Breathe In and Out With Me - Burlington Ruby Conference 2015
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Companies make significant efforts and investments to keep employees happy: free lunches, financial incentives, company outings, and training budgets just to name a few. That's all well and good, but what can we do to take ownership of our own happiness? In this talk, we will discuss how mindfulness and meditation techniques can be used to take ownership in our own happiness and well-being. We will discuss resources and tips to get started with a practice, as well as stumbling blocks you may encounter along the way.
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Breathe In and Out With Me - Burlington Ruby Conference 2015
- 1. @mdenomy
- 2. Breathe In and Out With Me Taking Ownership of Your Own Well-Being Using Mindfulness and Meditation @mdenomy Burlington Ruby 2015
- 3. Great Time To Be a Software Engineer • High demand, well compensated • Great perks and flexible scheduling • Amazing community and tools • Solving problems is fun and rewarding
- 4. Not All Pie and Ice Cream
- 5. Set The Wayback Machine
- 6. Signs of Stress • Inability to detach from work • Poor sleep • No exercise • Bad eating habits • Conflicts and irritability
- 7. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) • Founded in 1979 by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the UMass Medical School in Worcester Massachusetts • 8-week program combining mindfulness, meditation, and yoga to help find more balance and address issues related to: • Chronic pain • Stress • Anxiety • Physical ailments
- 8. What’s This All About Anyway?
- 9. Mindfulness • Presence • Awareness • Non-judgemental
- 10. Two Meditators
- 11. Meditation Demystified • Keep your focus on the breath • All the way on the in-breath • All the way on the out-breath • When a thought comes in your head • Notice it, don’t judge it, let it go • Return your focus to the breath
- 12. Monkey Mind
- 14. Congratulations
- 15. Benefits • More aware of what’s happening in my mind and body • Less reactive • Helps me have more constructive conversations
- 19. Skeptical? Meditation is as important as lifting weights and being out here on the field for practice. It’s about quieting your mind and getting into certain states where everything outside of you doesn’t matter in that moment -Russell Okung
- 21. Loving Kindness Meditation • Form of “directed meditation” • Visualize some being in your life, and repeat an internalized mantra directed towards them
- 22. Loving Kindness Meditation May you be happy May you be healthy May you be at peace May you find joy
- 23. Loving Kindness Meditation • Ourselves Self-compassion • Someone we care about What matters most • Someone we have difficulty with Empathy
- 24. Tips To Get Started • Build a regular practice • 10-20 minutes a day is all it takes • Same time of day if you can http://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/Stress-Reduction/ https://www.headspace.com/ HeadspaceMBSR
- 25. Thank You @mdenomy @mdenomy Burlington Ruby 2015
- 26. Photo Credits • http://ghost1227.com/2014/11/burnout-or-what-to-do-when-you-hit-a-brick-wall/ • http://arc.applause.com/2015/07/02/software-developer-burnout/ • http://www.infoworld.com/article/2625739/it-management/developer-burnout--time-to-end-the-- disposable-geek--mentality.html • http://www.businessinsider.com/syndromes-drive-coders-crazy-2014-3 • http://kimromancorle.com/blog/what%E2%80%99s-this-all-about-anyway/ • http://aboutmeditation.com/meditation-for-men/ • https://www.flickr.com/photos/antonkawasaki/4712303736/ • http://www.gammagenius.com/how_do_i_meditate.html • http://quietmonkeys.com/blog/ • http://www.whitperson.com/2013/04/11/codeblog-wait-i-think-i-got-this/
Editor's Notes
- My name is Michael Denomy, I am a software developer from the Boston area, and I am really excited to share some things I’ve learned that have helped me to reduce stress and add more balance to my life. Excited and a little scared. Not because I get nervous when I speak in public, I do, but because as important as these practices are for me, as much as they have helped my life, talking about stress, burnout, conflict, and imposter syndrome is not something I am particularly comfortable with. There are not many people I have shared these stories with, but you are my Ruby Frinds. You have earned that trust. And lets face it, meditation and mindfulness can have a perception problem. For everyone who was offered encouragement about this talk, there have been some eye rolls, a few “really’s”, cracked jokes. I am even guilty of cracking some of those jokes to ease the tension. But we get too far into that….
- Is this a great time to be a software engineer or what? There is no shortage of interesting, well-paid work to be found out there. The companies we work for are more than happy to provide us with free snacks, the best computers and monitors, standing desks, treadmill test, flexible schedules, remote work, the whole nine yards. We work in a truly amazing community. We have people like Zach, who has worked tirelessly on the Ruby core. Zach helped me make my 1st open source commit. People like Sam who helps bring us RSpec, thank you Sam, I am a hug fan of RSpec. And specially thanks to Brett, who is a wonderful soul. Brett has worked so hard to make this conference a reality, and his put his own unique stamp on it. Can we get some love for Brett. We get to solve really interesting problems that provide real value to our customers. And with continuous deployment and advanced metrics, we can see right away the impact of new features and bug fixes. We are living in great times
- But we don’t need to look hard to find trouble just under the surface. I’m sure most of us have seen, heard, or experienced first hand, stories of developer burnout. We’ve probably seen conflict in the workplace. These are issues that I have struggled with over my career, and will continue to struggle with in my career. But I want to share with you how meditation and mindfulness has made dealing with these things a little easier. It is not a cure-all, but I’m good with making things just a little bit better
- I was a little disappointed that Ryan dropped a Sherman and Peabody reference before my talk. Thanks pal, But let’s turn the clock back a few years anyway. It’s 2006, and I’m working at a life sciences startup developing one of the 1st commercially available DNA sequencers. And we are doing very important work in the genomics field. We believe that the work we are doing is going to help unlock the secrets of cancer, diabetes, autism, Alzheimers….diseases that impact millions. And I am working with some of the most talented, dedicated group I’ve ever worked with. It is a truly gelled team. The kind of team where you go to great pains to not let down your teammates But we are facing a bit of an uphill battle: better funded companies have started earlier than us. We have a very short runway.
- And these combine to create something of a perfect storm of stressors. Number 1 for me is my inability to disengage from work. I’m coming home late, mindlessly eating dinner, maybe a few hours of the tube, and then out comes the laptop. And on the weekends, I start the day thinking “I’ll just check my email”. Before you know it, it’s 3 in the afternoon, who knows where your family is. Who knows where the day went. And it’s not an isolated incident, and this wasn’t the first time in my career that this had happened. Nights, weekends, it just becomes all encompassing And this leads to all kinds of other problems: poor health, strained relationships at home and at work. I know how this movie ends. I am literally working myself into an early grave.
- It was time to find a solution. I knew I had a problem and I needed to address it. I had been curious about meditation. That’s what lead me to the MBSR program at the UMass med school. It uses meditation, yoga, communication exercises, and mindfulnesses to help deal with the challenges people face in their daily lives I had been curious about meditation for years, but also somewhat skeptical. What kind of people were going to be there. What was it going to be like. I was pleasantly surprised that there were all kinds of people there: business people dealing with work stress, people dealing with chronic pain, migraines, anxiety. It started to open my eyes that this was open to everybody.
- So what is all this mindfulness and meditation talk about anyway? Let’s see if we can strip away some of the mystery.
- Mindfulness is about presence. Being aware of what is happening right here, right now. What is happening in your mind, and in your body. It also requires some degree of being nonjudgmental. Let me talk a little about being non-judgemental. As a species, we make judgements very quickly, whether we realize it or not. It probably served us well in our caveman days. Saber-Tooth Tiger bad. Kitty: Good. But associating labels of good or bad can prevent you from fully experiencing and being aware of what you are feeling. Let me give an example. Let’s say I am angry with one of my coworkers, maybe they broke the build and went home. That never happens, but go along with me. If I label that as “bad”, maybe I’m less willing to look more deeply at what I’m feeling. Has this been an ongoing problem with this person, is there some other conflict happening, why is it OK for Fred to break the build, but if Barney does it I get really angry. What’s going on there. Feeling angry or sad is neither good or bad. How we choose to respond is what can make it good or bad.
- Meditation has a perception problem. Before I started meditating, when I thought of meditation, I usually pictured someone like the person on the left. Sitting on a mountain or a beach, wearing just the right clothes, sitting in a special pose. And that’s great, if you can meditate on a mountain, and look like that. I’d take that. But what about the guy on the right. Busy street, looks like he might be on his lunch break, just sitting there. He’s meditating too. Both equally valid. No special equipment required. I like to meditate in my PJs in my living room. But I’ve meditated on the bus, in an airport, in hotel rooms. Even on a beach.
- How do we meditate. There are probably as many ways to meditate as there are Javascript frameworks. Well, probably not that many. The meditation that I practice, uses the breath as an anchor to being present. We try to keep our focus solely on the experience of the breath. When I talk about keeping your focus on the breath, each of you may experience it somewhat differently. You may sense it most vividly it your nostrils, or in your belly as it expands and contracts. I tend to feel it more in my chest, as I feel it rise and fall. Sort of like waves on the ocean. And WHEN your mind happens to wander, and it will, maybe you’re thinking about the long drive home, or that delicious lunch you just made you sleepy, or you’re thinking about work tomorrow, acknowledge the thought, don’t judge it, let it go and return your attention back to the breath.
- I can’t meditate, I can’t make my mind go blank. Aren’t you a special snowflake. News flash! Nobody can. Our minds don’t work that way. There is something called the “monkey mind”. Imagine a monkey rummaging around your head. Ooooh there’s a shiny thought. He picks it up plays with it for a bit, then drops it on the floor when he sees another shiny thought. We can’t stop the monkey mind, but we can calm it down. And we can be mindful of the thoughts that it pulls out. Oh, interesting, I’m nervous about giving my talk at Burlington Ruby. Then in a non-judgemental way, acknowledging it, letting it go, and returning focus back to the breath. Being in the moment.
- Yeah Success Kid, let’s give it a try. Let’s take a few breaths together. And I SO hope the ferry whistle blows while we’re meditating. If it does, it’s OK to notice it, but then bring your attention back to your breath. You don’t have to breathe any differently than before. If you feel comfortable, you can close your eyes, you can leave them open, whatever works best for you. Lets give it a shot.
- See me at the break with a check for $275 and I’ll see that you get your meditation certificate. That’s all there is to the mechanics of meditating. It’s really not that complicated.
- Now a few breaths isn’t enough unfortunately, but it doesn’t take a lot of time to see some real benefits to meditation. Since I learned to meditate, I am more aware of signs of stress before they reach a critical mass. Maybe I’m feeling frustrated, or angry, or annoyed. I can take steps to head that off. Maybe I’ll walk around the office or take a few breaths, a sort of micro-meditation, to reset. The breath can be a powerful anchor, sometimes a few breaths is all it takes once you’ve built a regular practice And because I have started to train myself to be more mindful, I’ve learned to be less reactive. I still run a little hot from time, but this help me keep things in check. There’s some really interesting science around how little we have to wait to sort of ignore our lizard brain reactions of fight, flight or freeze. It’s just a second or two. And because I am less reactive, because I can see better the signs of stress, I’m able to better handle more difficult conversations. Make them more constructive. Be more open to a dialogue
- You may be a little skeptical. That’s OK, it’s good to be skeptical, don’t take my word for it. Even though you may have heard similar stories from others, the plural of anecdote is not data. Google around and you will see several peer-reviewed studies about meditation and its effect on the brain and our behavior changes and activation in parts of the brain associated with awareness, reasoning, memory, and emotional regulation.
- Another study in American Journal of Psychiatry found that members of the Marines were able to use meditation to better prepare for and recover from combat stress.
- Medical journals are not good beach reads, and several are behind paywalls. If I could recommend one book for you to read it would be Dan Harris’ 10% Happier. Dan Harris is a journalist with ABC. Starts out with a true journalists skepticism. But over the course of the book his understanding of meditation grows and he eventually make it part of his daily life. And I love the idea of just 10% happier. I don’t need a cure all, but I am quite happy with things being better.
- I’ve talked about meditations perception problems. But when I see pro teams like the LA Lakers and the Seattle Seahawks turning to meditation as a tool, I know we are turning the corner. And I love this quote. This is not some groovy guy meditating on a mountain. This is a highly compensated professional working at his craft. And that mindset of improving your craft is something we value in this community
- I’ve learned all kinds of meditations: sitting meditations, lying down meditations, a meditation called a body scan where you try and sensed all the different parts of your body. I’ve done exercises where I learned to be mindful when I brushed my teeth or when I was eating. I once did an exercise where it took me 20 minutes to eat a brownie. Contrary to what you might be thinking, it was not a big brownie. To this point, we’ve kept things pretty down to earth. Regular….accessible to anyone. Trying to stay away from the perception problem. Now we are going to push a little closer to the touchy-feely side, but bear stay with me. I want to share another kind of meditation that has been super helpful for me dealing with work-life balance and stress.
- The meditation that we tried earlier is what I would call an internal meditation. A loving kindness meditation is a “directed meditation”, where we are focusing our attention outward towards another being. Visualize someone, could be a spouse, a child, a parent, a friend. I’ve directed it towards my dogs. I’ve heard software engineers like cats, I’m not sure your cat gives a rat’s ass what you do, but I suppose you could even direct it towards them
- The mantra I follow is this I know, it’s a little touchy-feely, but stick with me, good stuff is coming.
- When we do a loving kindness meditation, there are a few categories of people we can direct it towards. First is ourselves. When you are on a plane, and they give the instructions that if the plane depressurizes, put your mask on before helping those around you. You can’t help others if you are unconscious. And give yourself a break,
- So how can you get started. I can’t say enough about the MBSR program. Over 20,000 people have gone through the program, so the kinks are worked out. It’s down to earth. If you are in Boston, especially west of Boston, check it out in person. They have amazing teachers. They also have online lessons and certified teachers in just about every corner of the world. Headspace is another option. Its an app for iPhone and Android (I don’t know about Windows Phone support). Maybe that will change with Windows 10. It is a subscription service, but they do a free trial that will give you a chance to see if it works for you. There are also other forms of meditation that you can research, you’re smart people, you can google pretty well I am guessing. But the biggest thing to starting is just to start.
- I’m mdenomy on twitter and gmail. I’d love to hear your success stories, struggles, or answer any questions you might have if you decide to investigate mindfulness and meditation. Thank you to Brett for organizing this conference and giving me an opportunity to speak on this topic, it means a lot to me. And thank you all SO MUCH for letting me share my experiences with you.