Happiness. Peace. Joy. Whatever name fits best, I have a checklist for it.
How I came to it in a nutshell: I got tired of studying “issues.” I’d talked mine to death and I still felt ineffective, stuck, and vulnerable. I then met survivors of harrowing situations (typhoons Ketsana and Haiyan, political prisoners and more) whose unbowed — truly positive — spirits inspired me, humbled me, and kicked my butt into gear: enough with the talking and analyzing, said my newly sore behind…study happiness, you goof.
I’ll add here that I have an autoinflammatory condition. When someone around me is sick, I get sick…which isn’t uncommon. But while most people might have an inflammatory reaction to fight off the bugs then go back to normal, my inflammation keeps going. And going. I was getting sick every month and a half and each bout lasted 2-4 weeks. Sick was my new normal. While my flare-ups aren’t so debilitating, chronic inflammation is never a good thing and stress is closely linked to inflammation, as is depression. I’m in a great study at the NIH and getting the best care for it but I need to do my part, too. Getting my mind balanced and happy was as much a matter of emotion and mood, good parenting, and success, as it was about my physical health. I have two young children. It’s important to me that they see their mom run a business, run her home, and run around with them — up, peppy, positive and strong. I am committed to giving them good values — among them, kindness and empathy, a love of books, hard work, stick-to-it-ive-ness, and health….which includes happiness. For my brain, for my body, and for my family, I needed to get happy.
This is true for everybody’s health in general, by the way. Several strong studies link happiness with physical health — everything from a reduced chance of a heart attack to being able to fight off infection better. In skin, the link is well-known and instantly visible. Acne, psoriasis, seborrheic dermatitis, rosacea, and eczema are just a few of the many inflammatory skin conditions triggered by stress. And while anecdotal, I’d argue everyone notices the special glow that truly happy, peaceful, centered people radiate. We can promote vibrancy with a treatment that rapidly renews skin cells and faux a sun-kissed glow with a great bronzer, but the radiance from deep-within joy just doesn’t come in a tube or bottle.
I am spiritual, disciplined, and a thinker, and have done lots to try to calm and better myself. But this time, I wanted something stickier and…sneakier: reliable, tangible practices that could “trick” my brain into positivity when I’d lost that battle with my mind and spirit. I wanted simple tools that “stuck,” that changed my brain’s wiring, and that yielded consistently reliable, replicable results. I arrived at these five. I am no doctor or otherwise qualified professional. I’ve found tools that have helped me and I believe goodness begets goodness, so I thought I’d share them.
This is my list:
- Gratitude Journal;
- Daily Exercise;
- Strict Schedule (Deliberate Practice);
- Want What You Have;
- Be In The Now.
I call it my happiness inventory as much as my checklist. Like a checklist, it is an itemization of things I must do. But it is also a gauge of whether or not my “supplies” are well stocked. If I’m feeling off — down or anxious —I’ll review it and will find I’ve probably been less good about one or another item. My “supply” of, say, being strict about my schedule, is low. I’ll “stock up” there and, with consistency, return to balance.
The change was profound without my noticing. I began to sleep easily and peacefully, for an entire 8 hours — a new experience for me. One day about three months into the gratitude journal, I got news that should have sent me spiraling. Instead, I went, “hmmm, that sucks.” And that was that. I remember sitting up with a start, thinking, why am I not freaking out? Is this it? Have I gone off the deep end? Will this knock me to the ground in a day or two? Instead, it barely registered. I knew the problem was there and went about fixing it. But I was…fine. Like, water-off-a-duck’s-back fine. And all this okay-ness just kept going. It’s not like my life turned into a garden of magical butterflies sprinkling fairy pollen onto my head either. Crap still happened…it just didn’t derail me. If it was big crap, I could see what had to be done and get to doing it — I could see the turd instead of stepping in it, if you know what I mean. Now, when I feel on the edge of something bad, my list helps me see the ick as yet outside of me. It gives me solid ground to keep me from falling, and tangible footholds for climbing back out should I slip. And when something bad does happen, I’m able to buy myself some distance, to just observe it for a few seconds, so that I can calm myself and craft a healthier response.
“The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide,” says the sign at the end of the hallway in our cottage at the beach. I’d always loved that message and believe in the phenomenal power of hope. But I’ve also learned that high tides don’t solve everything and that the lowest ebb does reveal ancient shells and cool crabs and beautiful starfish. There is always happiness, high tide or low, in any season. One need only remember to choose it and remember that it is a skill, and like any skill, it needs to be practiced.
How do you stay happy?
Laura is the CEO of VMV Hypoallergenics and eldest daughter of our founding dermatologist-dermatopathologist. She has two children, Madison and Gavin, and works at VMV with her sister and husband (Madison and Gavin frequently volunteer their “usage testing” services). In addition to saving the world’s skin, Laura is passionate about learning, literature, art, health, science, inclusion, cultural theory, human rights, happiness and goodness.
1. Gratitude Journal
Number one (because it's that powerful) is the Gratitude Journal. It "re-patterns" the brain. It's the last thing I do before I prep for sleep. I don't think it; I write it. I don't expound, I just jot down at least three things I'm grateful for that day. I'll allow myself more than three, but not less. What you might spy in the photo above, under the pen, is "DANCING" and "the electric slide." We have cocktail-mocktail nights at home and I love to dance and love-love-love to dance with my kids. But if I don't write it down, something else more pressing…like a deadline at work…will “stick” to my brain more. And I’m trying to get the GOOD to stick. If I can't think of anything, I go to the "basics" like, I have a roof over my head. I have access to clean water. We have food. These are miracles, and we can so easily dismiss every day.
The efficacy of a gratitude journal, its “stickiness," comes from the brain's ability to rewire itself, how it develops skill and efficiency from repetition, Shawn Achor's “The Positive Tetris Effect." Repetitively practicing looking for, reminding oneself of — physically writing down — the positive things we sense, see, smell, do and experience can help retrain the brain to notice and remember the good over the bad. For me, this was a powerful thing because it worked on a subconscious level. I did not have to keep telling myself to find the good. Because I wrote it down every day, my brain just started doing this on its own. It was like doing nothing at all but my brain was shifting. Soon enough, I found my brain noticing, getting excited by and retaining the positive more, and letting the "bad" go more quickly. Good became sticky. The bad didn't cease to exist but it failed to adhere.
Want to try it? What works best for me:
End Of Day: Make your gratitude journal the last thing (or as close to it as possible) that you do before bed because sleep is when we cement learning.
It's Not A Diary: Don't expound (for people like me, this frequently leads to thought after thought after thought). I think of this as a brain-training exercise, not an exploratory journal. A diary can be powerful, too! Just keep it separate from your gratitude-listing journal.
Write 3: Write down at least 3 things you're grateful for that day. You can jot down more than 3, but not less. Write it, don't think it. Writing has a different brain connection from thought.
This was the biggest return on my investment: under 5 minutes of listing good things and I noticed profound changes in my brain. Effective and sneaky, this is my top happiness tip.
2. Daily Exercise
7 days a week. Endorphins. 'Nuff said.
But why every day? For the same habit-formation reason as the gratitude journal: I needed to re-train my brain to look for exercise, not avoid it. I discovered that the lazy side of my brain is one powerful energy-sucking force. One day of no exercise was a toe-dip into quicksand: getting that toe back out and to the gym the next day weighed on me. If I worked out every day, that heaviness, that effort disappeared. Getting up to exercise became just as normal as brushing my teeth. The brain is one efficient machine but until a habit is formed, it will look for the easiest path, for whatever requires less energy (to understand this more, I highly recommend The Power Of Habit).
That one day of no exercise was enough for my brain to say, oh, hey, yeah, THIS is nice! THIS is cozy! I'm a-gonna stay. Right. Here. By removing that one day of rest, my brain instead got better and better — far more efficient — at getting me up and doing exercise. As the habit of daily workouts started to form, it got easier, and resistance to exercise went away. As the endorphins kicked in, I imagine I hit a "tipping point" where the habit of daily exercise met with the pleasure of endorphins and went...you complete me. After that, daily exercise became, if you'll forgive me, a no-brainer.
Another way to think of the goodness of daily exercise is: if you're mindful about getting your daily dose of vitamins (or caffeine), why not endorphins?
Want to try it? What works best for me: Start slow. This isn't about training for a marathon or mega-intensity workouts but about setting a habit. Short sessions like 7-minute and 3-minute workouts can help get you into it (we all have 3 minutes, yes?) But if even those are daunting, try this:
Start With Seconds & Set Alarms: Set an alarm to do 10 seconds of jumping jacks (or sit ups or some other exercise). Just 10 seconds. It sounds really silly and you'll feel silly doing it. But at this point the goal is to give the brain a tangible signal that something resembling exercise has to happen now, Pavlovian-like, with the alarm. That signal — not the physical exertion of the workout itself — is the one and only goal. Do this for a week or two. What you might be surprised to find is that long before the week is over, you'll start extending the 10 seconds yourself. It won't feel like a stretch or a strain; you'll just start to find the 10 seconds go by quickly and want to add more. What's another 10 seconds, after all?
It's Not About The Workout, It's About Setting The Habit: Slowly increase the “workout” sessions. Set an alarm to a 30-second something. Do that for a week. Then set the alarm to do a minute-long something. Then a 3-minute session. And so on. You needn't get fancy with the workout during these short sessions...again, it's about cementing in your brain that every day, at this time, something physical must be done.
A great option to build up to about 20 minutes are the many free apps available. You can choose a workout and set the total number of minutes you want to exercise.
Make Time Fly: Once you build up to 20 minutes a day of anything, you're already ahead of the game! Several studies show that even just 20 minutes of walking a day can increase your life span and prevent depression. More and more studies are showing that health is less about the intensity of physical exertion than about the regularity. As the Mayo Clinic writes,
"Get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week, or a combination of moderate and vigorous activity. The guidelines suggest that you spread out this exercise during the course of a week. Greater amounts of exercise will provide even greater health benefit. But even small amounts of physical activity are helpful. Being active for short periods of time throughout the day can add up to provide health benefit.
...Even brief bouts of activity offer benefits. For instance, if you can't fit in one 30-minute walk during the day, try a few five-minute walks instead. Any activity is better than none at all. What's most important is making regular physical activity part of your lifestyle."
At this level, make each minute pass more quickly (and count as better exercise) by trying the 10-20-30 pattern. "Run, ride or perhaps row on a rowing machine gently for 30 seconds, accelerate to a moderate pace for 20 seconds, then sprint as hard as you can for 10 seconds." You'll find the time flies by. Still, the goal isn't a mega calorie burn...it's setting the habit. If you don't sweat yet, that's fine. If you're like me, the battle to win was in the brain, not in the body.
If I'm really tired (or lazy or sick), I'll get on a cheap stair master or stationary bike at home and do it...even if very slowly, while watching TV. For me, it's better to do this than to miss a day. It's also better to do this than watch TV while sitting still on a sofa or lying down in bed. Which brings me to...
Sacrifice Intensity For Regularity: There's lots more great tips out there...get a workout buddy! Make it fun! Yes, yes, yes, they're all valid, they all help. But for me, I knew none of it would work until my brain NEEDED exercise on a daily basis. If I had to choose between no workout or a pathetic "something," I chose the pathetic something. Skipping a workout because I was too ill or tired or busy to get in a power session was an extremely dangerous gamble. Instead of making it up the next day, the chances were just as high I'd get lazier and lazier with each passing day.
My obsession with sticking to the habit is why I still "work out" (if you can call the dismal, creaking 1-rotation-per-minute pedaling on my stationary bike a "workout") when I am sick. I may not go to the gym when sick, I won't HIIT or Ashtanga, but I will do something, dammit, to not lose this habit.
Focusing first on the exercise, exertion or calorie burn doesn't always set the habit. For some people, the unpleasantness of the intensity can actually kill the attempt at habit formation faster. At least in the beginning, think, "just do anything." Think, "even if I don't break a sweat, it counts." Think, "anything is more than nothing." The great thing is about this is that once the habit is cemented, intensity will follow. You'll naturally want to try different exercises and push yourself!
My personal routine now includes bootcamp, yoga, then a mix of dance videos with The Fitness Marshall or walking with the kids or the treadmill or bike. To spell out the glaringly obvious, besides cementing the habit and upping one’s mood, this is great for body, heart, skin, yadda yadda.
Eat Better: Depression is linked to poor nutrition, too. We keep no junk food in the house. We cheat on weekends, but will opt for healthier options like homemade stuff with coconut sugar or bananas for sweetening and fresh-squeezed juices. Junk isn't processed well (or at all) by the body and can accumulate in the brain. Like I needed that.
In my case at least, the daily exercise habit was more about happiness and peace of mind: getting my daily dose of endorphins. The fact that it also improved my heart health and fitness was icing on the cake. That it also made me feel stronger and better about myself; that it also staved off depression and upped my happiness; that it set a good example for my kids; that I know it'll have benefits far into old age. I mean...win-win-win-win-win.
3. Strict Schedule
The strict schedule was a game changer for me. I have a schedule that, with few exceptions, I will not deviate from. If it falls apart (as it inevitably does when traveling or on vacation), I’ll be really, really firm about it, zero exceptions, until it's a re-cemented as a habit (you're seeing a trend here, yes?)
Strict time boundaries heighten brain efficiency and foster habit formation, so you end up doing more (even complex actions) in less time. This, in a very real way, creates more time for sleep (7-8 hours a night is a must for happiness, anti-inflammation and health), exercise, meditation, friends and family...with (brace yourself) time...left...over!
What got me here were two articles: Nurturing A Baby And A Startup and Do Less and Focus Hard: If You’re Busy, You’re Doing Something Wrong. The first talked about how challenging it can be to run a startup company as a mother — so much so that "much of the investment world, heavily dominated by men, remains skeptical about a woman’s ability to combine running a fast-growing tech start-up and motherhood.” Besides the outdated misogyny showing how much business still needs to change, what struck me was this short paragraph about one of the women mentioned in the article:”
MS. FLEISS is up at 6:30 a.m. to feed Daniella. Then she goes for a run. “I run faster now that I have less time and try to cram in the same mileage,” she says. She gets to the office about 9 a.m. for meetings. Later in the morning, her nanny brings Daniella to the office for a quick visit. Meetings and calls fill the rest of the day. (This is between pumping breast milk every three hours.)
In the evenings, Ms. Fleiss often has a speaking engagement or a work-related event. By 8 p.m. she is home to feed Daniella, have dinner with her husband, go through e-mail and watch some reality TV.
Look at the strict time delimitations of this woman's life! I associated such set time periods with unpleasant childhood memories of school and, until this one paragraph, something to outgrow. I’d go so far as to say that I felt the absence of time periods proved you were a real adult — you did what you wanted when you wanted. But here was a real adult, a powerhouse of a businesswoman, abiding by strict time periods. These were the hours within which her work could happen, which gave her time for feedings and family dinner and...I could barely believe it, TV!
I had two young children at the time (a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old). I was running a business, too. But I didn't have time for a run, speaking engagements or dinner — with the family or anyone else. And I certainly didn’t have time for TV or any other downtime. And she was still breastfeeding! I, on the other hand, was staying in the office till well past 7pm, sleeping past midnight on a regular basis, rushing to be in the office by 8am; no workouts, no friends, and I always, always felt behind work. I could never catch up. Plus, full disclosure, I had full-time help at home! Quite a bit of it.
I’d heard about strict schedules before but I kept resisting: I can't possibly shorten my work hours! I just wouldn't get all of it done. But there was something about Ms. Fleiss' schedule...the exactitude of it...how much she got done in a day...without the support structure I had...that took hold in my psyche and wouldn't let go.
What pushed me over the edge into actually trying it was Do Less and Focus Hard: If You’re Busy, You’re Doing Something Wrong and the article to which it referred: If You’re Busy, You’re Doing Something Wrong: The Surprisingly Relaxed Lives of Elite Achievers. Cal Newport discussed how for the most productive, successful individuals, long hours were not as effective as the quality of those hours. "Do less. But do what you do with complete and hard focus. Then when you’re done be done, and go enjoy the rest of the day." Using The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance, a study on violinists in a conservatory in Germany published in Psychological Review, Newport illustrated how long hours were often a detriment to elite performance. In this study, researchers expected elite violinists at the conservatory to practice for more hours than average violinists at the same conservatory. Instead, they discovered that both groups practiced about the same amount of hours. The key difference was how this time was scheduled, set, delimited. Like Ms. Fleiss, the elite players had clearly defined hours of work. The average players spread out their work throughout the day while the elite players had two strict time periods of uninterrupted, highly focused work. "In fact, the more elite the player, the more pronounced the peaks" (the set time periods of intense work). "For the best of the best — the subset of the elites who the professors thought would go on to play in one of Germany’s two best professional orchestras — there was essentially no deviation from a rigid two-sessions a day schedule."
For both Ms. Fleiss and the most elite violinists, time periods for work were set rigidly. Work was performed, to a very high, very focused degree, only during those times. When those time periods were over, work ended. No if's, and's, or but's. Newport continues, "This isolation of work from leisure had pronounced effects in other areas of the players’ lives...for example...
...sleep: the elite players slept an hour more per night than the average players...Also consider relaxation. The researchers asked the players to estimate how much time they dedicated each week to leisure activities — an important indicator of their subjective feeling of relaxation. By this metric, the elite players were significantly more relaxed than the average players, and the best of the best were the most relaxed of all.
“The best of the best were the most relaxed of all.” And not because of some genetic mutation of fingers and tonality, but because of hard work during precise and fixed time periods.
More studies were piling up to support that, past a certain point, longer work hours result in diminishing returns. So I decided to take a page from the elite-violinist-Ms.-Fleiss playbook and map out clear, strict time periods for myself.
Lo and behold, it worked. Basically: the brain adjusts. As I set my time constraints, my brain became more efficient within them. For example, when I limited my work hours (I also set a firm bedtime and waketime), I thought there was no way I'd get all the work done that I needed to (remember, at the time, I was sleeping past midnight and never seemed to catch up). But not only did I indeed manage to catch up, I overshot my goals. I get far more done at work (plus daily exercise, 7-8 hours of sleep nightly, and friends-and-family time) than I ever have in my life. That photo above? A really, really quiet moment with my now 5yo, on vacation. Spur of the moment, heaven, no wifi...and I was still ahead of deadlines :)
Want to try it? What works best for me:
Don't Resist It: Give it a chance. Everyone I've ever spoken to about this doesn't believe me. There is something so counter-intuitive to the idea that in order to get more done you must lessen the time in which to get it done. But it does work.
Be Strict About It For 3 Weeks: If you're going to give it a chance, give it a real chance. You wouldn't give up on a sport after under a month of lessons would you?
That metaphor is actually pretty perfect for how this works. When you learn a sport like, say, tennis, you can barely get the ball over the net. You can barely hit the ball at all. You start by flailing away to get the motions down. As you get better, you begin to stop thinking about weight transfer and where your hand should be. You start hitting over the net…but stay within the boundaries of the court. With practice, you improve and start hitting over the net and within those boundaries with regularity. Soon, you find yourself running and hitting, and keeping that ball within bounds. If you keep at it, you'll find yourself hitting a wicked down-the-line forehand on the run that just nicks the line. The boundaries don't move but with practice and regularity, your skill — what you can achieve within those boundaries — grows. As you limit your work time, you'll find something similar happening: you do far, far more — and, as in the case of the elite violinists, at a far higher level — in far, far less time. Which leaves you more time for sleep, exercise, family and…happiness.
4. Want What You Have
This is from Chip Conley's equation for happiness. I watched him speak at an EO New York event and this one equation sent my brain spinning. Happiness is reduced by wanting what you don't have. The science of happiness is consistent in variations of this idea: nothing will make you happy. Happiness is a choice. It doesn't "happen" if you get x job or meet "the one"...you choose happiness now, with your life just as it is. Far from promoting complacency or mediocrity, this creates a calmer state, making you more effective at problem solving and goal achievement.
Daily, I take time to want what I already have, just as it is. Good, bad, ugly, smelly…just as it is…I stop to want it. It seems so counter-intuitive, but it so works.
One of the hardest things for me to overcome was the idea that wanting my life just as it is equates to weakness, surrender, complacency and mediocrity. But I thought, I’ve studied my personal history, how my brain works, multiple theories of sadness…why not try this for the heck of it? In the beginning it felt really, really stupid: bad problem at work, roof is leaking, car won’t start…why do I want this?! Of course, I don’t. But for the purpose of the exercise, fine…why? The bad problem at work…well, it ended up revealing a lack of systems that we can now set up. The roof leaking…I want this because it reminds me to be humble, and of the millions who have no roof at all...and maybe this is a good opportunity to talk to the kids about what we can do for others in need. The car won’t start…I want this because we can plan better and use less cars today…which is good karma points, planet wise. Plus, I can walk some extra blocks and get more exercise in today.
Over time, it got easier. I won’t say I remembered to do it all the time, but it became a nice “slap-in-the-face”/refocusing tool when I was down. For example, I’d be in bed, sick again, whining about yet another flare-up. I'd start feeling “meh" soon enough. I'd check my inventory and more often than not, it would show I’d been remiss in precisely this area: wanting what I have. I should repeat here that when I'm down with a flare, I am down for a while. Two to three weeks at a time. It can get dark. "Wanting" that...I can't tell you how counter-intuitive that felt. I want to fight this condition, not give up! What the hell was there to want about being sick a-again?! Such angry questions were my standard starting point. Just try it, just to push the absurd, I'd convince myself. If it doesn't work, I’d continue negotiating, you can smugly say, see, I'm so much more clever than that stupid emotional equation. What’s there to lose? So I'd try it: I want this because it's forced bed rest. I want this because I can see the kids more in the middle of the work day. I want this because... and much to my chagrin, I'd find more reasons. For-real ones beyond the I’m-forcing-myself-for-the-exercise-ness of it. I want this because it's giving me time to think about larger strategic initiatives. I want this because... (the photo above) ooh I can finally dive into that book I've been wanting to read! And so on, and so forth. The “bad” experience didn't stop being bad, but it did stop being so difficult.
Did wanting what I had keep me from working on getting better? No. Did I feel complacent and want to stay in bed? Nope. The flare-up just became...what it was: a circumstance, not bad or good, just what it was. This “broke” my brain’s focus on the negativity of my situation (which does nothing, by the way, to change it) and instead focus on something else (which ended up actually being more productive). Did this wanting what I have feed a sadness? Quite the opposite. Consistently wishing for something else, to be well, never made me happy. Wanting the circumstance I was in gave me peace and contentment. Ironically, wanting what I had (which was unpleasant) removed its power and helped me focus on all the good things I could do while in my current situation.
Want to try it? What works best for me: I found this more difficult than the other items in my inventory. What worked for me is...
Write A Reminder: I wrote down “want what you have” as a reminder. At the back of my gratitude journal, I have listed all 5 items of my Happiness Inventory. When I am anxious or blue, I will refer to this list and do an "inventory check." More often than not, it's "wanting what I have" that I haven't consciously practiced in a while. If this is the case, I'll put down my list and right then and there...
Do The Exercise: Just forcing yourself ask these questions can yield surprising, positive, motivating results...
What do I want about this current situation? How can you want this current situation, just as it is?
This is not easy, particularly in highly traumatic times, but it is a worthwhile exercise to put one's brain through. At its core, the exercise is about coming back to the present, breaking the focus on the negative, refocusing on the good. This allows you to find something to be grateful for (which we now know is fundamental to happiness) and to clear your head (no one makes good decisions when in a bad state), both of which enable you to take real steps forward, to make real progress. In a glorious irony, wanting what you have instead of focusing on what you desire gets you closer to achieving your goals. And keeps you happy while doing it!
5. Be In The Now
Number 5 because it's what grounds me. It slows time down. Studies show mindfulness is a powerful ally in happiness…as well as anti-inflammation and brain development!
You'll recognize the concept from Eckhart Tolle's The Power Of Now ...and yoga and meditation and thousands of years of wisdom across different cultures :)
There are two powerful ways that this works for me:
1) Makes time move more slowly.
2) Calms me in times of anxiety.
I started meditating when I was six years old. I kept at it, rather intensely, until I was ten. Then, I thought it was weird. No one else my age was doing it and I was weird enough without it. So I stopped meditating and embraced what I equated with intelligence and cool for the next 30 years of my life: cynicism. Stress increased with college, post-grad and work…it just never seemed to abate. I remember 2004 in particular: I looked down in January and looked up a week later in June. It took my breath away. I’d missed half a year. Now, I have the memory of a detail-obsessed elephant...but for the life of me, these months are gone. I don’t remember them. I failed to live them. I was six months closer to mortality…I just lost them. I decided then and there: never again. I am never going to be surprised by the passing of months. I needed to find a way to slow everything down.
I took the Art Of Living course as a refresher to meditation. With so many years away from it, I found it impossible to quiet my mind. I highly recommend it for anyone who has never meditated before. With a specific breathing technique, you can achieve deeper meditation, faster.
I was then knocked down hard by the experience of nursing my first child. I won’t get into details but between the post-partum hormones, my insecurities as a mother and a nightmare breastfeeding incident that required surgery, I was in a dark place indeed. Reconnecting with a close friend who had just gone through her own traumatic event, she recommended that I read Tolle. What he wrote was nothing new, but as so frequently happens with great friends, the timing was perfect. I realized that focusing on the now didn’t just have the potential to slow time, but to quickly calm my anxiety (and I had a lot of it).
On the (now rare) occasions when I feel anxiety, I concentrate on...what's real now, right this second. It’s not the worry, the fear, the memory. What’s real now is the hum of the AC, a bird tweeting, a car horn or ambulance siren, the bedsheets, my hand...these are real. What I'm fearing might happen...that's not real. More than anything else I’ve tried — reading, prayer, TV, keeping a diary or journal, shutting my eyes tight and mind-yelling at myself to sleep because jeez I’m going to be exhausted tomorrow — this has worked.
Want to try it? What works best for me: I
STOP: Stop doing or thinking several things at a time. Set an alarm for a few seconds or minutes a day to stop and do nothing.
Ask, What's Real Now? Slow down, breathe and focus on what's real now. It's not fear of a deadline or your to-do's: those are thoughts. The sound of a car horn or a bird, the feel of a floor, shirt or pillow — these are real. Focus on them and be. This is a great calming-down trick if you're feeling anxious. But being able to call upon it when you need it takes practice…in the form of the daily meditation and mindfulness.
Practice Mindfulness/Meditation: Shavasana after yoga is great way to practice mindfulness. As is, and I’m serious about this, a spa hour. It’s surprisingly efficient, too. Our clients (myself included, without fail) regularly find themselves "waking up" out of a deep state of relaxation (or, yeah, a nap). Then there's all the skin goodness — a cleaning, moisturization and more. Like yoga, it’s a great way to take care of the physical with some mindfulness thrown in for good measure :)
For daily meditation, try setting a timer. Start with just two minutes and work up slowly, aiming for twenty minutes a day. Find a place that’s less trafficked so you don’t feel self-conscious. Complete silence isn’t necessary: accept the sounds around you as part of your reality. If you're meditating with other people, remember their experience is their experience. Let them snore or wiggle. They're part of your surroundings, but that is their experience. Your experience is your own.
When starting a session, I find it helps to stare at something that an infant would find fascinating, such as leaves rustling. Soon enough, my lids get heavy and shutting my eyes feels natural, not forced. I then focus on a subtle, intermittent sound that’s difficult to catch, like birdsong (even if from, say, a Spotify Playlist like Nature Noise or Nature Sounds for Relaxation). I find that if I concentrate on just that, my thoughts disappear and mindfulness takes place.
