Ultimate Day Step 7: Set Your Mind
“Start a meditation practice and reap the benefits: reduced stress, depression and anxiety. Greater self-awareness. Longer attention span and improved concentration. Age prevention. Increased kindness to ourselves and others.”
Every other step along the way to crafting your ultimate day has been good for your brain and mind. So keep those items on track to stay sharp, creative and productive.
Here, I want to talk specifically about meditation. Wait, don’t panic! If meditation seems like a complicated, difficult or foreign thing to you, put that worry aside. It’s actually simple, easy, and highly beneficial for optimal brain performance.
I insert meditation into my afternoon break. I can’t go from beta/hustle mode to what my late afternoon needs most – a reflective alpha mode – without slowing my mind and tuning into myself. It’s a great transitional tool and carries with it many health benefits.
What are those benefits? Reduced stress, depression and anxiety. Greater self-awareness, longer attention span, and improved concentration. Age prevention and preservation of gray matter, which is the part of the brain that has the most neurons. Increased kindness to ourselves and others.
The easiest way to meditate is to find a quiet space, sit comfortably, close your eyes, and breathe slowly and deeply. Take a moment to actively relax your body. Then, focus on your breath. Listen to it and feel it enter and exit. As you do, let your mind wander. The idea isn’t to turn off your thoughts and feelings, but to slow them down and let them happen while you observe them.
Do this for about five minutes at first, bringing your focus back to your breathing if you start to have organized thoughts, like what’s on the shopping list or whether you need to send that email. It’s okay to have thoughts and feelings, but you want them to be loose and you want to be looking at them, not pursuing them (by putting together that shopping list). Mentally see them come and go. If a particular line of thought hijacks you, return your focus again to your breathing.
Don’t expect to “master” meditation right away. It takes practice. It’s like exercising a muscle – over time, it gets strong and supple. If you commit to five minutes a day, the worst outcome is that you have a nice, quiet, screen-free relaxing time before moving on to your next obligation. The best outcome is that you train your brain to slow down, wander freely, observe itself, and emerge refreshed. When you have some practice, extend your five minutes to 10 minutes.
The evidence is clear about meditation - it’s been studied at leading research institutions around the world and has good science supporting its practice. It’s an important part of an excellent life, which means it should find a place in your ultimate day.
Today’s Exercise: Set your Mind
Fill in Step 7: Set Your Mind on page 21 in the Ultimate Day Workbook to help you start or continue a meditation practice.
Today’s Bonus Podcasts:
Click Here for a podcast with Dr. Sarah Sarkis, a psychologist, writer, and performance consultant where her and Greg discuss thriving. On a related note, also check out this podcast Here with professor and neuroscience expert Dr. Brynn Winegard on the topic of "The Neuroscience of Mental Health and Performance".
The information and advice provided in this program is intended to assist you with improving your performance, as well as your general health. It is not intended and should not be used in place of advice from your own physician or for treatment or diagnosis of any specific health issue. By participating in this program you acknowledge that undertaking any new health, diet and/or exercise regime involves certain inherent risks, that you assume such risks, and that you release Wells Performance Inc. from any responsibility or claim relating to such participation.