"one rotten apple spoils a bunch". Learn how a positive attitude can transform your organization and give you more opportunities for success.
"one rotten apple spoils a bunch". Learn how a positive attitude can transform your organization and give you more opportunities for success.
Here are 5 tips on how to stop overthinking. For 5 more tips of this type, click the link: http://vkool.com/how-to-stop-overthinking/
1. Put Things Into A Big Picture
Putting your issue into a large picture will help you think less about it or think more positively about it. You should ask questions like: “Can this matter last for years?”, or: “Is there anyone living without a single issue?” It has been proven that by asking yourself these questions, you can stop overthinking easier.
2. Take Action
You should set deadlines for every task you do so that you will not have much time to overthink about anything. You had better take one step at a time until you complete the work. This will help prevent you from feeling overwhelmed. Taking one step at a time will make you busy with your tasks, thereby stop overthinking.
3. Admit That You Could Not Control Everything
Only saints could control everything. You are human being, so you cannot control everything in life. Sometimes you will have to accept things to go their own ways.
Even famous people or the ones that you admire cannot keep everything under their control. Failure is not something terrible. Failure is actually a good lesson that you can learn from. Failure is the mother of success. Therefore, you ought to stop thinking that you can control everything in life.
4. Make Friends With People Who Do Not Overthink
Social environment can affect the way you think. When you communicate with people who can easily forget things that make them sad, you can learn from them to do so. On the contrary, when you communicate with people who are oversensitive, or overthink about things, you can be impacted. The people around you can apparently affect the way you think. Therefore, you should choose who to make friends with, and who to be around when you are in trouble.
5. Workout
Workout can help in removing your negative thoughts, releasing tensions, and getting rid of anxiety. Swimming, walking, and riding bicycle are the best exercises that you should do to avoid overthinking. When you do workouts, you tend to focus on the movement of your body, thereby you will not think much about other things.
In conclusion, you should remember that you are not a saint, so there may be a lot of things that you cannot do. Do not put too much pressure on yourself, and make your brain work too hard without finding any solution after all. Those 5 tips on how to stop overthinking are very helpful, so you should try them if you are suffering from this issue.
Attitude is a mental position relative to a way of thinking, a leaning toward that which you believe.
Attitude can be define as tendency to feel & behave in a particular way it shows we feeling about something.
Positive attitude is more than thinking good thoughts; it's the ability to access a beneficial state of mind regardless of your situation.
Keeping a smile on your face and emitting a positive attitude will also show your boss that you are not afraid to take on challenges.
Here are top 6 positive thinking tips that can help you change the way you think about other people and things around. To learn more tips of this type, click the link: http://vkool.com/discover-16-positive-thinking-tips/.
1. Treat Others As You Want To Be Treated
All people wish to be treated with respect. The way that you behave others shows your personality. Therefore, if you want to have good personality, including positive thoughts, you should treat other people the way you want to be treated. If you want to be trusted by friends, learn to trust them first. If you want to be loved by your relatives, learn to love them first. If you want to be welcomed by neighbors, learn to welcome them first.
2. Be Tolerant
In order to build positive thoughts, you should learn to forgive people who make you sad or angry. You even need to learn to forgive the ones who offend you. No matter what they do to you, they are teaching you some good lessons in life.
Moreover, you should be honestly happy when people around you succeed in life or at work. Do not be jealous with them as jealousy is one of the typical causes of negative thinking.
3. Avoid Negative Self-Talk
Among positive thinking tips, avoiding negative self-talk is the most important. What you talk to yourself also will result in the way you behave people around. If your mind is full of negative self-talk, you will not be able to treat others with respect as you may believe that they do not deserve your good behavior. When you are in that situation, try to eliminate your negative talk, and tell yourself that everyone may make mistakes, but everyone has something for you to learn from.
4. Do Meditation Or Yoga
Bath helps clean your body and meditation helps clean and refresh your mind. People who meditate on a regular basis have more positive thoughts than the ones who do not meditate. Meditation will certainly become the future of mankind. If you are a wise person, you should start doing meditation today to enjoy its benefits, to think more positively, and to have a better life.
Yoga helps you stop thinking negatively about others as it is really relaxing when you do it. Doing yoga also helps ease and refresh your mind, building positive thoughts.
5. Help People Around
If you can live for others, your mind will always be clean and relaxed. Helping people around is one of the top positive thinking tips. When you try your best to give others a helping hand, you are building your dignity. What you give others will certainly return to you some ways. If you help others, your mind will be built up with love, respect, and gratitude. As a result, you will be thinking positively.
6. Make Friends With Positive People
When you are with positive people, you can learn from them the way they treat others, and the way they think about life. You will gradually change the way you think as positive as they do.
Guided mindfulness meditation - What is mindful meditation & how to do it Yvette Bordley
Mindfulness meditation guided mindfulness meditation for stress reduction, mbsr. Based on jon kabat zinn meditation techniques and mindfulness based cognitive therapy. Includes breathing meditation, meditation techniques, relaxation, insight meditation, vipassana meditation. Power point presentation on mindfulness plain english, free meditation guide. Mindfulness for beginners to help learn meditation and develop a mindfulness practice.
Addressing and Overcoming the Holiday Blues: Holidays and other occasions throughout the year can bring about stress, especially the months of October to December. This webinar will discuss triggers, both obvious and obscure as well as healthy coping mechanisms to combat depressive feelings.
Gratitude is one of the sure ways to increase your feelings of happiness. But gratitude practices are not one size fits all. Finally a way to identify a gratitude practice that fits your personality type - based on the Meyer-Briggs personality types.
Buddha's Brain: Lighting Up the Neural Circuits of Happiness, Love and WisdomRick Hanson
Combining the power of the latest brain science with the wisdom of contemplative practice, these are practical methods for centering your brain in its natural state of gladness, love, and peace.
Here are 5 tips on how to stop overthinking. For 5 more tips of this type, click the link: http://vkool.com/how-to-stop-overthinking/
1. Put Things Into A Big Picture
Putting your issue into a large picture will help you think less about it or think more positively about it. You should ask questions like: “Can this matter last for years?”, or: “Is there anyone living without a single issue?” It has been proven that by asking yourself these questions, you can stop overthinking easier.
2. Take Action
You should set deadlines for every task you do so that you will not have much time to overthink about anything. You had better take one step at a time until you complete the work. This will help prevent you from feeling overwhelmed. Taking one step at a time will make you busy with your tasks, thereby stop overthinking.
3. Admit That You Could Not Control Everything
Only saints could control everything. You are human being, so you cannot control everything in life. Sometimes you will have to accept things to go their own ways.
Even famous people or the ones that you admire cannot keep everything under their control. Failure is not something terrible. Failure is actually a good lesson that you can learn from. Failure is the mother of success. Therefore, you ought to stop thinking that you can control everything in life.
4. Make Friends With People Who Do Not Overthink
Social environment can affect the way you think. When you communicate with people who can easily forget things that make them sad, you can learn from them to do so. On the contrary, when you communicate with people who are oversensitive, or overthink about things, you can be impacted. The people around you can apparently affect the way you think. Therefore, you should choose who to make friends with, and who to be around when you are in trouble.
5. Workout
Workout can help in removing your negative thoughts, releasing tensions, and getting rid of anxiety. Swimming, walking, and riding bicycle are the best exercises that you should do to avoid overthinking. When you do workouts, you tend to focus on the movement of your body, thereby you will not think much about other things.
In conclusion, you should remember that you are not a saint, so there may be a lot of things that you cannot do. Do not put too much pressure on yourself, and make your brain work too hard without finding any solution after all. Those 5 tips on how to stop overthinking are very helpful, so you should try them if you are suffering from this issue.
Attitude is a mental position relative to a way of thinking, a leaning toward that which you believe.
Attitude can be define as tendency to feel & behave in a particular way it shows we feeling about something.
Positive attitude is more than thinking good thoughts; it's the ability to access a beneficial state of mind regardless of your situation.
Keeping a smile on your face and emitting a positive attitude will also show your boss that you are not afraid to take on challenges.
Here are top 6 positive thinking tips that can help you change the way you think about other people and things around. To learn more tips of this type, click the link: http://vkool.com/discover-16-positive-thinking-tips/.
1. Treat Others As You Want To Be Treated
All people wish to be treated with respect. The way that you behave others shows your personality. Therefore, if you want to have good personality, including positive thoughts, you should treat other people the way you want to be treated. If you want to be trusted by friends, learn to trust them first. If you want to be loved by your relatives, learn to love them first. If you want to be welcomed by neighbors, learn to welcome them first.
2. Be Tolerant
In order to build positive thoughts, you should learn to forgive people who make you sad or angry. You even need to learn to forgive the ones who offend you. No matter what they do to you, they are teaching you some good lessons in life.
Moreover, you should be honestly happy when people around you succeed in life or at work. Do not be jealous with them as jealousy is one of the typical causes of negative thinking.
3. Avoid Negative Self-Talk
Among positive thinking tips, avoiding negative self-talk is the most important. What you talk to yourself also will result in the way you behave people around. If your mind is full of negative self-talk, you will not be able to treat others with respect as you may believe that they do not deserve your good behavior. When you are in that situation, try to eliminate your negative talk, and tell yourself that everyone may make mistakes, but everyone has something for you to learn from.
4. Do Meditation Or Yoga
Bath helps clean your body and meditation helps clean and refresh your mind. People who meditate on a regular basis have more positive thoughts than the ones who do not meditate. Meditation will certainly become the future of mankind. If you are a wise person, you should start doing meditation today to enjoy its benefits, to think more positively, and to have a better life.
Yoga helps you stop thinking negatively about others as it is really relaxing when you do it. Doing yoga also helps ease and refresh your mind, building positive thoughts.
5. Help People Around
If you can live for others, your mind will always be clean and relaxed. Helping people around is one of the top positive thinking tips. When you try your best to give others a helping hand, you are building your dignity. What you give others will certainly return to you some ways. If you help others, your mind will be built up with love, respect, and gratitude. As a result, you will be thinking positively.
6. Make Friends With Positive People
When you are with positive people, you can learn from them the way they treat others, and the way they think about life. You will gradually change the way you think as positive as they do.
Guided mindfulness meditation - What is mindful meditation & how to do it Yvette Bordley
Mindfulness meditation guided mindfulness meditation for stress reduction, mbsr. Based on jon kabat zinn meditation techniques and mindfulness based cognitive therapy. Includes breathing meditation, meditation techniques, relaxation, insight meditation, vipassana meditation. Power point presentation on mindfulness plain english, free meditation guide. Mindfulness for beginners to help learn meditation and develop a mindfulness practice.
Addressing and Overcoming the Holiday Blues: Holidays and other occasions throughout the year can bring about stress, especially the months of October to December. This webinar will discuss triggers, both obvious and obscure as well as healthy coping mechanisms to combat depressive feelings.
Gratitude is one of the sure ways to increase your feelings of happiness. But gratitude practices are not one size fits all. Finally a way to identify a gratitude practice that fits your personality type - based on the Meyer-Briggs personality types.
Buddha's Brain: Lighting Up the Neural Circuits of Happiness, Love and WisdomRick Hanson
Combining the power of the latest brain science with the wisdom of contemplative practice, these are practical methods for centering your brain in its natural state of gladness, love, and peace.
By Stephen Keeley, MS, CADC III, CGAC II, at May 2011 Oregon Problem Gambling Services Spring Training.
Please contact presenters for use or sharing of presentation material.
Happiness Visions from the World Happiness Summit (WoHaSu) government track 2017 speakers and participants. See the agenda of this meeting at http://happinesssummit.world/documents/20181/0/H20AgendaFinal2.28.pdf/bb6101ed-cef9-48e3-9abd-997d53fffb37
Introduction to positive psychology, take your happiness vitals, and learn sustainable happiness in 5 steps. This presentation was given to an audience of 50-100 entrepreneurs, technology professionals, and silicon valley based investors. MEI is Mentor, Empower, Inspire!
National Seminar on
Networking of Library and Information Centres of North East India in Digital Environment (NLICDE-2011)
(21-23 March 2011)
ORGANISED UNDER THE AEGIS OF
National Library, Kolkata
Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India
By
Organized by
Central Library, National Institute of Technology Silchar
Mindful meditation gives us the power to focus on the here and now. It increases our mental energy, allowing us to perform better and achieve more. Mindful meditation makes us more efficient in many areas of our lives.
This presentation is my research on dealing with stress, anxiety and depression while I was going through a rough patch in life despite everything being good on paper, I wasn't happy and smiling was a struggle. Depression is a evil which doesn't even sho itself and fights from the shadows. People will move out on you just because they can't see a reason or a visual wound. Not many will even understand what and why you are the way you are yet the battle is constantly raging inside. On this star wars day... I wish you the best. MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!
Feel free to connect with me or add a comment if you want to share your thoughts on this subject!
Postscript - Life right now is still quite unsettled and paradoxically all of this happened while trying to settle it down with a purpose. I moved out of my structured super awesome job environment to achieve some personal goals that initially crashed me hard on the ground. In a lifetime of work, what would you do to be proud of? What would you do if you really want to make a difference? and what would you do to be able to say.. yes I did it! These questions needed answers. Mediocre isn't good, so I am giving this a thought and a perspective.
Positive Attitude Development, a need for happy life!Rajlaxmi Bhosale
Your attitude determines how you live your life,Begin Your Day On a Positive Note.don’t fear change, welcome it.Smiling will give you an instantaneous attitude boost.Change your attitude for the better by uploading as much positivity into your brain as you possibly can
Mindset Maintenance and How It Can Help YouDawn Demers
Changing your mindset can change your life! Dawn Demers, an experienced life coach, discusses how to perform mindset maintenance for a balanced, happy, and successful life.
Today’s busy life constantly comes with packages of stress, anxiety,
and apprehension; all of which are not invited to a healthy happy
life. To cope, people search for therapies and guidance on how to
limit or eradicate these things from daily schedules. However, the
answer may be much simpler than that. If anything, it is to calm
down and take everything slowly; the definition of Zen.
Similar to Mindfulness and Happiness presentation [13 Jan 2016] (20)
Have you ever wondered how search works while visiting an e-commerce site, internal website, or searching through other types of online resources? Look no further than this informative session on the ways that taxonomies help end-users navigate the internet! Hear from taxonomists and other information professionals who have first-hand experience creating and working with taxonomies that aid in navigation, search, and discovery across a range of disciplines.
Sharpen existing tools or get a new toolbox? Contemporary cluster initiatives...Orkestra
UIIN Conference, Madrid, 27-29 May 2024
James Wilson, Orkestra and Deusto Business School
Emily Wise, Lund University
Madeline Smith, The Glasgow School of Art
0x01 - Newton's Third Law: Static vs. Dynamic AbusersOWASP Beja
f you offer a service on the web, odds are that someone will abuse it. Be it an API, a SaaS, a PaaS, or even a static website, someone somewhere will try to figure out a way to use it to their own needs. In this talk we'll compare measures that are effective against static attackers and how to battle a dynamic attacker who adapts to your counter-measures.
About the Speaker
===============
Diogo Sousa, Engineering Manager @ Canonical
An opinionated individual with an interest in cryptography and its intersection with secure software development.
This presentation by Morris Kleiner (University of Minnesota), was made during the discussion “Competition and Regulation in Professions and Occupations” held at the Working Party No. 2 on Competition and Regulation on 10 June 2024. More papers and presentations on the topic can be found out at oe.cd/crps.
This presentation was uploaded with the author’s consent.
Acorn Recovery: Restore IT infra within minutesIP ServerOne
Introducing Acorn Recovery as a Service, a simple, fast, and secure managed disaster recovery (DRaaS) by IP ServerOne. A DR solution that helps restore your IT infra within minutes.
2. Today
S What is happiness?
S What is mindfulness?
S What’s the link?
S Why be mindful everywhere?
S A ‘taster’ exercise
S Wrap-up…
2
3. What is happy for you?
S Close your eyes and think about a time when
you felt happiness
S Turn to the person next to you and describe
what that happy feeling feels like for you –
one minute each
S Share with the room
3
4. Now here’s a big question…
S If everything in your life – house, job,
weight, partner, family, income, Wellington
weather etc – stayed exactly the same as it
is now, could you be happier than you are
right now?
4
5. So what is mindfulness?
S Giving your full attention to what’s
happening right now
S Being aware of your thoughts and emotions
S Able to choose where to direct your attention
S Able to respond (rather than react) to what is
happening
5
6. What goes on in your head?
S Around 50,000 thoughts a day
S Mostly same as yesterday
S 90% unconscious
S Mostly negative & self-critical
S Only 52% of thoughts we are
aware of are on task
6
7. Why does your mind wander?
7
S Your brain has a built-in desire for stimulation
S Dopamine is released to maintain a feel good state
S Modern life feeds your distractible
monkey mind steroids
8. Why practice mindfulness?
8
Mind - FULL (default) Mindfulness
S Monkey mind vs Mastery of the mind
S Future / Past thinking vs Present moment focus
S Autopilot vs Conscious attention
S Multitasking vs Mono-tasking
S Stress reaction vs Considered response
14. Happiness tips
S The bad news is there aren’t any. Sorry.
S Practicing mindfulness gives you the ability,
tools, the space and understanding to create
a happy life.
S More bad news – you have no excuses, it’s all
up to you
14
15. Mindfulness tips
S Practice paying attention to what you’re doing
S Move through your day one step (job) at a time
S Avoid multitasking
S Take proper breaks – get up - move around
S Stop and take a few breaths between activities
S Practice the mini pause (or go for 60 seconds)
S Doodling / writing
15
Today: how mindfulness can benefit your everyday life, both personally and professionally.
Currently a lot of hype around this thing called mindfulness - actually it’s been around for thousands of years. It’s become a big thing because now Science can actually prove how it works. The research shows how you can radically improve your life (personally and professionally) with some simple mindfulness exercises.
Ask: How many people already practice mindfulness and meditation (who practices formally or informally?)
Show of hands.
You wouldn’t expert a physical trainer to talk to you about exercise without that person suggesting if you want to change your current level of fitness, you need to increase or change your level of exercise.
It’s the same with mindfulness – you can talk about it (and argue its usefulness) but only with practice can you experience the benefits.
This is to get a baseline and remind you of what happy feels like for you...
Show of hands those that believe they could.
I want to propose that mindfulness is an effective way to achieving greater happiness. Personally I think it’s the only way – but I’ll let you decide for yourself. In fact later on I’ll take you through some practical steps you can take to test it for yourself (see slide 15 notes) .
But first – let’s talk about mindfulness.
Ask: You do mindful activities often (tell the person beside your favourite activities when you lose all sense of time and place).
Funny disclaimer: if you become very aware, present and mindful, you may find a number of things that you are unhappy about, so it’s not a path to instant happiness.
Talk to your neighbour…
.
Key points:
You are mainly unconscious of what is going on in your head
Just because you think a thought doesn’t make it true
Each thought causes chemistry to occur – so you feel how you were just thinking (whether you are aware of the thought that preceded the emotion or not!
See Buddha’s brain page 179 - 181
? Use image instead of quote Science: Why do our minds wander? Discuss Dopamine.
Dopamine (feel good chemistry drives our attention) is released to maintain a feel good state.
The brain has a trapdoor opening and closing releasing dopamine either responding to a lack of dopamine (boredom) or stimulation (something more interesting happens e.g. You get a text).
This trapdoor opens when you feel bored in a meeting by allowing for more interesting thoughts in (get lost in your MM); or opens when something more interesting catches your attention or when you need to respond (increased stimulation) - this is an adaptive positive response allowing you to shift your attention, but leads to attention becoming scattered.
Lets talk about fire-fighting and chaos as common states for people in the workplace. Do you have examples of these events? Examples from the group.
We all know people that thrive on this kind of chaos and excitement. Consider the project manager “hero” type. These people keep info to themselves so they can create a crisis and rush in on adrenalin to “save the day”. This means the quality of outcome is frequently lower than it would have been, but the relief for everyone is high, so these people are seen as high performers when they are not.
I have many example and have been guilty of this myself in my past life running on coffee, panic, adrenalin and then alcohol to try and stop the cycle so it could all start again. I was regarded as very successful by a number of people and eventually became burnt-out as a result and then sought a new approach that would be both sustainable and satisfying.
So why practice mindfulness? On the left is our default thinking mode – on the right a Mindful mode.
Each on the left is an (adaptive) healthy response, but the pace of modern work/life causes our minds to become maladaptive. Modern life has taken your default mode and fed it steroids.
Monkey mind: Adaptive (you can think); Maladaptive (you can’t stop thinking – overwhelm, worry, fatigue, anxiety, depression). Ask: can you stop thinking? MFN involves becoming aware (conscious) – trying to stop thoughts but developing self-mastery through a tiny shift in perspective!
Past/Future Thinking: Adaptive (ability to think, remember/reflect on the past, plan and predict the future); Maladaptive (50% time spent worrying about the future, resisting the present and regretting the past and missing out on life as it occurs around you – the present). mindfulness brings you into the now (sweet spot). You are an experienced time-traveller…
How much time in your work do you spend in future fantasising, either on future work expectation (good and bad) or on out of work (after work or weekend) anticipation?
Conversely, how much time do you spend living in the past of either good or bad work and personal events, while you are working? It’s a common state.
Autopilot: Adaptive (saves time and energy); Maladaptive (keeps you stuck thinking and repeating behaviours you’d rather not); Basically the more routine you are, the less aware you are.
Multitasking: May feel adaptive but really no such thing. Brain can only focus on one thing at a time, so multitasking is really multi-switching (drains your energy & makes you tired and miserable); Point: MFN is about focussed attention & > pleasure and engagement.
Stress reaction: Adaptive (SNS healthy response to threat – fight and flight response – surge of energy keeps us safe); Maladaptive when unmindful: (persistent stress response experienced as anxiety – depletes immune system and results in disease and accelerates the aging process; Your body doesn’t know the difference between physical threat and psychological threat. When the amygdale is turned on the frontal lobes are turned off. Usually react instead of respond. MFN helps us see which stressors are real and which are in our imagination.
When you are paying attention default mental activity doesn’t find a way in.
Ask: Can you think of a time you reacted and said or did something you later regretted? Ask neighbour
Mindfulness builds emotional intelligence by rewiring your brain to remember to take a micro-pause (instead of getting lost in an emotional reaction) you have freedom (from living without regret).
Points:
It’s not about getting rid of, pretending, or denying what’s going on - it’s about not being bound to it.
Not about being placid and letting people walk over you; mindfulness helps us to engage and respond when we need to, by letting go of the tension and resistance that often gets in the way.
ASK: How often do you hear people say they must have a better work / life balance?
I suggest that there is to be no split between the two – it’s a life / life balance. What part of your existence don’t you want to classify as life?
How many of you work with people that say every day “thank God it’s almost 5pm” or “wine O’clock” ? Current staff surveys are finding that a majority of businesses report people are getting more and more disengaged in their work.
How do we reverse this trend? By restructuring? By training programmes? By new jobs? By more pay? All of these things have been tried and have failed. I suggest the only thing that will actually change is if people become more mindfully engaged and then they will either stay or go where they wish to be mindfully engaged – problem solved! Business example...
Don’t be fooled into looking at lists of “things that make you happier” and doing them expecting a happy download.
Because taking that path means you spend all your time itching to leave work so you can get on with “being happy”.
So how do we change that? Make love and exercise all the time? Never work or sleep – or only do so under duress because you HAVE to if you want to “survive”.
So what’s the thing that links the high happy “things” together and the low happy “things” together? They’re all just activities.
I’m sure you’re all sitting there thinking to yourselves “but I like listening to music more than exercising” or “Reading a book is the highlight of my day”. The point is that it’s different for everybody – the only factor in common is those activities that we choose to give our focused attention to, that we are required to participate fully in. Mindfully.
[Ref: Killingsworth and Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, found that people were happiest when making love, exercising, or engaging in conversation. They were least happy when resting, working, or using a home computer.
Harvard Study Killingsworth PhD (trackyourhappiness.org): people spend nearly half their time (46.7%) thinking about something other than what they are actually doing.]
I promise you now that switching off or disengaging will never create space for happiness. You might get a moment’s quiet, which you might translate to peace and therefore happiness – but you will have sold yourself and your relationships and your world short.
This isn’t about closing your eyes, going Ohmm and leaving the room. This is about closing your eyes, going Ohmm (if you wish) and coming fully and completely into the room. Into the noise, the chaos, into this messy world we all live in – and seeing it for what it is. Not something to be ignored or discounted, but something to leap fully into and embrace with all your heart and mind.
So how does mindfulness manage this interference?
How often have you heard someone say – just stop and take a deep breath? It’s actually really helpful!
Activity 1: So let’s do that right now. Stop (close your eyes if you wish) and take 3 deeps breaths.
Explain what happens Physiologically:
Turn off your Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) - stress response
Turn on your Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) - rest and repair
Changes your internal body chemistry
Trains your attention to focus (so you can learn how to consciously notice, pause, and respond)
Activity: Longer version. Mindful pause 60 second exercise - a small takeaway.
Setup: Begin by just noticing your breath – breathing normally (or slower and deeper if you like). Practice first – breath in, breath out (1) breath in breath out (2) breathe in breathe out (3)
Eyes open or closed; count the number of breaths (I’ll call time).
Reinforce that this turns off the SNS (fight and flight – stress response) and turns on the PSN (rest and repair) – and over time rewires your brain to be able to chose what you give your attention to.
The purpose of this is two-fold. Firstly it will get you familiar with focussing on your body which is your best tool in developing focussed attention states. Secondly, this is a beginning practice in being able to observe you thoughts and feeling as they arise. It is though developing some skills in this that the ability to respond rather than react to events starts.
Exercises with directed at happiness with a mindfulness focus.
5 Steps to Happiness – 2 month programme
This is a short summary and guide to undertaking the five key activities given by Shaun Achor in the video The Happiness Advantage. Practice each activity every day for 2 months to see lasting change.
3 Gratitudes
Each day, we ask ourselves one or all of the following three questions:
Who or what inspired me today?
What brought me happiness today?
What brought me comfort and deep peace today?
As you write in your journal/smartphone etc (find a consistent time), also challenge yourself by not repeating items from the previous days, for this will make you look more deeply at all the “little” things that enhance your life and give you joy: waking in a warm bed, your favourite song, a phone call from a friend, the ability to touch/see/ or hear, electricity, the beating of your heart, coffee, a hug etc.
Journaling
When you have a great experience during the day - share it (or write it down). Tell someone else (You get almost as much pleasure when you tell the story again – effectively doubling the impact).
Exercise
To teach your brain that behaviour matters – so get moving at least a bit more than you currently do. Talk a walk, take the stairs at work, stretch etc
Meditation
As per the class here, take a moment to listen to your breathing, centre yourself and clear a space – even if it is only one minute a day – but every day, then build it up to 2, then 3. Go get the phone app Getsomeheadspace to get started.
Random act of kindness
Kindness includes many things, gifts, volunteering, a smile – and of course an authentic thank you. My favourite is engaging people serving in shops to break the monotony of all the unhappy or neutral customers they see each day. The other simple on is passing the vouchers/coupons to the next person in the line. Whatever it is, turn on that bright light you all carry within you…
Talk about the informal practice of MFN (these are just a few examples)
Activity 3
The real juice comes from starting a formal mindfulness practice (learning how to sit)
Practice the longer version of the exercise.
Points:
Mindfulness is a process NOT a destination. Nobody instantly becomes mindful...
Mindfulness requires persistence, focused attention and repetition.
Mindfulness (focused attention) works best with proper support and guidance.
Feel free to contact me at martin.giles@xtra.co.nz or 021 157 4279