Todd Perelmuter's Blog, page 42
April 11, 2023
Meditation For Athletes So Competition Doesn’t Become Rivalry
Guest Post
Athletes experience mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and burnout. The pressure to perform and meet expectations can take a toll on an athlete’s mental well-being.
Meditation can be a powerful tool for athletes to incorporate into their self-care routines. It can help them manage stress, improve focus, and enhance their overall well-being. In this article, we will explore the benefits of meditation for athletes and provide tips on how to get started.
Ram Dass, a spiritual teacher and author, believed that meditation could help individuals connect with their true selves and find inner peace and happiness. He emphasized the importance of being present in the moment and cultivating a sense of mindfulness in everyday life. Athletes can apply these principles to their sport and use meditation as a way to stay focused and centered.
Why Athletes Need Meditation?
Stress is becoming increasingly common among athletes due to a variety of factors, including:
High expectations: Athletes face immense pressure to perform at their best, whether it’s in training or competition. There is often a lot of pressure from coaches, fans, and sponsors to win or achieve certain results.
Intense training schedules: Athletes often have to maintain a rigorous training schedule, which can be physically and mentally demanding. This can lead to exhaustion, burnout, and injuries.
Competitive environment: The world of sports is highly competitive, with athletes vying for limited spots on teams or in competitions. This can create a stressful environment where athletes feel like they have to constantly prove themselves.
Social media and public scrutiny: Social media has made it easier for fans, critics, and the media to follow athletes and comment on their performance. This can create a stressful environment where athletes feel like they are constantly being judged and evaluated.
Personal life stressors: Athletes are not immune to the stressors of everyday life, such as relationship problems, financial issues, or health concerns. These stressors can affect their performance on and off the field.
It’s important for athletes to recognize the signs of stress and take steps to manage it, including incorporating meditation, exercise, and relaxation techniques into their daily routine. Seeking support from a therapist or mental health professional can also be beneficial in managing stress and improving overall well-being.
The Benefits of Meditation for Athletes
1. Stress Reduction
Athletes face a lot of pressure to perform at their best, both in training and competition. This can lead to high levels of stress and anxiety, which can have negative effects on their physical and mental health. Meditation can help athletes reduce stress and improve their ability to cope with pressure. Research has shown that regular meditation practice can lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.
2. Improved Focus
Athletes need to be able to focus their attention on the task at hand, whether it’s hitting a golf ball or making a split-second decision on the field. Meditation can help improve focus and concentration by training the mind to stay present in the moment. By practicing mindfulness during meditation, athletes can learn to stay focused on the present moment and avoid distractions.
3. Enhanced Recovery
Rest and recovery are essential for athletes to perform at their best. Meditation can help athletes relax and promote the body’s natural healing processes. Research has shown that meditation can improve sleep quality, reduce inflammation, and enhance immune function.
4. Increased Resilience
Athletes need to be resilient in the face of adversity, whether it’s a setback in training or a disappointing loss. Meditation can help athletes develop mental toughness and bounce back from setbacks. By cultivating a sense of mindfulness and inner peace, athletes can develop the resilience they need to keep pushing forward.
How Can Athletes Use Meditation to Make Sure Competition Doesn’t Become Rivalry
Meditation can be a useful tool for athletes to avoid turning competition into rivalry. Here are some tips on how athletes can use meditation to maintain a healthy perspective on competition:
Step 1) Focus on the present moment
Meditation can help athletes stay in the present moment and focus on their own performance rather than getting caught up in rivalries or competing against others. By being mindful of the present moment, athletes can avoid negative thoughts and emotions that can arise when they compare themselves to others.
Step 2) Practice non-judgment
Meditation can help athletes develop a non-judgmental attitude towards themselves and others. This means accepting their own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of their competitors without judgment or criticism. By focusing on their own performance and accepting the strengths and weaknesses of others, athletes can avoid getting caught up in a rivalry.
Step 3) Cultivate compassion
Meditation can also help athletes cultivate compassion towards themselves and others. This means acknowledging the hard work and dedication that all athletes put into their sport and recognizing that everyone has their own struggles and challenges. By cultivating compassion, athletes can build positive relationships with their competitors and avoid turning competition into a rivalry.
Step 4) Set healthy goals
Meditation can help athletes set healthy and realistic goals for themselves. By setting goals that are focused on personal growth and improvement rather than winning or beating others, athletes can avoid getting caught up in a rivalry and instead focus on their own journey.
How Athletes Can Get Started with Meditation
Find a Quiet Space
To meditate effectively, it’s important to find a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed. Choose a room in your home or a quiet spot outside where you can sit comfortably and focus your attention.
Get Comfortable
Sit in a comfortable position with your back straight and your feet planted firmly on the ground. You can sit on a cushion or chair if it helps you maintain good posture. Close your eyes or gaze softly at a fixed point in front of you.
Focus on Your Breath
Begin by focusing on your breath. Take deep, slow breaths and focus on the sensation of the air moving in and out of your body. If your mind wanders, gently bring it back to your breath.
Notice Your Thoughts
As you meditate, you may notice thoughts popping into your mind. Don’t judge or criticize yourself for these thoughts. Simply notice them and let them go, bringing your attention back to your breath.
Practice Mindfulness
As you continue to meditate, focus on cultivating a sense of mindfulness. This means being present in the moment and noticing your thoughts, feelings, and sensations without judgment. You can use this practice to improve your awareness and stay focused during training and competition.
Meditation can be a powerful tool for athletes to incorporate into their self-care routines. It can help them manage stress, improve focus, and enhance their overall well-being. By practicing mindfulness and cultivating a sense of inner peace, athletes can develop the resilience and mental toughness they need to perform at their best. As Ram Dass said, “The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” By taking the time to quiet their minds through meditation, athletes can use meditation to reduce their stress and improve their performance.
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Why Corporate Meditation Benefits Businesses?
A happy employee is a good employee, and that’s why it’s also good for the bottom line too. From the highest executives in the boardroom to the hard workers in the mailroom, everyone can benefit from meditation. Corporate meditation benefits businesses enormously.
Work is a stressful place for many people. Even if you’re not aware of the stress, it can manifest in ways ranging from back and neck pain to anger, high blood pressure to trouble sleeping, depression to addiction, even heart attacks, and cancer.
Here, I’ll go over the 8 benefits corporate meditation can boost a company’s profits and office morale.
Tiny amounts of stress occasionally are normal and healthy. Small stresses can let us know when something is important, like a deadline. They can let us know when to make urgent changes. And they can let us know when threats or dangers are nearby, like hostile takeovers or spying competitors.
But when these stressors are ongoing and we don’t give our bodies time to heal and recover, that’s when problems spring up. When the brain perceives a threat (which is more often than not just work pressure or even traffic), it responds by preparing to run away or fight. Blood flows to the extremities, blood pressure and heart rate are elevated, and adrenaline is pumping. We are ready for battle.
In the office though, we don’t fight or take flight. We just sit there in this agitated state. Our bodies never release these physiological changes and we accumulate the damage. Stress often leads to anxiety, and chronic stress is what leads to depression. We become quicker to anger and lose our temper.
In meditation, we release the stress by letting our bodies enter a deeply relaxed state of being. Our body un-tenses, our minds unwind, our heart and breathing slowly back down. This is a very healing process.
Additionally, meditation transforms the way workers view stress. Instead of seeing stress as, “Oh no! Why is this happening to me?!” we learn to just observe stressful situations as they are without ego or judgment. We just watch them come as the observer rather than as the recipient of stressful circumstances and then calmly figure out the best course of action to take. In this way, new stressors no longer generate the same stress response in our bodies.
I don’t have to tell you that an office full of stressed, anxious, depressed, worried, fearful employees is not conducive to the best workplace dynamics. It’s bad for morale, it’s bad for employee retention, and an office full of people ready to fight or flight is a powder keg just waiting to blow. De-stressing is one of many benefits of corporate meditation.
A study by Deloitte Consulting found that the cost of losing an employee can be 1.5x to 2x the employee’s salary.
According to the WHO, depression, and anxiety cost the global economy $1 trillion a year in lost productivity.
The American Institute of Stress found U.S. businesses lose $300 billion annually due to workplace stress.
Workers can only perform their best when they’ve had a good rest. A groggy employee who stares at their computer screen not doing anything is of no help to anyone.
Stress can often lead to difficulty sleeping. But not only that, humans weren’t designed to work in an office for 8 hours straight. Hence, the coffee break and that 2:30pm sluggish feeling.
Luckily, meditation has not only been proven to help with sleep, but it also gives the brain a rest if done in the middle of the workday and that can lead to an immense natural boost in energy. Imagine a quick power nap on steroids.
When we meditate, we practice being present and allowing our bodies to relax and our minds to quiet. As one of the benefits of corporate meditation, it helps us stop overthinking that often prevents sleep, and it creates a deeply restful and relaxing experience so the meditator can return to work more awake and alert.
According to the National Safety Council, fatigue alone is responsible for costing employers $136 billion a year!
Meditation frees the mind to think in new and different ways, which is the secret to creative problem-solving.
Studies show that what prevents creativity is our habitual thinking because we’re just thinking the same old thoughts in the same old thought patterns and we cannot break out of it to find a new and innovative solution.
By practicing mindfulness meditation, study participants were able to reduce the chatter in their minds, increase their nonconceptual awareness, and were able to discover new insights into problems they were given to solve.
Our entire economy is driven by innovation. It’s no wonder Apple, Google, HBO, Nike and so many other innovative Fortune 500 companies offer free meditation classes and courses to their employees.
Meditation isn’t only good for the mind. It eases chronic pain, improves the heart and cardiovascular system, boosts the immune system, and even resolves pregnancy problems.
Meditation also helps with cancer symptoms and treatment side effects, the symptoms of menopause, and dealing with IBS.
The reason meditation works are because of our bodies’ autonomic nervous system—the system that regulates our bodily functions, such as heart rate, digestion, breathing, and so on. This system is made up of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).
The SNS is the “fight or flight” system. It is activated when we are stressed. For many humans who don’t do much fleeing or fighting, it is always activated.
The PNS is a “rest and digest” system. When this state is activated, it allows the body to relax, heal and recover from pathogens and injuries.
Meditation activates the PNS almost immediately. This allows for the stress in our muscles and body to become released, tension to disappear, heart health to improving, our immune systems to become strengthened, and our bodies to heal and recover much more quickly.
Forbes has reported that worker illness costs the U.S. economy $576 billion a year. Making a small investment into helping your company’s workers develop a daily meditation practice can pay off tenfold and your business benefits from corporate meditation.
At the root of it, mindfulness meditation is the training of the mind to focus and concentrate. In meditation, we practice focusing on one thing: either your breath, your body, or a mantra. This practice in single-pointed focuses becomes an invaluable skill throughout a meditator’s life.
It’s easy to focus when you’re watching your favorite movie, but it can be extremely difficult when you’ve got a million TPS reports to go through. We live in an age of microscopic attention spans and ADHD diagnoses. Fortunately for us, the age-old practice of meditation provides a natural and effective cure for that.
According to a Udemy report, 70% of workers report being distracted at work and that training could help. Remarkably, the average employee reports that up to 40% of the workday is nonproductive. As reported in Business News Daily, $650 billion is lost annually due to distracted workers.
Employees with better functioning brains lead to a better functioning business. We all know we should be working smarter, not harder. But how do you achieve that?
Harvard published an article about a study that found just 8 weeks of mindfulness meditation led to increased gray matter density in the hippocampus, the area of the brain known to be important for learning and memory.
An article from Wired titled, Business Success Requires Memory, points out that memory is the cornerstone of intelligence. While we can’t all be Ray Dalio, the billionaire investor and daily meditator, meditation can help all of us reach our full potential.
Many people think that stress is a great motivator, but numerous scientific studies all show the same thing: stress causes people to make mistakes.
In business, these mistakes cost money. In stock trading, this is the clearest because we literally call a big mistake on a massive scale a “panic,” which inevitably leads to trillions of dollars in lost value.
When we’re fearful and stressed, we cannot assess situations accurately. We see everything—even our coworkers—as a threat, ignore important cues, make hasty and impulsive decisions, and hurt our workplace relationships. An estimate by F1F9 found that 88% of all spreadsheets have errors in them and 50% have material defects.
With the benefits of corporate meditation, we clear our minds so that we can see things more clearly. We become more mindful about what we are doing and we are better able to avoid costly mistakes related to stress.
In 2012, an employee at JP Morgan made a copy-and-paste spreadsheet error that cost the company $6 billion in trading loss.
According to a Columbia University study, doctors in operating rooms make up to 66% more mistakes on patients during times of stress.
Distractions, stress, poor health, and lack of focus all mean one thing: unproductive. With smartphones and social media, almost half of the workday goes to waste for the average worker.
Let’s stop wasting 3 hours and 12 minutes a day being distracted. Instead, let’s spend just 20 minutes meditating to help recharge the batteries, improve focus, help with creativity, relieve stress, think clearly, and get more done in the same amount of time.
The ADAA has found 56% of workers say productivity is the thing most affected by stress and anxiety.
According to findings by AOL and Salary.com, wasted time at works costs U.S. companies $759 billion a year.
What We Offer
At EastWesticism, we offer a variety of custom corporate solutions for every type of business, including:
4-Week Corporate Meditation Courses.
1 hour a week for four weeks, we offer specialized courses. This includes Stress, Mindfulness, Creativity, Teamwork, Focus, and Concentration. Moreover, it also includes Women and Minority Leadership, and Professional Success.
Meditation Classes
We’ll come to you and provide meditation classes for your business. Classes include a combination of secular teachings about the nature of stress and the human mind, how meditation can help, followed by meditation.
Online Meditation Classes and Courses
Via Zoom, we’ll provide the same great experience as our onsite classes, but done safely and remotely.
Corporate Meditation Seminars and Workshops
Give your company an in-depth introduction to meditation that allows for a more interactive and engaging experience. Do these half or full-day programs during Mental Health Awareness Month or any other time of year.
Private Leadership Meditation Sessions for Executives
Get 1-on-1 instruction in mindfulness and meditation designed just for you. Learn the secrets of leadership that have helped meditating CEOs like Ray Dalio, William Clay Ford Jr., Arianna Huffington, and Jack Dorsey.
Get Peace & Calm DeliveredReceive the tools and insights for living a life free from fear, negativity and stress.
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Do You Think You’re Too Anxious to Meditate?
If you think You’re Too Anxious to Meditate? Think Again.
As a wise Buddhist monk once said, “If you’re too busy to meditate for an hour a day, meditate for two hours a day!”
As I like to say, “If you’re too anxious to meditate, then you definitely need to meditate!”
Every single person on the planet can meditate. Meditation—i.e. being present—is our natural state of being. And those who find it most difficult tend to need it the most—the least patient people, the most restless, the most anxious, and so on. These are all things meditation has been proven to help with.
There can be many different reasons why people may find it difficult to meditate
They Might Have A Wrong Perception
They’re doing it wrong. Meditation is more than just repeating a mantra or watching your breath.
Also, these days there are many different things that people call meditation but they are not really meditating and have no proven benefits. Having an experienced meditation teacher is the best way to make sure you are meditating properly.
Maybe The Motive Behind It Is Not Right
Expectations. Just because you cannot sit still or quiet your mind for an extended period of time does not mean that you cannot meditate. This is how it goes at the beginning for everyone.
Most of us have spent the majority of our lives training our minds to only be entertained by big-budget movies, TV shows, video games, and social media sites.
It is going to take some time before we can retrain our minds to be calm, relaxed, and find everlasting peace and joy in the stillness of the present moment.
Just be patient and start small. You don’t have to start at one hour. You can start with just one or two minutes and work your way up.
Maybe Its About Mind Over Matter
Believing your own stories. Usually, the last thought in someone’s mind before they quit meditating is, “I just can’t meditate!”
Whether you’re trying to run a marathon or get a master’s degree in organic chemistry, believing you can’t do it is a surefire way to not do it. Achieving anything requires not believing in our self-limiting, self-defeating thoughts.
Meditation is no different. As you will learn from meditation, thinking something doesn’t make it so and you do not have to be identified with your thoughts.
The more you meditate, the more you will notice that thoughts will come and go, but you are not your thoughts and they actually have no control over you. You are the awareness of your thoughts and it is that awareness that is always calm, still, and peaceful.
The more we become conscious and aware of our thought-patterns and the stories we tell ourselves, the more in control we become of our own lives and less controlled we become to whatever thought happens to pop into our head.
What Stories Does Your Mind Try To Make?
Then make time. Wake up earlier. Watch one less show. Jack Dorsey is the CEO of two publicly traded corporations and still meditates for two hours a day and walks over 10 miles a day to and from work.
My back hurts sitting on the ground.
Then sit in a chair. Or, try sitting on the floor while doing something besides meditation and see how you feel. For some people, the ego creates physical pain as a way to avoid meditation.
But I have ADD.
I have ADD! And take one guess what cured me of my ADD… yup, meditation.
I have kids and a job!
Then be a good parent and start meditating so you can be less anxious and more present around your children. You’re not the first working parent to make time to meditate.
It’s like the flight attendants always say, “Please put on your mask before assisting your children.” You are useless to your family and worse at your job if you don’t take care of yourself and your mental well-being first.
It’s too hard.
Do you know what’s even harder? Living with constant stress and anxiety. Do you know what’s awesome and easy? Living a relaxed, peaceful, joyful life.
It’s too boring.
That’s why you need it. You need to constantly be entertained is hurting you. Being constantly entertained leads to a dangerous dopamine rollercoaster where you constantly seek out that dopamine rush from food, drugs, sex, and high-tech entertainment devices, which is then always followed by a crash leading to more dopamine hunting.
Before you know it, you need more and more dopamine for the same rush, but your body is getting depleted of dopamine faster and faster and so you become more and more unhappy and unfulfilled.
The Ego Says It AllMeditation is the opposite—it actually increases your body’s ability to produce dopamine, leading to greater and lasting happiness and bliss.
All of these useless stories are created by the ego (i.e. the thinking mind) and don’t serve you or help you become happier. The reason the ego creates these stories is out of fear of losing its grip and control over you.
Ego is a wonderful tool for analytical purposes, but as the only thinking tool in your body, it wants to be in charge and stay in charge by creating the illusion that it is you. It is very clever indeed.
Why Do We Experience Anxiety?
Anxiety can be caused by a number of different factors in our lives. Death or separation in the family, an illness or medical condition, financial worries, trauma, and the state of world affairs can all cause anxiety. Or our personality may just be predisposed to anxiety.
What is anxiety?
Anxiety is our general feeling of unease created in the mind. It’s our brain’s way of responding to stress. It can lead to panic attacks, restlessness, quicker heartbeat, lack of sleep, worry, and distress which can greatly interfere with our work and personal lives.
What Causes Anxiety?
While certain situations in our lives can put us at risk of experiencing anxiety, some people will experience greater anxiety than others. The root cause of all anxiety however is due to fear or worry of some imagined future based on some painful experience in the past.
A person fully present, simply observing the present moment with no judgment, and seeing clearly without a fog of thoughts clouding their vision, there can be no anxiety. For this, meditation is the cure.
How Does Meditation Help With Anxiety?
In meditation, we slowly train our minds to be present by observing our breath, our body, our thoughts, and our surroundings with no judgment or reaction to them.
We just let them be. We learn to accept whatever comes and let go of whatever doesn’t serve us. By observing what is happening around us and within us, we are training our mind to become present.
We aren’t watching a breath that just happened or a breath that is about to happen. We only see the breath as it currently is.
By doing this, we’re able to break free from the past and future and live in the eternal now. If we spend most of our life reliving the past or imagining the future, we essentially haven’t really lived at all.
Meditation helps us wake up from this dream, which causes nothing but needless suffering, and allows us to live more fully, more joyfully, and more peacefully.
So are you willing to dive into this ethereal experience of meditation and experience the benefits yourself? Let us know in the comments.
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April 10, 2023
How Lawyers Can Use Meditation to Improve Their Law Practice
Guest Post
Lawyers And StressThe job of lawyer can be very stressful. Lawyers are responsible for representing their clients and advocating for their interests, which can involve dealing with high-stakes and emotionally charged situations. They may work long hours and face strict deadlines, which can lead to pressure and stress.
Additionally, lawyers are often required to keep up with a large volume of legal information and case law, which can be challenging and demanding. However, not all legal jobs are the same and the level of stress can vary depending on the specific field of law and the individual’s work environment.
Can Meditation Help in Reducing the Stress in Lawyers
Yes, meditation can be a useful practice for lawyers to reduce stress and improve their overall well-being. Meditation involves focusing the mind on a specific object or activity, such as the breath or a mantra, to increase awareness and reduce stress.
Studies have shown that meditation can be effective in reducing stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as improving attention and cognitive function. For lawyers, who often face high levels of stress due to the demands of the job, meditation can provide a valuable tool for managing stress and improving focus.
Meditation can be practiced in many different ways, including guided meditations, mindfulness meditation, or Transcendental Meditation (TM). Lawyers can experiment with different meditation techniques and find the one that works best for them.
How Can Lawyers Meditate
Attorneys can meditate in a variety of ways, including:
Guided meditations: Guided meditations are a great way for beginners to get started with meditation. They involve listening to an instructor’s voice and following their guidance on how to meditate. There are many guided meditations available online or through apps that are specifically designed for lawyers and legal professionals.
Mindfulness meditation: Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on the present moment and becoming aware of your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations without judgment. This practice can be done anywhere, at any time, and only requires a few minutes of quiet reflection.
Breathing exercises: Breathing exercises can be done anywhere, anytime, and involve focusing on your breath as a way to quiet the mind and reduce stress. This practice can be especially helpful during busy or stressful times throughout the workday.
Walking meditation: Walking meditation involves being mindful of the physical sensations of walking and the environment around you. This practice can be done outside or indoors and can be a good option for lawyers who want to incorporate mindfulness into their daily routine.
Mantra Meditation: Mantra Meditation is a specific type of meditation that involves repeating a mantra silently to yourself. This practice can be done for 20 minutes, twice a day and has been shown to reduce stress and improve overall well-being.
Attorneys can experiment with different meditation techniques to find the one that works best for them. It’s important to note that regular practice is key to experiencing the benefits of meditation. Even just a few minutes of meditation per day can make a big difference in reducing stress and improving focus.
Can Meditation Help You Become a Better Lawyer
Yes, meditation can help you become a better lawyer in several ways:
Improved focus and concentration: Meditation can help you develop stronger powers of concentration and focus, which can be invaluable in the legal profession. With improved focus, you can more easily stay on task, avoid distractions, and be more productive in your work.
Better decision-making: Meditation can help you cultivate a greater sense of awareness and intuition, which can be useful in making better decisions in your work. By learning to be more present and attentive, you can better assess the situation at hand and make more informed decisions.
Reduced stress and anxiety: Lawyers are often faced with high levels of stress and anxiety, which can negatively impact their performance and well-being. Meditation has been shown to be an effective tool for reducing stress and anxiety, which can help you perform better in your work and improve your overall quality of life.
Increased empathy and compassion: Meditation can help you cultivate greater empathy and compassion for others, which can be useful in the legal profession. By developing a greater understanding of others’ perspectives and needs, you can be a more effective negotiator and advocate for your clients.
Overall, meditation can be a powerful tool for personal and professional growth, and can help you become a more effective and fulfilled lawyer. By incorporating meditation into your daily routine, you can develop the skills and qualities that are essential for success in the legal profession.
Can Meditation Improve Your Law Practice
Yes, meditation can also improve your law practice in several ways. Here are some examples:
Better communication skills: Meditation can help you cultivate better communication skills, which are essential for success in the legal profession. By developing greater self-awareness and empathy, you can more effectively communicate with clients, colleagues, and other stakeholders.
Improved conflict resolution skills: As a lawyer, you may encounter a wide range of conflicts and disputes. Meditation can help you develop better conflict resolution skills by helping you remain calm and centered in challenging situations.
Enhanced creativity: Meditation can help you tap into your creative side, which can be useful in developing innovative legal strategies and solutions. By quieting your mind and allowing your thoughts to flow freely, you can generate new ideas and approaches to complex legal problems.
Increased resilience: The legal profession can be demanding and stressful, and it’s important to be able to bounce back from setbacks and challenges. Meditation can help you build resilience and develop a more positive outlook, which can help you better navigate the ups and downs of your law practice.
Overall, meditation can be a powerful tool for improving your law practice and helping you achieve greater success and fulfillment in your career. By incorporating meditation into your daily routine, you can develop the skills and qualities that are essential for success in the legal profession.
How Can Extremely Busy Lawyers Find Time to Meditate
As a lawyer, finding time to meditate can be challenging, but there are ways to incorporate meditation into your busy schedule. Here are some tips:
Start small: You don’t have to meditate for long periods of time to experience the benefits. Even just a few minutes of meditation per day can make a difference. Try starting with just 5-10 minutes per day and gradually increase the time as you become more comfortable with the practice.
Find pockets of time: Look for small pockets of time throughout your day where you can meditate. This could be during your commute, a lunch break, or before you start your workday.
Incorporate mindfulness into your daily routine: Mindfulness can be practiced anywhere, at any time, and doesn’t require any special equipment or preparation. You can practice mindfulness while walking, eating, or even while brushing your teeth.
Make it a habit: Consistency is key when it comes to meditation. Try to make meditation a daily habit, even if it’s just for a few minutes per day. By making it a habit, it will become easier to incorporate into your daily routine.
Remember, the benefits of meditation are numerous, and even a few minutes of meditation per day can help reduce stress and improve focus. By finding small pockets of time throughout your day and making it a habit, you can incorporate meditation into your busy schedule.
When Will Meditation Show Results
The amount of time it takes to see results from meditation can vary depending on a variety of factors, such as how often you practice and the specific techniques you use. Some people may notice benefits right away, while for others, it may take several weeks or even months of regular practice to see significant improvements.
Research has shown that regular meditation practice can lead to a range of benefits, including reduced stress and anxiety, improved focus and attention, and increased feelings of well-being. However, the exact timeline for when these benefits will start to manifest can vary from person to person.
It’s important to note that meditation is not a quick fix or a one-time solution. Like any other skill or habit, it requires regular practice and dedication to see lasting results. The key is to approach meditation with a consistent and patient attitude, and to be open to the process of growth and change that it can facilitate.
A 2-Minute Meditation for Lawyers
Meditation can be a great tool for reducing stress, increasing focus and clarity, and improving overall well-being. Here are some steps you can follow to start meditating:
Find a quiet and comfortable place where you won’t be disturbed. This could be a room in your home, a park, or any other peaceful location.
Sit down in a comfortable position. You can sit cross-legged on the floor, on a cushion, or in a chair with your feet flat on the ground. The most important thing is to find a position that feels comfortable and allows you to maintain good posture.
Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Focus on your breath as you inhale and exhale. Try to slow down your breath and make it more even.
As you focus on your breath, try to let go of any thoughts or distractions that may come up. This can be difficult at first, but with practice, you’ll get better at quieting your mind.
You can also try focusing on a particular word or phrase that has personal meaning to you. This is known as a mantra. Repeat the mantra silently to yourself as you breathe.
Continue meditating for a set amount of time. You can start with just a few minutes and gradually increase the amount of time as you become more comfortable with the practice.
When you’re finished, take a few deep breaths and slowly open your eyes. Take a moment to notice how you feel and try to carry that feeling of peace and relaxation with you as you go about your day.
Remember, meditation is a practice, so don’t worry if your mind wanders or you find it difficult to quiet your thoughts at first. With regular practice, you’ll get better at it and experience the many benefits of meditation. Good luck and happy meditating!
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How Not to Choose a Corporate Meditation Workshop
Choosing the right Corporate Meditation Workshop for your company is no easy task. Given below are the four questions you should ask yourself when determining which Corporate Meditation Workshop is right for your organization.
Then, you will surely avoid catastrophe and set your company up for greater productivity. Not only this, but it will also lead to greater mental health, fewer employee conflicts, more job satisfaction, and lower turnover rates.
Most Corporate Meditation Workshops are led by instructors who follow a rigid ideology. This tends to be either Hinduism or Buddhism. However, there are sects of Catholicism and other Christian meditation workshops, and even atheist ones as well.
The problem with all of these is that they leave out a vast number of people. These are the ones who do not belong to that particular sect.
It would seem that atheism might be inclusive of everyone. However, it in fact leaves out a great number of inspiring, non-religious teachings from a variety of sources around the world.
In fact, focusing on your breath alone while forgoing ancient wisdom does not help someone understand more deeply eternal truths about the nature of our mind, the cause of our needless suffering, and the way out of suffering.
Unfortunately at the moment, there is no well-regarded, internationally-recognized meditation certificate that exists to qualify a person for meditation instruction.
Many programs involve a week or a weekend training course, which will grant anyone who attends a meditation training certificate. For all these reasons, whoever you select as your Corporate Meditation Workshop instructor must be adequately vetted as to their training and experience.
These days, every single spiritual teacher has their own kind of spiritual practice or meditation they are promoting. You could spend a thousand lifetimes learning and testing them all. Most of which would be a waste, unfortunately.
For every true teacher, there are at least a hundred hucksters. But luckily, new scientific research has come to the rescue. We can literally see into people’s brains and see how different kinds of meditations impact neurological activity.
At EastWesticism, we’re science junkies. If it’s not in science, we’re just not that interested. We don’t have the time – and neither do you – to try out every single type of foofoo quasi-magical visualization/manifestation.
We care about proven results, scientific evidence, and peer-reviewed studies that can stand up to scrutiny.
Q 4: What is the Track Record of Their Corporate Meditation Workshop?
Sometimes there are some genuinely well-intentioned people out there who may even know their stuff. However, when speaking to large groups they have a hard time connecting with their audience.
It can be tough for some meditation teachers to remember that not everyone has gone through the same experience they have. They further may not be completely aware that not everyone has the same knowledge they do. Their teachings can be confusing and unrelatable.
One of the most important things to look for in a Corporate Meditation Workshop instructor is a proven track record. This can be with companies, repeat business with them, and positive outcomes at those companies.
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April 9, 2023
Can Meditation Help Fight Depression?
There are many more questions that envelope the idea behind meditation and spirituality. But one of the major questions that everyone asks is can meditation help fight depression? Depression is one of the most common yet most debilitating forms of mental illnesses a majority of us are suffering from today.
The idea is that with meditation, you can begin your journey towards healing from this demon of depression. But what is the truth behind it? Does meditation really help fight depression? We take a look at the answers now.
Whether it’s severe chronic depression, short term depression, or even just the occasional waking up and not feeling happy and joyful. We all know what it’s like to be in a depressed mood. From kids to seniors, depression can affect anyone, anytime.
Moreover, Depression doesn’t just afflict the mind either. Depression leads to numerous behaviors that make us less active, eat poorly, and consume harmful drugs and alcohol.
There are many things that can cause depression. These include genetics, trauma, stress, illness, addiction, and a family history of mental health disorders. Sometimes, depression doesn’t even need the background to knock on your door. It can hit any of us, anytime, anywhere.
But while the causes of depression can’t always be controlled, one thing we can do to fight and win in the battle against depression is meditation.
The Washington Post, Harvard Medical School, the Mayo Clinic, and countless other publications have all written extensively about the benefits of meditation and the ability for meditation to beat depression.
A great deal of research has been done into just how effective meditation is for depression, how and why it works so well. For many people, such as the woman who wrote about her story in the Washington Post, meditation is the only thing that works for their depression.
Here are a few ways meditation may be able to help you fight off depression for good.
In meditation, we don’t just try to quieten our thoughts. Through practice, we learn to observe our thoughts without judgment. Moreover, we observe and begin to understand the nature of our minds. We notice how thoughts come and go when we don’t hold on to them or fixate on them.
We notice how one thought can lead to other thoughts, and we start becoming conscious of our thought patterns. And each time we become lost in thought, we gently bring our attention back to our breath or the body in the present moment.
The greatest illusion perpetrated on human beings is that the thoughts are who we really are. We say things like, “I had a thought.” But you did not have thought. Your mind had thought and you observed it. You are the observer, not the thought.
The mind is the thinking tool of the body, and it will think and think incessantly about anything and everything it can think up. Have you ever been waiting for a subway on a crowded platform and thought to yourself, “I could push this person in and kill them and no one would ever catch me?” Brains think these kinds of things all the time but that doesn’t make you a murderer.
Our minds are thinking constantly and often repetitively and in circles. If we said everything we thought, people would think we were insane. Our minds are not insane though, they just do what they were designed to do: think.
According to some studies, humans have up to 60,000 thoughts per day and around 98% of them are the exact same thoughts they had the day before. The only difference between a “crazy” person we see talking to themselves on the street and a “sane” person is that the same person usually has the sense to not say out loud every crazy thought that pops into their brain.
So, since we’ve already proven that our mind thinks crazy thoughts all the time, to identify with our mind would be to become crazy ourselves. A mind is merely a tool that has evolved to help us with our survival in planning for the future by gathering nuts, to learn from the past and avoiding fire and tigers, and to work together and strategize for the survival of our species.
To identify with the mind and think that you are your thoughts is as crazy as thinking you are your hand. When we learn and practice in meditation to disidentify with our mind and to expand our awareness of our thoughts, we are able to observe negative thoughts without giving them any power over us and our emotions.
Our bodies and our brains are amazing systems that have the ability to naturally produce all of the chemicals needed to heal and repair itself. When we need healing white blood cells, our body is flooded with them. When we need dopamine, our brain produces dopamine.
Moreover, when we need adrenaline for focus and strength, we get it. The deep, relaxed, healing, and restorative state that meditation puts us in gives our body the signal to start producing those antidepressant chemicals naturally, in much greater quantities than if they came from a prescription antidepressant, and with no harmful side effects!
Problems do not exist in the present moment. In the present moment, things just happen. Problems exist when we judge things in the past as negative or worry about the future.
It all lies in the stories we tell ourselves about the past and future. This isn’t to say that undesired outcomes never happen. They do. But, how we frame these stories and what we remain fixated on determines our happiness.
We remember the past so we can learn from it. We imagine a future so we can plan and prepare for it. Everything else is merely habitual thinking that tends to generate misery and unhappiness. Instead of habitual thinking though, we can practice remaining in the present moment where we merely observe the beauty of life unfold without judgment or resistance.
We simply let come what may and we marvel at the dance of light and form. When we are lost in thought, we are not observing what is actually happening in the present moment and we create problems that are not really there. Meditation teaches us to remain present and use our mind, not let it use us.
Eckhart Tolle once told a beautiful story of two Buddhist monks walking through a forest. When they got to a river that they needed to cross, they found a woman who was struggling to make it across.
The first monk got in and went up to her, picked her up, and helped her out of the water, and put her down on the other said. The monks said goodbye to the woman and they went on their way. After walking a few more miles, angry and upset, the second monk finally said to the first monk, “You know, monks are not supposed to touch women.”
The first monk responded, “Are you still carrying that woman? I put her down miles ago.”
This revealing story shows how hard it can be to let go of the stories from our past and the freedom we can experience when we do let go.
In mindfulness meditation, we practice focusing on our breath or our body. Over and over again, when we find ourselves lost in thought, we gently return our awareness to our breath or our body. When you observe the breath or the body, you are fully present.
You’re not observing your breath or sensations from a few moments ago. You are observing what you are feeling right here and now. At first, you may only be able to focus for a few seconds before getting distracted by your thoughts, but these brief breaks are nonetheless very powerful moments of freedom from the constant thinking and the beginning of training your mind to become more present as your normal way of being.
How you breathe is a direct reflection of how you feel. When you breathe long, smooth, calm breaths, you are calm and healthy. When your breath is short and choppy and irregular, you are not calm and your body is not operating at an optimum level.
Luckily for us, the breath is both an automatic process and something we can easily control. While your state of mind may control your breath unconsciously, breathing consciously can also change your state of mind.
Buddhism states that the root of all suffering comes from desire, attachment, and impermanence. Desire creates a mindset of not accepting our present reality, which leads to suffering.
Attachment creates a dependence on temporary circumstances and leads to suffering when things inevitably change. And while we all know that all things are impermanent, we fall for the illusion of permanence, which is why we become attached to things in the first place.
In meditation, no matter what kind of sensations come up, no matter what thoughts or desires arise, we simply observe them. We watch them arise and we watch them fall away, and in so doing, we notice and understand the impermanent nature of all things. Our wisdom and joy grow as we better understand the nature of our suffering.
From Transcendent Meditation to Mindfulness Meditation, study after study has shown that meditation transforms the regions of the brain associated with depression.
When the fear center and the “me” center (the part of the brain responsible for worrying and stress) communicate with each other, we experience depression. Meditation has been shown to break the connection, reduce stress and anxiety, and reduce the size of the brain’s fear center.
There’s also a correlation between depression and poor memory. Depressed people often have a smaller hippocampus which is responsible for memory. Meditation increases the size of the hippocampus and improves memory too!
It turns out, antidepressants don’t work as well as we’ve been told. As revealed in the New York Times, while doctors and drug companies claim that nearly all of the peer-reviewed published studies about the efficacy of antidepressants were positive, what they don’t tell you is that there is an equal number of studies that showed negative results.
The negative studies, however, were never published! That means that half of the studies on antidepressants, which were nearly all funded by pharmaceutical companies, showed they work a little bit.
However, there are the other half of the studies. This half was not published or revealed to the public. Did you know what it showed? It showed that antidepressants were ineffective or harmful.
The findings in the times show that antidepressants only have a 50/50 chance of working or not, and that the times they do work are more likely to be due to the placebo effect than anything else.
In addition, many antidepressant medications come with debilitating side effects, not to mention the fact that some can make depression even worse and even lead to suicide. Common side effects of antidepressants include weight gain, insomnia, loss of sex drive and other sexual problems, agitation, anxiety, and irritability. Sound depressing yet?
One woman I know very well was briefly on an antidepressant. After a while, it started giving her symptoms as if she had Parkinson’s disease.
She was tested many times for Parkinson’s and other diseases but all came back negative. Then one day, a doctor diagnosed her with drug-induced Parkinson’s disease syndrome.
Five years later, she still has trouble walking and chronic pain. Antidepressants are just not worth the risk and certainly best tried only as a last resort.
By learning to be more present, by understanding our thoughts and emotions, and by realizing the root cause of our suffering, all through the age-old and scientifically proven powerful practice of meditation, we can bring greater awareness to our mental state.
Not only this, but we can also increase our ability to be more grateful, joyful, peaceful, and loving.
When we’re more present, flavors are more flavorful, colors are more vibrant, sounds are more melodic, and we awaken from suffering and depression.
We are the creators of our own physical reality. This shapes through our awareness, trust, belief, willingness, and desire to tap into the spiritual reality more than the physical reality. And with meditation, it is all possible.
As late Louise Hay stated, you can heal your own life. You can cure your depression and step into the world of mental, physical, and spiritual bliss. All you have to do is tap into your subconscious with meditation and step into the new age well being. So are you ready?
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April 6, 2023
Path to Peace How to Overcome Meaninglessness in Life
In Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, we learn how Holocaust prisoners were more likely to survive if they felt there was some meaning to their senseless circumstances. In this evil place and time where life had no meaning, to survive meant finding and creating meaning wherever they could. For many, becoming hopeless meant certain death.
Meaning and hope are like oxygen for the soul. So how do we find meaning? What is the meaning of life? Why does life feel meaningless sometimes? And what can we do to create a meaningful life? I answer these questions and more in today's podcast.
Please enjoy other episodes where I share meditation techniques, tips and spiritual lessons from around the world for peaceful and stress-free living. Remember to subscribe to stay up-to-date.
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How to Use Meditation For Better Decision Making
We all know meditation can make us more peaceful, patient, relaxed and joyful. We know it lowers stress, anxiety and blood pressure. But did you know meditation can lead to better decision making?
In this article, I’ll tell you how it works and show you how to use meditation for better decision making.
Meditation Makes Us Smarter
Meditation makes us smarter?!?! It’s true! Meditation isn’t about shutting down our thoughts. It’s about becoming aware of our thoughts. Usually, when we go about our busy lives, we think our thoughts.
In meditation, without distractions we are able to simply observe our thoughts. This allows a greater intelligence to come into play. We are able to perceive our own mindset, notice our preconceived notions, and discover our biases.
The more we meditate, the wiser we become because we aren’t victims to our same old habitual thinking patterns. The more we become aware of our thoughts, the less they control us. We can perceive our own thoughts with clarity and we can choose the best path forward.
Only in this way can we stop reacting unconsciously to situations and instead we can make new, smarter, better choices. By bringing conscious awareness to our thoughts, meditation can lead to better decision making.
Meditation Gives Us the Opportunity to Reflect
Beyond learning to focus our mind, be more present and increase our patience, meditation gives us the time we need to fully reflect on any situation or circumstance.
More time spent sitting without distractions means more time for ideas to pop in our head. It gives us the time to play out various scenarios in our mind. We can see infinite possibilities and how best to proceed forward.
As Albert Einstein said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
Einstein was not being modest. He knew that his true gift was being able to ponder, reflect, contemplate and focus better that anyone else of his time. Imagine if he knew about meditation!
The more we meditate on a particular dilemma, the better our decision making process becomes.
Meditation Leads to Better Decision Making Because We Think Better When We’re Calm
We all have experienced in our lives times of great stress and worry. We also know that in these times, we’re more likely to panic and make mistakes or bad decisions. This is so universal, that we literally call stock market crashes “panics” because so many people tend to sell, and often right before the market rebounds.
When we are at peace, we think clearer. In a relaxed state, our minds are able to make unemotional decisions that take into account much more than the narrow minded mental state of fear. We can think about the long term, short term, medium term consequences of our decisions with clarity and without bias. We can think about all the ways our decision could go wrong and how best to adjust for it.
In this way, the calmness from meditation leads to better decision making.
Higher Awareness from Meditation Leads to Better Decision Making
When we meditate, we experience moments of no thinking. While it’s not the goal, they will happen. The more we meditate, they will become longer and more frequent.
It is precisely in these moments that great insights and inspiration can enter our consciousness. That is because when we stop the linear process of constantly thinking one word at a time, we tap into a deeper understanding and wisdom that is vast and limitless.
We can understand and perceive so much more when we are not thinking and analyzing than when we do. We can sense in a single moment a little decision can cascade outward like a ripple causing countless repercussions and ramifications. Then suddenly, the best path forward will present itself clear as day.
Using Meditation for Better Decision Making
There is an ancient meditation practice that is still used today because of its amazing ability for decision making.
When you sit down to meditate, practice as you normally would for a few minutes. Then, focus on a decision you need to make. Really think about it now that you’re in this focused, relaxed state. Do that for a few minutes and then go back to your usual meditation practice.
Repeat this a few times, as many as you like. What you are doing is letting your consciousness communicate with your subconscious. Because meditation taps into our subconscious by bringing consciousness to it, we are able to use more of our mind to solve problems. Your thinking will be clearer, sharper, and more effective.
If you’re new to meditation, this Guide for Beginners is a great resource for getting started.
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April 5, 2023
Before You Distract Yourself Again
Smartphones are like refrigerators on steroids. Remember the old days? We’d go to the fridge, open the door, and be so overwhelmed with all of the stuff inside that we forgot why we went to the fridge in the first place. Who hasn’t spent 5 minutes staring at the inside of a fridge, completely lost in a daze?
With smartphones, instead of 30 food items we have 50 notifications, 60 apps, and infinite information. Whether it’s fridges or phones, our brains are not meant to be in a constant state of information overload. It’s bad for our mental health and it’s bad for our physical health. It leads to ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Plus, the stress it puts on our minds leads to unhealthy and impulsive behaviors, like addiction, poor sleep, and food choices that lead to heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.
So let’s use this upcoming week to unscatter our brains and bring some mindfulness to our digital lives. Whenever you feel the urge to pull out your phone, pause, take a breath, ask yourself if you really need to or if you are just responding to a mindless urge. If after a few seconds of presence (which means taking in your surroundings and checking in with your inner space as well) you still decide that there is something you really need to do on your phone, then go for it. If not, leave it in your pocket and wait till the next urge. Repeat as needed.
For more on how to undo the damage of our digital age so we can welcome more peace and joy into our lives, our new film, Digital Ego, comes out tomorrow, April 1st at 8:am (Eastern Time) on my YouTube channel. Along with the film’s release will be a new book that goes into more detail so that we can all make sure our technology serves us, and not the other way around. Available on Amazon tomorrow as an ebook and will be out Monday in print.
Always Remember:
It’s impossible to think about not thinking. All we can do is become fully present, which takes practice. When we are thinking, we are not present, but rather we are in our head. So we simply have to practice being fully aware with nonjudgmental curiosity about our surroundings and even our bodies.
There is so much around us and within us at all times that we tend to tune out. We must tune back in if we are to find peace and freedom from our own mind. Thoughts will still pop up, but if we are aware of them too, even then there will be peace.
As the leaves grow back and the flowers start to bloom, let’s remember during this beautiful season of rebirth to notice and soak in the world around us. Let’s smell the roses, bask in the warmth of the sun, and feel the grass beneath our feet. Let’s look closely into nature and find what no glass screen can offer — the loving embrace of life itself.
Peace and love,
Todd
PS: Zen Buddhists emphasize direct understanding of the mind and of reality through spiritual practices rather than through religious texts or doctrines. To reach this deeper understanding beyond words and intellectual knowledge, 3-pronged meditation practice was developed. In this article, I explain the three types of zen meditation, the benefits, and how you can get started.
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March 30, 2023
How to Stop Relying on Other People for Your Happiness
When we expect others to make us feel better, we become the outsourcer of our own happiness. And while it can be very healing to have close people in our lives who we can share our problems with, sharing can all too easily turn into dumping.
When we dump all our problems onto others with the expectation of them making us feel better, we are not valuing the other person in the relationship like they deserve. Instead of seeing them as individual people with their own things going on, we see free therapists who exist solely for us. In my recent video, I spoke more about how we can get out of our old ways of thinking when we’re not in a good place mentally.
We aren’t just dumping our worries on them either. We are also unloading the responsibility we have to ourselves. Afterall, only you are responsible for you. We are responsible for the energy we carry with us. So we have to ask ourselves, are we adding value to people’s lives, or are we taking value?
Whatever we take is more likely to be taken from us. Whatever we give is more likely to be given to us. That is the way of the world. If we tap into the happiness within, we become an example for the people we care most about. If we deal with our own stuff, if we love ourselves, and if we do the work to heal, we become happier, we’re able to give more happiness to others, and more happiness invariably finds its way back to us. (here’s more on how to add happiness and contentment to your life in my podcast.)
Here is a very simple technique that I’ve seen help people immensely who have struggled with temper, anger, stress, and dumping problems on their loved ones. I call it the “I’ll Get Mad Later” strategy. Whenever you’re upset at someone, or you’re just upset about something that’s on your mind, and you really don’t want to lose your temper and yell at anyone, just think to yourself, “I’ll get mad about this later when I’m by myself.” Later can be at the gym, on a walk, in a sauna or cold plunge, in nature, or anywhere else you can go to decompress, recenter, and let it all out. Usually, you’ll find that when later comes, you’re not still mad after all.
Meditation is just one of the ways we can reconnect with our highest self. In my recent article, I write in depth about how meditation makes us better people to those we love. And if you find yourself dealing with especially heavy emotions that are weighing on you, here is my podcast on controlling the ego and forgiving someone who wronged you.
Always remember:
Sometimes we have to take a step back and look at the big picture. It can be done in every moment by simply being aware of the space between objects, the silence between words and thoughts, and of the stillness. We usually miss these moments, but they are always there and these spaces are from where all forms arise. In some sense, space is more important than the stuff because without space there could be no existence.
The more we see the space, the more we see connections and how things exist in relation to one another. By moving beyond form we move beyond the senses and into the expanded consciousness of energy and relationships, intuition and instinct.
The easiest way to experience this spacious dimension is to close our eyes, sit in quiet, and turn our attention inward. Here is where we will discover our deepest sense of being and a perspective of the entire universe within us and of which we are a part. We don’t have to look up at a starry night to sense the awe and wonder of the infinite. It lies within each of us and is available to us anytime.
As the weather warms, the leaves grow back and the flowers bloom, let’s remember the impeccable balancing act of the universe. From harsh winters come blooming springs. We too are a microcosm of the universe. When there is stress and tension, let rest and recovery follow. From burdens may there be blessings. And may we find the peace within both.
PS: Not many are aware that meditation can help cure Restless Leg Syndrome. “How?” You ask? I will tell you all about it in this article.
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