photo: pawel szvmanski

The Communicating Brain: Clapping “the Wave”

I travel to New York often, and I love going to see Broadway musicals. When The Book of Mormon opened, I was one of the first to buy tickets. Members of the audience were laughing all the way through. At the end, the cast got a standing ovation.

Suddenly, the applause changed. Rather than a thousand people clapping separately, everyone began to clap in rhythm. Clap, clap, clap, clap. The rhythmic clapping become so insistent that the actors came back onstage for an encore. The clapping communicated approval to the actors, and they responded with another song.

The neurons in your brain do something similar. They fire together in rhythmic patterns, communicating with each other across the brain. These patterns are measured in cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz). Imagine an audience clapping together slowly. That’s a slow brain wave, with millions of neurons firing together slowly. Imagine an audience clapping quickly. That’s a fast brain wave, with millions of neurons firing together quickly.

Today’s EEGs calculate brain wave patterns from each of the brain’s many different parts. They typically use 19 electrodes attached to the surface of the scalp.

One research team observed, “Scientists are now so accustomed to these EEG correlations with brain state that they may forget just how remarkable they are…. A single electrode provides estimates of synaptic action averaged over tissue masses containing between roughly 100 million and 1 billion neurons” (Nunez & Srinivasan, 2006). When we see brain wave changes on an EEG, it indicates that the firing patterns of billions of neurons in our brains are also changing.

What Brain Waves Are and What They Do

There are five basic brain waves that are picked up by a modern EEG.

1. Gamma Brain Waves

Gamma is the highest brain wave frequency (40 to 100 Hz). It’s most prevalent at times when the brain is learning, making associations between phenomena and integrating information from many different parts of the brain.

A brain producing lots of gamma waves reflects complex neural organization and heightened awareness. When monks were asked to meditate on compassion, large flares of gamma were found in their brains (Davidson & Lutz, 2008).

They were compared to novice meditators who had meditated for an hour a day the week before. The novices had brain activity similar to that of the monks. But when the monks were instructed to evoke a feeling of compassion, their brains began to fire in rhythmic coherence, like the audience clapping at The Book of Mormon musical.

The flares of gamma waves measured in the brains of the monks were the largest ever recorded. The monks reported entering a state of bliss. Gamma is associated with very high levels of intellectual function, creativity, integration, peak states, and of feeling “in the zone.” Gamma waves flow from the front to the back of the brain about 40 times per second (Llinás, 2014). Researchers look to this oscillating wave as a neural correlate of consciousness (NCC), a state linking the brain’s activity with the subjective experience of consciousness (Tononi & Koch, 2015).

Brain researchers talk about the amplitude of a brain wave and that simply means how big it is. A high amplitude of gamma means a big gamma wave, while a low amplitude means a small one. Measurements of brain waves show peaks and valleys. The distance from the peak to the trough is the amplitude. Amplitude is measured in microvolts, and brain waves typically measure between 10 and 100 microvolts, with the faster waves like gamma having the lowest amplitude.

Gamma brain wave states are associated with many beneficial changes in our bodies. A frequency of 75 Hz is epigenetic, triggering the genes that produce anti-inflammatory proteins in the body (De Girolamo et al., 2013). On the lower end of the gamma spectrum, a frequency of 50 Hz results in the body increasing its production of stem cells, the “blank” cells that differentiate into muscle, bone, skin, or whatever other specialized cells are required (Ardeshirylajimi & Soleimani, 2015). The frequency of 60 Hz regulates the expression of stress genes, those that code for stress hormones like cortisol. The same brain wave frequency also activates a key gene called Myc that in turn regulates around 15 percent of all the other genes in the body (Lin, Goodman, & Shirley‐Henderson, 1994).

EEG brain waves from slowest to fastest.

2. Beta Brain Waves

The next fastest wave is beta (12 to 40 Hz). Beta is typically divided into two parts: high beta and low beta. High beta is your monkey mind. High beta (15 to 40 Hz) is the signature brain wave of people with anxiety, people experiencing frustration, and people under stress.

The more stressed people become, the higher the amplitude of the beta their brains produce. Negative emotions such as anger, fear, blame, guilt, and shame produce large flares of beta waves in the EEG readout.

This shuts down the brain regions that handle rational thinking, decision making, memory, and objective evaluation (LeDoux, 2002). Blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, the “thinking brain,” is reduced by up to 80 percent. Starved of oxygen and nutrients, our brains’ ability to think clearly plummets.

Low beta is the band that synchronizes our bodies’ automatic functions, so it’s also called the sensorimotor rhythm frequency, or SMR (12 to 15 Hz).

Beta is required for processing information and for linear thinking, so normal levels of beta brain wave states are fine.

When you focus on solving a problem, composing a poem, calculating the best route to your destination, or balancing your checkbook, beta waves are your friend. SMR represents a calm, focused mental state. It’s stress that produces high beta, especially above 25 Hz.

3. Alpha Brain Waves

Alpha (8 to 12 Hz) is an optimal state of relaxed alertness. Alpha connects the higher frequencies—the thinking mind of beta and the associative mind of gamma—with the two lowest frequency brain waves, which are theta (4 to 8 Hz) and delta (0 to 4 Hz).

It turns out that alpha also does good things for our bodies. It improves our levels of mood-enhancing neurotransmitters such as serotonin. When the alpha brain wave level increased in a group of exercisers, they gained a boost in serotonin, and their emotional state was elevated (Fumoto et al., 2010). In another study, Zen meditators received the same benefits from cultivating an alpha state (Yu et al., 2011).

A pioneering study exposed DNA to various brain wave frequencies. It found that the alpha frequency of 10 Hz resulted in significantly increased synthesis of the DNA molecule (Takahashi, Kaneko, Date, & Fukada, 1986).

4. Theta Brain Waves

Theta is characteristic of deep relaxation and light sleep. When we dream vividly, our eyes move rapidly and our brains are primarily in theta. These brain waves are the frequency of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Theta is also the dominant frequency of people under hypnosis, healers, people in trances, and people in highly creative states of consciousness (Kershaw & Wade, 2012). The recollection of emotional experiences, both good and bad, can trigger theta.

It’s the frequency most commonly observed in healers. Becker (1990) found that when healers were in the midst of an energy healing session, theta was the most common wave in their brains.

Theta is associated with many beneficial changes in the body. A group of researchers studied the effect of various frequencies on DNA repair. They found that electromagnetic fields between 7.5 Hz and 30 Hz were able to enhance molecular bonding (Tekutskaya, Barishev, & Ilchenko, 2015). Within that range, 9 Hz proved most effective.

5. Delta Brain Waves

The slowest frequency is delta. Delta is characteristic of deep sleep. Very high amplitudes of delta are also found in people who are in touch with the nonlocal mind, even when they’re wide awake. The brains of meditators, intuitives, and healers have much more delta than normal.

The eyes of people who are in deep dreamless sleep don’t move. Delta waves also predominate in such non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep.

Delta is the wave that we see in EEG readouts when people are having a sense of connection with the infinite. They typically report mystical experiences in which the local self merges with the nonlocal self. Meditators with large amplitudes of delta feel connected to all of nature, to other human beings, and to the infinite. They lose the sense of being an isolated individual, or what Albert Einstein called the delusion of separateness. Instead, they experience oneness with all that is.

When our brains are producing delta, we are bathing our cells in a frequency that has the potential to produce a whole gamut of beneficial physiological changes at the level of our cells, from growing our telomeres and boosting our growth hormone levels to regenerating our neurons and sweeping our brains clear of beta-amyloid plaques. We are not just having a nice subjective experience; in the delta state, we are creating an objective energy environment in which our bodies thrive.

Awakening from Everyday Reality

EEG pioneer Maxwell Cade noticed that alpha, in the middle of the range of frequencies, forms a bridge between the two high frequencies of beta and gamma and the two low frequencies of theta and delta (Cade & Coxhead, 1979). Biofeedback and neurofeedback skills focus on teaching people how to get into an alpha state. The ideal state is enough alpha to link all of the other brain rhythms together. High beta is minimized, so that there is very little monkey mind and anxiety. There is a balanced amount of gamma and theta, and a wide base of delta.

A biophysicist, Cade had worked on radar for the British government before turning his attention to measuring states of consciousness. He developed his own machine, the “mind mirror,” in 1976. It is unique among EEG devices in that it provides a clear visual snapshot of brain waves.

His student Anna Wise described the machine as follows: “What sets the Mind Mirror apart from other forms of electroencephalography was the interest, on the part of its developer, not in pathological states (as in the case of medical devices), but in an optimum state called the Awakened Mind. Instead of measuring subjects with problems, the inventor of the Mind Mirror sought the most highly developed and spiritually conscious people he could find. In the flicker of their brainwaves, he and his colleagues found a common pattern, whether the subject was a yogi, a Zen master or a healer.”

The Awakened Mind

Using the mind mirror, over 20 years, Cade recorded the brain wave patterns of more than 4,000 people with strong spiritual practices. He found the Awakened Mind state was common in this group. Cade also noticed another similarity: they all had high amounts of alpha brain waves. As noted, alpha waves are right in the middle of the spectrum, with beta and gamma above, and theta and delta below. When someone in the Awakened Mind state has lots of alpha, it creates a link between the high brain wave frequencies above and the low frequencies below. Cade called this the alpha bridge, because it bridges the conscious mind frequencies of beta with the subconscious and unconscious mind frequencies of theta and delta. This allows a flow of consciousness, integrating all the levels of mind.

Cade wrote: “The awakening of awareness is like gradually awakening from sleep and becoming more and more vividly aware of everyday reality—only it’s everyday reality from which we are awakening!” (Cade & Coxhead, 1979).

I developed a meditation method called EcoMeditation that’s very simple, yet it’s consistently and automatically able to bring people into the Awakened Mind EEG pattern. EcoMeditation uses EFT tapping to clear obstacles to relaxation. It then takes you through a series of simple physical relaxation exercises that send signals of safety to the brain and body. It does not rely on belief or philosophy; instead, it’s based on sending the body physiological cues that produce deeply relaxed states of consciousness automatically. The instructions are free at EcoMeditation.com.

During EcoMeditation, we see lots of delta brain waves as well. Delta is where we connect with many resources above and beyond the local self. As noted, people in trance states, as well as healers, artists, musicians, and intuitives, tend to have plenty of delta.

Those in a creative trance, such as a composer making music or a child at play, usually have lots of delta waves. They lose all awareness of the outer world as they become absorbed in their creativity. They’re mostly in delta, with some theta and alpha, and just enough beta to function (Gruzelier, 2009).

It’s been fascinating to me to speak to people whose brain wave states show a high amplitude of delta waves during meditation. They report transcendent experiences. They describe feeling one with the universe, an exquisite sense of harmony and well-being (Johnson, 2011). Albert Einstein referred to this as an expansive state of consciousness in which we “embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature.” Scientists can be mystics too!

When Consciousness Changes, Brain Waves Change

The energy fields of brain waves and the matter of neural pathways are in a constantly evolving dance. When states of consciousness change, brain waves change and different neural pathways are engaged.

The extremes are love and fear. When we’re in a state of fear, our alpha bridge disappears. We may still have theta and delta, but we’re cut off from the resources of our subconscious mind and its connection with the universal whole. Beta waves flood the fearful brain. It’s in survival mode.

When we’re in a state of bliss, our brains show the Awakened Mind pattern. A step beyond, they can also move to a symmetrical pattern Cade called the Evolved Mind. As our consciousness is filled with love, our brains function very differently, with large amounts of theta and delta, plus an alpha bridge to connect our conscious with our subconscious mind.

Emotions create brain states. Brain waves measure the fields generated by consciousness. Passing signals through the neural bundles engaged by love, joy, and harmony creates a characteristic energy field (Wright, 2017). When monitoring the brains of people doing EcoMeditation, EEG expert Judith Pennington observed that “theta and delta progressed their patterns from the Awakened Mind to the Evolved Mind state.”

Emotions also create neurotransmitters. Among these are serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin, and anandamide (Kotler & Wheal, 2017). Serotonin is associated with satisfaction, and dopamine with a sensation of reward. Endorphins block pain and increase pleasure. Oxytocin is the “bonding hormone,” and it stimulates feelings of closeness and intimacy with others. Anandamide is called the “bliss molecule,” and it’s named after the Sanskrit word for happiness. It binds to the same receptors in the brain as THC, the primary psychoactive molecule in marijuana. When the mind changes, it creates molecular facts in the form of these neurotransmitters. As they flood our brains, we feel satisfied, secure, bonded, blissful, and serene. When our minds enter elevated emotional states, we’re literally getting high—on drugs produced by our bodies.

Consciousness Shifts the Way the Brain Processes Information

When we meditate, tap (EFT), use another form of energy psychology, or otherwise shift our consciousness, the brain changes quickly. The brain can be intentionally changed by the mind, especially by what is known as attention training (Schwartz & Begley, 2002). True transformation repatterns neural pathways. Eventually, the entire state of the brain shifts and establishes a new and healthy level of homeostasis.

One research team notes that “an accelerating number of studies in the neuroimaging literature significantly support the thesis that… with appropriate training and effort, people can systematically alter neural circuitry associated with a variety of mental and physical states that are frankly pathological” (Schwartz, Stapp, & Beauregard, 2005). We can take our dysfunctional brain networks and alter them with our minds.

It’s not just mystics and healers who produce large alpha bridges and theta brain wave flares when they’re in ecstatic states. Groups for whom high performance is critical are finding that tuning the brain in this way produces big leaps in achievement. U.S. Navy SEALs need to operate effectively in rapidly changing combat conditions. Using millions of dollars of advanced EEG equipment in a “Mind Gym” specially constructed in Norfolk, Virginia, they learn to enter a state they call ecstasis (Cohen, 2017). Once they “flip the switch” into ecstasis, their brains are in a state of flow, an altered reality in which super-performance becomes possible. Other peak performers, such as elite courtroom lawyers, Olympic athletes, and Google executives, also train themselves to enter ecstasis.

The characteristics of these flow states are described in the book Stealing Fire (Kotler & Wheal, 2017). Among them are selflessness and timelessness. People in ecstasis transcend the boundaries of local mind. EEG readings show that the prefrontal cortex of their brains, the seat of a sense of self, shuts down. Beta-wave mental chatter ceases. They gain distance from the anxious obsessions of local mind. Their internal chemistry changes as “feel-good” neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, anandamide, and oxytocin flood their brains.

In this state, they gain a nonlocal perspective. They are open to an infinite range of possible options and outcomes. The self, rather than being trapped in a limited fixed local reality, is able to try on different possibilities. This “knocks out filters we normally apply to incoming information,” leading to associative leaps that facilitate problem solving and super-creativity. Kotler and Wheal (2017) review the research on the performance gains produced by these brain wave states. These include a 490 percent improvement in mental focus, a doubling of creativity, and a 500 percent increase in productivity.

Commonalities in Mystical Experience

The neuroscientists I’ve worked with have instructed experienced meditators to provide prearranged signals during meditation, such as tapping their forefinger three times when they feel the experience of oneness. We can time-stamp this spot on the EEG readout. This has allowed us to correlate their internal experience with brain states.

During ecstasis, whether found in the ancient accounts of Tukaram or the modern experiences of the Navy SEALs, people have common experiences. These are linked to neurotransmitters: entering a state of bliss (anandamide), a sense of detachment from the body that encapsulates the local self (endorphins), the local self bonding with the nonlocal universe (oxytocin), serenity (serotonin), and the reward of being changed by the experience (dopamine).

These are the characteristics of upgraded minds, and we now have EEGs and neurotransmitter assays to measure the changes they produce in matter. In the past, ecstatic states were attainable only by mystics, and it took decades of study, rigorous practice, ascetic discipline, and spiritual initiation. Today, “we now know the precise adjustments to body and brain that let us recreate them for ourselves” at will; technology is providing us with “a Cliff Notes version of… how to encounter the divine” (Kotler & Wheal, 2017). Today, the highest-performing humans in the fields of sports, business, combat, science, meditation, and art are inducing them routinely. Tomorrow, as we map the physiology of these states and turn ecstasis into a learnable skill, they will be available to everyone.

Excerpted with permission from Mind to Matter: The Astonishing Science of How Your Brain Creates Material Reality by Dawson Church, Ph.D. Available online at hayhouse.com and Amazon.com.

About The Authors

Dawson Church, Ph.D., is an award-winning author whose best-selling book, The Genie in Your Genes has been hailed by reviewers as a breakthrough in our understanding of the link between emotion and genetics. He founded the National Institute for Integrative Healthcare to study and implement evidence-based psychological and medical techniques. His groundbreaking research has been published in prestigious scientific journals. He shares how to apply the breakthroughs of energy psychology to health and athletic performance through EFT Universe, one of the largest alternative medicine sites on the web. Learn more at eftuniverse.com and dawsonchurch.com.

photo: ian stauffer

The Mindful Open Awareness Meditation: What Is It? Open Awareness Meditation, also known as “open attention,” “open monitoring,” or “soft focus,” is a form of mindfulness meditation in which you allow the many things present in your consciousness (sounds and other sensory input, as well as your thoughts and emotions) to arise in your awareness and then naturally fall away as they are replaced by different sounds, thoughts, etc. This kind of meditation is considered a “yin” practice. The ancient concept of yin and yang refers to the two fundamental sides of nature—both spiritual and physical, both feminine and masculine. This does not refer exclusively to male or female, but to the masculine and feminine in all aspects of life. Yin is the feminine aspect of all things and is associated with that which is expansive, open, and receptive, while yang is the masculine aspect of all things and is associated with that which is precise, active, and specific. Every person has both yin qualities and yang qualities, and the same is true of meditation practices. Attention is the yin to concentration’s yang. Attention (mindfulness) and concentration (focus) work together to provide a full, rounded experience of being both focused on the task at hand (whatever it may be), as well as having complete awareness of, and an open mind to, the many aspects of the moment you are in. In most meditation practices, you will be exercising some level of both concentration and open attention. The Mindfulness Sutras (or the Satipatthana Suttas, as they are known in their original language, Pali) are the primary foundational texts for what we know today as mindfulness and mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness refers to the experience of being totally aware of all the information your senses are processing. In the Eastern traditions, there are six natural senses that all humans are born with. This includes the five conventional senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch—and the sixth sense, thought. This sixth sense of thought often comes to the foreground in mindfulness practices and in meditation generally. Our brains are built to think—thoughts are their natural product—and you will find that your brain goes on producing all kinds of thoughts even as you are meditating and trying to focus your attention on other things. What mindfulness meditation does for us is beginning to change our relationship to the thoughts occurring, especially as we gradually learn to consider them as sensory input rather than facts or events we need to respond to. Thoughts provide important information, but they are not fundamentally different from or more important than, say, the taste of pear or hearing a Mozart symphony. This can be a difficult lesson to learn because thoughts present themselves as reflections of reality. In other words, they present themselves as true. But just because you think something doesn’t mean it’s true, or even particularly important. Let’s consider an example of the tricky ways thoughts can make us believe things that aren’t necessarily true. Imagine you send a text to a friend, inviting him to your birthday dinner. Hours later, you still haven’t heard back, even though this friend usually responds right away. By the time you go to bed that night, you’ve decided that he doesn’t want to come and is trying to think of a good excuse; your feelings are hurt. Then the next day, you wake up to a text from him: “Sorry for the delay. Phone died, was out all day without my charger. I’d love to come!” Just because you think something doesn’t mean it’s true. Mindfulness practice can teach us about the nature of thinking, and perhaps even more importantly, it can teach us that we are not our thoughts. This might seem like an obvious or even silly point to make, but consider for a moment the negative thoughts you have about yourself—about your weight, your intelligence, or your career success. If you’re like most of us, you probably have a set of negative thoughts about yourself that you’ve been thinking for years and which you find yourself returning to regularly. In her book Says Who?, mindfulness teacher Ora Nadrich explains how our thoughts can hold us captive and how using mindfulness can help reframe our attitude toward negative and fear-based thoughts, mindfully replacing them with productive, supportive thoughts. We often allow—and rarely question the validity of—certain negative thoughts (for example, “I need to lose ten pounds,” “I’m not talented enough to make VP,” or “My spouse is too good for me”). If you’ve been thinking negative thoughts for long enough, you have probably come to believe in and identify with them. You think you are overweight or not good enough instead of recognizing that these are simply thoughts that you have about yourself that may not even be objectively accurate. You are not your thoughts; you are the thinker of the thoughts. We could never act on all of our thoughts, and there are many thoughts we shouldn’t act on or believe in if we want to live a healthy, well-balanced life. So, this mindfulness meditation practice will help you discern which thoughts support your goals and well-being and which thoughts are destructive or unhealthy and should be discarded. In mindfulness meditation, you practice checking in with all of the sensations and thoughts you are experiencing, as you experience them. Gradually, you will practice opening your awareness to the simulta­neous observation of the various aspects of the moment—without any expectation, without any judgment, allowing them to fluidly change. The key to getting the most out of an Open Awareness Meditation is to allow everything to be as it already is. It is in our nature to want to change or improve things, especially if there is discomfort on any level. To the extent possible, you should try not to do that during your meditation practice and simply allow things to be as they are. For example, you decide to meditate outdoors because it’s a peaceful, quiet day with comfortable weather. As your meditation begins, you hear a car drive by, your neighbor’s dog barking, and the gentle breeze of the wind. The mental perspective to hold here is that you accept and allow the dog to bark and the car to drive by, without entertaining the desire for things to be any different than they are. The thought may arise “Will that dog be quiet?” but your practice will be to let yourself have that thought without following it or dwelling on it. The sound of the car and the barking of the dog need not interrupt the meditation; rather, they can become a part of it. Of course, you should always try to meditate in a place where you will be safe and as undisturbed as possible, but keep in mind that in any meditation practice, a crucial component is to allow—even welcome—changes to the outside environment without interrupting the meditation. Simply observe, experience, and allow things to be as they are. This Open Awareness Meditation will make you more aware of the thoughts passing through your mind. Studies show that the average individual thinks anywhere from 30,000 to 70,000 thoughts every single day. By holding an open-focus awareness, you create a larger mental “container” for your thoughts to pass through. Gradually, with regular practice, mindfulness will give you the opportunity to more clearly see and experience the many layers of your thinking process.

What You’ll Get Out of It

Today you will open your awareness to include the fullness of the moment you are in. We can compare our attention to light: If we focus our concentration on something, we might say that we are “shining a spotlight” on it. When we practice open awareness, rather than shining a spotlight on one particular thing, we might say that we allow our awareness to “shine” in all directions around us, like the glow of a candle flame. We will refer to this “glow” of awareness around us as our field of awareness. Your field of awareness is the sum total of all of your sensory input. The practice of open awareness is an exercise in allowing your senses to experience the fullness of the present moment, becoming aware even of the subtleties that you may normally overlook, ignore, or miss altogether, like the temperature of the air around you or the faint creaking of floorboards. When we simply notice and allow things to be as they are, we naturally disengage from the impulses that would try to control or change things. This is not a practice in passivity or ignorance—quite the opposite. This is a practice in opening your mind and allowing yourself to receive all the information you possibly can before making any moves or taking any action. Notice the word allow. We do not force ourselves to pick up on sensory input; the awareness expands naturally from a practice of calm, relaxed allowing. When we are resistant to something that is happening, we have a biological tendency to “brace for impact,” which means we withdraw and tighten the muscles in our body. The mind then immediately begins thinking of all the way things could or should be different than they are. When we are open to something, we tend to be more curious about, and even more willing to embrace, the unknown, which leaves the body more at ease. This allows us to be more open to understanding and learning about what we are experiencing. With an open mind, we tend to see more possibilities and multiple perspectives on things. Open Awareness Meditation will strengthen your ability to really see things as they are and accept them for what they are. By practicing Open Awareness Meditation, you will cultivate:

1. Discernment

Open Awareness Meditation allows us to understand more about the moment we are in. The more we know in any circumstance, the more informed our decisions can be. Through practicing mindful awareness, we cultivate discernment by being more sensitive to the bigger picture and how the present moment relates to it. This increased understanding allows us to discern which thoughts we want to entertain, which thoughts we need to release, and what might be the right decision for us to make given the circumstances.

2. Decreased Depression and Increased Happiness

In studies published by Scientific American, Science Daily, and more, mindfulness meditation practices have been successfully applied as a treatment for depression and proven to ameliorate depression symptoms such as lethargy and lack of quality sleep. Other studies show increased happiness and joy. There are also reports of increased laughter after going through mindfulness training.

3. Core Creativity

In Dr. Ronald Alexander’s book Wise Mind, Open Mind, he maps out the different ways that a mindfulness meditation practice can help you tap into your core creativity and the mental perspective of limitless possibilities.

4. Self-Awareness and Better Decision-Making

We all have many sides to our personalities. As you practice observing your thoughts, you will become more aware of the tone of your internal voice and the kinds of thoughts you are having and develop the ability to intervene before saying or doing something you might regret.

5. Reduced Stress

Mindfulness practices are proven to have significant effects on reducing the physical symptoms of stress. It is well known throughout the medical community that stress aggravates just about every single health problem and illness. By reducing the symptoms of stress (like tension in the muscles and concentrated amounts of stress hormones in the bloodstream), we reduce their negative effect on our overall health.

6. Perspective

By developing mindful awareness of the various aspects of your environment through Open Awareness Meditation, that same skill naturally transitions into other areas of your life, providing a sense of proportion, big-picture perspective, and being present within a larger context.

7. Improvement in Your Life

Through the practice of witnessing things as they are, you will become more aware of your ability to change things that are not working for you. By becoming more attentive and aware of the thoughts arising in your mind, you will create the opportunity to question and reframe them.

The Open Awareness Meditation Practice: How to Do It

Meditation Length: 5 Minutes What You’ll Need

+ A comfortable chair or cushion where you can sit with your spine comfortably erect.

+ A quiet place to sit where you won’t be easily disturbed (by someone walking in on you, for example).

+ A timer (if you decide to use the timer on your smartphone, it is best to put the phone on airplane mode or silent to prevent distractions from incoming alerts).

+ Your meditation notebook and a pen or pencil.

Get Started Please read through this entire meditation before beginning. Ideally, you will remember the instructions and not have to interrupt the awareness meditation to check the next step. For this meditation, you should be sitting up—or even standing. Try to have your weight comfortably balanced between your left and right sides. If you are sitting, I recommend allowing your hands to rest comfortably in your lap or on your knees. If you choose to stand, have your arms resting comfortably at your sides. The key points for posture are:

1. Sit comfortably. 2. Not so comfortably that you’ll fall asleep. 3. Sit or stand with your back comfortably erect.

I attended a lecture by Harvard Medical School professor of psychology and Buddhist scholar Daniel P. Brown in which he explained that the popular notion of meditation solely as a relaxation technique is inaccurate and actually detrimental to the powerful mind-training effects of meditation. In a state of deep relaxation, the mind tends to wander. Sitting up straight or standing with an erect spine will support your mental alertness, making for effective meditation. As you sit, you will notice micro changes in the body. These can be any number of things, such as tension rising in your shoulders as you hear an unpleasant sound, subtle changes in the breath as you settle deeper into a relaxed state or chills on your skin as the temperature in the room changes. The exercise is to practice holding a soft focus, open to experiencing all of these things at once. Please read through this entire meditation before beginning. Ideally, you will remember the instructions and not have to interrupt the open awareness experience to check the next step. Before Meditating

1. Find a place to sit or stand where you won’t be disturbed.

2. Take a moment to get into a comfortable position that you will be able to maintain for the duration of the practice with as little movement or adjustment as possible.

3. Set your intention: “I will meditate for five minutes, opening my awareness to the various sounds, sensations, thoughts, and emotions that may arise and allowing everything to be as it is, just for these five minutes.”

Begin Meditating

1. Set your timer for five minutes.

2. Allow your eyes to gently close.

3. Feel your breath as your lungs expand and contract.

4. Notice the sensations along the surface of your skin, feeling the air in the room.

5. Bring your awareness to space above your head, noticing any sounds or movement in the space above you.

6. Move your awareness to the space below you, noticing where your body touches the cushion or floor. Notice any subtle vibrations from the floor.

7. Keeping your body in a restful stillness, bring your awareness to space in front of you, as far as your senses can reach.

8. Next, notice any sounds or movement to your right.

9. Move your awareness to space behind you, filling the room, even expanding beyond the room. (Any sounds on the other side of the walls?)

10. Move your awareness to your left.

11. Envision your awareness as a glow in all directions around you, mentally scanning all directions at once—simply witnessing the moment as it is.

12. If the mind wanders, bring your awareness back to the breath as it expands and contracts, and expand your awareness in all directions around you from there.

Wrap Up It is always recommended to end a meditation gently and mindfully. For some people, this means slowly beginning to move and stretch the body before opening their eyes; for others, this means saying a brief prayer or setting an intention for their day, such as “And now, I am going to have an efficient, effective, positive workday.” Whatever way is most natural for you to wrap up, go for it. What matters is that you give yourself a moment to exit the meditation without a sense of rushing. Transitioning mindfully out of meditation helps you keep the relaxed state developed during your practice, thus extending the “shelf life” of the benefits of calmness, clarity, and openness. Take a moment to record the details of your awareness meditation. If you end up meditating for longer than the suggested five minutes, please be sure to note this. If you have time, take a few minutes to write down your answers to the following in your meditation notebook:

+ Did any particular thoughts or memories come to mind that stood out?

+ Were there any sensations that surprised you? A sound or feeling that was unexpected?

Go Deeper: Ten Minute Meditation (or Longer) Begin with the above open awareness practice, but set your timer for ten minutes instead of five. If after ten minutes you feel you want to keep going, continue the meditation for as long as you wish. I typically recommend 20 to 40 minutes for regular practice. Go Deeper throughout Your Day: Mindful Check-In

+ Do a mindful check-in at work: Take a brief moment to mindfully experience the workplace from your usual spot. Mentally scan in all directions around you.

+ Do a mindful check-in during your meals: Notice the fragrances, the sounds, and the thoughts arising in your mind.

+ Do a mindful check-in at the market: When visiting one of the places you usually do your shopping, take a moment to notice the temperature, the smells, the music, and the conversations happening in the background.

+ Anywhere you find yourself, do a mindful awareness check-in: Whenever appropriate, take a moment to close your eyes and listen in all directions around you. Be present with wherever you are, whenever you are actually there. Take it all in!

Excerpted from Practical Meditation for Beginners: 10 Days to a Happier, Calmer You by Benjamin W. Decker, published by Althea Press. Copyright © 2018

About The Author Benjamin W. Decker is a meditation teacher and social activist in Los Angeles. He is the Director of Education at The Institute for Transformational Thinking and a founding teacher at Unplug Meditation, The DEN Meditation, and Wanderlust Hollywood. He is also the former Director of Partnerships at the humanitarian aid organization Generosity.org and former Director of Partnerships at the anti-human trafficking organization Unlikely Heroes. Learn more at bendeckermeditation.com

photo: angus

Meditation For Busy People With Busy Minds

The key to succeeding in meditation is to treat all thoughts as a legitimate part of the meditating experience, regardless of the content. Say it with me: All thoughts matter. This is not hyperbole. The more we celebrate our thinking mind, the more transcendent and blissful our experiences will be in meditation and consequently, the richer and more spacious our experiences will become outside of mindfulness and meditation.

+ The first step in celebrating the mind is to get rid of the word “distracting” when describing our unrelated thoughts in meditation.

+ The next step is to liberate ourselves from the need to witness, let go of, or replace those previously unrelated thoughts with more focused or wholesome thoughts.

+ Third, we should absolve ourselves from the need to focus on any thoughts in particular or actively ignore them.

Instead of practicing exclusivity, we’re going to begin practicing the opposite—treating all meditation thoughts, sensations, emotions, desires, feelings, inspirations, or anything else we may be thinking about while meditating as 100 percent legitimate. To appreciate this novel approach, it helps to see the bigger picture of how the previously labeled distracting thoughts play a useful role in our meditation process. The five zones of meditation are: focused thinking, random thinking, mixture of random thoughts and daydreams, dreams, and the settled mind. These five zones encapsulate all the mental experiences that you might have within a given meditation.  The “random thinking” zone is a deliberate word choice and an effort to help you stop seeing random thoughts in meditation as distractions (obstacles) and start seeing them simply as any thoughts that are unrelated to the knowledge (awareness) that you’re meditating. Focused thinking is thinking exclusively about the task at hand, which in the case of meditation may be thoughts related to the act of meditating: “I’m sitting on my couch meditating . . .” “My mind is very busy while I’m meditating . . .” “This meditation feels long . . .” Random thinking includes thoughts that are relevant to your life, but they are otherwise unrelated to the act of meditating: “I want to have macaroni for dinner . . .” “I forgot to call the dentist to make an appointment . . .” “Why hasn’t my friend messaged me back . . . ?” Next we have a mixture of random thoughts and daydreams. Daydreams are thoughts that may make partial sense but are experienced as even more random and fragmented than normal unrelated thoughts, such as: “I should go back to college to become a circus clown . . .” “Maybe I’ll be a clown who entertains elephants . . .” “But only if the elephants are from Cleveland . . .” Then we have meditation thoughts that are interpretations of dreams. In other words, these are thoughts that either don’t make any sense or are predominantly related to sensations, emotions, or feelings, such as colored lights; feelings of floating, heaviness, or numbness (loss of feeling); or spontaneous fits of laughing, sadness, guilt, shock, or tiredness: “That shade of blue is beautiful . . .” “I can’t feel my hands . . .” “I’m getting sleepy . . .” And finally, we have the settled mind, where pure bliss is directly experienced—pure bliss being another name for the experience of samadhi (union with the divine) or nirvana (supreme inner peace and serenity). To the novice, to calm the mind like this sounds like an impossibly mercurial experience that would take great effort or intense concentration to reach, but it’s quite normal and requires no more effort than having a dream while taking a nap. In the settled-mind zone, the pure bliss becomes so great that the thinking process spontaneously comes to a halt, without you having to try to quiet your thoughts. In terms of awareness, the settled state is the deepest state achievable through meditation. The irony is that the meditator is left with little to no awareness that they are achieving it in the moments when they are achieving it. We’ll discuss later how you will know your mind was settled despite the fact that you won’t be aware of it in the moment. This may sound like you’ll “miss the bliss”—how can you know you were experiencing it if you didn’t realize it at the time? But you will know, mainly because of how you will show up outside of meditation.

The Correct Way to Meditate?

When I began dabbling in meditation, one of the instructions I heard repeated, mainly by my yoga teacher peers, was how there is no correct way to meditate—meaning there is no way to meditate that works best for everyone. Instead, the meditator should tap into how they are feeling in the moment and practice a simple meditation technique appropriate to how they feel. There are numerous problems with this philosophy, but the main issue is that saying “there is no correct way to meditate” ignores the cardinal rule of learning any new skill: while there may not be a correct way, there are certainly best practices for every skill, and by adhering to those best practices, at least in the beginning when you are learning how to do meditation, you establish good habits that help you increase both the consistency and reliability of the desired results and benefits of meditation, as well as your chances of becoming proficient and self-sufficient in the quickest amount of time. I know about this shortcoming from direct experience with another learned skill that everyone seemed to know how to do but me: swimming. I didn’t learn how to swim properly until I was in my thirties. That’s not to say I never swam before that. In fact, when I was about ten years old I figured out how to doggy paddle. And then I learned how to tread water with the peanut butter-spreading arm motion when I was a teenager. So if I was just frolicking around in the pool, I would be fine, as long as I didn’t have to tread for too long. Much more than about a half a minute of treading water, however, and I would go into a full-blown panic. Now, if you know how to swim, you might think that knowing how to doggy-paddle and tread water provided me with a good base to learn the rest. But I’m proof that truly swimming— moving your arms and legs in sync—is not as intuitive as it may appear, particularly if you didn’t put the movements together until you were an adult, like me. My inefficiencies in swimming were embarrassingly exposed while on vacation one summer in Hawaii. I found myself in a once-in-a-lifetime dream situation, hiking with a buddy of mine (who happened to be an expert swimmer) and four beautiful women along the gorgeous coastline of Maui. We arrived at a volcanic rock overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and one of the women suggested that we strip down to our birthday suits and dive into the sea for a swim around the bend, which meant jumping off the jagged rock we were standing on into choppy ocean water, and navigating around to the other side—at least fifteen hundred feet of ocean swimming. Because the rock stood about ten feet above sea level, once I jumped in, there was no way to get back out. I would be committed. Obviously, I had a major dilemma. Meanwhile, my buddy couldn’t get his clothes off fast enough, and within seconds everyone was diving into the ocean, leaving me behind, topless, shoulders slumped, visualizing the horror and embarrassment of needing to be rescued by one of the women while naked and drowning. As I watched them all swim like dolphins away from the rock, I yelled out over the thunderclap of the unforgiving waves that I would “stay back to watch our clothes.” Even though there was no one around for miles, this was the least emasculating excuse I could think of. Then I quietly vowed to never allow myself to be in that situation again. In fact, my buddy still teases me about it to this day: “Hey, Light, why don’t you stay back and, uh, watch our clothes?” The first thing I did upon returning home to Los Angeles was to go down to the local community pool and sign up for some basic swimming lessons. Cut to me on my first day of swim class, surrounded in the West Hollywood city pool by children of all ages who were also learning to swim. The coach instructed me to swim the length of the pool to assess my abilities. I didn’t want to embarrass myself by needing her to jump in and save me on my first lesson, so I pleaded for her to just teach me under the assumption that I didn’t know anything at all. But she insisted. Reluctantly I waded into the shallow end, held my breath, pushed off the wall, and started flapping my arms and legs in my best impression of a swimmer. I had no idea what I was doing. And after no more than ten meters, all of my energy was spent, I was taking in water, my chest was on fire, and my life began passing before my eyes. In a panic, I clutched and clawed my way through what felt like an ocean over to the side of the pool and held on for dear life, as if I had just completed an Ironman competition in record time. “Okay, good,” my new coach said with a reassuring smile, as if she’d just witnessed me cross the Ironman finish line. “Let’s start from the beginning.” She got me out of the pool and started teaching me the fundamentals. She showed me how to elongate my body, how to kick my legs, how to twist from side to side so that I could breathe in the water properly. In short, she was teaching me the pieces I’d need to put together to swim freestyle. Then she drilled me over the next several lessons until each individual skill became second nature. For me this course was revolutionary, and completely changed my relationship with water. Over the first month, I began to learn how to move in concert with the water instead of fighting it. I noticed that whenever I fought the water, it became my enemy, slowing me down and threatening to drown me. But when I practiced lengthening my body, extending my arms, breathing and moving with less effort, the water instantly became friendlier and would assist me as I glided across to the other side. If I stopped moving altogether, the water would support me gently while I caught my breath. If I fought, the water would turn and immediately begin to sink me. Before long, I was able to swim effortlessly from one side of the pool to the other side. As I mastered the fundamentals, my decades-long panic around large bodies of water transformed into delight. After another month or so of practice, I was finally getting it—do less to accomplish more. Swimming requires repetition more than anything else (just like calming the mind and achieving the benefits of meditation). There’s so much to remember initially, but after you swim a thousand laps, you get out of your head, stop analyzing everything, and start moving with maximum efficiency and effectiveness. I couldn’t believe it. Something that had eluded me my entire life now seemed as natural as breathing. After my swimming training, I could go into a pool and swim a mile with relative ease. I could go into the ocean and swim with confidence. And if I’m in another position to go skinny-dipping off a volcanic rock in Hawaii, I’ll be the first one to dive in. The point is, when it comes to thoughts during meditation, you are essentially learning how to navigate the thing that every new meditator is deathly afraid of—their thinking mind. Or their busy mind. Or their distracted mind. Or their monkey mind. Or whatever they want to call it. To the untrained meditator, their mind is as scary as that ocean was to me on that day I stood on that jagged rock, looking at the waves crashing, and imagining the worst possible outcome—humiliation, then death by drowning. But if you know how to swim, it doesn’t matter how much water is in front of you. If you know how to meditate, it doesn’t matter how busy your mind is. Meditation is never about stopping your thoughts, in the same way that swimming is never about stopping the water. Rather, swimming is about learning how to move in concert with the water so you can glide through it and have fun. Likewise, the skill of meditation is about learning how to navigate the contours of the thinking mind so you can glide from the busy focused-thinking zone down into the blissful settled-mind zone.

Go E.A.S.Y On Your Mind

Any swimming style can get you from one side of the pool to the other. It could be the breaststroke, the backstroke, the butterfly stroke, or the freestyle stroke. The only question is, how hard do you want to work? If you ask any swimmer which of the four main techniques is the easiest to learn and practice for a beginner, most will agree that the freestyle technique is the one you always want to start with. Is the freestyle stroke the only “correct” way to swim? No. Is it the easiest for getting from one side of the pool to the other? Yes. And will it teach you the fundamentals (in this case, the hydrodynamics) for the other strokes? Absolutely. In the same way, any mindfulness meditation technique can get you to bliss. But the question is the same: how hard do you want to work? What I’m going to show you is not the only meditation technique, nor is it the only “correct” technique, but in my extensive experience, it is by far the simplest meditation technique to begin with, and in practicing it, you will experience bliss (and learn the fundamentals of how to meditate in the process). It is the meditation equivalent of the freestyle swimming technique. And the key to practicing it is to keep everything easy. Do less to accomplish more. To help you remember how to be in meditation, I’ve created the E.A.S.Y. meditation approach—and now you’ll learn what each of those letters stands for.

How to Keep Meditation Feeling E.A.S.Y.

E.A.S.Y is an acronym for the four key principles of the meditation technique. You’re going to apply these principles to all meditation thoughts, noises, and sensations you experience—not just the positive ones but the negative ones, too. Each E.A.S.Y. principle will help you form an always-reliable foundation for your daily practice, making meditation feel easy and relaxing. That way you’ll reap its many benefits, especially those that occur outside of meditation itself. These principles don’t necessarily build upon one another, so don’t think of them as progressive. Instead, call to mind each of the four principles as you become aware of your mind wandering in meditation.

E = EMBRACE

Embrace means you want to practice allowing the existence of all of your thoughts and experiences. If you feel like you’re dreaming, embrace all of your dreams, embrace your sleepiness, all noises, or anything that you previously considered distracting in meditation. Embracing your experiences will help your meditations remain easy, go by very fast, and give you maximum benefit.

A = ACCEPTANCE

Now take embracing one step further: accept. Acceptance means that you want to cultivate an attitude that whatever is happening in your meditation is what should be happening. That includes happy thoughts, sad thoughts, negative thoughts, sleep, dreams, wondering about the time, and feeling antsy. No need to resist or reject any of those thoughts.

S = SURRENDER

Surrender is another directive that implies embracing and accepting, but it refers specifically to your expectations. In other words, be willing at all times to surrender your idea of how you feel your meditation should be progressing. You ideally don’t want to be locked into an agenda of “This is what I should be experiencing in meditation.” Instead, you want to practice surrendering to whatever meditation thoughts, sensations, noises, or distractions are happening in the moment.

Y = YIELD

Yield complements the principles of embrace, accept, and surrender. It’s so important to be open to whatever is happening in your meditation. As you’ll see, yielding is easier said than done. If you’ve tried and failed at quieting your thoughts in meditation, it’s likely because you’ve been conditioned to do the exact opposite of the E.A.S.Y. approach. Think about what we’ve been trained to believe it takes to be successful in most life endeavors: working hard, control, focus, diligence, remembering important information. That indoctrination will inevitably show up in your process and make your meditations feel hard and clunky. So whenever you catch yourself attempting to control your mind in meditation, remember to return to your E.A.S.Y. approach, and yield to whatever else is happening in your experiences. By following these four principles, your meditation will go from this experience, where your mind feels trapped in the busy surface zone of focused thinking . . . . . . to this experience, where your mind becomes progressively de-excited, until it becomes settled.

The E.A.S.Y. Meditation Technique

1. Sit comfortably. 2. Use an easy-to-see timing device, ideally not an alarm. 3. Calculate your finish time (ten to twenty minutes). 4. Close your eyes. 5. Passively think the sound “ah-hum.” 6. Let yourself simultaneously get lost in your thoughts. 7. When you remember that you’re meditating, passively begin thinking “ah-hum” again. 8. Peek freely and often at the time. 9. Once you’re done, wait a minute or two before opening your eyes. 10. Come out slowly.

Recommended Schedule

Meditate once in the morning, upon awakening, for ten to twenty minutes. Sit up and make sure you have comfortable back support. Meditate again once in the afternoon or early evening for ten to twenty minutes. Do not exceed two meditations per day. This article is excerpted with permission from Bliss More: How to Succeed in Meditation Without Really Trying by Light Watkins. Copyright © 2018 by Light Watkins. Published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All Rights Reserved.

About The Author Light Watkins has been practicing and teaching in the meditation space since 1998. He travels the world giving talks on happiness, mindfulness, and meditation, as well as leading trainings and retreats. To date, Watkins has shared his knowledge with thousands through his live courses, books, and online trainings. He contributes to wellness blogs and writes a popular email newsletter called Light’s Daily Dose of Inspiration. Watkins’s TEDx talk has garnered hundreds of thousands of views, and he is the founder of The Shine Movement, a global movement with a mission to inspire. Visit his website: lightwatkins.com.

photo: melancholie photocase.com

There’s nothing quite as profound as the journey toward motherhood. Over the course of nine months, a woman’s body undergoes countless physical transformations—her belly expands to make space for her growing baby, her breasts change as they prepare to make milk after delivery, and her ligaments soften to prepare for giving birth. For a long time, moms-to-be have focused on accompanying these physical changes by nourishing the body with prenatal vitamins, healthy food, exercise and plenty of rest. All of which are known for helping to create a healthy pregnancy. However, recent research shows that a pregnant woman’s body isn’t the only key factor when it comes to a healthy pregnancy—the health of her mind is as well. In fact, the mind and body connection has a profound effect on the wellness of both mom and baby during pregnancy. Luckily, when it comes to keeping the mind healthy, you don’t need to spend 30 minutes at the gym or make sure you take all your vitamins. All you need is a space to sit and a few minutes a day to practice prenatal meditation.

The Health Benefits of Meditation During Pregnancy

Many expectant mothers might be surprised to learn how meditation benefits their developing baby, their birth outcomes, and their emotional health. Several recent research studies show that mindfulness meditation can help women manage pregnancy-related stress, help prevent preterm birth, and help them cope with the fears of childbirth. We’ve outlined some of these studies about meditation for pregnant women below, highlighting the science behind this age-old practice. Here’s some of the science behind pregnancy meditation.

Promotes a Healthier Birth Process

1. Decreases risk of premature birth [2] High levels of stress and anxiety increase risk factors for premature birth during pregnancy, lowering stress levels through regular prenatal baby meditation gives you and your baby a better environment in which to grow. One research study also found that women who participated in a prenatal mindfulness program were 50% less likely to give birth early when compared to those who did not receive mindfulness education. 2. Improves Immunity [4] Science shows that meditation improves the body’s immune function, ensuring physical wellness for mother and baby. 3. Decreases Childbirth Fears [6] Research shows that women who learn mindfulness skills as part of childbirth education experience less fear about the childbirth process. 4. Helps Women Manage the Pain of Labor [3] One study shows that people who attended a four-day mindfulness meditation training were able to decrease the intensity of physical pain by 40%. Pregnancy meditation tips and techniques can ease the labor process. 5. Helps Women Manage Symptoms of Insomnia [5] Mindfulness meditation helps women manage the symptoms of insomnia, which helps prevent preterm birth, suggesting another potential benefit of meditation for pregnant women.

The Emotional Benefits

6. Decreases Risk of Prenatal Depression and Anxiety [4] Women who learn the life skills of mindfulness during pregnancy experience fewer symptoms of prenatal depression and anxiety, highlighting the importance of learning how to meditate and practice baby/prenatal meditation. 7. Lowers Cortisol Levels (the stress hormone) Practicing mindfulness meditation helps reduce cortisol levels (the stress hormone), which is associated with physical and emotional distress. Research shows high levels of the hormone may negatively impact the baby’s physical and cognitive development and suggests that pregnancy meditation can benefit the mom and baby’s mental health. 8. Helps Women Cope With Uncertainty [8] Science shows that practicing mindfulness meditation, including pregnancy or baby meditation, can help mothers cope with the myriad physical and emotional changes that pregnancy brings. 9. Regulates Emotions [5] Learning the life skills of how to meditate helps us to regulate our emotions, making it more likely that we can ‘respond’ instead of ‘react’ to stressful situations. 10. Helps Women Cope with Stress [4] Research shows that women who learn mindfulness skills, like prenatal meditation, during pregnancy experience a greater decrease in prenatal anxiety than those who do not learn meditation techniques for pregnant women.

The Science Behind Postnatal Meditation

Mindfulness meditation isn’t only beneficial during pregnancy; science shows it’s helpful during the postpartum period, too. In fact, research also suggests that ‘Mindful Parenting’ helps mothers (and fathers!) to manage the stress of parenthood, offering health benefits throughout the parenthood journey.

Physical Benefits and Emotional Benefits

Here’s some of the science behind postnatal meditation. 11. Improves Sleep Quality for New Parents [1] Sleep disruption is part of new parenthood, but research shows that individuals who practice meditation experience higher quality sleep than non-meditators. 12. Increases Milk Production [4,5] Low milk supply is stressful for new mothers, and stress can impact production. Post-pregnancy meditation can help lower stress levels, positively impacting the breastfeeding experience. 13. Reduces Risk of Postpartum Depression [3] Almost 20% of new mothers experience postpartum depression (PPD), the #1 complication of pregnancy. Research shows that mindfulness may reduce the risk of postpartum depression, improving a woman’s psychological health through pregnancy meditation and mindfulness practices. 14. Enhances Stress Tolerance [6] New parenthood is filled with unknowns, and coping with the uncertainty that motherhood brings is stressful. Research suggests that mindfulness practices, such as prenatal and baby meditation can help increase one’s tolerance for emotional discomfort, which increases your ability to cope with feeling out of control or overwhelmed—a common experience for new mothers and fathers. 15. Increases Parental Well-being [9] Research shows that practicing mindfulness meditation helps mothers to manage parenting stress, which helps to increase positive interactions with their babies and children.

How to Begin a Pregnancy Meditation Practice

Despite [1,2] what people believe, you don’t have to schedule a long meditation retreat to learn and benefit from the life skills of mindfulness meditation. To begin practicing prenatal meditation, simply focus on one thing like your breath, a single word, or a sensation in your body. If your mind wanders, simply bring your focus back to whatever you were focusing on. Like exercise, mindfulness meditation is a practice that grows the more you do it. Over time, you’ll become more aware of your thoughts, anchoring into the present moment instead of ruminating about the past, or worrying about the future.

The Easiest Way to Get Started

Meditation apps, such as Expectful make the practice accessible and easy to use. Expectful provides specific guided meditations for women throughout their fertility, pregnancy and new motherhood journeys. The company helps women strengthen the mind and body connection along with their connection to themselves. The app and website offer a menu of mindfulness meditation options for pregnant women and couples to cultivate everything from sleep to deeper connection (just to name a few). Grounded in science, the meditations are all developed by licensed hypnotherapists, meditation experts, sound engineers, and psychologists. [3]

Pregnancy References

1. Whirledge, S., & Cidlowski, J.A. (2010). Glucocorticoids, stress, and fertility. Minerva Endocrinologica, 35(2), 109-125. 2. Sriboonpimsuay W., Promthet S., Thinkhamrop J., & Krisanaprakornkit, T. (2011). Meditation for preterm birth prevention: A randomized controlled trial in Udonthani, Thailand.. International Journal of Public Health Research, 1(1), 31-39. 3. Zeidan, F., Martucci, K.T., Kraft, R.A., Gordon, N.S., McHaffie, J.G., & Coghill, R.C. (2011). Brain mechanisms supporting modulation of pain by mindfulness meditation. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(14), 5540-5548. 4. Davidson, R.J., Kabat-Zinn, J., Schumacher, J., Rosenkranz, M., Muller, D., Santorelli, S.F., … Sheridan, J.F. (2003). Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation. Psychosomatic Medicine, 65, 564–570. 5. Black, D. S., O’Reilly, G. A., Olmstead, R., Breen, E. C., & Irwin, M. R. (2015). Mindfulness meditation and improvement in sleep quality and daytime impairment among older adults with sleep disturbances: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA internal medicine, 175(4), 494-501. 6. Byrne, J., Hauck, Y., Fisher, C., Bayes, S., & Schutze, R. (2014). Effectiveness of a mindfulness‐based childbirth education pilot study on maternal self‐efficacy and fear of childbirth. Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health, 59(2), 192-197.

Motherhood References

1. Nagendra, R. P., Maruthai, N., & Kutty, B. M. (2012). Meditation and its regulatory role on sleep. Frontiers in Neurology, 3(54), 1-4. 2. Halbreich, U., & Karkun, S. (2006). Cross-cultural and social diversity of prevalence of postpartum depression and depressive symptoms. Journal of Affective Disorders, 91, 97-111. 3. Dimidjian, S., Goodman, S.H., Felder, J.N., Gallop, R., Brown, A.P., & Beck, A. (2015). An open trial of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for the prevention of perinatal depressive relapse/recurrence. Archives of Women’s Mental Health, 18(1), 85-94. 4. Vieten C, Astin J. (2008). Effects of a mindfulness-based intervention during pregnancy on prenatal stress and mood: Results of a pilot study. Archive of Women’s Mental Health, 11, 67-74. 5. Marchand, W. R. (2012). Mindfulness-based stress reduction, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, and Zen meditation for depression, anxiety, pain, and psychological distress. Journal of Psychiatric Practice, 18(4), 233-252. 6. Keith, D. R., Weaver, B. S., & Vogel, R. L. (2012). The effect of music-based listening interventions on the volume, fat content, and caloric content of breast milk–produced by mothers of premature and critically ill infants. Advances in Neonatal Care, 12(2), 112-119. 7. Dewey, K. G. (2001). Maternal and fetal stress are associated with impaired lactogenesis in humans. The Journal of Nutrition, 131(11), 3012S-3015S. 8. Kraemer, K.M., O’Bryan, E.M., & McLeish, A.C. (2016). Intolerance of uncertainty as a mediator of the relationship between mindfulness and health anxiety. Mindfulness, 7(4), 859-865. 9. Bögels, S. M., Lehtonen, A., & Restifo, K. (2010). Mindful parenting in mental health care. Mindfulness, 1(2), 107-120.

About The Author Dr. Juli Fraga is a psychologist and health writer. She specializes in women’s health, especially as it relates to the reproductive and maternal wellness. She’s written for the New York Times, The Washington Post, and NPR. You can find her on Twitter, @dr_fraga.

the health benefits of meditation are extraordinary and range from improving brain function to helping you stay in a rhythm of effortless flow and peace. photo: arkadii lifshits

The Benefits of Meditation

The physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits of meditation have been well documented for thousands of years. Scientists, philosophers, spiritualists, and religious leaders have heralded the power of witnessing awareness. They may refer to it as deep reflection, being present, mindfulness, contemplation, prayer, meditation, or simply relaxing, but it’s all the same thing—disconnecting from the activity and drifting to the space between our thoughts. In the Yoga Sutras, written sometime between 200 b.c. and. 200 a.d., the sage Patanjali (who created a common thread that all schools of yoga follow) defined meditation in four Sanskrit words: yoga citta vritti nirodha, which means “one-ness is the progressive quieting of the fluctuations of the mind.”

1. Effects on the Mind, Body & Spirit

Over the first few days, weeks, and months of daily meditation, the quieting impact this simple practice has on your bodymind begins to express itself in each choice you make. Your shift may be so subtle that even you don’t see these meditation benefits at first. But your thoughts, selections, decisions, and daily actions become more conscious, leading to more intuitively conscious behaviors. Then one day you realize you have a broader perspective, a deeper sense of calm, and heightened clarity… yes, greater creativity, expanded grace, greater ease. You realize you are making more spontaneous right choices. You realize you are being more authentic. There is greater alignment between what you think, what you say, and what you do. These are the myriad effects and benefits of meditation. The world is still turning—and sometimes faster than ever—but to you, that swirl is in slower motion, like texts coming into your cell phone with a really faint hum rather than a blasting ringtone.

2. Stillness, Peace & Quieting the Mind

Over time, moving from activity to stillness during meditation translates into more conscious behaviors during non-meditation (the other 23 or so hours of your day). Your interactions with the world shift more effortlessly from reactivity to responding, from reflexiveness to reflectiveness, from defensiveness to openness, and from drama to calm. There’s a big bonus regarding the effects of meditation on top of all these other nourishing aspects of having a practice. Over time, meditation benefits you by quieting you to a state where you experience life with a deeper understanding of your true Self, which can open the door to spiritual exploration, connection, discovery, and fulfillment—one of the many spiritual benefits of meditation. It is along the so-called “spiritual path” that you truly can experience your unbounded and unconditioned Self—the infinite you that rests at the core of who you are underneath your body and beneath this worldly garb of titles, roles, masks, ego, and the complexities of this life. Regardless of the depth of your spiritual nature, simply by spending time in stillness and silence, you will experience the benefits of meditation and become more imbued with the ability to open to greater possibilities in each moment instead of the ones you were fixed on. This creates a more universal trajectory for the rest of your life with an expanded point of view. By seeing yourself as more universal and less personal, you’ll realize more options in each moment instead of seeing only the limited ones you thought you had before. Everything in your life becomes richer when you see there are lots of different ways things can play out and your previously constricted viewpoint only made you feel more helpless as life unfolded. But this tool called meditation and its benefits can give you the edge you need to feel strong each day, to gain clarity, and to finally regain your peace of mind.

3. Evolving our Brains: The Scientific Research

Different types of meditation styles take you to different places. Some calm you in the moment, others calm you after the moment, some open you, some inspire you, some relax you, some comfort you, others transport you, and some deliver you to a life of oneness and deeper fulfillment. This may sound like a huge leap from the clinical, scientific proof of the power and benefits of meditation, but its current trendiness, and 5,000 years of testimonials should give you the support you need right now to continue exploring. Over the last several years, thousands of compelling scientific studies have found evidence that a regular, consistent meditation practice can offer a wide range of healing benefits and meditation-linked health benefits. The data include hundreds of clinical studies performed by science and medical departments at major universities, research reports in such venerable sources as The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and The New England Journal of Medicine, and special features in more popular publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal to Time magazine to The New York Times. There is now compelling evidence that meditation is a powerful tool in managing anxiety and stress, pain relief, restful sleep, cognitive function, and physical and emotional well-being.

Meditation Changes the Physical Structure of the Brain

In the January 30, 2011, issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, Massachusetts General and University of Massachusetts Medical School reported results of a clinical study on meditation benefits that demonstrated that meditation can actually transform our brain. Using MRI brain scans at the beginning and end of the eight-week trial, scientists discovered that each of the 16 subjects who meditated for 30 minutes every day experienced visible changes to the physical structure of their brains. Within 56 days, each subject’s MRI displayed an increase in the gray matter in the hippocampus (the part of our brain responsible for learning, spatial orientation, and memory) and a reduction in the gray matter of their amygdala (the fear, stress, and anxiety center of the brain). So if you were wondering whether meditation’s health benefits will show up in your life, the answer is a powerful yes! In less than two months, the brain can change its physical structure and the way it’s wired—all from a daily practice of 30 minutes.

Brain Wave Studies of Meditation

A recent brain-wave study by Dr. Richard J. Davidson at the University of Wisconsin tested meditating monks (whom I like to refer to as super meditators since each had 34,500 hours of meditation under their belts) and non-meditating volunteers on their responses to pain and the threat of pain to explore potential benefits of meditation on pain perception. Dr. Davidson monitored the brain’s pain centers as he applied a heated applicator to the arms of the test subjects. As the heat was directly applied to the skin, all the test subjects responded similarly. The monitors showed their pain centers activated as the hot instrument touched their flesh. Then he changed the procedure a bit. All the test subjects were told, “In ten seconds I will apply the heated applicator.” The non-meditators’ pain centers reacted instantly upon hearing the words—before they were even touched! The pain centers of the super meditators did not respond until the heat was actually applied 10 seconds later. What’s the takeaway here? The non-meditating world reacts first to the hint or projection of pain in the future and reacts as if it were feeling the pain now. The meditators stayed in the present moment longer and did not actually feel pain when the threat of pain was announced. I find this study to have the most profound insight that we can remove and lessen suffering in our lives if we don’t project ourselves into the future and manufacture potential suffering. Yet most of our life is played out in the future as our hopes, dreams, wishes, and needs, weave into expectations and we start reacting to scenarios yet unborn as if we were clairvoyant. The effects of meditation will help you immeasurably in this process because one of meditation’s benefits is to help you stay mindful of the present moment. So the evidence is in. And, these two studies demonstrate the transformational power that meditation can have on our physical body and on our emotional response to the world around us. Finally, after thousands of years of eye-rolling by naysayers, the value and benefits of meditation are validated scientifically in a laboratory with the most advanced technology to monitor the brain. And the results of studies like these in medical centers and institutions of higher learning continue to be published for the world to access. Yet the most transformational results and effects of meditation can only truly be felt by the one having the experience. That can happen with your very first meditation. And you’re already there!

How Meditation Changes Our Physiology

During meditation, specific physiological shifts occur. These shifts are cumulative, and over time, they can transform the way our bodies and minds balance themselves and integrate with each other. The most powerful proof that meditation benefits the bodymind lies at the very core of our DNA, in a primal survival response we all have shared for millennia: the fight-or-flight response.

4. Reducing Fear and Anxiety: Quieting The Fight-or-Flight Response

As human beings evolved more than 20,000 years ago, we were hardwired with a self-preservation reflex—a powerful survival mechanism woven into our DNA—known as the fight-or-flight response. It was first described by American physiologist Walter Cannon in 1929 and explains what happens to our body’s most primal brain functions when we sense a threat to our physical body—essentially how we react when something crosses our perceived boundary of safety. When we perceive a life-threatening situation, we react in the moment and choose one of two basic paths of survival: to fight or to run. One of the benefits of meditation is that it gives us a choice in situations like these instead of reacting automatically. Essentially, it works like this: Imagine you’re hunting and gathering in a jungle during prehistoric times, when you hear a sabertoothed tiger make a loud hiss. On perceiving this threat, your body’s limbic system (which can be positively affected through meditation and controls emotion, behavior, memory, and your sense of smell) immediately responds via your autonomic nervous system, a complex network of endocrine glands that automatically regulates your hormonal chemistry and metabolism.

The Body Reacts to a Threat

On hearing the saber-toothed tiger, your sympathetic nervous system (which is the part of the autonomic nervous system that regulates all our body’s functions) rapidly prepares you to deal with what is perceived as a threat to your safety. It essentially says, “There’s a good chance you will become this predator’s dinner, but if you fight or run away, you could live.” It then goes on a lightning quick mission to help you achieve that goal. First, you begin to perspire. Your limbic brain knows that if you do end up fighting or fleeing, you will most likely overheat, so the fastest way to bring your temperature down is by automatic sweating. Next, your hormones initiate several metabolic processes that help you cope with sudden danger. Your adrenal glands release adrenaline (also known as epinephrine) and other hormones that speed up your breathing, spike your heart rate, and elevate your blood pressure, quickly driving more oxygen-rich blood to your brain and to the muscles needed for fighting the saber-toothed tiger or for running away. All of this happens before you’ve had an intellectual conversation with yourself about the impending danger. In fact, the threat could be real or imagined, but if the limbic brain perceives it, you will automatically respond in seconds as if the threat is real (however, regularly practicing meditation benefits this part of the brain by allowing it to stay calmer).  These self-preservation processes are all triggered by the same part of your brain that regulates hunger, thirst, sexual arousal, fear, and sleep. Your energy soars as the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol surge into your bloodstream. At the same time, your pancreas secretes a hormone called glucagon to immediately raise your blood sugar with the equivalent sugar kick of you eating several candy bars at once. As these physiological changes take place, your senses become heightened, your heart starts racing, and all distractions, pain, thoughts, and internal conversations leave your awareness as your focus becomes concentrated on one single goal: survival. Because of its enormous influence on emotions and memory, the limbic system is often referred to as the “emotional brain.” It’s also called the “old” or “early” mammalian brain, or paleomammalian brain because it emerged with the evolution of our warm-blooded relatives and marked the beginning of social cooperation among all animals. But fast-forward 20,000 years to the present-day reality, and there aren’t too many saber-toothed tigers out there. In fact, unless you’re defending your country in a war zone or in a life-threatening line of work such as firefighting or law enforcement, the daily need for the rest of us activating our fight-or-flight mode is a rarity. Practicing meditation regularly allows you to minimize this fight or flight response. This is what happens to your body during the Fight-Flight response:

+ An increase in blood pressure, and stress on your heart + An increase in your stress hormones (adrenaline, cortisol) + An increase in your blood sugar (glucagon tells the pancreas to slow insulin production) + A decrease in blood circulation especially to your digestive tract + A decrease in your growth and sex hormones + Suppression of your immune system, and + An increase in the thickness and stickiness of your blood.

We can look at these as the seeds of illness because they lead directly to the following diagnoses: coronary heart disease, anxiety, addictions, diabetes, gastrointestinal disorders, infections, cancer, strokes, and heart attacks. Modern science is slowly discovering that chronic stress impacts the brain as well. Clinical trials on mice have demonstrated that these stress hormones affect our dendrites—the signal receivers and senders on nerve cells—by shrinking them, which impedes the easy flow of the information they are transmitting. When this occurs in our hippocampus, it challenges our memory and learning ability. Thankfully, the effects and benefits of meditation help to turn off these reactions and turn on meditation’s health benefits.

5. Reducing Stress

The physiological and emotional responses to stress are well documented. And it’s pretty obvious that if we respond with an ego or fight or flight response to every fear and need that’s not met, we will certainly die sooner or live a more painful life. Fortunately, one of the benefits of meditation is a tool that helps reverse the impact that fight-or-flight and ego responses have on our minds and bodies. Meditation can unravel the cellular damage that stress has caused and alter our DNA hardwiring of the fight-or-flight response. Just a few years ago, a group of scientists—Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider, and Jack W. Szostak—discovered that our chromosomes are protected by long, threadlike DNA molecules called telomeres, which carry our genes from one cell to the next. Their research also revealed the existence of an enzyme called telomerase, which lubricates and lengthens our telomeres. They won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering that the length of each telomere and the amount of telomerase covering each one determines the very health of our cells as they are created. As lower levels of stress hormones are introduced into our system through a daily meditation practice, damaged telomeres mend, and our immune function rises. In addition to these direct meditation health benefits, emotionally we start to respond more intuitively and less reactively, releasing us from the prison of conditioned ego responses. In time as the effects and benefits of meditation add up, we will be moved from an existence of conditioned, limiting beliefs to a more unconditioned life of infinite possibilities.

6. The Restful Awareness Response

When we meditate, our body’s chemistry changes. In fact, we experience the opposite of the physiological effects produced by the fight-or-flight and ego responses as a benefit of meditation practice. We are less inclined to perspire, our breathing and heart rate slow, our body’s production of stress hormones decreases, our sex hormone production increases, our growth hormone levels are elevated, our immune system strengthens, and our platelets become less sticky as blood flows more easily throughout our entire body. As these physiological shifts to our physical body occur, our mind calms, anxiety lessens, stress seems to shed, and there is an emotional shift in how we respond to unmet needs. This state of restful awareness in which the health benefits of meditation are activated can last for a moment or through the entire meditation. But the beauty of this process is that restful awareness continues to benefit our bodies even after our meditation session. As we meditate on a regular basis, we slowly and gently shift our automatic response mechanism to a more unconditioned one, experiencing meditation benefits more regularly. In restful awareness, we move through situations with greater grace and ease. We’re less impulsive and more intuitive. We’re making more conscious choices, because we intuitively know the highest choice in that moment—the one that honors our Self and the person we are interacting with. The one that elevates both of us to the highest plane of existence, the one that comes from a heart filled with compassion, forgiveness, and a desire for peace. Being in tune with this experience is another one of the profound effects and benefits of meditation. The more time we spend in the state of restful awareness, the more we are open to multiple interpretations of a situation or scenario throughout the rest of our day. We become less attached to our previous interpretations, and our need to defend them feels less urgent. We see the bigger picture rather than the more narrow view we once had. Over the first few weeks of daily meditation, this expanded awareness weaves itself intermittently through all our interactions as a side effect of meditation. As we continue to regularly meditate and spend time in stillness and silence, each day becomes more comfortable, restful awareness becomes more and more our natural state, and greater clarity begins to unfold. It becomes less important to defend our point of view because we see greater possibilities. Then creative solutions start to emerge to once-daunting challenges, and constrictions magically open up. These are a few of the ways that meditation benefits our thinking.

7. Increased Creativity and Intuition

As the effects of meditation continue, we become more alert, more creative, more intuitive, and more relaxed. We start having anxiety-free days, and stress becomes more manageable. And, as a benefit of regular meditation, our first response to unmet needs is no longer the ego response. Our more common response to an unmet need starts to be one of restful awareness—of silent witnessing before we act out old, conditioned response patterns yet again. This “new” state could also be called restful alertness because our senses are heightened and we begin to experience a new lightness of being. Little things don’t irritate us or knock us off course as easily. Experiencing greater peace of mind throughout the day is also a very common benefit of meditation, as is more restful sleep, better digestion, and an entire new level of vitality. We are slowly returning to equilibrium—to wholeness! Many of my students tell me 30 minutes of meditation is more restorative to them than 30 minutes of sleep and several studies now seem to confirm that specific benefit from meditation. If you have an irregular or abnormal sleep pattern, it can normalize in just a few days after you have gotten comfortable with your new meditation routine. Of course, if the thing that keeps you awake is a deeper emotional constriction or pain, meditation will help to relieve the acuteness of the pain. However, only a commitment to deeper self-discovery, emotional release, and emotional healing work will relieve the emotional pain at the core of your insomnia.

8. Spiritual Benefits of Meditation

Beyond meditation’s health benefits, the spiritual aspect of meditation has long been misunderstood. And, this is one of the main reasons why mainstream culture has not been more open to embrace the practice and many benefits of meditation. Even the definition of spirituality differs from person to person. Each of us is seeking a reconnection to the whole, to our Source, to God, to our most divine version. We each choose the most resonating path to understand and express the bigger, more profound, universal concepts of life, death, pain, love, truth, bliss, and purpose. Some people don’t care about these things, because their awareness has not drifted into these concepts at this point in their lives. Ultimately, each of us will walk through these experiences and face these questions. So even if someone is not currently engaged in this conversation, simply having an awareness of these natural life principles invokes an understanding that there is something bigger, more expansive, more knowing, and more intelligent than we are. We could call that entity a universal being. Never born and never died. Existing in every moment and connected to all things simultaneously. In Vedanta, the ancient Indian philosophy of self-realization, there is a school of thought known as Advaita (pronounced addveye-ta), a Sanskrit term for “non-duality.” According to Advaita, one-ness is the only reality. Everything else is an illusion, known in Sanskrit as maya. The philosophy states that our ignorance of our one-ness is the cause for all suffering in the world. Only through the direct knowledge of this one-ness (actually experiencing it) can true liberation occur. In Sanskrit, this liberation is called moksha (moke-sha). Understanding that all existence is nondual—not two things but one pure whole—is the path to moksha. Meditation benefits you by gently guiding you to that space.

9. Experiencing the Infinite

Most of us grew up in homes where we were introduced to an all-knowing, all-seeing, infinite being known as God. How else can finite flesh beings such as us, with limited tools and a limited understanding, ingest such a beyond-this-realm concept as oneness? There needs to be an almighty essence that embodies all the characteristics of one-ness so we can better understand them—a sort of guide between us and one-ness. And this is where the benefits of meditation come in. Most of us have a similar understanding regarding our own personal God’s nature. Essentially, this being created everything; is infinite, immortal, omnipresent, spans the existence of time and, therefore, is timeless; controls or influences everything; is everywhere at once or has demigods or avatars who can be anywhere; is capable of resurrection and rebirth; can be worshipped and appealed to; and has the ability to craft what we would consider miracles. Even if you weren’t brought up in a formal religious or spiritual tradition (if you are an atheist you can still meditate and receive all the health benefits of meditation) it is still likely that you believe there is some form of intelligence beyond ours. So whether your orientation is toward the Divine, a god, multiple gods, or a higher power, we define our personal understanding of this universal nature as spirituality. Essentially, spirituality is the journey we take in each moment from our most individual Self to our most universal Self and then back again, integrating a bit of that divine magnificence back into our flesh-encased human form. From constriction to expansion!

10. Expanding Consciousness

When our mind analyzes this being or power, we see this omniscient, omnipotent, infinite God or spirit at once in everything and yet separate from us and the world. Vedanta would say this separation exists only on the surface, only in our mind. Deeper below the surface, our mind, body, and spirit are all the same things—pure, unbounded consciousness—one-ness wearing different disguises. One of the benefits of meditation is to experience this perceived sense of separation less and less. According to Vedanta, liberation lies in knowing the reality of this one-ness and experiencing spirit through varying aspects of study (gyan), devotion (bhakti), selfless service (karma), and practice (raj or the royal path). Two of the practices of the royal path that most directly connect us to spirit are meditation (restful awareness) and yoga (body-centered restful awareness). The path to this understanding of spirit is a deeper understanding of who we are, what we really want in life, and why we are here. This has been referred to as the expansion of consciousness—moving from a constricted, conditioned space where we define ourselves as the roles we play in life and the things we own (essentially, our positions and our possessions) to the more expansive perspective of who we are, how we are connected to everything, and what we came here to do. Essentially, you are not in the universe, the universe is in you! This article on health benefits of meditation is excerpted with permission from Secrets of Meditation Revised Edition: A Practical Guide to Inner Peace and Personal Transformation by davidji.

About The Author davidji is an internationally recognized stress-management expert; corporate mindful performance trainer; meditation, yoga, and Ayurveda teacher; and author of the critically acclaimed and award-winning Amazon #1 bestseller destressifying: The Real-World Guide to Personal Empowerment, Lasting Fulfillment, and Peace of Mind; and Secrets of Meditation: A Practical Guide to Inner Peace and Personal Transformation, winner of the Nautilus Book Award. Visit him at davidji.com

there is substantial research showing that practicing mindfulness for anxiety, stress and just about anything else for that matter literally rewires brain neurons for peace and induces changes all the way down to the genetic level.

Staying Grounded in the Present Moment

To effectively manage stress and anxiety, you need to calm down your amygdala’s fear and panic. A mindfulness mind-set and stress reduction techniques are the antidote to being swept away or immobilized by stress and anxiety. Practicing mindfulness for stress and anxiety is an open, compassionate attitude toward your inner experience that creates a healthy distance between you and your stressful thoughts and anxious feelings, giving you the space to choose how to respond to them. With mindfulness practice for stress and anxiety, you learn how to sit peacefully with your thoughts and feelings in the present moment, creating an inner calm to help contain and reduce stress and anxiety. If I had to pick just one tool for dealing with stress and anxiety, I’d choose mindfulness. The use of mindfulness is supported by a growing neuroscientific literature, demonstrating actual changes to neurons in the amygdala following mindfulness training. Mindfulness-based interventions have gained the attention of therapists, educators, coaches, and even politicians and business leaders. This brain skill can have far-reaching beneficial effects, not only transforming brain neurons but improving immunity, health, life, and relationship satisfaction. Mindfulness for anxiety and stress has the potential to make not only individuals but even businesses, institutions, and societies more stress-proof. In this article, you’ll learn about mindfulness, its history in ancient Buddhist philosophy, and the current use in the West of mindfulness exercises as a widely accepted and effective mind-body practice for anxiety and stress reduction. You’ll learn the qualities of a mindful mind-set and how to train your mind to be more mindful through mindfulness meditation practice and mind-set change. Read on, and learn why “The Mindful Revolution,” as Time magazine dubbed it, is the key to managing your stress and anxiety!

The Roots of Mindfulness

Mindfulness is both a skill and an attitude toward living that originated thousands of years ago as part of Buddhist philosophy. According to the Buddha, mental suffering (or inner stress) occurs because we cling to positive experiences, not wanting them to end, and we strive to avoid pain, sadness, and other negative experiences. This effort to control our mental and bodily experiences is misguided and out of touch with the reality of living. We can never escape loss and suffering because these are natural parts of life. Our experiences are always changing. Living things wither and die, to be replaced by new living things. The forces of nature are beyond human control. The Buddha believed that although pain is inevitable, suffering is not. Suffering results from our attempts to cling to pleasure and push away pain. Buddhist teaching describes suffering in terms of being shot by two arrows. The first arrow is the pain and stress that are an inevitable part of being human. These types of stressors, such as aging, illness, and death, are beyond our control. The second arrow is the one we use to shoot ourselves in the foot by reacting to the natural experience of human suffering (or stress) with aversion and protest. It’s as if we’ve become phobic of our own emotions! When we begin to feel stressed, we create mental stories of worry and regret that compound our mental suffering. We get caught up in negative beliefs about ourselves, regrets about the past, or worries about the future, taking us out of the present moment. Or we try to push our feelings of stress and anxiety away through addictions and avoidance. These strategies just make things worse. As one of my wisest supervisors once said, “The cover-up is worse than the crime!” Practicing mindfulness for stress and anxiety returns us to the present moment. The Buddha also believed that if we can understand the nature of suffering and learn to accept pain and loss with compassion (rather than running away from them), our mental suffering will lessen. We may not be able to get rid of the first arrow of inevitable pain and grief, but we can get rid of the second arrow of self-created mental and emotional suffering with mindfulness-based stress-reduction techniques. By looking at our own inner experiences with a curious, nonjudgmental, and welcoming attitude, we can learn to better tolerate negative states of mind (such as feeling stressed and anxious) and relate to these experiences in a more kind, accepting way. Using mindfulness for anxiety and stress, by calibrating us for momentary neutrality, creates space for such tolerance. Another truth about suffering that the Buddha understood is that our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations, like all other aspects of life, are transient and constantly changing. When we directly face and accept negative experiences, they’ll move through us, rather than getting stuck. The Buddha also believed that living a life of peace, self-discipline, service, and compassion would create an end to suffering on a higher level. University of Massachusetts Medical School professor emeritus Jon Kabat-Zinn was the visionary who first introduced mindfulness practice for stress and anxiety to the Western medical establishment. He reframed the Buddhist concepts using scientific terminology, added some meditation exercises and yoga stretches, and developed an intensive eight-to-ten-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program that included forty minutes of mindfulness meditation practice each day as homework. He recruited into the program a group of chronic-pain patients who weren’t responding to regular medical treatment. Incredibly, these participants reported less pain, improved mood, and better mental health from the beginning to end of the mindfulness-based program (Kabat-Zinn 1982; Kabat-Zinn, Lipworth, and Burney 1985), and in comparison to a group of patients receiving the clinic’s normal care (Kabat-Zinn, Lipworth, and Burney 1985). And thus the Mindful Revolution was born. Today, mindfulness-based interventions for pain, stress, depression, anxiety, cancer, addiction, and chronic illness are accepted worldwide. The credibility of mindfulness exercises as an intervention for anxiety and stress and stress-related illness has been enhanced by its strong neuroscientific base. University of Wisconsin professor of psychology and psychiatry Richie Davidson has been instrumental in demonstrating how mindfulness works in the brain and how mindfulness for stress can change brain structure and functioning to facilitate stress resilience and mental health. Dr. Davidson’s research team used brain imaging technology to study mindfulness meditation techniques in Buddhist monks and novice meditators (Davidson et al. 2003; Lutz et al. 2004). Their findings suggest that “contemplative practices” such as meditation and mindfulness can improve compassion, empathy, kindness, and attention in the brain. These studies powerfully demonstrate neuroplasticity—that even adult brains can change their structure and pathways with repeated practice of new habits. By practicing mindfulness techniques for stress, you can learn to redirect the emotional reactivity of your stress response into more calm, peaceful, and attentive states.

Mindfulness and Your Amygdala

Your feelings of stress and anxiety result from your amygdala’s seeing external experiences or even your own emotions as threats. This is a problem, both because it’s impossible to escape many stressful experiences and because it’s impossible to stop stress-related emotions from arising. The location of your amygdala—in the middle of your brain, beneath your cortex—means that it receives information about threats and initiates your stress response very rapidly, sometimes even before the thinking parts of your brain know what’s happening. In other words, you can’t stop your amygdala from trying to protect you by initiating a stress response when it senses a change in circumstances that could lead to danger, loss, or pain. And you probably wouldn’t want it to! Without your amygdala, you might waltz into traffic, stick your hand on a hot stove, or hang out with unsavory characters without realizing the danger. But you do need to manage your amygdala so that it doesn’t compound your stress and anxiety or create unnecessary suffering for you. Using mindfulness techniques for stress and anxiety allows your prefrontal cortex to calm your amygdala when it overreacts, so you can avoid the Buddha’s second arrow (unnecessary suffering), resulting in stress reduction. Mindfulness skills are the antidote to the amygdala’s rapid reactivity. With mindfulness techniques for anxiety and stress, you can learn to slow things down long enough for the prefrontal cortex to get on board and steer you through the stressful rough waters. Mindfulness meditation practice also creates a calm, relaxed state of mind that prompts your parasympathetic nervous system to calm down the physiology of the “fight, flight, or freeze” response and return to balance. Mindful states of mind send signals to your body that slow down your breathing and your heart rate. They tell your parasympathetic nervous system that the danger has passed and it can bring the body back to balance. In the next section, you’ll learn more about what mindfulness for stress and anxiety is and how you can practice mindfulness-based stress reduction to calm down your amygdala.

What Is Mindfulness?

Think of mindfulness for stress and anxiety as both an attitude toward living and a resilient brain skill that reduces your amygdala’s reactivity. Jon Kabat-Zinn defined mindfulness practice as a way of paying attention purposefully and with nonjudgmental acceptance to your present-moment experience (1994). When you practice adopting the stance of mindfulness for anxiety and stress toward your own experience in the moment, whatever that may be, you open up the space to sit peacefully with and examine your thoughts, feelings, or body sensations, rather than following your amygdala’s instructions to run away, be overwhelmed, or react impulsively. You replace fear of your own inner experience with a curious, gentle, welcoming attitude—free of judgment, self-blame, and aversion. Mindfulness techniques for anxiety and stress reduction allow you to remain grounded in the present moment even when you face difficult stressors, so that your stressful feelings and anxiety feel more manageable or less overwhelming. Mindfulness for stress and anxiety is a state of mind, a deliberate, purposeful, focused way of looking at your experience in the present. Rather than experiencing stress or anxiety on automatic pilot, when you’re mindful, you look at your feelings of stress and anxiety from an observer vantage point. With mindfulness practice, you’re aware of the stress and anxiety flowing through your mind and body without feeling totally merged with it. You maintain the awareness that stress is a moving, dynamic state that’s flowing through you but that it isn’t all that you are. You’re more than whatever’s happening in your mind and body at the moment. Mindfulness meditation teachers often use the metaphor that you are the sky and your thoughts and feelings are clouds. The clouds float by, but the sky is always there. The sky provides the canvas for the clouds to float on. So you’re the sky, and your feelings of stress and anxiety are the clouds. You can sit out the storm until the sky is clear! The most common anchor used in teaching mindfulness techniques for stress and anxiety is your breath. When you get stressed or anxious, your breathing becomes faster and more shallow as your sympathetic nervous system readies your body for fighting or fleeing. When the stressful situation is over, your parasympathetic nervous system begins slowing your breath and heart rate to put the brakes on your stress response. With mindfulness exercises for anxiety and stress, you deliberately focus on your breath in a way that slows it down, even though this isn’t the explicit goal—the goal is just to watch your breath. With mindfulness for anxiety and stress reduction, your breathing becomes slower and more rhythmic, which slows down your heart rate. The parts of your brain responsible for sensing movement and breathing send signals to your amygdala that the threat is over, and the whole system begins to calm down. The best way to understand how your body reacts to mindfulness for stress and anxiety is to experience mindfulness-based stress reduction. The following mindfulness meditation technique will teach you to focus on your breath in a mindful way. The more often you do these sorts of mindfulness exercises for anxiety and stress, the more quickly you’ll develop an attitude of mindfulness.

Exercise: A Simple Breath Awareness Meditation

Here are some instructions for a basic breath awareness mindfulness meditation. Do this once or twice a day for two weeks, and observe what happens. There’s no right or wrong way to do this mindfulness practice for stress and anxiety. Try to accept whatever your individual experience is. The goal is not to achieve perfect focus on your breath, but rather to learn how your mind works! It’s normal for your mind to wander, but when you catch your mind wandering and deliberately bring it back, you’re learning to mindfully control the focus of your attention. 1. Pick a comfortable, quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. 2. Sit with your spine upright on a cushion on the floor or a chair. If you use a chair, make sure your feet are touching the ground. Close your eyes, or maintain a soft, unfocused gaze. 3. Begin to notice your breathing. Try to maintain an open and curious attitude. Notice where your breath goes when it enters and leaves your body. 4. Don’t try to force or change your breath in any way. It may change naturally as you observe it. 5. If your mind wanders, note what it’s doing, and then gently bring your attention back to your breath. 6. Continue observing your breath for eight to ten minutes. At the end of the practice, notice how your mind and body feel, then slowly come back to the room. As you continue this mindfulness practice for stress reduction for two weeks, notice if your mind resists the idea of change by creating judgmental thoughts such as I won’t be able to keep it up or It won’t do any good. You don’t have to believe your judgmental thoughts; just notice them. Try to replace your judgmental attitude with one of curiosity, and keep an open mind so that you don’t prematurely limit your experience. In addition to paying attention in an open, nonjudgmental way, there are other characteristics of a mindful state of mind that create a powerful shift in brain functioning. In the next section, we’ll discuss them in detail.

Characteristics of a Mindful State of Mind

Being mindful is more than meditating or focusing on your breath. Rather, it’s a state of mind, characterized by the following attributes.

1. An Observing Stance

Mindfulness for anxiety and stress doesn’t take away your stressful thoughts and feelings, but it changes your relationship to them. It’s as if you’re an observer who can look at these feelings without getting consumed by them or pushing them away. Thus, being mindful gives you more mental space and freedom. You don’t have to be controlled by your stress response; you can redirect your focus, thereby gaining more control over your behavior when stressed.

2. Slowing Things Down

When your amygdala senses a stressor, it acts very quickly to “hijack” your brain for emergency action. However, not every stressor is an emergency, and successfully dealing with most stressors requires thinking of solutions, tolerating anxiety and uncertainty, and adapting to new situations. These are all functions of your prefrontal cortex, which is slower to receive and process information than your amygdala. Therefore, the first step in being mindful is to slow things down so that you can take a broader view of the situation before reacting. Mindfulness for stress and anxiety moves your mind out of “acting” mode into “watching” mode, taking away the sense of urgency and giving your mind and body time to get back in sync.

3. Focusing on the Present Moment

When you practice mindfulness for anxiety and stress, you focus your attention deliberately and openly on what’s happening in the present moment, both within you and around you. You may notice and describe your sensory experience—what you’re seeing, hearing, feeling, or smelling right at that moment. Or you may focus on your breath to see what’s happening inside and to ground yourself. This awareness of the present helps you stop ruminating about the past or worrying about the future.

4. Replacing Fear with Curiosity

Mindfulness for anxiety and stress replaces fear and emotional reactivity with an open, spacious curiosity. What’s that thought or feeling that’s arising? What does it look like and feel like? Is this something helpful or important that you want to focus on, or is it just an automatic event that you can observe as it passes through you? How does this emotion or experience change and unfold over time?

5. Openness and Non-judgment

Non-judgment is a key part of a mindfulness practice for stress and anxiety. When your amygdala triggers your stress response, you automatically begin to label the situation or your reactions as a threat that you need to escape. This is the aversion that the Buddha referred to as the second arrow. By observing your judging mind—a key mindfulness technique—you can avoid automatically buying into these negative judgments. You can then deliberately redirect your mind back to observing your thoughts and feelings with an open mind. This transforms your experience of stress by taking the terror and panic out of it.

6. An Attitude of Equanimity

Based on the Buddha’s original teachings about non-attachment to pleasure or pain, a mindfulness attitude is one of peace, balance, and equanimity. To have equanimity means to let go of “needing” things to be a certain way. Equanimity keeps us from getting shot by that second arrow of addictive cravings or feelings of panic and desperation. Everything is impermanent, everything is changing, and many important life outcomes are at least partially out of our control. Therefore, we need to stand firm and not be swept off balance by stress and anxiety.

7. “Being” Instead of “Doing”

When you’re stressed, your amygdala creates an impetus for action to eliminate the threat so that you can be safe. Finding solutions or learning new skills in a stressful situation requires a goal-oriented mind-set. But your mind and body also need periods of rest and quiet so that you don’t get depleted by too much “doing.” Mindfulness for stress and anxiety teaches you how to just “be” in the moment, without any particular goal or outcome and without judging your experience or wanting to be rid of it. In the next section, you’ll learn to deliberately focus on your body or your sensory experience with mindful openness and curiosity.

The “How” of Mindfulness

It sometimes takes weeks or even months of practice to really understand what it means to be mindful. Following are different ways of practicing mindfulness for stress and anxiety. Try all of them, or find the one that works best for you. Research shows that practicing mindfulness for at least thirty minutes per day can actually shrink your amygdala (Hölzel et al. 2011). Optimize your environment for practicing mindfulness for anxiety and stress. You may want to create a “meditation corner” with a comfortable pillow and some pleasant objects for you to focus on. A scented candle, a flower, or a smooth stone can be an anchor for your mindful attention, as I’ll describe later in the article. Set aside a time every day for mindfulness practice, and put it in your schedule. You can practice mindfulness for stress and anxiety lying in bed, sitting cross-legged or in a chair, or even while walking, as you’ll see below. Find the way that works for you. You don’t always have to practice for thirty minutes. Studies show that five to twenty minutes of meditation per day for five weeks creates some of the same brain changes as longer periods of meditation (Moyer et al. 2011) I suggest you start with eight to ten minutes a day of formal practice and then gradually increase the length of your mindfulness meditations. And so your mindfulness journey for stress reduction begins.

Exercise: Mindfulness of Your Breath

This mindfulness practice is the one I use most frequently with my clients because it allows you to really feel and connect with your breath and also to feel grounded and solid in your body. It’s my adaptation (with permission) of a mindfulness practice used by Daniel Siegel, author of many books and courses on mindfulness and the brain. This version of the instructions is for when you sit upright on the couch. Feel free to adapt the wording if you’re lying on the floor or bed. 1. Sit comfortably on the couch with an upright yet relaxed pose. Now close your eyes or maintain a soft gaze. Let your mind and body begin to settle into the practice, noticing what your body feels like. 2. Focus your attention on your feet. Notice all the parts of your feet that are touching the floor. Notice your toes; where your toes join your foot; the middle of your foot; your heel; your ankle; the whole bottom of your foot; the inside and the outside. 3. Let your feet sink into the floor, noticing the support of the earth and feeling it ground you. 4. Begin to notice all the parts of your body that touch the couch— the back of your thighs, your seat, perhaps your back, your arms, and your hands. Let your hands and feet sink into the support of the couch and floor. Notice how your body feels as you sit, supported by the couch and floor. 5. Begin to notice your breath. Just breathe easily for a few breaths, noticing where your breath goes as you breathe in and as you breathe out. Notice the pause between your in-breath and your out-breath. If your mind wanders—as it probably will, because that’s what minds do—just notice where it goes for an instant and then slowly, gently, direct your attention back to your breath. Continue to do this as you begin to notice your breath in your nose, chest, and belly. 6. Slowly, bring your attention to your breath as it enters your nostrils. Notice whether it’s hot or cold, light or heavy, and slow or fast. How does it feel? Notice where your breath touches your nostrils as you breathe in and as you breathe out. Continue to notice your breath in your nostrils for a few minutes. 7. Begin to notice your breath in your chest. Notice how your chest moves up and down with your breath like a wave, moving up as you breathe in and down as you breathe out. Just notice your chest as it expands and contracts with your breath. Watch the rhythmic wave in your chest as you breathe in and as you breathe out. Continue watching your chest for a few minutes. 8. Direct your attention downward, toward your belly. You can put your hand on your belly to help you connect with the spot just below your belly button. This spot is at the very core and center of your body. Notice how your belly moves out when you breathe in and how it moves in when you breathe out. There’s no need to force or change your breath in any way. And if your mind wanders, bring it back to your belly kindly and gently. As you notice your breath in your belly, notice whether your breath changes or stays the same. Notice the rhythm of your breath in your belly. 9. As you notice your breath in your belly, begin to expand your attention outward toward your whole body. Begin to notice your whole body breathing as a single unit—breathing in and breathing out in a slow, steady rhythm. Notice the waves of breath as they move in and out of your body—filling your nose, the back of your throat, your chest, your ribcage, your belly, and your whole body with fresh, cleansing air. Notice how your breath travels through your body, and see whether it seems to open up any space in the area it touches. Just notice the rhythm of your whole body breathing as one: first the in-breath, then the pause between the breaths, and finally the out-breath. Breathing in and breathing out… 10. Slowly, begin to bring your attention back to the couch, to your hands and feet. Slowly open your eyes and begin to notice the room around you. Take your time, and notice how your body feels now. Is there any difference from when you began the mindfulness practice? When my clients do this mindfulness practice, many report a deep sense of peace, comfort, and calm. Feeling stressed can create tension, tightness, and constriction in your body, particularly in your chest and belly. This mindfulness-based stress-reduction practice can help open up space in these areas. A mindful focus creates distance from feelings of stress and generates a sense of peace and well-being. Your breath is a powerful anchor for your attention, but this isn’t the only way to practice mindfulness for anxiety and stress. You can also use your senses to create a sense of present-moment awareness and inner peace, as you’ll see in the next mindfulness practice.

Exercise: Mindfulness of Your Senses

When your amygdala sounds the alarm bells, you lose touch with the present moment as your emergency response kicks in. You may feel compelled to “do something” about the stressor or to run away from the overwhelming feelings. By deliberately focusing attention on your senses instead, you move from a “doing,” “getting,” or “avoiding” mindset to “noticing and describing” what’s around you. This mindfulness technique for stress reduction helps you feel more present and connected. We connect with the outside world through our senses. When we’re mindful of what’s around us, we gain awareness that we’re part of a larger world of living and inanimate objects. Connecting with your senses can also be a way of what psychologist Rick Hanson (2009) calls taking in the good, or deliberately directing your brain to focus on relaxing or pleasant things in a way that helps calm down your stress response. Walking in nature is a wonderful way to practice mindfulness of the senses. Being outdoors and close to nature has a calming influence on your brain and body, a natural backdrop for mindfulness meditation for anxiety. When you can’t get outside, you can still practice mindfulness of your senses by adjusting the following practice to your situation. You can sit on your deck or in your garden or even look out the window, or you can look at pictures or photographs of nature scenes. Exciting new research shows that walking outside in green spaces or even looking at nature scenes can increase your mind and body’s resilience to stress. A study of college students (Bratman et al. 2015) showed that walking in green campus parkland reduced anxiety and worry more than walking in a busy street and had some cognitive benefits as well. In another study (Van den Berg et al. 2015), students were shown one of two types of pictures: either nature scenes, with trees and empty pathways, or urban scenes, with cars and people. They were then given a stressful math test. Those who had been shown pictures of trees had faster cardiovascular recovery (for example, their heart rate returned to normal more quickly after the test was over) than those who had viewed urban scenes. Measures of vagal tone showed that their parasympathetic nervous systems were better able to put the brakes on their “fight or flight” response. Benefits of mindfulness for stress reduction can occur whether the scene is one or three dimensional. Mindfulness of Your Senses in Nature As you walk or sit in nature, begin to notice your surroundings as a whole, noticing also how you feel in these surroundings. Notice that you’re not alone—you’re a part of the rhythm and pace of nature. 1. Bring your attention slowly to what you see. Notice the colors: the rich browns of the earth, the greens of the trees, or the blues of the sky or water. Are the colors bright or muted? Notice which ones draw your attention. Notice light and shadows, shapes and textures. Which surfaces are smooth, and which are uneven? Which are shiny, and which are dull? Which have sharp angles, and which are rounded? Just notice everything that you see. Now pay particular attention to one object—perhaps a tree or a flower— and notice its color, shape, and texture. 2. Focus on what you hear. Perhaps you hear the chirping of birds, the sound of the wind, or a babbling brook. Notice the sounds your feet make as they crunch on the gravel or sink into the earth. Do you hear people’s voices? Do you hear a dog barking? Notice the pitch and rhythm of the sounds. Which ones draw you in? Notice how the sounds emerge and then fade away—try to notice the silence between the sounds. Now pick one of these sounds to focus on. Notice its tone, pitch, and rhythm. Notice whether it stays the same or changes. 3. Notice what you smell. The smells around you may be sweet or spicy, earthy or fresh, faint or intense. Now pick just one smell to focus on—perhaps the breeze, the earth, or the flowers—and notice everything you can about it. 4. Notice what you feel. Notice the temperature of the air. Notice the feeling of the sun or the fresh breeze on your skin. Notice whether the air is moving fast or slow. Notice the feeling of the ground beneath your feet. 5. Notice how you feel inside your body. What’s it like inside your chest, your back, and your belly? Do you feel any more spacious and calm than when you began this practice? Do you feel any part of you letting go of tension? 6. Notice how your feet feel as you walk. Try to slow the pace of your walking so that you notice each step: Right foot up, moving forward, and then down. Left foot up, moving forward, and then down… For a short version of this mindfulness practice for stress reduction, pay attention to just one sense. For example, focus only on what you see, hear, smell, or feel. Or just notice each step you take as you walk, without focusing on your surroundings. You can also do this mindfulness practice for stress and anxiety just about anywhere, at any time—not just in nature.

Exercise: Mindfulness of Objects

Another mindfulness exercise to calm your stressed-out brain is to focus on what’s around you. If you’re feeling stressed or anxious while making a presentation, interviewing for a job, taking an exam, or getting ready for an important dinner party, try silently naming three objects in the room and describing their color, shape, and texture as a quick and easy way of moving your mind from “fight, flight, or freeze” mode to “notice and describe” mode. At home, create a “mindfulness corner” where you keep objects with interesting colors, textures, smells, or sounds. Use it as a sanctuary when you feel stressed, or simply practice your mindfulness exercises for anxiety and stress reduction there daily. Each time you visit your “mindfulness corner,” spend a few minutes examining the sensory qualities of each object. Look at it, touch it, smell it, and taste it if appropriate. Things that might work well for this purpose include seashells, smooth stones, scented candles, mints, sprigs of lavender or rosemary, flowers or leaves, lemons, small glass bottles, wooden beads, soft fabric, and hand cream. You can also buy traditional meditation objects such as a mindfulness bell, a Tibetan singing bowl, a small statue of the Buddha, or a Himalayan salt candle. The options are limited only by your budget! The exercises in this article are great ways to learn and practice mindfulness for anxiety and stress. Yet, as we discussed earlier, mindfulness is also a state of mind and a way of living that’s larger than any particular practice. Practicing mindfulness teaches you a stress-proof attitude that you can integrate into every aspect of your daily life. And the more you integrate mindfulness or stress and anxiety into your life, the more opportunity you’ll have to calm your amygdala when it starts trying to hijack your brain. In the following section, you’ll learn some ways of making mindfulness part of your daily routine.

Integrating Mindfulness into Your Everyday Life

When you’re feeling stressed or anxious, it’s often because you have too much to do and too little time or because you’re dealing with an emotionally difficult situation. Stress takes your mind away from the present moment as your amygdala focuses your attention on what will happen if you don’t solve the problems or complete the tasks. Your mind may get tired and murky; you may find yourself getting distracted or zoning out instead of focusing on what’s most important. You may run around on automatic pilot as your heart races and your breathing shortens in “fight, flight, or freeze” mode. These triggers serve to remind you to choose mindfulness to deal with stress and anxiety. The following practice is adapted from a practice used by Dr. Elisha Goldstein (Goldstein 2010). Use it to become more mindful from the moment you wake up until you go to bed at night, constantly redirecting your brain back to the present and weakening your amygdala’s power to take away your sense of peace and connection with the world.

Integrating Mindfulness into Your Daily Routine

When you first wake up, instead of jumping out of bed, make time for the STOP practice described here. It’ll help you start your day off on a mindful note. Continue to use this mindfulness practice throughout the day whenever you begin to feel stressed or anxious, as a way of grounding yourself when stress begins to creep in. 1. Stop. Stop whatever you’re doing, and bring your mind back to the present moment. 2. Take a breath. Take a few deep breaths to slow down your “fight, flight, or freeze” response. 3. Observe. Begin to notice what you’re feeling, thinking, and doing. What’s going on in your body? Describe any bodily sensations (such as tightness in your throat or shoulders) you become aware of. Is there an emotion word you can use to describe these feelings (such as “angry” or “scared”)? Try to stay in the moment with these feelings and “breathe into them”: imagine sending your breath into the areas that feel tight, constricted, or activated by these feelings. 4. Proceed. When you’re feeling sufficiently present and aware, go about your business in a deliberate way. You may want to simply continue what you were doing, but with a more mindful demeanor. Here are some other ways to integrate mindfulness for anxiety and stress into your life as you get ready for and go about your day: + When you observe your morning routine, notice if your mind is already at work or school, worrying or planning how to deal with your daily tasks and challenges. When you notice your amygdala hijacking your thoughts, bring your attention back to the present moment. If you’re in the shower, notice the flow, temperature, and sound of the water, the bubbles, and the smell of the soap. When you drink your morning coffee, notice the smell of the coffee beans, the warmth of the cup, and the taste of the first sip. As you eat your breakfast, slow down and pay attention to the sight, smell, and taste of the food and how it feels to chew and swallow. Mornings offer multiple opportunities to practice your mindfulness-based stress reduction skills. + Mindfully greet the other members of your household or your pets. Slow down and focus on what they’re saying and their nonverbal expressions. Focus on your feelings of love for them. Take time to say good-bye as you leave the house. + On your way to your destination, notice what your mind is doing. Try leaving the house a little earlier so that you can walk or drive more slowly. Let the things you would normally see as interruptions or obstacles (such as red lights or delays) be reminders to practice mindfulness for anxiety and stress reduction. If you feel yourself getting angry or impatient with the traffic or long red lights, direct your attention to your breath or focus on the things you see around you—the cars, the people walking by, the trees, the sky, and so on. As you walk into work or school, drop off your children, or go about your errands, check in with your body and notice any tension. Bring yourself back to the present moment by slowing down and focusing on your breathing, what you see around you, or the feelings in your feet as you walk. Do the STOP practice if you begin to notice bodily tension or negative emotions arising. + Practice STOP before checking your phone, checking your e-mail, or logging into social media. Set time limits for these tasks, and don’t let them sway you into mindless reactivity that distracts you from what’s most important. + Use STOP or breath awareness mindfulness practices throughout the day. Notice if your muscles are tense, if your breathing is shallow, or if your mind is wandering. Notice if you’re feeling reactive, spaced out, or focused and alert. Change your focus by moving or stretching for a few minutes, practicing mindful breathing, or getting some fresh air. Mindfulness is a skill you learn through repeated practice. It represents a shift in perspective away from constant focus on stressors and amygdala-driven reactivity. It allows your mind and body to rest peacefully and enjoy the moment despite the stress. Stress can be there, but it doesn’t have to consume you and take you away from the people you love, getting your work done, looking after your health, and being present in your life. But mindfulness for anxiety and stress is more than a change in attitude. With a regular mindfulness practice for anxiety and stress reduction and by adopting a mindful attitude toward living, you can actually change the structure of your brain, as you’ll see in the next section.

How Mindfulness Calms Down Your Amygdala

Researchers have been studying the effects of mindfulness on the brain and body for more than twenty-five years using sophisticated technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brain in real time. They have measured effects of mindfulness on depression, anxiety, physiological responses, blood pressure, and resistance to illness. There’s now a wide body of evidence showing that mindfulness meditation works to reduce your body and brain’s response to stress, taking away some of your amygdala’s power to steer you off course. Mindfulness-based interventions are associated with improved mood, reduced anxiety, better coping when stressed, enhanced emotion regulation, and less physiological reactivity (such as sweating and rapid heartbeat) in response to stressors. A meta-analysis that pooled the results of twenty mindfulness studies concluded that “the consistent and relatively strong level of effect sizes across very different types of sample indicates that mindfulness training might enhance general features of coping with distress and disability in everyday life, as well as under more extraordinary conditions of serious disorder or stress” (Grossman et al. 2003, 39). This meta-analysis showed that mindfulness training reduced disability and improved mood and quality of life in people dealing with a variety of physical illnesses (such as cancer, chronic pain, and heart disease) and mental health issues. Mindfulness interventions have also been shown to reliably reduce anxiety, depression, and stress in healthy people (Chiesa and Serretti 2009; Khoury et al. 2013). Studies show that mindfulness training for stress can make the amygdala less reactive to stressors. A study by researchers at the University Hospital Zurich (Lutz et al. 2014) focused on whether mindfulness training for anxiety and stress reduction could affect the brain when subjects viewed pictures designed to trigger emotions. One group of subjects was given mindfulness training, and the other group (the control group) wasn’t. Then both groups were shown pictures while their brains were scanned. Subjects were given clues that indicated whether the next picture would be positive, negative, neutral, or unknown (meaning there was a fifty-fifty chance it could be positive or negative). The subjects in the mindfulness group were instructed to use their mindfulness skills (for example, noticing their reactions without judgment) when the clue indicated that an unpleasant or unknown picture was coming. The brain scans showed that, compared to the control group, subjects in the mindfulness group had less activity in the amygdala and in brain regions involved in negative emotion when they anticipated seeing negative or unknown pictures. Repeated practice of mindfulness for anxiety and stress over weeks or months may even change the structure of your amygdala. In a study by Harvard Medical School researchers (Hölzel et al. 2011), an eight-week mindfulness course led not only to reduced stress and anxiety but also to changes in the brain: the amount of nerve cells and neural connections shrank in the amygdala but increased in the hippocampus. Neither of these brain changes was found in the control group. Scientists have pooled data from more than twenty studies (Fox et al. 2014) to show that mindfulness for stress and anxiety reduction affects at least eight different brain areas associated with self-regulation, memory, focus, motivation, compassion, and resilience. In particular, mindfulness can strengthen your hippocampus, an area that has many cortisol receptors and can be damaged by chronic stress. Your hippocampus can help you mentally process and file away stressful memories so that they’re less likely to be triggered later. This suggests that mindfulness practices can make your brain more resilient to stress. These research results are exciting, because they prove that you don’t have to live in a monastery or on a mountaintop to calm your amygdala and strengthen your hippocampus with mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques. Practicing mindfulness for stress over time makes your amygdala less reactive to negative events or uncertainty in your environment and helps your hippocampus process stressful events more effectively.

Final Thoughts

In this article, you learned about mindfulness for anxiety and stress as both a practice and an approach to living that can help you better deal with stress. Mindfulness meditation has its roots in ancient Buddhist philosophy, but it has been adapted for Western use. Being mindful means having an open, accepting, and compassionate attitude toward your own experience in the present moment, whatever that may be. It means allowing, rather than pushing away your inner experience; it means being in the moment, rather than constantly worrying or rushing around. Mindfulness-based interventions have helped reduce people’s feelings of stress, lower their blood pressure, and improve their resistance to illness. Mental health professionals use such mindfulness interventions to treat depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. Mindfulness has also been shown to shrink the amygdala (the brain’s alarm center) and protect the hippocampus from being damaged by stress. The mindfulness exercises in this article can help you reduce your reactivity to stress and anxiety. Do them as often as you can! This article on mindfulness for anxiety and stress is excerpted with permission from The Stress-Proof Brain: Master Your Emotional Response to Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity by Melanie Greenberg PhD. New Harbinger Publications, Inc. copyright © 2017 Melanie Greenberg.

References

1. Kaliman P, Alvarez-lópez MJ, Cosín-tomás M, Rosenkranz MA, Lutz A, Davidson RJ. Rapid changes in histone deacetylases and inflammatory gene expression in expert mindfulness meditators. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2014;40:96-107. 2. Moyer C. A., Donnelly M. P. W., Anderson J. C., Valek K. C., Huckaby S. J., Wiederholt D. A., et al. (2011). Frontal electroencephalographic asymmetry associated with positive emotion is produced by very brief meditation training. Psychol. Sci. 22 1277–1279 10.1177/0956797611418985 3. Grossman P, Niemann L, Schmidt S, Walach H. Mindfulness-based stress reduction and health benefits. A meta-analysis. J Psychosom Res. 2004;57(1):35-43. 4. Britta K. Hölzel, et al. Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Research and Neuroimaging. 2011. Volume 191, Issue 1, Pages 36–43.

About The Author Melanie Greenberg, Ph.D., is a practicing psychologist and executive coach in Marin County, CA, and an expert on managing stress, health, and relationships using proven techniques from neuroscience, mindfulness, and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). With more than twenty years of experience as a professor, writer, researcher, clinician, and coach, Greenberg has delivered workshops and talks to national and international audiences. She writes the Mindful Self-Express blog for Psychology Today, and is a popular media expert who has been quoted on cnn.com, forbes.com, BBC Radio, ABC News, Yahoo! Shine, and Lifehacker, as well as in Self, Redbook, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Fitness Magazine, Women’s Day, Cosmopolitan, and The Huffington Post. She has also appeared on radio shows like Leading With Emotional Intelligence, The Best People We Know, Inner Healers, and Winning Life Through Pain. Greenberg was named one of the 30 Most Prominent Psychologists to Follow on Twitter. Visit her website at drmelaniegreenberg.biz

meditating on the heart chakra is a powerful way to access the subtle body and tap into many of the gifts hidden therein. photo: angus

The Heart Chakra and Its Vibration

The physiological and spiritual heart center is referred to as the hṛt chakra but is more commonly known as the anāhata chakra. The heart is thought to contain a mystical, silent sound that, like the perpetual expansion of the universe, resounds continually. Vibration within the heart is, paradoxically, called the “unstruck sound” (anāhata śabda), implying a profound, unruffled stillness. In the depths of heart chakra opening meditation, it is possible to experience silence resonating in the heart—a silence purported to lie at the very foundation of being. In the transformational alchemy of the subtle body, yogis attune to vibration conducted through interior pathways of the body. Sound travels through nāḍīs, and like the vibrating strings of a sitar, pure sound currents reverberate through the nerves and vessels. Thus, frequencies of sound are borne on the prāṇa, moving through the fluids and tissues of the body. When the bones, joints, ligaments, and organs align in āsana and the lungs and heart expand through prāṇāyāma, the “soundless sound” of prāṇa is amplified. Om—the heart chakra opening mantra—is the classic syllabic current used to expand and harmonize the vibratory rhythms of the heart in the subtle body. Throughout the sacred literature of India, the morpheme Om denotes the sound current of the divine (śabda Brāhma). In the first chapter of Patañjali’s Yoga Sutras, which extolls samādhi, the enunciation of Om, tasya vācakaḥ praṇavaḥ, exalts the divine within by amplifying the inner acoustics of the heart, or anāhata chakra. Thus, it is through sound vibration—sound that eludes the interpretive powers of the intellect—that a divine presence awakens. With this said, the heart chakra is the source of all vibratory rhythm, audible to those who can attune to its sublime presence. During spells of profound heart chakra opening meditation, the atmospheric space of the heart expands and absorbs the mind, the result being an interior state of quiescent joy. In this way, the vibrations of the spiritual heart, called spanda, are inseparable from the flow of consciousness. In the Vijñāna Bhairava (Wisdom of Śiva), a collection of tantric teachings from Kashmir compiled around the eighth century c.e., it is said,

He whose mind together with the senses is merged into the interior space of the heart, Who has entered mentally into the middle of the heart lotus, Who has excluded everything else from consciousness, Acquires the highest fortune.

Practice: The Flame of the Heart Meditation

The aim of this heart opening meditation technique is to cultivate undistracted awareness and interior light by imagining a steady flame in the cave of your heart. Begin by sitting comfortably on a three- to six-inch support throughout this heart chakra meditation and releasing the weight of your leg bones and pelvis into the cushion. Lift the sides of your trunk and raise and open the region around the eyes of your heart. Close your eyes and visualize a flame in the middle of the cave of your heart. As you settle into a very light rhythm with your breath, imagine this heart flame burning steadily. Should winds of distraction penetrate your heart-mind, then the flame will waver, flicker, and burn uncontrollably. When distracted, the flame will not burn brightly and its oscillations will cause the flame tip to smoke, clouding your concentration. Make your breath even, soft, and steady. This will help the flame of your heart burn steadfast and still. Visualize an unruffled flame with a constant glow, like a flame in a windless place. Imagine the radiance and glow of this steady light filling your entire chest. Sense the spirit of great joy that accompanies this unperturbed, undying flame within your heart chakra. Remain for five to forty-five minutes.

The Cave of the Heart

One of the common allusions to the heart chakra in yoga metaphysics is that of the heart as a cave. Hidden, secret, and inscrutable, the heart is like an ancient grotto wherein the lantern of awareness is kept lit… and can be accessed through the heart meditations shared herein. As a way of describing entry into the cave of the heart through meditation, from surface to depth, my Dzogchen teacher in Tibetan Buddhist practice, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, outlines three aspects of the heart—the outer, inner, and secret (innermost) heart. The outer heart can be thought of as the threshold to the cave. It is affected by circumstances and interactions with people—in a sense, it is shaped by the day-to-day effects of karma. Any formulation of a social self is determined by exchanges and contacts that occur at the level of the outer heart. This layer is a source of both joy and pain, as thoughts, emotions, hopes, and fears are conditioned by outside phenomena. The outer heart is subject to the variable winds of circumstance, and as a result, confusion, anger, attachment, pride, and jealousy (the five poisons) can metastasize inside this heart chakra. The inner heart, the second layer of the heart chakra, is located in the interior heart cave. It is a repository for our inner feelings, moods, and impressions and can be accessed with the heart chakra meditations outlined in this article. This middle heart holds the personal sense of I, born from myriad imprints that determine how we feel about ourselves. This includes everything that is ingrained in the psyche due to conditioning, initially and formatively, by the domestic scene into which we are born. It includes self-image; thoughts, judgments, habitual affect, and personal identity. This layer has lasting, hidden, often ambiguous effects on the subtle body. The deepest level, the secret heart, has an affinity with the immeasurable—that which cannot be put into language and can never be known. This secret heart chakra is intimately woven within the subtle body. Due to its depth, it can never be named or recognized. The only way to commune with this deep-seated, enduring heart is by moving into the deep recesses of the cave, veritably a journey into the heart of darkness. This move involves a radical suspension of self, a direct experience of utter selflessness. Since thought, cognition, and intellect are barred from gaining access to the secret heart (like Plato’s shadows, they merely project traces of their own images), the ultimate way to arrive at this layer is through unmitigated surrender, a kind of out-and-out, total letting go. By ceding to not knowing, by capitulating to the darkest recesses of the heart cave, we “see the greatness of the self, [our] sorrow at an end.” In Buddhist teaching, this unforgettable dropping away of self-identity is described as śūnyatā (emptiness). My Zen teacher Roshi Joan Sutherland identifies this meditative journey into the wisdom of the subtle body and the depth of the heart as the process of “endarkenment.”

Practice: Meditation in the Cave of the Heart

This heart chakra healing meditation technique guides one to the very depths of the interior heart, to the secret heart, a place beyond comprehension that transcends linguistic reference. Assume a comfortable seated position and begin your session with soft, slow strokes of your breath. Settle into the weight of your bones and be sure to relax your jaw, tongue, and throat. Gently shepherd your awareness into the cave of your heart. Become aware of the outside surface of your anatomical heart, the side that faces outward toward the world. In so doing, recall any events within the last several hours, days, or weeks that have had an impact on your emotional being. Make note of the events or the people that form the constellation of your felt experience in this outer heart. Next, bring meditative awareness to your inner heart and notice how outside circumstances affect your breathing, heart rate, brain waves, and electrical signals. This involves the process of interoception, observing feelings of pain, body temperature, pulsation, tingling, and so forth. These sensations may reflect emotive states of humiliation, judgment, shame, irritation, intolerance, and so on. Notice how there may be traces of toxic feeling left in your subtle body from events or personal relationships that have arisen in your life. Be patient and tolerant while practicing nonjudgmental awareness. Finally, bring meditative awareness to the posterior surface of your heart, the side that faces inward toward your spine. This is the secret heart that is outside karma, outside of circumstances, causes, and conditions. Conjure feelings of space and lightness in this innermost recess of your heart. Avoid attempting to identify or make cognitive sense of your heart meditation opening experience. With undistracted awareness, allow yourself to be absorbed into your secret heart chakra area and into silence, space, and a sense of timelessness. This realm is uncontaminated by bias, interpretation, or judgment. Rest your awareness in the unspeakable, unintelligible, and truly vast realm of your innermost heart. Remain in this heart healing meditation for ten to thirty minutes. This article on heart chakra meditation is excerpted with permission from Yoga of the Subtle Body by Tias Little. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. shambhala.com © 2016

About The Author Tias Little began practicing yoga in 1985 and has been teaching workshops and trainings around the world since 1997. One of the foremost instructors in North America, he offers intensives at all major yoga conferences and institutes, including the Yoga Journal conferences, Kripalu, Esalen, and Omega Institute. He is the founder of Prajna Yoga School in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he hosts retreats, workshops, and teacher-training programs year round. He has published articles in Yoga Journal, Yoga International, LA Yoga, Yoga Chicago, and Ascent magazine and is a regular contributor to online yoga sites such as Elephant Journal in Boulder and Yoga Modern in Dallas. Visit his website: prajnayoga.net

the ancient tibetan practice of dream yoga is designed to give you access to dream consciousness in waking reality, which has the effect of powerfully expanding your spiritual awareness.

Dream Yoga: The Practice of Waking Up Many people say their lives are so busy that they don’t have time for meditation. Yet every living being must sleep. During sleep time, we don’t schedule meetings or have appointments to keep. The time is ours, and is usually subject to the mindless, random chaos of our undisciplined minds. We spend nearly one-third of our life sleeping and dreaming. That means that if we live to be ninety, we would have spent thirty years of our life asleep. Can you imagine what it would mean if you were able to understand what is going on during those lost years of your life and to tap that mental power and creativity as a source of spiritual awakening? In many of the great wisdom traditions of the world, there are traditions of “dream yoga” meditations that cultivate a sense of lucid wakefulness within the dream state. The profound practices of Tibetan dream yoga blend the lucid clarity of mindful presence with the boundless creativity of the mind. And they combine elements of creative, reflective, and receptive meditation practices. Before you go to sleep, hold the clear intention to wake up and be conscious within your dreams. In some Native American traditions, dreamers are advised to remember to look at their hands within a dream, or to raise their hands to the sky in a prayer for rain to bless the earth. Holding a simple intent like this is a good place to begin a dream yoga practice. Dreams have much to teach us about how we “construct” our experiences and sense of identity or self in our waking life. During mindless daily life, we seldom look deeply enough into our perceptions, conceptions, and projections to recognize that our selective attention, biases, preconceptions, and assumptions are actually weaving together to construct our experience. Properly understood as expounded in the philosophy of Tibetan dream yoga, our ordinary life is seen to be a “waking dream” subject to many of the same conditions of our “sleeping dreams.” Learning to wake up within our dreams, and see and understand deeply and clearly what is going on, can be a profound path of awakening. As Thoreau said, “Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake.” Ask yourself, “How do I know what reality is? In my dream last night, I believed it was reality, I felt it, I experienced it, I was moved by it. Then I woke up and discarded these beliefs. How do I distinguish the real from the unreal? Where is last night’s dream now? Where is yesterday’s experience?” In a similar way, you can reflect upon the waking state as a dream. If you see that nighttime dreams and daytime illusions are the same, this can reduce compulsiveness and suffering and is also one of the keys to practicing dream yoga. As you begin to understand the relativity of your waking life and to experience it more as a dream that is “relatively” true, you will become more receptive to new possibilities and interpretations and move more deeply into dream yoga consciousness. Dreams are partial realities, ultimately unreal, illusory. You can see that your situation may not be quite as serious as you thought. This may shift your sense of self, improve your relationships, and help you to live with greater freedom, compassion, and creativity. There are different ways to go from the unquestioned delusions of ordinary life to a state of spiritual maturity, but learning to regard existence as being dreamlike is one of the most enjoyable and interesting paths. For most of our lives we have viewed the world as real, solid, and concrete. Learning to see it in a whole different light can be very enlightening. Everything becomes easier. This helps us to lighten up, to be kinder, to hold both the good and the bad more lightly as fleeting, insubstantial, dreamlike experiences. We begin to sense what infinity may be—infinite time, infinite space, infinite consciousness, infinite possibilities. All of these are the benefits of practicing dream yoga. As you learn to look, listen, and reflect more deeply, you penetrate and deconstruct the layers of illusion and begin to behold reality in its true mystery and magnificence. Approaching life in this way, everyday experience becomes a source of endless joy and delight. Dream yoga practice begins with the understanding that the more present and awake you are in your life, the more present and awake you can become in your sleeping dreams. If in your waking life you allow your mind to be undisciplined, impulsive, driven by mindless habit, what do you expect to find in your dreams? As you develop greater mindfulness and self-discipline, and learn to focus and understand your mind, it will be more likely that in your dreams you will be better able to harness the power of your mind to gain deeper insight into the nature of reality.

The Four Foundational Practices of Dream Yoga

There are four foundations of Tibetan dream yoga meditation that are practiced while you are awake: The first foundational practice of dream yoga is to regard your waking perceptions—what you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch—as a dream. It’s as if you say to yourself, “Isn’t this an interesting dream experience!” and really believe it to be so. This sets up an inclination in the mind that can be activated in your dreams to regard ordinary and dream experiences as ephemeral, illusory, insubstantial projections and constructions of the mind. Recognizing this within a dream will awaken a strong experience of lucidity and presence. So the first foundation is to regard waking life as a dream. The second foundational practice of dream yoga is to begin to reduce the reactivity of your mind—your tendency toward attraction and repulsion while you are awake. When you notice your mind is drawn toward a pleasant sound, smell, taste, touch, or sight, remind yourself that the object, your reaction to the object, and your very sense of self are all a dream, a construction of the mind. Beginning to demagnetize your compulsiveness and reactivity in waking life will free you to be more awake, open, and creative in your dreams. The third foundation for dream yoga practice takes place just before you go to sleep. It has two phases. First, review the day by allowing memories and images of the day to arise in your mind. As they do, regard all of these memories as being like a dream. Then, on the basis of this recognition, shift to phase two and generate a strong determination to vividly and clearly recognize your sleeping dreams as also being dreams. As you go to sleep, hold this strong intention to be mindful of your dreaming, and pray for help and inspiration to remember your intention. The fourth foundation of dream yoga is to rejoice and be grateful upon waking up if you were actually able to have a clear and lucid dream. Let your successes deepen your confidence and rejoice. Let your failures to be mindful of your dreams help you to strengthen your determination to recognize your dreams, and strengthen your prayers that you might awaken within your dreams. It can also be helpful before you go to sleep to do some meditation to clear the mind and purify some of the negativity or emotional turbulence that has accumulated during the day. Practice deep relaxation and the loving-kindness meditation, or the radiant being meditation, or any other practices that are helpful to calm and clear the mind. The actual practice of Tibetan dream yoga is to recognize and transform the ordinary habits of the mind and to release the mind from its limitations into a wholesome and boundless display of our innate creativity and compassion. One technique is to practice multiplying things in a dream. If in a dream you see a flower or a tree, mentally multiply it so that there are a dozen, or a thousand, or a limitless number of flowers or trees filling the vastness of space. The classic texts outline eleven categories of ordinary mental experience that are transformed through the practice of dream yoga. These involve the multiplication of objects; the “morphing” of the size of an object—making it bigger or smaller; changing the quantity or quality of the objects in the dream; modulating the experience of movement by speeding things up and slowing things down within the dream; transforming things into other things; emanating rays of light and other things from one’s body; traveling from place to place; and generating a boundless array of extraordinary experiences. All of these are ways of stretching the mind to realize its infinite creative potential which is normally eclipsed by habit. As the mind becomes more open, flexible, and supple, we discover a new freedom of mind and come to better understand how we construct the illusion of our ordinary experiences. A word of caution: Remember that developing the foundations for dream yoga in your waking life can protect you from getting too fascinated and attached to the experiences you create in your dreams. This is especially important as some people who practice less grounded traditions of lucid dreaming run the risk of being seduced by their own creations, and actually reinforcing some of the negative habits of the mind. Tibetan dream yoga is a very profound practice that is also regarded as a training in staying conscious at the time of death and in making the transition from this life onto the path of awakening to your True Nature. It is said that to awaken to your True Nature at death, you must first learn to awaken fully within deep, dreamless sleep. To awaken within dreamless sleep, you must learn to awaken within your dreams. And to awaken with your dreams, you must learn to be mindfully present and awake to the illusory display of your daily life. Taken to heart, this advice helps us recognize that the practice of mindfulness itself opens the way for us to be present in every experience of our life, and perhaps beyond.

Exercise: Sleeping Meditation Practice

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a but­terfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and pur­poses a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly I awakened, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

—Chuang Tzu

There are numerous approaches to sleeping meditatively that tie in beautifully with the art of Tibetan dream yoga. One method is to simply meditate and relax before you go to bed. Take a few minutes to center and calm your mind, then review the day. Appreciate your day and as you notice moments about which you might feel some regret, appreci­ate the positive lessons these mistakes may hold for your actions in the days to come. In your heart say “thank you” to everyone who contributed to your learning and growth today. In your heart, give and ask forgiveness where needed, and feel as though you can sleep in peace. For optimum “recharging” of your energy system as you rest, many tradi­tions recommend you sleep with your head to the north—to be in alignment with the electromagnetic field of the earth and that you lie on your right side to minimize pressure on your heart, freeing up the circulation so the heart doesn’t have to pump as hard. Another technique for sleeping and enhancing your dream yoga practice is to imagine that your bed is within a large luminous lotus bud or a small temple with a healing and regenerating light that infuses you as you sleep. Imagine that the resonance and light of this space surrounds you with a buffer zone against any harsh interference from the outer world. Imagine that it draws into itself all of the positive energy of the universe that may be helpful for you. Rest deeply, and upon awakening sim­ply dissolve this visualization into rainbow light and absorb its essence into you. Another method is to imagine that as you sleep you rest your head in the lap of a special teacher or protector who watches over you. Let all of your thoughts and cares be dis­solved by their presence. Receive their love, strength, and inspiration as you sleep. Upon awakening, dissolve them into rainbow light and melt them into space, or into your heart. This technique can be combined with the previous method and integrated into your overall dream yoga practice. Yet another technique: as you lie in bed, imagine that with each breath you become filled with more and more light and space. As you exhale, you and everything in the universe melt into an ocean of light and space. Let your mind completely open like a drop falling into a luminous ocean. Rest deeply and powerfully. Upon awakening, let body and world appear fresh and new.

Ready to Go Deeper? Attend the Free Masterclass: How to Master the Art of Dream Yoga & Lucid Dreaming

Master Tibetan Buddhist teacher and dream shaman Andrew Holecek will be sharing some of his deepest practices, insights and teachings on how to use dream yoga and lucid dreaming techniques to accelerate your spiritual growth, expand your consciousness and improve any area of your life. You can learn more and signup for the next free masterclass he is offering here: Free Masterclass: Dream Sculpting: Mastering the Art of Lucid Dreaming & Dream Yoga

This article on tibetan dream yoga is excerpted with permission from Mindfulness, Meditation, and Mind Fitness by Joel and Michelle Levey.

About The Author Joel and Michelle Levey were among the very first to bring mindfulness teachings to mainstream groups and organizations beginning in the 1970s. They have taught tens of thousands of people in hundreds of leading corporations, medical centers, universities, sports, government, and military arenas. They are the founders of Wisdom at Work. Find out more at wisdomatwork.com

master spiritual teachers have used taoist meditation techniques for thousands of years as a gateway to higher consciousness, health and peace of mind. photo: issara willenskomer

If we want to have a healthy and harmonious relationship with another, we need to also have a healthy and harmonious relationship with ourselves, which is most easily created by practicing the Taoist meditation techniques outlined in this article. If we are not centered, not grounded, not trustworthy, then we will not be trusted by another. If we are unhealthy, too self-absorbed, or emotionally unbalanced, then we will not attract a healthy and balanced partner. If we do not know ourselves, we will not be able to know another. And lastly, if we are not developed spiritually, then the challenges of relationship will be too much for us, and we will never be able to achieve sacred union with another. By practicing Taoist meditation, synonymous with Daoist meditation, we will become more grounded and emo­tionally and spiritually balanced. Meditation, both formal and informal, will give us valuable tools to use in stressful times. And because meditation is the practice of connecting to and communing with our higher or spiri­tual self, it will help us to be more objective in our relationships of all types. Taoist meditation helps us to calm our mind and our emotions so we do not overreact to every bump in the road. Hua-Ching Ni says in his book 8,000 Years of Wisdom, “Usually something unimportant stimulates an emotional response, and then one unconsciously emphasizes the trouble to support being emotional.” Taoist meditation is often called “Embracing the One” or “Returning to the Source.” There is much about it that is mystical and may at first seem hard to understand for the beginner. It is different from many other forms of Eastern meditation practices because it emphasizes energy practice over mind practice. True, we do use the mind to guide the chi, or internal energy, to quiet the emotions, and to let go of all outside influences — those “external pernicious influences” that stir up the mud of our inner selves. But even when we are sitting still doing nothing (ching-jingwuwei), we are still running energy throughout our body or in what is known as the microcosmic orbit (up the back and down the front) or cooking up healing medicine in the cauldron of our lower dantian. Most Taoist meditation techniques centers on the lower dantian; however, it is interesting to note that women are often taught to instead put their focus on the middle dantian, the point between the breasts, just above the solar plexus. This point is connected to the heart center, where the shen resides. It is felt that, because of the superior spiritual nature of women, they do not need to do quite so much of the basic foundational energetic work as men do. From the outside, the meditating individual appears to be sitting quietly, breathing deeply and gently, with a small half smile on his or her lips. On the inside, however, great forces are at work, reshaping and rerouting streams of energy and light. This internal healing energy then begins reshaping the outside. Not only do regular Taoist meditators begin to feel different, they often even look different to others. Worry lines and wrinkles begin to relax and disappear; the body, especially the spine, begins to realign itself and the Taoist meditator’s posture changes. The ability to deal with life’s challenges and pressures improves dramatically, and so one’s entire disposition changes accordingly. The internal changes of mastering the Taoist meditation techniques are even more dramatic. A greater sense of clarity, both emotional and psychological, begins to suffuse one’s being. As chi pathways begin to unblock and the internal energy of one’s body begins to travel more easily and powerfully through one’s being, old illnesses and old problems begin to lighten, if not disappear entirely. Just how does one enter into this state of absolute quiescence, where the chi can do its work? Lao Tzu says:

“Abide in stillness. The ten thousand beings rise and flourish While the sage watches their return. Though all beings exist in profusion They all end up returning to their source. Returning to their source is called tranquility.” (Chapter 16)

Another traditional name for Tao meditation is “Abiding in Stillness.” Lao Tzu gives us the following advice on stillness practice:

“Go within and retreat from the world. Blunt your sharpness, separate your entanglements, soften your light.” (Chapter 56)

Preparation of the Body: Basic Meditation Posture

Most people in the West have a difficult time sitting still. They fidget, stretch, make noises, sway back and forth, changing posture over and over. Yet it is impossible to attain inner stillness without first attaining outer stillness. The very first prerequisite for attaining the deep levels of inner stillness and quietude needed for doing deep Tao meditation techniques is being able to sit with the spine straight for at least twenty minutes at a time. Because Daoist meditation is so difficult for many beginners, the best thing to do is start with a small amount of time — say five minutes. After a time, you can extend that period until you can sit for twenty to thirty minutes at a stretch without having to change posture or move around. Twenty or thirty minutes of tao meditation practice at a time is sufficient for most people. If your goal is to heal a serious health problem or to become an immortal, then much longer periods of sitting will be necessary, but for most people a shorter period will do just fine. Taoist meditators don’t really advocate long uninterrupted hours of sitting for most people. Sitting for a long time is said to cause the inner energy to stagnate in the organs and can actually do more harm than good. I was once told by one of my teachers that too much sitting will make your teeth fall out. You can sit on the floor with your legs crossed or if you can manage it, in the cross-legged position known as half or full lotus. Or else you can sit on the edge of a chair with your feet flat on the floor. Your hands lie in your lap. You can have the left hand lying in your right palm, with the tips of the thumbs touching. Or you can lay your right thumb in the palm of your left hand, close your left fingers and thumb over it, and wrap your right fingers around your left fist. (This second hand position will look like a yin/yang symbol when you look at the sides of the hands.) You can also lay your hands palms up on your thighs. It is very important in Taoist meditation to keep the spine erect and straight, not as if you were standing at attention, but as if there were a string pulling you up from the top of your head, from the bai hui point at the center of the crown; your chin is slightly pulled in, to elongate the neck. This way the energy coming up the du mai channel, which runs up the back of the spine, can flow evenly and smoothly. It is important not to slump or fidget while practicing the Tao meditation techniques, but it is equally important not to hold yourself too stiffly. There is no need to be rigid or dogmatic about posture. The idea is to feel balanced and stable. Deep relaxation is imperative, but you don’t want to be so relaxed that you topple over to one side or the other; neither do you want to sit too stiffly and end up with a sore back. Correct relaxation is not collapse. It is an energetic, dynamic type of relaxation in which your muscles, tendons, organs, and nervous system get a chance to refresh and re-energize themselves. Many people, if they allow themselves to totally relax, find themselves falling asleep or nodding out. It is very important to reach a state of dynamic relaxation for Taoist meditation or any other type of chi gong practice to be truly effective. There is a great difference between relaxing and going limp. Watch a cat sometime. Notice how she sits or lies with eyes half-closed or closed, completely relaxed, seemingly deeply asleep. But let a squirrel or bird come anywhere in her vicinity, and she’s up like a shot. She has been engaged in a deeply relaxed meditative state yet is able to awaken with no effort and can move with great speed and agility at a moment’s notice. That is the type of dynamic relaxation we want to cultivate in Taoist meditation.

Preparation of the Breath: Proper Breathing Techniques

After mastering sitting still and keeping the spine erect, the next step is mastering Taoist breathing. Breathing is something most people feel they can do very well already, but actually, most people don’t do a very good job of breathing at all. They breathe mostly from the upper part of the chest and so don’t utilize their actual lung power to the fullest. There is a very large muscle right above our abdominal cavity called the diaphragm, which is shaped like a dome. It can affect the esophagus, the aorta, and the vagus nerve. When we breathe correctly in Taoist Meditation — from the belly, filling our lungs from the bottom up — we also work that diaphragm muscle, massaging our digestive organs and promoting the flow of blood and lymph to that region. Also, by breathing slowly and deeply, we are better able to arrive at a sense of peacefulness and centeredness. Thus, by simply breathing correctly we can obtain peacefulness and a sense of groundedness and centeredness, as well as promote better digestion and respiration. Probably the most basic form of breathing in the Tao meditation techniques or other chi gong practices is what is called natural breathing or prenatal breathing. The idea is to breathe into the belly or the lower dantian as if we were babies breathing in our mother’s womb — not through our lungs but through our umbilical cord. When we breathe in, our abdomen expands; when we exhale, our abdomen contracts. All Taoist breathing is done through the nose, which is specifically designed to warm and filter the air before it gets to our lungs. This is a very calming type of Taoist breathing. If you practice breathing in this way for even fifteen minutes a day, you will eventually begin breathing this way all of the time, even when you are sleeping, and the benefits will be enormous. We are all familiar with the “flight or fight” feeling we get when we are alarmed or in shock. What happens to our breath during these times? It pretty much stops or becomes very shallow. If, when we find ourselves in a stressful situation, we pause for a moment to take a few really slow and deep breaths, it can often clear our mind and quiet our nervous system, helping us to better handle the situation. Extensive literature in the Taoist canon describes various breathing practices, some extremely difficult and requiring the guidance of a teacher. But for basic Taoist meditation practices, such as sitting or even tai chi, the natural Tao breath technique is sufficient. Practice it daily, and you will be amazed at the sublime effects this simple practice can produce.

Preparation of the Energy Body: Cultivating Healing Qi Energy and Other Details

Have you seen statues of the Buddha, the Awakened One, sitting in meditation? Did you notice the little half smile on his face? He’s not sitting there like a lump of wood, solemn and stiff. We need to sit with that same spirit of joy and openness. One of the things I remember most about my first tai chi teacher, David Cheng, was the warm smile he held all through his practice. In Taoism, we believe that it’s quite all right to enjoy our practices, that spiritual work can be enjoyable! So relax those facial muscles, and let a small smile play about your lips as you sit. Remember, it takes a lot more muscles to frown than it does to smile. Energy in the body travels along very specific pathways. Two of the main pathways are the du mai and the ren mai. The du mai runs up the back of the body, and the ren mai runs down the front of the body. The place where they meet is in the upper and lower palate in the mouth. In Taoist meditation, as in all qi gong exercises, we want to connect those two pathways by placing the tongue lightly upon the upper palate. This connects the two pathways, much like completing an electrical circuit. When these pathways are linked, the chi can circulate in an efficient manner. Placing the tongue on the palate also produces greater amounts of saliva. Taoist meditators believe saliva is a precious substance, and it is often called such fanciful names as “golden dew.” Saliva contains proteins, hormones, and other substances that have digestive and antibacterial functions. It is not a nasty waste product, but a vital, healthful substance that we can use for our own benefit. It is believed that Taoist breathing fills our saliva with chi, which we can then swallow down into our internal organs. Whenever we have accumulated a good amount of saliva, we should swallow it forcefully, imagining that it is traveling all the way into our lower dantian, our field of elixir. There are certain practices where you roll the tongue around the inside of the mouth in order to accumulate a good amount of saliva and then separate the mouthful of saliva into three parts and swallow them each separately, sometimes moving them down to each side of the abdomen and then to the center.

1. The Fundamental Daoist Meditation Practice

Many people find that closing their eyes helps them shut out extraneous distraction from the outside world. The danger is that you may be tempted to zone out or even fall asleep. Taoist meditation is not about going into a trance or falling asleep. Instead, it is a form of dynamic interaction between our outer and inner selves. If closing your eyes leads to less internal focus rather than more, instead keep them in a half-closed position and let your gaze become unfocused.

1. Sit in a comfortable position on a cushion or chair, or lie comfortably on the floor or a bed. Relax completely, from the top of your head to the bottoms of your feet. Forget that you’re practicing Taoist meditation. Feel each part of your body relax as you slowly pan your attention down your head, face, neck, shoulders, upper chest, upper arms, lower arms, hands, fingers, abdomen, groin, thighs, upper legs, knees, lower legs, feet, and toes.

2. Breathe slowly and deeply through your nose, the tip of your tongue resting on the top palate of your mouth. As you breathe in, breathe in bright light or healing chi. Let it fill your entire body, going deep within your body and psyche, flowing into all the dark and pain-filled areas of your body and psyche.

3. As you breathe out, allow all the pain, sickness, or stress to leave your body, like a dark smoke or mist.

4. With your inner eye, watch that mist fade off into the air.

5. Maintain your Taoist meditation breathing; slow and deep. Keep allowing your body to fill with healing, relaxing light and let all the pain, disease, sorrow, and stress leave you. Do this for ten to twenty minutes — or longer, if need be.

6. When you feel done, rub your palms together thirty-six times and then rub your hands up and down your face at least three times. Then open your eyes and re-enter the world around you, renewed and relaxed.

You can do this Daoist meditation whenever you feel the need to recharge or detoxify your system, though if you do it at night, be sure to direct the energy to your lower abdomen and not into your head when you finish, or you may have trouble sleeping.

How to Tame The Mind

Many people find it very difficult to enter a deep state of meditation because their mind is so full of thoughts, which lead to other thoughts, which lead to others, and so on and on. It can be helpful to count your breaths from one to ten, concentrating fully on each count. Then, once you reach ten, go back and start over again. In the beginning it is often difficult to count much past ten without the thoughts starting up again, but with time, Taoist meditation will become easier. In fact, it is just about impossible to completely still the mind. But even a few moments of deep meditation can have great effects on your mind-body system. Unlike some other forms of meditation, which are solely for the purpose of quieting the mind, Daoist meditation seeks to quiet the mind so that it will be out of the way and the chi can move in its own fashion. Daoist meditation masters created moving meditation forms, such as tai chi, that allow people to move in a slow and flowing meditative state, which, in turn, allows the chi in their bodies to move on its own. Tai chi is often called “stillness within movement.” In still sitting, there is a “movement within stillness.” This inner movement is the healing, vitalizing chi moving deep within the three dantians, opening energy pathways as well as spiritual centers. It is also how we find our deep connection with the eternal. The more we dwell within that state in meditation, the easier it is for it to carry over into the rest of our lives. All Taoist meditation techniques are about refining our energy, our chi, and our spirit, or shen. This refinement process has many levels — psychological, emotional, and spiritual. It is also concerned with the internal process of refining our jing, or fundamental energy, into chi, then refining that into pure spiritual energy, or shen, and then transforming that back into Tao. It is a slow process, taking many years of serious practice to fully accomplish. But there are many helpful results that occur along the way, making the practice itself a rewarding and educational process. In Taoist meditation techniques it is said that “chi follows yi,” or chi follows the mind. It is an ancient and well-known fact that we can lead energy the tao of intimacy and ecstasy in our body with our minds. There is even a relatively new branch of Western medicine called psychoneuroimmunology, which means basically the same thing. For example, patients with tumors are taught to send little white knights or Pac-Man-type creatures to defeat or eat up the rampaging cancer cells in their body, often to great effect.

2. Deep Stillness Practice

If we allow ourselves to be knocked off our emotional or psychological center too easily, we will have a difficult time adjusting to the ups and downs that happen even in the most harmonious relationships. This Taoist technique can help us find our still center in the midst of activity. Then if in our relationship life we are knocked off our center, we have a way to find it again.

1. First, sit on a cushion high enough and firm enough to support your lower back, or sit on the front part of a chair with your feet planted firmly on the floor. It is extremely important to keep your spine erect yet not stiff. Never slump on your cushion or chair.

2. Next, bounce around for a moment, letting the unprocessed energy of the day settle down in your body. Then exhale deeply and suddenly, emptying your lungs fully. Take three deep breaths, then either close your eyes or keep them unfocused in a halfclosed position. Relax your shoulders, and begin your Taoist breathing; deep and slow, from the belly. Place the tip of your tongue on your upper palate, and relax your face into a small smile.

3. Place your mind, or your attention, on your lower dantian, in your lower abdomen. Allow yourself to feel your breath, your chi, flowing into your dantian and then back out again in a slow, rhythmic way. Feel yourself fill up with good, clean, healing chi and then feel yourself exhale all the old, unclean, used up chi. Just relax and let this rhythmic exchange happen by itself. Have no effort, no tension, no desire, no agenda, no goal. Just let yourself be carried on the wings of energy and of Tao itself. Let yourself sink deeply into the still, quiet depths of your own being.

4. You may experience important insights or ideas at this time. It is fine to have a piece of paper and a pen handy to briefly write them down, but then continue with the Taoist stillness techniques.

5. When your time is up or you feel that your sense of inner quietude is beginning to dissolve, bring your palms in front of you and rub them together briskly thirty-six times. Place them over your eyes, inhaling the warmth of your palms deep into your eyes and brain. Then rub them gently or briskly up and down over your face three times.

6. When you are finished with your Taoist meditation, sit for a moment or so with your palms placed over your lower dantian, below your navel. Let the warmth of your palms enter your dantian and store up the good warm, healing chi there.

Coming Out of the Meditation

Be careful how you re-enter the world after deep Daoist meditation. Try not to jump right into your workaday world immediately. Take at least three to five minutes to gather your energy. If you can, sit down and drink a cup of tea, or do some gentle stretching. Avoid talking with other people too soon. You will be in a heightened and extremely sensitive state at this time; if you plunge too quickly into your everyday life or if you encounter a tense situation or energy exchange with someone else, you will feel it very deeply and be easily knocked off balance. So take it easy with yourself, like the cat who stretches fully and yawns deeply a few times before slowly entering the outer world on her own terms.

3. Going Deeper: Intuitive Awareness Practice

Taoist meditation is designed for building vital energy and then circulating that within the body. Much of what we know today as the meridian system, which is used in Chinese medicine and chi gong practice, was mapped by those inner astronauts, the ancient Taoists, who while sitting in deep meditation, were able to track how and where energy moved in their bodies. When I was a kid, I had a model called the Visible Man; it was a human body with clear skin, which enabled me to see all the inner organs. The ancient Taoists had their own form of Visible Man because they were able to open, with their inner vision, windows into their own bodies and see how they worked, all without the aid of dissection. Lao Tzu says that:

“Without going out your door, you may know everything under heaven. Without looking out the window, you can see the Tao of heaven.” (Chapter 47)

Using our inner vision, we are better able to see our true path in life, to travel through the wilds of our emotional landscape, and to traverse the deep rivers and ravines of our inner being and arrive back home, back at our eternal source, back at Tao. We can also utilize the power of quietude and stillness in Daoist meditation to hear the inspiration and guidance of our higher self or our guardian or helping spirits. Taoists, like Native Americans and many other peoples, believe that we are surrounded by helpful spirit guides at all times, though these spirits are very hard to hear above the usual symphony of noise that plays in our heads most of the time. We need to become quiet inside in order to hear the “still, small voice within” and benefit from the guidance we receive. Under Golden Pond Meditation Tao may be likened to a great pool of still water, deep, dark, and eternally calm. It is in this great pool that each one of us is born, lives out our lives, and returns to after death. In truth, we never leave it.

1. To start your Taoist meditation, picture yourself, then, as a little frog, sitting quietly on a lily pad, which floats gently on the surface of this pond. It is a bright, hot day, and the sounds of the world are loud and cacophonous. Planes fly overhead, cars whoosh by, children play, and adults argue around your pond.

2. After listening to the barrage of noise for long enough, you gently plop yourself over the edge of the lily pad and allow yourself to sink into the depths of the pond.

3. Down and down you go, effortlessly sinking ever deeper into the warm, dark depth of the pond. Down through the layers you go, past darting fish and lumbering turtles. Past the gracefully waving arms of underwater plants you go, like a little weighted doll, until at last you sink to the bottom.

4. At first it is very muddy, as your presence churns up the silt and sediment on the bottom of the pond. You can’t really see anything, and outer sounds are indistinct. You can only sit, listening to the quiet thump of your heart. The rush of the world is far above you now and doesn’t affect you anymore. You feel the smooth current of the water dancing all around you.

4. Then slowly, as the silt and mud sink back down to the bottom and the water gradually clears, you can, perhaps for the first time, see clearly everything surrounding you. The water is warm and soothing. You sit very still, enveloped in this great soothing, motherly world of water. You breathe slowly and deeply, drawing the healing water into your belly, remembering your Taoist meditation breathing techniques. Your breath slows down until you yourself are breathed, the rhythm of breath itself taking over. Your heartbeat slows down also, matching your breath, matching the rhythm of nature, of Tao.

5. All worldly cares slip away as you are enfolded into a vast and limitless world where you as an individual are no longer important. The small self you have clung to all your life recedes into a much grander sense of Self, of connection to something larger and more eternal. The little pond you sit in expands outward to become a great sea of chi, of life.

6. You sit here, suspended effortlessly, eternally present in an eternal moment of clarity and wisdom.

7. After a time, you release a little bubble of chi into the water and begin your ascent back into the world.

8. You float up slowly through the water all the way back to the surface, where you jump back onto your lily pad, renewed, refreshed, and ready to begin your life again.

“Why is this important?” you may ask. What does Taoist meditation have to do with sex and relationship? The answer is that if you cannot find the stillness within your being, you will not be able to connect in a deep way with another. If you are not in touch with the deepest part of you, how can you hope to understand the deepest part of someone else? It is by Taoist meditation, contemplation, exploration, and the willingness to delve deeply into your own psyche and inner knowing that you will find the wisdom and clarity to go forth into the world of sacred union. As Chuang Tzu reminds us, “We cannot see our reflection in running water, but only in still water. Only a person who has attained inner stillness is able to still the minds of others.” This article on Taoist meditation is excerpted with permission from The Tao of Intimacy and Ecstasy by Solala Towler.

About The Author Solala Towler has taught and practiced Taoist meditation and chi gong (qigong) for more than twenty-five years. He is the author of fourteen books, including Tales from the Tao and Tao Paths to Love. Since 1993, he has edited and published The Empty Vessel: The Journal of Daoist Philosophy and Practice, which is available in print and online. For more information please visit abodetao.com.

regularly practicing the centering meditation will train your mind and body to move into deep states of relaxation and expanded awareness. photo: martin bliedung photocase.com

What Is The Centering Meditation? Meditation is a state of consciousness. It is a growing thing that, when nurtured and cared for, grows strong and constant, like a big old oak tree. You can count on it. Every time you meditate, it is as if you are building a mountain, one layer at a time. Meditation is like strata; once a layer is set down, it becomes a permanent part of your landscape. It is cumulative. When you meditate again, you add another layer to your mountain. You keep getting stronger and stronger. Even if there’s a gap of many years in your meditation practice, this stratification doesn’t go away. It’s right where you left it. You just pick up where you left off. Usually, it will have grown on its own some, too. Meditation is a discipline of mind blended with spirit that teaches concentration and focus. It brings clarity to every area of your life. It broadens your perspective, opens your mind to new ideas, and helps you feel free. Sometimes we associate it with prayer, and of course, it is this too. Meditation is an elegant mental discipline that increases our spiritual connection. In the oldest recorded teachings, thousands of years old, it is said that meditation is the settling of the mind into stillness. This is true, and yet to meditate is not to silence the mind, or to not think, or to be thought-less. It is to be full of mind. Mindful. Full of mind, without attachment, without judgment. This growing knowing is deep within you and always available to you. It is right there, always. It is a conscious breath away. We are never separate from our knowing. It is an infinite continuum of everlasting love and appreciation, ever available, ever knowing, ever loving. All we have to do is open to it. It’s right there. If ever we become disconnected, it is only because we have disconnected ourselves. And that’s all right. All you have to do is choose again. The moment we choose again, we are reconnected, instantly and always. And one of the easiest ways to connect is through centering meditation. the benefits of relaxing meditation practices are cumulative, meaning they increase over time. photo: caleb george Very likely in your own life, you have been in a meditational state and not even known it. Meditation is a quality of mindfulness, a heightening of awareness, an acute perception, and a more complete usage of all your sensory awareness. If you’ve ever taken a walk and, as you strolled, noticed a birdcall, and a little shift of wind, and the rhythm of your footfall balanced to your breath—then you were centered in meditation. If you gaze at the sunset and time seems to stop, this is a meditation. If you are ever moved by the sound of a singer’s voice and your heart thrills, or you feel the expansion in your body as a dancer leaps, and seems to hover in midair, in that moment you are meditating—and in that moment you remember who you are. Whenever you are fully present and every part of you is awake, then the sparkle in a loved one’s eye, or a touch, or a prayer becomes a meditation. If the wisest part of you could speak with you, what would it say? It is not concerned with the details of something, or even the outcome of a plan. It would say to you that you are good, that you are worthy, that you are loved beyond anything you can imagine. It would say, Live big. Manifest your dreams. Risk loving again and again—and again and again. And it would say, in a thousand ways a moment, all truly is well.

Right Where You Are

Just be present. The answers you are looking for can be found right where you are. Your point of power is in this present moment. It is so simple, yet it is true. All you need to do is know where you are in this moment in order to gain your orientation and sureness of footing. If you don’t know where you actually are, all the good or even profound direction in the world could lead you far from your intended destination. If you don’t know where you’re standing, your aim will be far from the mark. A centering meditation helps you know where you are in time and space. It grounds you in the world so that you can move forward with fluidity and grace. Like a big red arrow on a map at the mall, it lets you know that you are here. When you understand where you actually are, the universe opens up with a thousand choices, each one unique and perfect in its own right, making it easy to know what your next step is. All you have to do is open your heart to the light and energy that flows through us in every moment. That flow is always present; it is constant and perfect, always available to you. Imagine a stream of pure love pouring from the universe straight into you. Imagine that same pure love flowing and dancing around and through every single thing on this planet and beyond this planet, every rock, every blade of grass, every deer in the forest, every star in the sky. Everything is connected to this flow. And you are too. The only reason we don’t feel it is because we think that somehow we are separate from it. But we are it, and it is us. Feel it right now, in this very moment—let yourself open to the flow of love that is coursing through every single thing on this planet, through every single atom of every single one of us. Relaxing into meditation gives us an experience of this, so we feel it and know it deeply, beyond words. Meditation opens your mind and heart. The opening of your heart is the most precious gift you can give the world. It affects everyone, and in this way meditation is also service: it supports the whole of humanity and all of life. As you become more aware, more conscious, you blaze the trail for the rest of us to follow, and our paths become much easier because of the steps you have taken. Know this, in your unfolding, in your deepening: that your inner journey creates an easier way for all of us. By meditating we open into love. We enter a place that is sacred. By knowing where we are, we create an opening, a window to expanded consciousness. In that opening, we can feel and merge with the creative force of the universe. This cosmic creativity is simply love. We may call it God, or nature, or luck, or spirit, or universal energy, or a higher power, or something else. Whatever you call it, it is still love. Pure love. Love that intends, love that makes, love that builds—not in an emotional way, but in a laserlike, conscious, and precise way.  

“Recognize the magnitude, the beauty, and the infinity of who you really are.”

  When we relax into meditation, we begin to recognize our connection with this creative force, and we begin to know that we are part of this love, that we are the same as this love. We are infinite and eternal. When we meditate, we become one with our infinite self. In our growing awareness of this higher self, we become much more than our personal self. We begin to recognize the magnitude, the beauty, and the infinity of who we really are.

How to Practice Meditation

Self-realization is realizing the Self. There are really only two things you need to do to meditate: become aware of yourself and stay there for a while. This formula is not only a simple way to practice the centering meditation but also a key to life: it shows you how to be mindful where you are, wherever you are. It helps you become more and more conscious from moment to moment, and to be your true self, in every situation, in every circumstance. Relaxing into meditation is simple and practical. In a curious way, it is as ordinary as it gets. At first, many people who try it think they are not doing it right. It’s so simple and unextraordinary, they believe meditation must be something more complex or esoteric than what they’re doing. Because people often think they are doing their centering meditation wrong, many give up doing it at all. It is a practice. Practice comes from the root word praxis, meaning “to do action.” You have to do the action for meditation to work. Every time you sit and relax into meditation, you are building up a spiritual “muscle.” The more you use it, the stronger it gets. It gains strength, agility, and capability over time. This energetic apparatus you build through the centering meditation will absolutely change the way your life works. In order to strengthen a muscle, though, you have to work at it. This is done through practice. Sitting. The more often you do it, the easier it is to do it. This centered place within you becomes firmly established and recognizable, and you can easily find your way back because you know your way by heart. After a while, you get used to feeling good and centered. It feels natural and reassuring and easy. What you are effectively doing is expanding your consciousness. You are building a new muscle that heightens your awareness and lets creativity flow. You are learning to be free and open and unlimited, for this is truly who you are. Every time you practice the centering meditation, you lay down another layer of consciousness, like rings in a tree trunk. Remember: the consciousness you make—conscious moment by conscious moment—is what you take with you when you die. It is part of your soul’s accumulated knowledge, your soul’s wisdom. It is the basis of what you are, and it becomes part of the continuum of your infinite self. At first, you’ll be surprised at how busy the mind is, how many thoughts you have. The thoughts just stream on and on. You might wonder how in the world you could ever be still within all that. The trick is to learn to let this be. Don’t try to stop your thoughts; just allow them. You stand in the center of them, not grabbing on to any one of them, but simply watching the thoughts go by, absolutely in wonder of this most amazing parade you are making. You are the watcher of the parade, not the parade.

Exercise: The Centering Meditation

Step 1 Find a relaxing place to practice the centering meditation. Make your body comfortable in a position you can stay in for a little while, and close your eyes. Step 2 Let your body relax. Relax your shoulders. Relax your chest. Relax your stomach. Relax your forehead. Step 3 Become aware of your breath. Notice if it’s shallow or tense, and begin to even it out by letting the breath become deeper, fuller as you relax into the meditation. Take several deep breaths through the nose, until the body and mind begin to feel calm. Soon you’ll feel the physical sensation of being centered and an inner balance. Keep your attention steady. Allow your awareness to become still like a candle flame, gently flickering and constant. Become more and more still. Step 4 As thoughts come into your mind, let them pass like clouds in the sky. Don’t become involved with any single thought: just allow it to go by. Anytime you find your mind wandering or you become lost in thought, return to your breath again until you feel your mind and body come into balance once more. Feel the stillness at the center of your being. Sense the vastness of all that is. Stay here for a while. Even a moment will make a difference. This is the heart of your centering meditation. This is where you can bring your worries and fears, problems and plans, or just bring yourself without any agenda at all. Step 5 After a while, you’ll feel a natural sense of completion. When you do, let your breath become more conscious again. Let it get deeper and fuller. Let your awareness move into the heart and spread throughout your body as you gently transition out of your centering meditation, opening your eyes when you’re ready. Step 6 Now take this awareness into your day. Today is a new day and anything can be. Bring the gifts of your relaxing meditation into your daily life. Let everyone and everything be touched by your refreshed perspective. Look at everything with new eyes. See your partner, your children, your job, your life, as brand new. To listen to the audio version, go to dianalang.com/openingtomeditation This article on centering and relaxing with meditation is excerpted with permission from Opening to Meditation: A Gentle, Guided Approach by Diana Lang.

About The Author Diana Lang is the author of Opening to Meditation and the owner and director of the LifeWorks Center for Growth in Los Angeles, where she lives. She is also active in a variety of nonprofit international efforts to teach meditation and yoga. Visit her online at: www.dianalang.com.