Being Compassionate

It is marked by intense concentration, a sense of timelessness, and a loss of self-consciousness. It’s a deeply healing and enjoyable state and one that greatly contributes to our happiness.

• They meditate.
• They exercise regularly. “Surveys show that exercise may very well be the most effective instant happiness booster of all activities.”
• They stop and smell the roses. 
• They spend time with their furry friends.
• They spend time outside.

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.

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.

Meditation helps to counter our tendency to stop paying attention to new information in our environment. Other studies have found that mindfulness meditation can reduce mind-wandering and improve attention.

Larger randomized controlled trials are still needed to understand how meditation might work with other treatments to help people manage attention-deficit disorders.

Long-term, consistent meditation mindfulness changes our ability to handle stress in a better, more sustainable way.

• Practicing meditation reduces the inflammatory response in people exposed to psychological stressors.
  
• Mindfulness practices help us to be less reactive to stressors and to recover better from stress when we experience it. 
  

Willpower is a limited resource, one that we deplete through hard, focused work. We need to take regular breaks to restore our flagging willpower and keep our productivity in the long run.

Take a break and do something different for a few minutes every half-hour or so to give your brain a break and replenish your mental resources. 

The Internet distracts but we use it for researching items and retaining information. If you build up your searching skills and ignore distractions, like social networks, it becomes just a tool.

• Breathe before eating. 
• Listen to your body and measure your hunger.
• Eat according to your hunger. You can more mindfully choose what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat. 
• Practice peaceful eating. It’s not easy to digest or savor your food if you aren’t relaxed.
• If you don’t love it, don’t eat it. Make a mindful choice about what to eat based on what you really enjoy.

• Trip over what you want to do. If you intend to do some yoga or to meditate, put your yoga mat or your meditation cushion in the middle of your floor.
• Refresh your triggers regularly - add variety or make them funny so they stick with you longer.
• Create new patterns. You could try a series of “If this, then that” messages to create easy reminders to shift into slow brain.

The intention of calming meditation is to cultivate a quieter, more peaceful state of mind and improved concentration.

Insight meditation often sets an intention to transform the mind by developing qualities such as wisdom and compassion. 

Many meditation techniques combine elements of both.

It uses the object of your breath to focus attention and maintain awareness. If your mind starts to wander, return your attention to your breath.

Parents' frame of mind impacts their children. Parents should not blame themselves when their children struggle.

Since parents lead by example, treating themselves with compassion and without judgment can help their children to do the same.

Many parents stop meditating once they have children. But new research suggests that even brief interventions can be helpful.

• Take two breaths of kindness wherever you are.
• Find moments of newness while engaged in your daily tasks of living.
• Bring awareness and gratitude to the everyday things you take for granted.

"Understanding someone’s suffering is the best gift you can give another person. Understanding is love’s other name. If you don’t understand, you can’t love."  - Thich Nhat Hanh

"… The most precious inheritance that parents can give their children is their own happiness. Our parents may be able to leave us money, houses, and land, but they may not be happy people. If we have happy parents, we have received the richest inheritance of all."  - Thich Nhat Hanh