You can make this happen. You can do this!
13 minutes a day.
728 minutes over 56 days.
According to a study at NYU, that is the minimum time it takes to rewire your brain using meditation… and you can do this!
Wait! Don’t let that “M” word scare you off. The word meditation has been over-mystified to the point that it turns people off. This is not to knock anyone who is able to sit in an upright position, motionless every day, clearing their mind.
I wish I could. I can’t.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, meditation is “the action, or an act, of meditating.” OK… that was of little help.
Over to you, Merriam-Webster…
“…the act or process of spending time in quiet thought.”
Hmmm. No mention of sitting upright. No mention of sitting in the lotus postition high atop a mountain in Nepal. “spending time in quiet thought.”
The progression is actually quite simple:
• The result of meditating is mindfulness.
• The result of mindfulness is being present.
• The result of being present is calm.
The NYU study found that just 13 minutes a day of being in a mindful state, over 8 weeks, decreased negative mood, enhanced attention, and reduced anxiety.
Many of you who have tried to reduce your own anxiety have tried meditation, no doubt. What I hear from you often is:
• “I can’t meditate.”
• “My mind wanders too much.”
• “I can’t make the time.”
• “I forget to do it every day.”
Before we move on, take what you feel to be about 30 seconds and look at the dot in the picture below. Don’t look away or try and figure this out… just look at it.
If you spent the last 30 seconds just looking at the dot and not thinking about anything else—you just meditated! To be exact, you just participated in a Focused Attention Meditation.
Stress and anxiety have coated our thinking in a goo that is hard to break through without an extreme struggle. How about we take away the struggle a bit and dissolve that goo at the same time?
This Week’s Exhale Assignment:
Our goal is to have you carve out 13 minutes a day of mindfulness. Many studies have found that these 13 minutes can be broken up over the day to the exact same effect. (One British study even found just 10 minutes is all that’s needed.)
The easy method is to set a number of alarms on your phone and be mindful for a few minutes at set times. But I have thought of a more practical way.
Use a door closing behind you as a trigger.
Every time a door closes behind you, pause. Take a minute or two and notice everything around you: Sight. Sound. Touch. Smell. Don’t try and judge any of these senses—just observe. Pay attention to your breath. Deep breathe if you like, but you don’t have to. Carry on.
(I hope I don’t have to tell you to move aside so you don’t get hit by something or someone, right?)
• You leave home in the morning. The front door closes behind you. Pause. Notice. Carry on.
• You get off the bus or get out of your car. The door closes behind you. Pause. Notice. Carry on.
• You go into a building, an office, or a classroom. The door closes behind you. Pause. Notice. Carry on.
• You come home. The door closes behind you…
• You go to your bedroom to sleep. The door closes behind you…
You are going to cross many a threshold in your day. It doesn’t mean you have to pause every single time.
The entire idea is simply to trigger you. Every time you go through a doorway, just be in the present, even for a few seconds. Don’t even worry if you have hit 13 minutes or not.
That would be a judgment—and we are leaving judgments at the door.