’ve never meditated before, you can download an app to help you get started.
“Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.”
Here is the next key to developing your personal mastery:
Key 2: Mindfulness and Meditation
While the words mindfulness and meditation might have once seemed to apply to only a select group of extreme health-minded people, they are now used commonly in many different settings as people realize their significant positive impact on stress levels, focus, and overall well-being.
However, it’s one thing to know that one should be mindful, and another thing to actually be mindful. To yield the many touted benefits of mindfulness, like improving your performance, focus, wellbeing, and relationships, the experience of mindfulness cannot remain conceptual. Like exercise and nutrition, mindfulness is most impactful if we actually do it.
We need to practice.
There are simple ways you can introduce meditation into your morning routine. Download an app such as Headspace, Calm, or Muse that guides you through quick sessions.
If you don’t have access to an app, simply take a few minutes and simply focus on your breathing. Inhale and exhale, concentrating on each breath. By centring your mind and allowing it to relax and regenerate, just as you would your body, you are giving it the boost it needs to take on the rest of the day.
The health benefits—both mental and physical—of meditation have been proven again and again. It is a great proactive way to combat stress, as you are anticipating the challenges of the coming day and giving your mind the time and space it needs to best prepare to meet them.
If this is a new practice for you, start small. Try it for just a few minutes each day and work your way up as you feel your ability to focus growing stronger.
Words of Wisdom: Dr. Ellen Choi on Experiential and Default Mental Modes
When your mind wanders, what are you thinking about? Have you ever noticed that our mental chatter is often concerned with reliving something in the past or worrying about something that has yet to come? When it is focused on the present, it often has a critical voice like, “I can’t believe that someone would park their car like that” or “what on earth is Terry wearing?”
Researchers have discovered that the brain has a default mode, a sort of auto-pilot function that most of us operate in on a day-to-day basis. There is, however, an alternative. In the brain, the self can be perceived in one of two ways: the experiential mode or the default mode.
The experiential mode is the more elusive of the two. It is a foundational component of mindfulness practices because in this mode, we are not watching ourselves as if we are the star of a movie; instead, we’re just in the moment itself. The experiential mode can be understood as a flow state where an individual is “in the zone” and is so enraptured in the present moment that they have lost awareness of themselves. Think of a hockey player skating on the ice thinking only of the stick and puck. Or what it’s like to sit on the dock at the cottage and enjoy the sound of the lake and the smell of the air instead of worrying about the email you forgot to send. In this mode or processing, the physical senses are primarily engaged. When we place our attention on our senses, like the feeling of breathing in and out, we are engaging an experiential mode of self-processing.
The default mode – also referred to as the narrative mode – has three characteristics. First, the self is experienced in the past or in the future; anywhere but in the present moment. Second, the narrative mode is self-obsessed: what am I going to eat for lunch or when am I going to get my promotion? Finally, in the default mode we see the world through a critical lens, constantly evaluating and judging our experiences.
Imagine eating a piece of chocolate. In the default/narrative mode, instead of enjoying the chocolate, we might be thinking, “I shouldn’t be eating this since it has so many calories” or “this isn’t as good as the last chocolate I ate.” In the experiential mode, you would simply savour its taste as it melts on the tongue.
The default/narrative mode is beneficial because it lets us learn from the past and plan for the future. But when we spend too much time in that mode, we miss out on the joy and the lessons that exist in the little things right before us. Along these lines, a recent study conducted out of Harvard found that being present was a better predictor of happiness than the specific activity one was actually engaging in. This is an empowering finding because we cannot always control what we do in a day – think of the unpredictability some of your days have! – but we can choose to be fully present while doing it.
In the age of neuroplasticity, there are actions we can take to rewire how our brain functions. Meditation appears to be one way to literally reprogram the brain and break the default mode.
Today’s New Habit: Incorporate mindfulness into your day
Every couple of weeks I’ll be challenging you to incorporate a new habit into your life. Today, we’ll start with mindfulness, a practice aimed at helping people centre themselves and quiet their minds so they can be more present and focused.
A report by the well-known meditation app Headspace titled “Stress in the workplace: how mindfulness can help” discusses research showing that mindfulness and meditation can improve our emotional regulation, lower our stress levels, and reduce stress-related biomarkers such as lowering blood pressure and heart rate.
While formal meditation is the most impactful, informal mindfulness practice can also yield benefits and can be a simple addition into your day.
Each day for the next week, try to incorporate mindfulness into your routine. For example, during your morning shower try to be present and non-judgmental of your experience. Or, while you’re eating breakfast, focus on the taste and the experience of your meal instead of being on your phone. Just bring your attention into the present moment and really be where your feet are.
See the video below to learn the basics of how to meditate anywhere at any time!
The information and advice provided in this program is intended to assist you with improving your performance, as well as your general health. It is not intended and should not be used in place of advice from your own physician or for treatment or diagnosis of any specific health issue. By participating in this program you acknowledge that undertaking any new health, diet and/or exercise regime involves certain inherent risks, that you assume such risks, and that you release Wells Performance Inc. from any responsibility or claim relating to such participation.