Exercise Your Brain Through Meditation
“Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong, but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching, you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence.”
-J. Krishnamurti
You're sitting at your desk at work trying to complete a project by your deadline and find yourself distracted by every little thing around you. Your mind is wandering to dinner, the kids, and other things you need to do. The ideas are not flowing... but you know you need to focus in order to function well and get this project done.
The older we get, the harder we must work to keep our brains sharp and active.
What can you do to help?
Exercise your brain with meditation!
Often, we think we can only exercise our bodies through physical fitness or only exercise the brain through learning. But there’s actually much more we can do when we give ourselves the space to meditate.
Meditation is said to help strengthen the way one thinks so you can focus and control your thoughts more effectively. Additionally, when one is in a meditative state consistently, it helps produce vital neurotransmitters such as GABA, DHEA, serotonin, and melatonin, which all help with brain function, sleeping, and more. This means overall wellness, which helps with overall productivity!
Try this mindfulness meditation for a few days and see your productivity increases at work:
Sit comfortably and take a few deep breaths. Check in with any thoughts that may be running through your mind. Do they distract you? Instead of chasing them, let it go and remain sitting there. Notice if this happens a few times.
Once the thoughts clear a bit, check in with how you feel. Is your mood happy, sad, angry? Again, don’t get attached. Just acknowledge it and then let it go.
Once you have acknowledged what is going on mentally and emotionally, begin to follow your breath with your mind. If the mind wanders back to your thoughts or feelings, bring it back to your breath.
Set a timer for 10 minutes in the beginning and gradually build more time.