deepstash
Beta
How to Slow Down Time
Living in the moment
If you shift your focus on the present moment (working, driving, cleaning, whatever it is), you will start to feel time as more abundant.
Mindfulness is a great tool to deepen and balance your days. But you don't necessarily need it. Just make sure to invest more attention in present-moment experience.
260 SAVES
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
7
Key Ideas
“Happiness and emotional health are not extras, or bonuses, or nice-to-haves – they’re actually at the core of wha..."
Nataly Kogan
Happy Happy People
Happiness is not a goal or something to pursue at a later time. Emotional health is a skill to be mastered, not a destination to eventually arrive at.
And being happy is being linked to an active lifestyle, a better diet, better sleep, better weight management, lower stress levels, an improved immune system, and increased life expectancy.
Analyze and Identify
Get perspective and clarity on which area of your life you have to focus on. Start by analyzing, examining and identifying the problem areas:
- Fun and Recreation
- Physical Environment
- Career
- Finances
- Personal Growth
- Romance
- Family and Friends
- Health
6
Key Ideas
How we react to stress
Stress is largely caused not by other people or external events, but by your reactions to them.
Pressure is not stress
But pressure could be converted into stress, when rumination appears: the tendency to keep rethinking past or future events while attaching negative emotion to those thoughts.
Rumination is ongoing and destructive, diminishing your health, productivity, and well-being.
Wake up
Stand or sit up, clap your hands, and move your body. Connect with your senses by noticing what you can hear, see, smell, taste, and feel. The idea is to reconnect with the world.
Most of the rumination happens when you are in a state called “waking sleep": when you are doing things, but you aren't really paying attention to them.
7
Key Ideas
Altering the brain
In 2005, studies began to point out that meditation can change the structure of your brain by thickening the cortex. The cortex controls your attention and emotions.
You can reap the benefits if you practice meditation for half an hour a day over eight weeks.
Mindfulness meditation
It typically refers to a practice for training your attention. It is an awareness that comes through paying attention in the moment, but non-judgmentally.
It involves sitting down with closed eyes and focussing on feeling your breath go in and out. When your attention starts to wander, you take note and bring your attention back to your breath.
Reduced amygdala activity
Meditation shows reduced activity in the amygdala, our brain’s threat detector. When the amygdala perceives a threat, it sets off the fight-flight-freeze response.
In a study, after practicing mindfulness for 20 minutes per day over just one week, participants showed reduced amygdala reactivity only while they were engaged in mindfulness, suggesting they need regular practice.