The Headspace Guide to: Mindfulness & Meditation

by Andy Puddicombe

The fact is, our entire existence is experienced through the mind. We depend on it for our sense of happiness and fulfilment in life and for positive relationships with others. So taking a few minutes out each day to train and maintain it is simply good common sense.

Mindfulness means to be present, in the moment, undistracted. It implies resting the mind in its natural state of awareness, which is free of any bias or judgment.

If mindfulness is the ability to be present, to rest in the moment whatever you’re doing, and meditation is the best way of learning that skill, then ‘headspace’ could be considered the outcome. I’m using the word in the broadest possible context here. In fact, many people might choose to use the word ‘happiness’ instead. The problem with the word ‘happiness’ is it tends to get confused with the emotion of happiness. Don’t

That’s why meditation feels so good, often even the very first time. It doesn’t (necessarily) leave you rolling around in laughter or swinging from the chandeliers, but it leaves you with the sense of having touched upon that underlying sense of contentment, that place where you just know that everything is OK. The consequences of this can be life changing.

world. Sometimes there’ll be external situations that require change, that might even demand change, and you’ll need to handle these situations skilfully, with mindfulness. But when it comes to the way you think and feel about those situations, the starting point is to acknowledge that it’s the mind itself that defines your experience. This is why training the mind is so important. By changing the way in which you see the world, you effectively change the world around you.

It’s safe to assume that if you’re in a better place because you’re practising mindfulness and doing your meditation each day, then you’re going to interact with others in a more positive way as well. This is perhaps the most neglected aspect of mind training. When meditation came from the East to the West, for some reason it quickly became about ‘me, myself and I’. While this was perhaps inevitable at first, it’s important that we now, as time goes by, have the intention to make it a more altruistic type of training. My guess is that you probably struggle most in life when you are focusing on your own problems, because that’s what we tend to do as humans. We like to obsess, ruminate and analyse endlessly. OK, so we don’t actually like doing it, but it can sometimes feel impossible to stop it. But what happens when you think about someone else’s problems instead?

By focusing less on your own worries and more on the potential happiness of others you actually create more headspace for yourself. Not

‘In stepping back from the thoughts and feelings, there will be a sense of increased space. It might feel as if you are simply an observer, watching the thoughts, the traffic, go by. Sometimes you might forget,’ he said, smiling knowingly, ‘and before you know it you’ll find yourself running down the road after a fancy-looking car. This is what happens when you experience a pleasant thought. You see it, get caught up in it, and end up chasing after the thought.’

You won’t want to run out into the road quite so often and you’ll find it easier and easier to just sit and watch the thoughts go by. This is the process of meditation.’

I’d learnt that meditation, within a mindful context, was not about stopping thoughts and controlling the mind. It was a process of giving up control, of stepping back, learning how to focus the attention in a passive way, while simply resting the mind in its own natural awareness. My

space’, I’d always assumed that it was something I had to do. As it turns out, though, it is in not doing that those moments arise. It is stepping back and allowing the mind to unwind in its own time and its own way that you will find a genuine sense of headspace.

The blue sky is headspace, and it’s always there – or, rather, here. This changed everything for me. Meditation was no longer about trying to create an artificial state of mind, which I’d imagined headspace was. Neither was it about trying to keep all the clouds at bay. It was more a case of setting up a deckchair in the garden and watching as the clouds rolled by. Sometimes

‘Happiness is just happiness,’ he went on, ‘no big deal. It comes and it goes. Sadness is just sadness, no big deal. It comes and it goes. If you can give up your desire to always experience pleasant things, at the same time as giving up your fear of experiencing unpleasant things, then you’ll have a quiet mind.’

‘When you experience pleasant sensations in your practice, I want you to imagine sharing those feelings with other people,’ he began. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s the pleasant sensation of a quiet mind, of a relaxed body or a comforting emotion; simply imagine you are giving it away, sharing it with your friends and family, the people you care about.’ He continued. ‘It doesn’t require lots of thought and I still want you to focus on the breath, just counting the breaths as they pass. But, if you find yourself sitting there and you feel very good, then maintain this attitude of wanting to share it with others.’ I couldn’t really see how this was going to help, but it sounded harmless enough and the sentiment was well meaning. ‘This next bit might be a little more challenging,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘When you experience discomfort in your meditation, whether it’s the restlessness of a busy mind, physical tension in the body, or a challenging emotion, I want you to imagine it’s the discomfort of the people you care about. It’s as if in an act of extraordinary generosity, you are sitting with their discomfort so they don’t have to.’

So often we shut down when unpleasant feelings arise, we don’t want to feel them or be around them. But by reacting in this way we only give the emotion a greater sense of importance.

When we feel angry the world can look very threatening: we see situations as obstacles and other people as enemies. And yet when we feel happy, the world can appear as quite a friendly place. We view the same situations as opportunities and the same people as friends. The world around us has not changed that much, but our experience of that world is radically different.

Have you ever noticed how quiet the mind becomes when you really focus on something? How, even if your mind is all over the place beforehand, once you’re engaged in something you enjoy doing and are focused on that activity wholeheartedly, the mind starts to settle and feel calm? Well, meditation is a very similar process. To begin with we need to give the mind something to focus on, something to concentrate on. Traditionally these were known as ‘objects of meditation’ or ‘meditation supports’ and they were classified as external or

So, if you’re unaware, then you are not meditating badly, you’re not meditating at all! It doesn’t matter whether you’re aware of lots of thoughts or of no thoughts. Nor does it matter whether you’re aware of pleasant feelings or unpleasant feelings. The skill is simply to be aware, that’s all.

we’re so used to doing something, being involved in something, that it can feel a bit boring to just sit and watch the mind, especially if the thoughts are mundane. We create these stories in an attempt to make things interesting, to get away from the boredom. But have you ever stayed with boredom long enough to look at what it is? Is it simply a thought or a feeling of wanting to be somewhere else, of doing something different? And if so, then why treat that thought or feeling any differently from all the others you observe in the mind? As

Take10 – summary Getting ready: 1 Find a place to sit down comfortably, keeping a straight back. 2 Ensure you’ll be left undisturbed during your meditation (switch off your mobile). 3 Set the timer for 10 minutes. Checking-in: 1 Take 5 deep breaths, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth and then gently close your eyes. 2 Focus on the physical sensation of the body on the chair and the feet on the floor. 3 Scan down through the body and notice which parts feel comfortable and relaxed, and which parts feel uncomfortable and tense. 4 Notice how you’re feeling – i.e. what sort of mood you’re in right now. Focusing the mind: 1 Notice where you feel the rising and falling sensation of the breath most strongly. 2 Notice how each breath feels, the rhythm of it – whether it’s long or short, deep or shallow, rough or smooth. 3 Gently count the breaths as you focus on the rising and falling sensation – 1 with the rise and 2 with the fall, upwards to a count of 10. 4 Repeat this cycle between 5 and 10 times, or for as long as you have time available. Finishing-off: 1 Let go of any focus at all, allowing the mind to be as busy or as still as it wants to be for about 20 seconds. 2 Bring the mind back to the sensation of the body on the chair and the feet on the floor. 3 Gently open your eyes and stand up when you feel ready.

In the moment you realise that you’ve been distracted, that the mind has wandered off, you’re no longer distracted.

The scientists found that the areas of the brain which regulate pain and emotion were significantly thicker in meditators compared to non-meditators. This is important, because the thicker the region, the lower the pain sensitivity. This potential for change in the brain is known as neuroplasticity. It

In a comprehensive analysis of thirty-nine different studies, researchers from Boston University examined how effective mindfulness had been in treating anxiety and depression in patients suffering from other illness. They found that meditation had a significant effect on the symptoms across a wide range of health disorders. The researchers concluded the benefits are so far-reaching because meditators learn how to work better with difficulties in general, and so therefore experience less stress in life.

The effort is simply remembering to notice when you’ve been caught up in thoughts or feelings and, in that moment, redirecting your attention to a particular point of focus. It doesn’t matter whether the point of focus is the taste of the food that you’re eating, the movement of your arm as you open and close a door, the weight of your body pressing against a chair beneath you, the sensation of water against your skin as you’re taking a shower, the sound of your heart beating as you exercise, the physical sensation of touch between you and your baby, the smell of toothpaste as you’re brushing your teeth, or even the simple act of drinking a glass of water. Awareness can be applied to every little thing you do – no exceptions. It can be applied to both passive and dynamic activities, indoors and outdoors, at work and at play, and alone or with others.

So, the beauty of mindfulness is that you don’t need to take extra time out of your day to practise it. All it means is training your mind to be present with the action, rather than being lost in thought elsewhere.

Like so many people, myself included, he’d thought that it was only possible to train the mind while sitting completely still in meditation. But mind training is so much more flexible than that. The practice of mindfulness shows us how we can apply the same quality of mind to everything we do. It doesn’t matter whether we live a very physical life or a sedentary life, there is just as much time to be aware cycling down the road as there is sitting in a chair at home. And nor does it matter what type of job we have. We all follow the same twenty-four-hour clock, so we all have the same amount of time to train in awareness. Whether we’re aware of the physical senses, our emotions, our thoughts, or the content of those thoughts, it’s all awareness and there is always time to be aware.

Forgetting your frustration in this simple act of altruism you start the day afresh.

Researchers investigating the effectiveness of mindfulness found that after just five days of meditating for a very short time, participants showed increased blood flow to the area of the brain that helps to control emotions and behaviour.

We’re so used to doing something that we find the idea of doing nothing somewhat alien or boring at first. You don’t need to think of meditation as ‘working on yourself’, it’s simply ten minutes out of your day to allow the body and mind to unwind, while becoming more familiar with the idea of being present, of being aware.