Headlines on meditation are everywhere, from the Wall Street Journal, to Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan, and Better Homes and Gardens, and the benefits
cited are endless. You know you want to start meditating, but you
haven’t started yet. Is one of these 5 myths holding you back? Because
all of them are just that, myths!
Myth #1: In order to meditate, you have to learn how first
You don’t have to learn before you try to meditate — guided meditation
is the perfect place to just get started. Guided meditation means
instead of trying to meditate on your own, you listen to your guide and
just do the things they suggest, so you are literally walked through the
whole process step by step. Grokker has one of the best
meditation guides in the world. Davidji
is a world renowned author, speaker and lead educator at The Chopra
Center. Check out his series, Fostering Mindfulness Through Guided Meditation.
Myth #2: Meditating takes a lot of time
When you hear “meditation” do you think “hours of sitting still doing
nothing”–who has time for that? It turns out you don’t need to invest a
lot of time meditating to begin to see the benefits. According to a study by Carnegie Mellon University even short mindfulness meditation just a few times a week were found to be “impressively effective”.
Myth #3: It’s for crunchy spiritualists
“Meditation” may also conjure up visions of hippies in colorful hemp
ponchos chanting in a drum circle. But, meditation doesn’t have to be
religious or even spiritual, and you can do it in your business suit, a
bathing suit or even your pajamas. Like Ms. Salzberg reassures in Inc.com’s article “It doesn’t belong in the realm of woo-woo weird things. It’s mental training. It’s so accessible.” In fact, meditating is The Daily Habit of These Outrageously Successful People including Rupert Murdoch, Oprah Winfrey and Russell Simmons.
Myth #4: I won’t see any benefit right away anyway
Unlike exercise, you can experience the benefits with just 5 minutes of meditation!
Just inhaling for 5 counts and exhaling for 5 counts, or closing your
eyes and thinking of “your happy place” in vivid detail can provide
stress-relieving, anxiety squelching benefits. Try these short 5-10 minute meditations and feel the difference for yourself right now.
Myth #5: You need to be in a quiet, organized, calm place
In an ideal world, I would have a zen corner of my home that’s
sparsely decorated, devoid of clutter, with plentiful natural light and
my Pandora spa channel playing where I can sit and meditate. However as a
busy, working mom, it’s hard to find a quiet, perfectly organized, calm
place anywhere in my house or my schedule. But even your office or in
your car before your commute home, can become a welcome haven. See these
3 stealth meditations you can do anytime, anywhere and try to integrate it into the real and stressful moments of each day.
With these top myths busted, there’s no reason to wait another day to try meditation. Let me know how it’s going in the forum.
Related Links:
Practicing Mindfulness- What? Why? How?
3 Reasons to Start Mindfulness Meditation
Choose a 20 Minute Workout or Wellness Break for Any Mood
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle
Showing posts with label meditation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meditation. Show all posts
Meditation Habits
The benefits of meditation and mindfulness are numerous. Scientific studies have demonstrated many benefits of meditation from reduced stress, to increased productivity and focus, to overall happiness and health benefits. Many well known successful executives and entrepreneurs swear by their daily meditation habit.
You’re interested in starting a meditation habit, but not sure where or how to begin because something so straightforward, essentially sitting still and thinking, somehow feels so overwhelming. Here are 3 easy steps to help you build your own healthy meditation habit.
Whenever you want to build a new habit, you want to set yourself up for success because your positive psychological response early wins helps you stick to the process of building a habit. So it’s best to establish a series of small, achievable milestones as goals.
A good starting goal to build a meditation habit is to resolve to invest just 5-10 minutes meditating 2 times a week. Consistently achieving this early goal for a few weeks will feel good and sets the stage for you to increase both the time invested and the number of days a week you meditate. Working your way up to a daily meditation habit.
It’s likely you already invest some time each week to review your upcoming calendar of commitments. Use that time to schedule in the time you will devote to your new meditation habit. Including it on your calendar increases the likelihood that you will do it – and each time you make time to meditate, you are one step closer to it becoming routine.
Many guided meditation experts have short 5-10 minute meditation videos perfect for beginners. And as you build your meditation habit, you can select their longer guided meditations. Mark Coleman, davidji andAndrew Johnson are all popular meditation experts with both shorter and longer guided meditation videos.
Following these 3 steps will help you build the daily meditation habit to increase your mindfulness, reduce your stress and benefit your overall feeling of wellbeing.
You’re interested in starting a meditation habit, but not sure where or how to begin because something so straightforward, essentially sitting still and thinking, somehow feels so overwhelming. Here are 3 easy steps to help you build your own healthy meditation habit.
#1 Start Small
Whenever you want to build a new habit, you want to set yourself up for success because your positive psychological response early wins helps you stick to the process of building a habit. So it’s best to establish a series of small, achievable milestones as goals.
A good starting goal to build a meditation habit is to resolve to invest just 5-10 minutes meditating 2 times a week. Consistently achieving this early goal for a few weeks will feel good and sets the stage for you to increase both the time invested and the number of days a week you meditate. Working your way up to a daily meditation habit.
#2 Make a Plan
Our lives are busy and there are many opportunities for distractions from work and family to our Netflix list and DVR. One sure-fire way to increase the likelihood that you will make meditation a habit is to proactively schedule it into your day. Yes, I do mean making a calendar appointment for it, just like you would a meeting with your boss, your hairdresser or your child’s soccer game. Having your meditation time already allocated removes the need to make a decision about ‘what to do’ during that time.It’s likely you already invest some time each week to review your upcoming calendar of commitments. Use that time to schedule in the time you will devote to your new meditation habit. Including it on your calendar increases the likelihood that you will do it – and each time you make time to meditate, you are one step closer to it becoming routine.
#3 Begin with Guided Meditation
“…but I don’t know HOW to meditate” is a common obstacle preventing people from beginning a meditation at all. A fear of ‘doing it wrong’ or having to learn a particular technique are both common. Guided meditation videos are a great way to begin because you just hit play, watch, listen and follow along.Many guided meditation experts have short 5-10 minute meditation videos perfect for beginners. And as you build your meditation habit, you can select their longer guided meditations. Mark Coleman, davidji andAndrew Johnson are all popular meditation experts with both shorter and longer guided meditation videos.
Following these 3 steps will help you build the daily meditation habit to increase your mindfulness, reduce your stress and benefit your overall feeling of wellbeing.
Reservations about Mindfulness
Preamble:
The source of the article below is here
Here are two books on Mindfulness:
Book one
Book two
Mindfulness is close to taking on cult status in the business world. But as with any rapidly growing movement—regardless of its potential benefits—there is good reason here for caution.
Championed for many years by pioneering researchers such as Ellen Langer and Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness is a mental orientation and set of strategies for focusing one’s mind on here-and-now experiences, such as abdominal muscle movements during respiration or chirping of birds outside one’s window. It is rooted in ancient Eastern philosophies, such as Taoism and Buddhism. Contemporary empirical research demonstrates its benefits for reducing anxiety and mental stress. A recent study suggested that it might cut the risk of stroke and heart attack as well.
Mindful meditation and other related practices are now widely accepted. The New Republic published an article entitled “How 2014 Became the Year of Mindfulness.” Mindfulness has recently been featured on CBS’ 60 Minutes, and lauded by the Huffington Post. Dan Harris, a well-known ABC News correspondent, published a best-selling book called Ten Percent Happier, which describes his journey to discovering mindful meditation as optimal management for his very publicly shared anxiety disorder. There is increasing interest in how mindfulness can be applied in clinical medicine and psychology, and even large insurance companies are beginning to consider providing coverage for mindfulness strategies for certain patients.
As an executive coach and physician, I often sing the praises of mindfulness approaches and recommend them to clients to manage stress, avoid burnout, enhance leadership capacity, and steady their minds when in the midst of making important business decisions, career transitions, and personal life changes. Drawing on concepts of Eastern philosophies and research evidence from contemporary neuroscience, I help some clients to employ controlled breathing and similar strategies in our sessions and in their everyday lives. In addition, I refer many clients to trusted colleagues who teach them yoga and mindful meditation in greater depth than I can provide in my coaching sessions.
But my growing knowledge of (and enthusiasm for) mindfulness is now tempered by a concern about its potential excesses, as well as the risk that it’s crowding out other equally important models and strategies for managing stress, achieving peak performance, and reaching professional and personal fulfillment. At times, it appears that we are witnessing the development of a “cult of mindfulness” that, if not appropriately recognized and moderated, may result in an unfortunate backlash against it. Here are a couple of my concerns:
The avoidance risk. Some people use mindfulness strategies to avoid critical thinking tasks. I’ve worked with clients who, instead of rationally thinking through a career challenge or ethical dilemma, prefer to disconnect from their challenges and retreat into a meditative mindset. The issue here is that some problems require more thinking, not less. Sometimes stress is a signal that we need to consider our circumstances through greater self-reflective thought, not a “mindful” retreat to focused breathing or other immediate sensory experiences. Mindfulness strategies can prime the mind for sounder rational thinking—but the former clearly should not displace the latter. One of my clients spent so much time meditating and “mindfully” accepting her life “on its own terms” that she failed to confront underperforming workers (and discipline or fire the worst offenders) in her company. After periods of meditating, she struggled to return to focused, task-oriented thinking. She required significant reminders and reassurance from me that embracing Buddhist meditation does not entail tolerating substandard performance from her employees. Mindful meditation should always be used in the service of enhancing, not displacing, people’s rational and analytical thought processes about their careers and personal lives.
The groupthink risk. As mindfulness practices enter mainstream American life, some organizations and companies are admirably encouraging their people to make use of them in the workplace. But I’m aware of situations where this new orientation has gone too far. In one case, the director of a business unit in a financial services corporation required his direct reports to participate several times per week in a 10-15 minute mindfulness session involving controlled breathing and guided imagery. Many participants came to dread the exercise. Some of them felt extremely awkward and uncomfortable, believing that mindfulness practices should be done in private. The very exercise that was supposed to reduce their work-related stress actually had increased it. The practice continued for weeks until several members of the group finally gathered the courage to tell the group leader that they would strongly prefer the daily exercises be optional, with impunity for non-participants. Mindfulness is rooted in a philosophy and psychology of self-efficacy and proactive self-care. Imposing it on people in a top-down manner degrades the practice and the people who might benefit from using it of their own volition.
There is no denying that mindfulness has emerged as a major cultural phenomenon on the contemporary American scene and in the business world in particular. That can be good news for people dealing with stress, burnout, and other realities of the modern workplace. But mindfulness practices need to be incorporated as one among many self-chosen strategies for people aiming to cope with stress, think effectively, make sound decisions, and achieve fulfillment. Mindfulness practices should be used to enhance our rational and ethical thinking processes, not limit or displace them. And mindfulness practices should never be imposed on other people, especially in the workplace. At its very core, mindfulness culture will be a huge step forward for Western cultures if it stays focused on creating opportunities for individuals to discover their own personalized strategies for taming anxieties, managing stress, optimizing work performance, and reaching genuine happiness and fulfillment.
The source of the article below is here
Here are two books on Mindfulness:
Book one
Book two
Mindfulness is close to taking on cult status in the business world. But as with any rapidly growing movement—regardless of its potential benefits—there is good reason here for caution.
Championed for many years by pioneering researchers such as Ellen Langer and Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness is a mental orientation and set of strategies for focusing one’s mind on here-and-now experiences, such as abdominal muscle movements during respiration or chirping of birds outside one’s window. It is rooted in ancient Eastern philosophies, such as Taoism and Buddhism. Contemporary empirical research demonstrates its benefits for reducing anxiety and mental stress. A recent study suggested that it might cut the risk of stroke and heart attack as well.
Mindful meditation and other related practices are now widely accepted. The New Republic published an article entitled “How 2014 Became the Year of Mindfulness.” Mindfulness has recently been featured on CBS’ 60 Minutes, and lauded by the Huffington Post. Dan Harris, a well-known ABC News correspondent, published a best-selling book called Ten Percent Happier, which describes his journey to discovering mindful meditation as optimal management for his very publicly shared anxiety disorder. There is increasing interest in how mindfulness can be applied in clinical medicine and psychology, and even large insurance companies are beginning to consider providing coverage for mindfulness strategies for certain patients.
As an executive coach and physician, I often sing the praises of mindfulness approaches and recommend them to clients to manage stress, avoid burnout, enhance leadership capacity, and steady their minds when in the midst of making important business decisions, career transitions, and personal life changes. Drawing on concepts of Eastern philosophies and research evidence from contemporary neuroscience, I help some clients to employ controlled breathing and similar strategies in our sessions and in their everyday lives. In addition, I refer many clients to trusted colleagues who teach them yoga and mindful meditation in greater depth than I can provide in my coaching sessions.
But my growing knowledge of (and enthusiasm for) mindfulness is now tempered by a concern about its potential excesses, as well as the risk that it’s crowding out other equally important models and strategies for managing stress, achieving peak performance, and reaching professional and personal fulfillment. At times, it appears that we are witnessing the development of a “cult of mindfulness” that, if not appropriately recognized and moderated, may result in an unfortunate backlash against it. Here are a couple of my concerns:
The avoidance risk. Some people use mindfulness strategies to avoid critical thinking tasks. I’ve worked with clients who, instead of rationally thinking through a career challenge or ethical dilemma, prefer to disconnect from their challenges and retreat into a meditative mindset. The issue here is that some problems require more thinking, not less. Sometimes stress is a signal that we need to consider our circumstances through greater self-reflective thought, not a “mindful” retreat to focused breathing or other immediate sensory experiences. Mindfulness strategies can prime the mind for sounder rational thinking—but the former clearly should not displace the latter. One of my clients spent so much time meditating and “mindfully” accepting her life “on its own terms” that she failed to confront underperforming workers (and discipline or fire the worst offenders) in her company. After periods of meditating, she struggled to return to focused, task-oriented thinking. She required significant reminders and reassurance from me that embracing Buddhist meditation does not entail tolerating substandard performance from her employees. Mindful meditation should always be used in the service of enhancing, not displacing, people’s rational and analytical thought processes about their careers and personal lives.
The groupthink risk. As mindfulness practices enter mainstream American life, some organizations and companies are admirably encouraging their people to make use of them in the workplace. But I’m aware of situations where this new orientation has gone too far. In one case, the director of a business unit in a financial services corporation required his direct reports to participate several times per week in a 10-15 minute mindfulness session involving controlled breathing and guided imagery. Many participants came to dread the exercise. Some of them felt extremely awkward and uncomfortable, believing that mindfulness practices should be done in private. The very exercise that was supposed to reduce their work-related stress actually had increased it. The practice continued for weeks until several members of the group finally gathered the courage to tell the group leader that they would strongly prefer the daily exercises be optional, with impunity for non-participants. Mindfulness is rooted in a philosophy and psychology of self-efficacy and proactive self-care. Imposing it on people in a top-down manner degrades the practice and the people who might benefit from using it of their own volition.
There is no denying that mindfulness has emerged as a major cultural phenomenon on the contemporary American scene and in the business world in particular. That can be good news for people dealing with stress, burnout, and other realities of the modern workplace. But mindfulness practices need to be incorporated as one among many self-chosen strategies for people aiming to cope with stress, think effectively, make sound decisions, and achieve fulfillment. Mindfulness practices should be used to enhance our rational and ethical thinking processes, not limit or displace them. And mindfulness practices should never be imposed on other people, especially in the workplace. At its very core, mindfulness culture will be a huge step forward for Western cultures if it stays focused on creating opportunities for individuals to discover their own personalized strategies for taming anxieties, managing stress, optimizing work performance, and reaching genuine happiness and fulfillment.
David
Brendel, MD, PhD is a certified executive coach, career consultant, and
philosophical counselor based in Boston. He is founder and director of Leading Minds Executive & Personal Coaching. Follow him on Twitter @DrDavidBrendel
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