Mindful meditation for work and life - linkedin learning, Scott Shute

Mindful meditation for work and life - linkedin learning, Scott Shute

Laying the groundwork for success with meditation

1.1 intention is important

Intention helps us get clear on what we’re trying to achieve, and gives us a better chance of creating the habit of a regular practice.

1.2 Basic body science

We have two nervous systems in our bodies,

  • the sympathetic, known as fight or flight
    • Our pupils dilate so we can see better in the dark.
    • Our blood gets stickier so that if we’re injured, we won’t bleed to death.
    • Our lungs and muscles get more oxygen, and our bodies are flooded with the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline.
  • the parasympathetic system, known as rest and digest.
    • opposite of fight or flight. Our muscles relax, the cortisol and adrenaline start to flush from our bodies, and the cognitive parts of our brains turn back on.

Stress, over time, can lead to serious health issues. When we’re carrying so many stress hormones, like cortisol, for so long, it can lead to memory loss, serious health problems, even the shrinking of the cognitive parts of our brains. The good news is we know how to hack the system.

One option that’s always available to us is our breath. Just taking a few conscious, deep breaths starts to activate the parasympathetic system, and this helps break up some of the mental spinning we often get caught in, and our bodies start to relax

1.3 Posture

it’s helpful to be seated when meditating. We find a comfortable, yet alert position.

And we can keep our eyes open or closed.

  • closed, as it reduces the distractions that surround me, and it makes it easier for me to focus
  • keep the eyes open and just have a soft gaze on a fixed point in front of them.

However you sit, try to keep that balance of being comfortable yet alert.

1.4 Where and when

To create a great habit, I suggest trying to meditate in the same place at the same time every day

As for where, find a quiet place where you can minimize your distractions.

Having a routine sends signals to your mind and body that this is meditation time, and helps make it easier to maintain the habit. So try for the same place, same time, and in the location where you can focus.

1.5 Am I doing it right?

Well this practice can be subtle and it can takes some time.

calm and have more clarity when I’m done. During a meditation if you’re wondering, am I doing this right, the most important thing to remember in the moment is just relax, don’t worry about it, keep going.

Three sign posts during meditation to determine if you’re on track. freedom from thought, heightened awareness, and stillness:

  • The first is freedom from thought. Many people think that meditation is about not having thoughts. Not quite. The mind is going to produce thoughts, that’s what it does. One important goal is to ignore the thoughts we do have. We notice them, we let them pass by, but we stay neutral. Our thoughts are moving by, but we aren’t moving with them. We’re not tossed around by them. We’re free from our thoughts.
  • The next sign post is heightened awareness. When we meditate we often enter a state where we become more sensitive to outside stimulus. We become at ease and profoundly awake at the same time.
  • A third sign post that you’re doing it right is stillness, the quality of stillness. Simple, but not easy. The quality of our stillness often informs the quality of our practice.

Over time, you may look for changes in yourself to gauge whether it’s working for you.

  • First of all has this become a priority, are you prioritizing your practice. Is it becoming more regular and a more important part of your routine.
  • Is your awareness increasing. Perhaps you’re becoming more aware of others around you.
  • And do you have a bit more space to operate versus just reacting to life. Are you becoming more open, more curious.

1.6 How long should I do this?

You know, it’s when we think we don’t have time and we’re really stressed out that we probably need it the most.

Research shows that 20 minutes, even as little as 10 minutes a day for a couple months yields measurable benefits.

Keep all that in mind, and do what works for you. Make the practice fit you and your life, not the other way around.

1.7 Introducing the practices

There are lots of different types of meditations out there. H ave an open mind. Try each one of them. Perhaps try each one several times to see what works for you

Three Breaths

Sometimes you just need a quick practice to get centered. This exercise is only three breaths long and takes less than a minute. I might use this one if I’m about to step into a meeting that could be stressful, or if I’m in the middle of my work day and I need to focus or calm down.

Practice

In this exercise, we’re going to take a deep breath in, we’re going to hold that breath at the top and when you gently and slowly exhale I’m going to give you a phrase to say inwardly. At the end of your exhale, you’ll hold the breath outside of the body and then we’ll repeat.

  • letting go
  • being here
  • opening up
  • start to breath naturally and normally. Perhaps expressing some gratitude to yourself for taking this time

(deeply exhaling) Start by fully exhaling and then take a nice, long, slow inhale and hold it at the top. As you gently exhale and release that breath say to yourself: letting go. When you’re done with the exhale, hold it outside of your body. Take a second slow inhale in, hold at the top, and as we release this breath say to yourself: being here. At the end of the exhale, hold it outside of the body and then take a third slow inhale, filling up completely and holding at the top and as you let it go, say to yourself: opening up. At the end of this third breath just start to breath naturally and normally. Perhaps expressing some gratitude to yourself for taking this time. And when you’re ready, you can gently open your eyes and return.

Arrival

The arrival practice is a nice short practice that you can use when transitioning from one activity to another. It’s also something you can use to start your day. It helps bring a quiet, calming energy to any moment. With groups or with a team, this is a great practice to start a meeting with.

I welcome you to find a comfortable and alert position, and I invite you to close your eyes and take a deep in breath. And then let your out breath flow long, allowing yourself to relax. Repeat that a few times, just noticing your inhalations and exhalations extending a bit, allowing yourself to fully arrive in this moment, in the present. Now just breathe naturally, keeping the attention on the sensations of breathing, perhaps noticing the air passing by your nose, that little space in your nostrils. Do you notice that the temperature is different on your inhale versus your exhale? And where in your body can you feel your breath? Do you feel it in your throat? Notice the sensations of the breath in your chest and in your belly, perhaps feeling the breath in your back. Just settle into this gentle rhythm of breath, noticing these subtle breathing sensations and allowing yourself to feel comfortable with whatever is happening. Feel your body sitting here, gently expanding and contracting with the breathing. Can you feel the weight of your body? Notice, where is the body touching the ground or your chair below you? Are your feet touching the ground? If so, which part of your feet? Allow the weight of your body to sink into your chair, sink into the ground. Feel yourself being supported. With each out breath, you can let go of some of that heaviness. Just let it sink down, flow away. And with the in breath, take in the fresh air, the new moment. Each out breath, let go. Each in breath, become lighter, freer. Continue that for a bit. Each out breath, letting go. Each in breath, becoming lighter, freer. Allow yourself to fully arrive in this moment, the present. Sense the possibility. Sense the wonder of what could be, and welcome. When you’re ready, you can slowly open your eyes, maybe stretch a bit. Bring some movement back into the body and return.

Counting breathing

In the following exercise, we’ll learn the technique of counting breaths.

Why it works

  • Giving our mind something to do. Focus on the counting, tame the monkey mind.
  • The deep breathing activates our parasympathetic nervous system
    • flush the stress hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol.
    • We’re calming the body. We’re calming the mind.
  • We might start by doing this technique for just a few minutes, and over time we’ll look to build our stamina up to 15 or 20 minutes per session.

How to do it:

  • start with a complete inhale, and start counting
  • for each breath, say to yourself, breathing in one, and breathing out one. Breathing in two. Breathing out two. in three. Out three. In four. Out four.
  • And just continue at your own pace, counting from one to 10, 10 to one
  • if you get lost in you’re counting it’s okay, just return back to one.
  • We want to be free of our thoughts, so we just use our breathing, we use our counting.
  • Maintaining our focus on these two things.
    • the breath itself, the sensations of the breath
    • the number
  • To end, exhale completely, resume breathing normally, stop doing anything, and when you are ready, open your eyes, move your body.

Benefit: This is a great technique for us to use to develop

  • an increased focus
  • strengthen our ability to practice longer.

I’d invite you to find a comfortable and alert position. And go ahead and exhale completely. We’re going to count our breaths, and the way it works is as you’re breathing in, you can say to yourself, breathing in one, and as you exhale, you can say to yourself, breathing out one. And then it continues. Breathing in two. Breathing out two. Or you could simply say in three. Out three. In four. Out four. And just continue at your own pace, counting from one to 10. When you get to 10, you can go nine and back down to one. When you get to one, you can continue back to two, and back up to 10 again. And if you get lost in you’re counting it’s okay, just return back to one. We want to be free of our thoughts, so we just use our breathing, we use our counting. Maintaining our focus on these two things, on the breath itself, the sensations of the breath, but also on the number. Observing our breath go in. Observing our breath go out. And just continue at your own pace. Just observing your breath going in. Observing your breath going out. And on this next exhale, just exhale completely. And resume breathing normally, no need to count. Nothing left to do. And when you’re ready, you can open your eyes, have some movement in your body, and return.

Deep breathing

4-7-8 technique

This is an excellent technique for falling asleep, and it’s also great for reducing anxiety. It takes less that two minutes, and when practiced twice a day, can have impressive health benefits over time.

five, six, seven, eight. Good. One note, keep the tip of the tongue in the hard palate, in the fleshy part of the gums, behind your two front teeth.

just four cycles, recommended to do twice a day, perhaps at the beginning and the end of the day. Great for falling asleep at night

  • breathe in for a count of four,
  • hold our breath for a count of seven,
  • exhale for a count of eight: pursing our lips like (blows air)
  • We’ll repeat for a total of four cycles

Visualization

performance based meditation

much focus on a specific outcome. I really appreciate visualization as it helps me generate or create the life that I want. In addition to calming it helps us to obtain more energy.

  • joy
  • confidence
  • I invite you to find a comfortable but alert position, and just let your breathing extend. Let your inhalations, and exhalations stretch out, (soft waves crashing) and just let the weight of the day fall away from you. Let your shoulders relax, your eyebrows relax. Let your molars relax and just be here. Allow yourself to arrive in this moment. In this practice we’re going to become joy. So with each breath in, breathe in joy. What does it feel like to breathe in joy? With each breath become a little lighter, a little freer. With each out breath, let go, let go of anything that is not joy. So when we breathe in, you’re breathing in light, and joy, happiness. And when we breathe out, we’re letting go of anything that is not. I’m a visual person, so I like to use a color for this. As we breathe in, we visualize a bright yellow, and having that yellow fill our body. So with each in breath we become lighter, freer, and I’m visualizing that bright yellow coming in, and with each exhale, I’m letting go of anything that is not joy. If it’s helpful you can visualize a dark color on the exhale for anything that is not joy. We’re breathing in bright yellow, and breathing out anything that’s not bright yellow. With each breath we become freer, lighter, happier. Perhaps it feels like our bodies are being lifted to the point where we’re almost floating, and if we were to look at you from the outside, we might only see yellow, with no distinction between where the yellow and your body begin, and end. Feel this in your body. Let it lift the corners of your mouth. Let it lift your shoulders. Perhaps even think of something that gives you great joy, wonder, curiosity, love, and let that bright yellow, that feeling just overwhelm you, melt all around you, expand from your center in an infinite way, as your joy expands beyond you, into the universe, as if you are a shining sun, too bright to look at directly. Just deeply get a sense of that joy, of that lightness, and that infinite expansion, and know that you can return to this state whenever you like, whenever you need. Now that you’ve been here, you can access this more easily, more quickly, and when you’re ready, you can return. Start to put some movement back into your body, into your fingertips, and gently open your eyes, bringing that joy with you.

Body scan

Take turns focusing on different parts of ourselves, both physically and the related inner characteristics for each area.

Use this technique when

  • we want to have a deeper understanding of ourselves.
  • we have trouble staying focused The incorporation of the body, the mind, and the imagination -> deeper and longer focus.

Practice

I invite you to find a comfortable but alert position. (soft waves crashing) Go ahead, and allow your eyes to comfortably close, and just start to let your breath extend, relaxing your belly, softening your mind, and feel the support beneath you, and let it take your weight. Start to become aware of the sounds around you. Just let them be there. Notice the light, and the shade, the air touching the surface of your body. Sense the sky above, and the horizons stretching all the way around you, the earth below supporting you. Allow your mind to empty what it no longer needs to hold onto, and let it go. Let it flow out and away. Allow your body to release what no longer needs to hold onto and let it go, flow out and away, and allow yourself to arrive in this moment, in the present, and bring your energy, your attention to your center, and ground yourself in this moment right here. Begin to sense the space around you. Become aware of the rise, and the fall of your breath. It’s coming, and going. The sensation, the sound of your breath, the temperature. Do you notice if it’s slightly different in temperature in the inhale versus the exhale as it goes past your nostrils? Breathe down to where the weight of your body rests below the base of your spine, your root, and breathe into your root. Let it soften, and gently expand on your breath, taking in nourishment, taking in energy. Allow your root to connect down, down to the ground below, deep in the Earth, empowering, embodying, grounding you in the here, and now. Let your root absorb what it needs, and say to yourself the words, I am here, I am supported. Get a deep sense of your root, and just notice what’s important to you here. When you’re ready, let that dissolve, and allow your awareness to move up to your belly, just below your navel, your center of emotional intelligence, of choice, creativity, movement, pleasure. Breathe into your belly. Let it gently soften, and expand on your breath, taking in nourishment, and energy. Feel a sense of balance, empowerment, motivation, and say to yourself, I honor my own needs. I allow myself to be nourished. Get a deep sense of this area of power around your belly. And notice what’s most important to you here, and when you are ready, let that dissolve, and move your awareness up to the soft area below your breastbone, to your chest, your center of strength. Breathe into here, allowing the area around your chest to soften, and expand on your breath. Feel the sunshine, the bright yellow sunshine, replenishing, restoring, nurturing, and allow your center of strength to absorb what it needs. Say the words to yourself, I value myself. I am enough. And get a deep sense of this area around your chest, and a sense of what it’s really important to you here. When you’re ready, bring your attention, and your awareness to your heart, your center of self development, and unconditional love. Gently breathe into your heart, letting it soften, and expand on your breath. Feel a sense of nourishment, renewal, healing. Allow your heart to absorb what it needs, and say the words, I am greatly loved. I allow myself to give, and receive love freely. I am nourished by the power of love. In your own time, when you’re ready, move your attention to your neck, to your throat, your center of self expression, and personal will. Allow the area around your throat to soften, expand, and breathe. Imagine the open, and infinite blue sky. Breathe that open sky into your throat center, clearing, opening, softening the need for control, freeing self expression, and creativity. Allow your throat to absorb what it needs. Say the words, I speak my truth. I express myself freely. I allow myself to go with the flow of life, and notice what is important to you here. And when you’re ready, let that dissolve, and bring your attention to your forehead, between your eyebrows, your center of wisdom, and intuition, gently allowing it to soften, and expand. Imagine the velvety indigo deep night’s sky. And while thinking about this deep, dark sky, breathe in that soothing sky, balancing, bringing clarity, insight, and understanding. Allow your center of wisdom between your eyebrows to absorb what it needs, and say the words, everything is unfolding exactly as it should. I am where I’m supposed to be. And notice what is important to you. And when you’re ready, moving your attention to the top of your head, to your crown, your center of Oneness, allowing your crown to soften, and expand. Gently invite a sense of balancing, restoring, harmonizing. Allow your crown to absorb what it needs, and say the words, I am one with the universe. I am one with the whole, and take notice, what is most important to you here? When you’re ready, bring your attention to the space above your head, about a foot above your head in open space. Get a sense of lightness, and joy, connectedness. Allow yourself to absorb what you need here, and say the words, I am infinite, and feel the spaciousness. When you’re ready, come back to yourself as a whole. All the pieces together. Back to the ebb, and flow of your breath. Back to your center. Return. Breathe into your core. Say the words, I am whole. I am perfect, just as I am. Allow the energy of these words to bathe your mind, your body, your emotions, spirit, and absorb what you need. And in your own time, become aware of the air on the surface of your body, the sounds around you, near, and also in the distance. Become aware of the support beneath you. Notice how you feel, and hold yourself with loving kindness for the beautiful, unique, and perfect being that you are. And when you’re ready, you can gently draw this meditation to a close. (bell chiming)

Loving and kindness

Background

Research shows we’re effectively programmed to

  • feel compassion for people in our in group
  • not feel compassion for those in our out group.

This reflects in the news, in our communities, in our politics, in the divisiveness that’s on full display. That’s the bad news, we’re programmed this way.

The good news is we can hack the system. When we are able to see the similarities we have with others instead of focusing on the differences, we increase our ability to have compassion for them. We increase our ability to be in relationship with them and work together towards better common outcomes.

For example, at work, every member of our work group is on the same team. This is a built-in advantage. We may not always see eye to eye, but if we can remember that we’re all playing for the same team and we all want the same eventual outcome, we’ll be better off.

Likely, loving-kindness meditation is designed to hack that natural response system and increase our capability to feel compassion.

Practice

Imagine your most respected, loved, cared person sitting across from you. See clear of their face, they are just like you, have a human body, want joy, happiness, have succeeded and also had sorrow and sadness. Send them your good will, your warmth, your love. And feel those love, good will, warmth reflected back.

Then imagine someone annoys you, not someone that you hated the most, but someone you don’t like, 4 out of 10 dislikeness. and do the same thing.

Singing Hu(Hue)

A mental model: The physical, mental, the emotional can be terrible drivers of my life. There’s a higher part of each one of us. It’s the part of us that is infinite, connected, and knowing.

So tactically, we’re going to use a sound. We’re going to sing this word HU. You may have heard or used the word om before, and we’ll use the word HU. And when we sing the word, by nature, we’re taking long breaths, which activates the parasympathetic system.

We’re singing this word HU, and it’s repetitive, and it gives the mind something to do, something to concentrate on. And we’re going to fill ourselves with joy, with gratitude, and that gives emotion something to do. And the word HU, it’s like a tuning fork for that highest part of you.

sing for about 10 or 12 minutes, followed by a period of silence at the end. That silence is where the magic happens, where it all comes together.

I invite you to find a comfortable yet alert position. And just allow your inhalations and exhalations to stretch out a little bit. Allow yourself to fully arrive in this moment and just be here, be present, and this moment is the only one we really have. We’re going to be singing this word hue together, and it’s sung out loud in long breaths, and you can come in or out whenever you like.

  • If you’re more comfortable you can just sit and listen, but there is certainly a power to the singing itself.
  • I prefer to close my eyes for this, but if you like you can keep them open and keep your gaze softly down, softly lowered.
  • And just let yourself relax, let your shoulders relax, your face relax. Feel the weight of your body into your chair and feel supported.
  • And know that you are welcome here. I’d invite you to think of something that gives you great joy, great happiness, perhaps gratitude, and allow that feeling to wash over you, to really feel that joy in your body. Maybe it makes the corners of your mouth turn up in a smile, maybe it makes you giggle or laugh, it’s okay. But with the breath, just breathe in that joy, breathe in that gratitude. This word hue is like a tuning fork to that highest part of ourselves, the part of us that is connected, that is infinite, that knows. I like to think of this as a love song to the universe, and so when I’m breathing in, I’m breathing in the goodness that the universe has to offer, and when I’m singing out, or breathing out, I’m giving back. And so during this practice, I’m going to be thinking about this circular nature. The breathing in and receiving, the breathing out, or singing out, and giving back. And so if you need something to focus on, if you find yourself distracted, just let that go and come back to the breathing, the singing, the joy. Really think about it as a love song, and if it’s a love song, how would you sing it to someone or something that you loved? And just like a balloon that rises in the air can see further and further into the horizon, when we sing hue together, we can see further and further into the truth of our own lives. So I welcome you to join me if you like. ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ ♪ Hue ♪ We’ll have a period of silence. May the blessings be. And when you’re ready, at your own pace, you can gently open your eyes, return some movement to the body, and return.

Making it Stick

Keep your practice going

actually do. It’s true. Most people I’ve talked to understand the benefits of meditation, and they’ve tried it a few times, but they have a hard time making the habit stick, cause life gets in the way.

Why, what and how.

  • We start with intention, and being clear on why we’re meditating. For example, I want to be a better version of myself. I want more good days when I’m fully capable, and less days when I’m out of balance. I just want to be happier.
  • When we’ve got clarity on why we want to meditate, we learn what to do. The meditation itself.

  • Basically, how do I meditate. And then we can move on to the how we’ll put it into practice. One of my favorite quotes is from James Clear, who wrote the book Atomic Habits. He says, “Life does not rise to the level of our goals. “It falls to the level of our systems.” If we want to make a change to build a new habit, we need to create a system that will support that goal. Here are a few ideas to help you build your system.

  • First, start small, but with consistency. Pick a time you think will work best for you. Maybe it’s the beginning of your day, or the end of your day. Maybe it’s your lunch break, or when you’re riding the train commuting. Pick a time and commit to just one minute. Just one minute every day for a week. By keeping the goal small, we reduce our potential excuses. Look, we always have time for one minute. And when we get started, we might find that our one minute easily turns into 10 or 20. And maybe our every day for a week turns into every day for a month.
  • Second, track it. Some people find tracking their progress very helpful. You could keep a journal or a spreadsheet, and record your progress. You could even include some reflections on how the session went for you. For example, on a scale from one to 10, how did you feel before, and then how did you feel after? And what did you notice? This type of tracking will help you see the progress you make over time, as well as some of the benefits and changes that can be quite subtle. If you have the intention to either journal or meditate before you go to bed, maybe put something on your pillow like your journal or a meditation cushion that forces you to think about it before you go to sleep. We’re looking for ways to make it easy on ourselves to remember.
  • Another technique I love is to work with an accountability buddy.
    • I have an accountability buddy with exercise. We keep a joint spreadsheet of our workouts, and then once a month, we check in to offer support and a little lighthearted competition.
    • I also have an accountability buddy for generosity. We aim to do at least one kind or generous thing every day. We text each other every day with our results. Okay, at first it was mostly competitive, I will admit, but over time I find that I’m orienting my thinking about how to be more generous.
    • The same principles apply with a meditation buddy. Pick your buddy. Be supportive. Maybe be competitive, you know, in a friendly way if it helps you. And always keep in mind your intention. Why are you doing this in the first place?

Integrated Practices

We’ve been talking about the dedicated practices of meditation where you sit down and intentionally meditate. But there’s also a set of practices I call the integrated practices and these are the things that we can do at work or during our day that also help us get more of what we want.

For example if you just need a break in between meetings, you could just take a few breaths. You can even do it while you’re walking from one meeting to the next. Or as you’re preparing for your next meeting, just take a minute to breathe in deeply and out deeply once or several times. It’ll help again activate that parasympathetic system and get you ready for whatever is coming.

If you have a team, you could try starting a team meeting with a moment of silence. And depending on the willingness of the team, you could call it that, you could call it a little meditation or it could just be an arrival. So for instance if you had people that maybe meditation is not their thing, you could just say, “Hey, let’s just take a moment to arrive.” And you can just think about what you want from the meeting or just perhaps put your devices away for a while. And it gives everyone a chance to just be quiet before the meeting starts. If people are a little bit more willing to meditate, you might lead a session for just a minute or 90 seconds where you lead a few breaths.

I’d say go where the energy is at your company, at your workplace, with your friends. Whatever you’re doing during the day, meet them where they are. Don’t try to force people to meditate that don’t want to but meet them where they are.

Another technique we can use is just our system that we put together. So as an example meetings, they often, in my experience, go all the way to the end of a 30-minute meeting or the end of a 60-minute meeting and sometimes you’re late and you find yourself rushing to the next one and it’s just this constant stream of being late and rushing. So one technique we can use is to end every meeting five minutes before the hour so at the 25 mark or the 55 mark past the hour. It gives us all a chance just to have a little bit of break before we get to the next meeting or just give us the time to get to the next meeting.

At the beginning of the day, I like to use what I call the hands on the chair technique. And this is about setting intention. So I’ve come in, I’ve done my commute, I’ve got my backpack, and before I sit down and deal with the 100 emails I got since 8:00 last night, I’m just going to take a moment. I’m going to stand behind my chair. I’m going to put my hands on the chair. Maybe I close my eyes or not. I just take a breath and I think about two things.

  • I think about one, what’s the most important thing I need to get done that day. So it’s setting an intention for what I need to get done.
  • And two is what’s my intention for myself? How do I want to show up? And maybe the how I want to show up is something like I want to be joyful or I want to be curious today or I just want to go with the flow, whatever feels right to you on how you want to be.To me, this is a great way of setting the intention for the day and helping me get more of what I want.

Another super powerful practice is the gratitude practice. Quite simply it could be keeping a gratitude journal and at the end of every day writing down three things you’re grateful for and why. (Five minute journal) It doesn’t have to take very long. You don’t have to think too much about it, just write.

Interesting studies on gratitude journal for eight weeks

  • a marked decrease in the physical symptoms of stress
  • an increase in happiness
  • an increase in the level of optimism
  • gratitude is it’s like a super power for all your other self-improvement things. People who practice gratitude were also
    • more likely to exercise
    • more likely to diet
    • more likely to express their appreciation and their love for other people. If you do one thing to improve your life, start with gratitude. It can be a super power that helps everything else go the way you want it to.

So while sitting down and meditating is very powerful, the dedicated practice, try integrating some of these simple practices during your day. And you might find that over time, you’re calmer, you’re happier, you have less anxiety, and you’re getting more of what you want out of life.