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Eating as mindfully as we do on retreat or in a mindfulness course is not realistic for many of us, especially with families, jobs, and the myriad distractions around us. This is not to mention that our friends, family and colleagues might not have the patience to eat with us as we take five minutes with each bite. So have some self-compassion, and consider formal mindful eating on retreat and special occasions, as well as informal mindful eating in your daily life.

What I want to offer in this piece is what I call more mindful eating, perhaps "informal" mindful eating as opposed to formal mindful eating. Especially during the craziness and stress and extra food of the holidays, that Halloween to New Years stretch in which are more likely to eat mindlessly than mindfully. Here are six simple guidelines to keep in mind to discern between mindless and (more) mindful eating, and bring our bodies and minds back together.

1) Let your body catch up to your brain

Eating rapidly past full and ignoring your body's signals vs. slowing down and eating and stopping when your body says its full.

Slowing down is one of the best ways we can get our mind and body to communicate what we really need for nutrition. The body actually sends its satiation signal about 20 minutes after the brain, which is why we often unconsciously overeat. But, if we slow down, you can give your body a chance to catch up to your brain and hear the signals to eat the right amount. Simple ways to slow down might just include follow many of your grandmother's manners, like sitting down to eat, chewing each bite 25 times (or more), setting your fork down between bites, and all those old manners that are maybe not as pointless as they seemed. What are some ways you can slow down eating and listen more deeply to your body's signals

2) Know your body's personal hunger signals

Are you responding to an emotional want or responding to your body's needs?

Often we listen first to our minds, but like many mindfulness practices, we might discover more wisdom by tuning into our bodies first. Rather than just eating when we get emotional signals, which may be different for each of us, be they stress, sadness, frustration, loneliness or even just boredom, we can listen to our bodies. Is your stomach growling, energy low, or feeling a little lightheaded? Too often, we eat when our mind tells us to, rather than our bodies. True mindful eating is actually listening deeply to our body's signals for hunger. Ask yourself: What are your body's hunger signals, and what are your emotional hunger triggers?

3) Cultivate a mindful kitchen

Eating alone and randomly vs. eating with others at set times and places.

Another way that we eat mindlessly is by wandering around looking through cabinets, eating at random times and places, rather than just thinking proactively about our meals and snacks. This slows us down for one thing, but prevents us from developing healthy environmental cues about what and how much to eat, and wires our brains for new cues for eating that not always ideal. (do you really want to create a habit to eat every time you get in the car, or other situations?) Sure, we all snack from time to time, but it can boost both your mind and body's health, not to mention greatly helping your mood and sleep schedule to eat at consistent times and places. Yes, that means sitting down (at a table!), putting food on a plate or bowl, not eating it out of the container, and using utensils not our hands. It also helps to eat with others, not only are you sharing and getting some healthy connection, but you also slow down and can enjoy the food and conversation more, and we take our cues from our dinner partner, not over or undereating out of emotion.

Having a mindful kitchen means organizing and caring for your kitchen space so it encourages healthy eating and nourishing gatherings. Consider what you bring into your kitchen and where you put things away. Are healthy foods handy? What kinds of foods are in sight? When food is around, we eat it.

There are many reasons that the raisin eating it is such a powerful exercise, but one is that when we slow down and eat healthy foods like raisins, we often enjoy them more than the story we tell ourselves about healthy foods.

You don't have to plan your food down to each bite, and its important to be flexible especially at special occasions, but just be aware of the fact that you might be changing your eating habits at different times of year or for different occasions. And when you do plan ahead, you are also more likely to eat the amount your body needs in that moment than undereating and indulging later, or overeating and regretting it later.

Classic advice is to also not shop when hungry, but the middle path applies here as well. A psychological effect known as "moral licensing" has shown that shoppers who buy kale are more likely to then head to the alcohol or ice cream section than those who don't. We seem to think that our karma will balance out and we can "spend" it on junk food, or other less than ideal behaviors.

4) Understand your motivations

Eating foods that are emotionally comforting vs. eating foods that are nutritionally healthy.

This is another tricky balance, and ideally we can find nourishing foods that are also satisfying and comforting. But think back to that first mindful raisin. Did that seem appealing before you tried it? There are many reasons that the raisin eating it is such a powerful exercise, but one is that when we slow down and eat healthy foods like raisins, we often enjoy them more than the story we tell ourselves about healthy foods. As we practice eating healthier and a greater variety foods, we are less inclined to binge on our comfort foods, and more inclined to enjoy healthy foods, ultimately finding many foods mentally and physically satisfying as opposed to just a few.

5) Connect more deeply with your food

Considering where food comes from vs. thinking of food as an end product.

Unless you are a hunter-gatherer or sustenance farmer, we have all become ever more disconnected from our food in recent years. Many of us don't even consider where a meal comes from beyond the supermarket packaging. This is a loss, because eating offers an incredible opportunity to connect us more deeply to the natural world, the elements and to each other.

When we pause to consider all of the people involved in the meal that has arrived on your plate, from the loved ones (and yourself) who prepared it, to those who stocked the shelves, to those who planted and harvested the raw ingredients, to those who supported them, it is hard to not feel both grateful and interconnected. Be mindful of the water, soil, and other elements that were part of its creation as you sit down to eat whatever you are eating. You can reflect on the cultural traditions that brought you this food, the recipes generously shared from friends, or brought from a distant place and time to be a handed down in the family.

As you consider everything that went into the meal, it becomes effortless to experience and express gratitude to all of the people who gave their time and effort, the elements of the universe that contributed their share, our friends or ancestors who shared recipes and even the beings who may have given their lives to a part of creating this meal. With just a little more mindfulness like this, we may begin to make wiser choices about sustainability and health in our food, not just for us but for the whole planet.

6) Attend to your plate

Distracted eating vs. just eating

Multitasking and eating is a recipe for not being able to listen deeply to our body's needs and wants. We've all had the experience of going to the movies with our bag full of popcorn, and before the coming attractions are over, we are asking who ate all of our popcorn. When we are distracted, it becomes harder to listen to our body's signals about food and other needs. With your next meal, try single-tasking and just eating, with no screens or distractions besides enjoying the company you are sharing a meal and conversation with.

So while formal mindful eating practices may be what we think of when we look back on a mindfulness course or retreat we attended, the reality is that we do live, and eat, in the real world which is a busy place. But we can take the insights gained from our formal practice- slowing down, listening to our bodies, doing one thing at a time, making even small rituals, and considering all that went into our meal on a more regular basis and bring more informal mindfulness to our daily meals.

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6 Ways to Practice Mindful Eating - Mindful

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Eating as mindfully as we do on retreat or in a mindfulness course is not realistic for many of us, especially with families, jobs, and the myriad distractions around us. This is not to mention that our friends, family and colleagues might not have the patience to eat with us as we take five minutes with each bite.

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Free Mindfulness Apps Worthy of Your Attention

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Free Mindfulness Apps Worthy of Your Attention

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There's no shortage of mindfulness and meditation apps these days, promising to help you combat anxiety, sleep better, hone your focus, and more. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reports that more than 2,000 new meditation apps launched between 2015 and 2018, and offerings have only increased as a result of higher demand during the pandemic-according to the New York Times, mindfulness apps surged in 2020. We took the overwhelm out of finding the most valuable and easy-to-use meditation apps that are available free and narrowed it down to these four apps.

4 Free Meditation Apps We're Happy We Downloaded

Available for iOS, Android, and web

Entry price: Free

Insight Timer has a huge library of content: over 80,000 free guided meditations from over 10,000 teachers on topics like stress, relationships, healing, sleep, creativity, and more.

Right from the beginning, the app feels like a global community-the world map on the home screen shows a collective of 18 million meditators, and announces, "741k today, 7k now." After you finish a meditation, you'll learn exactly how many people were meditating "with you" during that time-and by setting your location, you can even see meditators nearby and what tracks they're listening to.

Once you find a teacher you enjoy-like Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Sharon Salzberg, or Rhonda Magee -you can follow them to make sure you don't miss any new content. You can also tune in to free talks for life advice and inspiration. For those craving real-time interactions, Insight Timer offers live events every hour of the day to join on a whim or plan into your schedule.

You can even sign up to Circle for Teams, one of their newer offerings, which allows you to create circles (read: groups) to meditate in real-time with friends or colleagues.

If you prefer a quieter meditation, however, you can simply set a timer and meditate to intermittent bells, calming ambient noise, or soothing music.

Depending on your preferences, Insight Timer's extensive collection can be either a blessing or a curse-an endless list of choices that leave you overwhelmed or a buffet of tempting options to sink your teeth into.

Paid option: For $60 per year (with a 30-day free trial), you get access to courses with well-known teachers, the ability to download meditations and listen offline, and advanced player functions like repeat mode and fast forward and rewind.

Available for iOS, Android, and web

Entry price: Free

Smiling Mind hits the sweet spot for a free mindfulness app in so many ways.

The not-for-profit app features hundreds of meditations, enough to keep you engaged without overwhelming you with choice. They are organized into structured programs like Mindful Foundations (35 sessions), Sleep (6 sessions), Digital Detox (8 sessions), and Stress Management (10 sessions), but you have the flexibility to choose where to start and to easily jump between programs. Most meditations are in the five- to fifteen-minute range, with a few practices up to 45 minutes for advanced meditators. Smiling Mind also offers bite-sized meditations between 2 to 5 minutes for moments when you're in need of a quick, mindful pause in the day.

Downloaded by over 5.5 million people, the app also has a variety of specialized programs for families, children and teens of various ages, healthcare workers, and educators (including curricula they can use in the classroom); all developed with the help of psychologists and health professionals.

While you could use a meditation app as a temporary break from your hectic life, Smiling Mind wants you to take your mindfulness practice off the cushion and into the rest of your day. Interspersed with some of the meditation programs are instructions for "activities" like Journaling Exercise, Go Offline, Where Did My Food Come From, and Count Your Senses. In the Count Your Senses activity, for example, the audio prompts you to bring your attention to your senses by counting things that can be seen, felt, heard, smelled and tasted.

Smiling Mind was originally created for kids, so they offer a robust selection of kid- and youth-appropriate mindfulness sessions.

Created by a nonprofit by the same name, Smiling Mind is entirely free-so you don't have the distraction of paid content that's inaccessible to you as a free user. The app wants to put a "smile on your mind"-and it might just succeed.

Paid option: None

Available for iOS and Android

Entry price: Free

If all the research on mindfulness has persuaded you that you need to meditate, the UCLA Mindful app could be a good place to start.

Developed by the Mindful Awareness Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the app features about a dozen meditations of different types in English and Spanish. You can learn to focus on your breath, your body, or sounds; work with difficult emotions; and cultivate loving-kindness in sessions ranging from 3 to 19 minutes long.

If you're new to mindfulness, you might choose to take advantage of their Getting Started section, which offers information on what mindfulness is, how to choose a meditation, which posture is best for your practice, and what research-backed benefits you might expect from it.

As a bonus, the app also offers longer meditations that it calls "podcasts." These are half-hour audio recordings of meditations that include talks, typically by UCLA Director of Mindfulness Education Diana Winston, before and after the meditation, as well as plenty of silent practice time.

If you're looking for an app that is heavily grounded in the science of mindfulness, you can put your trust in UCLA Mindful.

Paid option: None

Available for iOS and Android

Entry price: Free

The Healthy Minds Program app wants to help you develop the skills for a healthy mind-by strengthening mental focus, decreasing stress, and growing resilience, compassion, and better immune health.

Founded by neuroscientist Dr. Richard Davidson (who also founded the research institute Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison), the app integrates neuroscience and research-based techniques with meditation training to increase overall well-being.

The framework of the app's mindfulness and well-being training is organized into four pillars: Awareness, Connection, Insight, and Purpose. Each pillar consists of three to five parts, and each part contains three series and multiple sessions within. For the Connection pillar, for example, the Innate Self-Worth series includes five sessions packaged to foster self-worth (think sessions like Practice Seeing the Good In Ourselves, and Learn Negativity Bias). You have a choice of either a Sitting or Active type of practice-"active" practices include guidance for being mindful while you exercise, or during your commute-and you can customize the length of time (five minutes to 30 minutes).

The app offers a collection of 27 meditations outside their four-pillar wellness framework, including one-minute Micro Practices for when you're in need of a brief respite.

At times the podcast-style app may encourage more thinking compared to typical guided meditations, but for the listener who is seeking guided meditations with the greater goal to increase awareness, cognition, and well-being, Healthy Minds Program app may be just the ticket.

Paid option: None

When we meditate, we inject far-reaching and long-lasting benefits into our lives: We lower our stress levels, we get to know our pain, we connect better, we improve our focus, and we're kinder to ourselves. Let us walk you through the basics in our new mindful guide on how to meditate. Read More

Practicing gratitude has incredible effects, from improving our mental health to boosting our relationships with others. Explore ways you can be more appreciative in our mindful guide to gratitude. Read More

Mindful writing can lead you on the path of inner discovery. It can be the place where your experience meets your mindfulness practice, a place to encounter the twists and turns of your emotional life-and a bit of solid ground to stand on. Read More

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Free Meditation Apps Worthy of Your Attention

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We scoured the app stores to find the most popular, educational, and easy-to-use free meditation apps available.

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23 Amazing Health Benefits of Mindfulness for Body and Brain

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23 Amazing Health Benefits of Mindfulness for Body and Brain

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If you've been following this blog, you know that there are countless ways to apply mindfulness in your everyday life.

You have probably also noticed that there are tons of benefits of practicing mindfulness regularly.

Although we've talked about these benefits in a few other places, we thought it would be helpful to provide one resource that breaks down all of the great benefits of practicing mindfulness in one place, with sources to back them up.

If you're wondering what you can get out of being mindful, read on to learn about all the great things mindfulness can do for you!

Before you read on, we thought you might like to download our 3 Mindfulness Exercises for free. These science-based, comprehensive exercises will not only help you cultivate a sense of inner peace throughout your daily life but will also give you the tools to enhance the mindfulness of your clients, students or employees.

You can download the free PDF here.

The 5 Most Common Benefits of Mindfulness

We'll start with some of the benefits you probably already expect from mindfulness, like enhancing your ability to deal with everyday struggles.

1. Decreased Stress

If you read our piece on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), you know that mindfulness is considered a key element to fighting stress.

An entire stress reduction program, with decades of experience and tens of thousands of practitioners, is an excellent indication that mindfulness works.

In addition to the outcomes of MBSR, there have been numerous studies supporting the idea that mindfulness reduces stress.

One study on present-moment awareness found that it facilitates an adaptive response to daily stressors (Donald, Atkins, Parker, Christie, & Ryan, 2016). Another study by Donald and Atkins (2016) found evidence that mindfulness produced less avoidance and more approach coping as a response to stress than relaxation or self-affirmation controls.

Mindfulness can also help alleviate stress by improving emotion regulation, leading to a better mood and better ability to handle stress (Remmers, Topolinski, & Koole, 2016).

The impact of mindfulness on stress can also be seen in several specific groups, including:

Those who suffer from restless legs syndrome (Bablas, Yap, Cunnington, Swieca, & Greenwood, 2016);

Parents (Gouveia, Carona, Canavarro, & Moreira, 2016);

Healthcare professionals (Burton, Burgess, Dean, Koutsopoulou, & Hugh-Jones, 2017);

Veterans with depression and/or PTSD (Felleman, Stewart, Simpson, & Heppner, 2016);

Police officers (Bergman, Christopher, & Bowen, 2016).

For an excellent dive into how mindfulness affects the experience of stress, check out the Little Book of Mindfulness by Rebecca Howden and Medibank. I'll leave it to them to dive into the nitty-gritty, but I'll describe their explanation of the relaxation response.

Howden and Medibank first list the symptoms of stress, including:

Constantly feeling anxious and worried;

Feeling irritable, agitated and easily annoyed;

Argumentative and defensive with friends and family;

Restless sleeping;

Low levels of energy, often waking up feeling tired;

Restless and frenetic mind;

Often self-critical and/or critical of others;

Feeling flat and uninspired;

Having difficulty concentrating;

Skin rashes and conditions;

Clenching your jaw muscles and grinding your teeth at night;

Headaches and migraines.

When you induce a state of relaxation, which can be achieved through mindfulness, another kind of meditation, or other activities, you can reap the benefits, including:

Higher brain functioning;

Increased immune function;

Lowered blood pressure;

Lowered heart rate;

Increased awareness;

Increased attention and focus;

Increased clarity in thinking and perception;

Lowered anxiety levels;

Experience of being calm and internally still;

Experience of feeling connected.

Gaining these benefits can be as simple as closing your eyes and being silent for a few minutes a day. This is a practice that is so easy, anyone can do it!

2. Enhanced Ability to Deal with Illness

Perhaps one of the most studied groups in terms of the impacts of mindfulness is cancer patients and others who are suffering from a chronic or potentially terminal illness.

Mindfulness may not take away their symptoms, but it can help make them more manageable.

For example, the eCALM trial, a therapy program for cancer patients, found that mindfulness can reduce symptoms of stress, enhance spirituality and non-reactivity to experience, facilitate post-traumatic growth, and enhance vigor while relieving fatigue (Zernicke, Campbell, Speca, ruff, Tamagawa, & Carlson, 2016).

Another cancer-specific mindfulness program decreased rumination and worry and increased observing and nonjudging in cancer patients (Labelle, Campbell, Faris, & Carlson, 2015).

An exploration of MBSR for those suffering from chronic low back pain found that mindfulness improved patients' ability to function independently and resulted in less back pain than treatment as usual (Cherkin, Sherman, Balderson, Cook, Anderson, Hawkes, Hansen, & Turner, 2016).

Mindfulness can also help patients to focus less on the pain, improving their quality of life (Garland & Howard, 2013).

A study on the use of MBSR with lung cancer patients and their partners showed that mindfulness can instigate a process of positive change in patients and their partners, as well as relieving caregiver burden in partners (van den Hurk, Schellekens, Molema, Speckens, & van der Drift, 2015).

Similarly, a review of MBSR for family caregivers found that mindfulness can decrease stress, depression, and anxiety in those caring for a loved one who is sick (Li, Yuan, & Zhang, 2016).

3. Facilitation of Recovery

Mindfulness can not only help you deal with a chronic or potentially terminal illness or life-threatening event, but it can also help you move on from it.

A study of MBSR in Chinese breast cancer survivors provided evidence that mindfulness can enhance post-traumatic growth and decrease stress and anxiety in cancer patients (Zhang, Zhou, Feng, Fan, Zeng, & Wei, 2017).

Another study of young breast cancer survivors showed that women who practiced mindfulness were more likely to experience increased self-kindness, decreased rumination, and decreased stress (Boyle, Stanton, Ganz, Crespi, & Bower, 2017).

Mindfulness, yoga, and meditation have also been found to decrease anxiety and facilitate post-traumatic growth in breast cancer survivors, in addition to increasing vigor and spirituality (Tamagawa, Speca, Stephen, Lawlor-Savage, & Carlson, 2015).

4. Decreased Depressive Symptoms

Mindfulness has long been considered an effective supplemental treatment for depression.

It has been found to decrease depressive symptoms, anxiety, and stress in college students, as well as increasing self-compassion when compared with yoga alone (Falsafi, 2016).

One of the ways in which mindfulness can help treat depression is through enhancing practitioners' ability to regulate their emotions. Mindfulness provides the tools needed to step back from intense negative emotions, identify them, and accept them instead of fighting them. This allows mindful thinkers to better regulate their emotions, leading to better coping and management of depression.

A study by Costa and Barnhofer (2016) backs this theory. They found that, when compared to guided imagery relaxation, a brief training in mindfulness helped participants struggling with depression to reduce their symptoms through greater emotion regulation.

Another study found that MBCT reduced depressive episodes, which not only helped participants feel better but also had positive impacts on their health care costs (Shawyer, Enticott, Özmen, Inder, & Meadows, 2016).

Mindfulness is even effective for people dealing with the most critical of depressive symptoms: suicidal ideation, or thoughts of suicide. In chronically depressed participants with suicidal thoughts, mindfulness was more effective than treatment as usual in reducing these thoughts (Forkmann, Brakemeier, Teismann, Schramm, & Michalak, 2016).

5. Improved General Health

Beyond the many mental health benefits of mindfulness, it can also improve your general health.

For example, a study of how the two facets of mindfulness impact health behaviors found that practicing mindfulness can enhance or increase multiple behaviors related to health, like getting regular health check-ups, being physically active, using seat belts, and avoiding nicotine and alcohol (Jacobs, Wollny, Sim, & Horsch, 2016).

Another study on mindfulness and health showed that mindfulness is related to improved cardiovascular health through a lower incidence of smoking, more physical activity, and a healthier body mass index (Loucks, Britton, Howe, Eaton, & Buka, 2015).

Additionally, mindfulness has been positively linked with lower blood pressure, especially when the practitioner is skilled in nonjudging and nonreactivity (Tomfohr, Pung, Mills, & Edwards, 2015).

Finally, in a study on the impacts of mindfulness on the psychological and physical health of obese or overweight adults, researchers found that mindfulness helped participants lose weight, improve their eating behaviors and attitudes, and decrease depression and anxiety (Rogers, Ferrari, Mosely, Lang, & Brennan, 2017).

While all of these benefits of mindfulness can be experienced by children as well as adults, there are some benefits that have been found specifically in young people. These are outlined in the next section.

Health Benefits of Mindfulness for Kids and Students

Many studies have been conducted using college students as participants, as they are an easily accessible population that is often willing to participate for simple incentives like extra credit or some extra spending money.

Mindfulness studies with children as the participants are becoming more common as well, as more and more benefits of mindfulness on early development are discovered. We'll describe some of the amazing outcomes associated with mindfulness on children, teens, and young adults here.

Benefits for College Students

Adults are not the only ones who can reap the benefits of mindfulness.

College students have also experienced incredible positive impacts resulting from the practice of mindfulness.

A study on mindfulness in college students found that medical and psychology students who practiced mindfulness reported improvements in a wide range of areas, including decreased reactivity, increased curiosity and affect tolerance, improved patience, and self-acceptance, and enhanced relational qualities (Solhaug, Eriksen, de Vibe, Haavind, Friborg, Sørlie, & Rosenvinge, 2016).

Problems with alcohol are more prevalent in college students than many other populations and can lead to serious issues with both academic progress and life in general. Mindfulness may be an effective tool for addressing this issue, as it has been negatively linked with alcohol problems and can help students deal with the stress that may prompt drinking in this population (Bodenlos, Noonan, & Wells, 2013).

Mindfulness has also been shown to be an important link between the depressive symptoms that spring from alcohol-related problems and the incidence of drinking to cope in college students (Bravo, Pearson, Stevens, & Henson, 2016).

College students who practice or have practiced mindfulness were less likely to experience depression stemming from the use of alcohol to cope with their problems.

Another study on drinking in college students found that those who practice mindfulness are engaged in lower rates of problematic drinking, especially those proficient in acting with awareness and nonjudging (Vinci, Spears, Peltier, & Copeland, 2016).

The effects of mindfulness on the likelihood of drinking may be due in part to the impact of mindfulness on self-control. College students who participated in mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) reported enhanced self-control and vitality, among other outcomes (Canby, Cameron, Calhoun, & Buchanan, 2015).

Similarly, a study on mindfulness and emotion regulation in college students found that higher levels of mindfulness predicted better regulation of emotions and suppression of thoughts (MacDonald & Baxter, 2016). Better self-regulation and self-control contribute to the more effective positive inhibition of destructive behaviors and, in turn, greater psychological well-being.

In general, children are not likely to have the same problems college students do (especially problems like over-imbibing!), but there are many areas in which mindfulness can have positive outcomes for children.

Improved Academic Success

Mindfulness is known to be effective in helping students achieve academic success in a variety of ways, and this benefit is not reserved for any specific group.

The following groups of children have enjoyed the benefits of mindfulness when it comes to their academic performance:

Elementary students who practice mindfulness exhibit greater prosocial behaviors, emotion regulation, and academic performance (Harpin, Rossi, Kim, & Swanson, 2016);

Teenagers studying for a general education certificate who participated in a mindfulness program experienced lower depression and anxiety, which contributed to improved academic attainment (Bennett & Dorjee, 2016);

Children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who participated in a five-week mindfulness program reported decreased stress, allowing them to focus on school (Costello & Lawler, 2014);

Urban male youth who participated in MBSR experienced less stress, anxiety, and negative coping, improving their ability to deal with academic stress and achieve academic success (Sibinga, Perry-Parrish, Chung, Johnson, Smith, & Ellen, 2013);

Children with ADHD displayed less aggression and conduct problems when exposed to mindfulness therapy, which helps them focus on their academics (Singh, Soamya, & Ramnath, 2016);

Homeless middle school students who participated in a mindfulness course reported greater well-being and a higher incidence of using mindfulness in school, which can lead to greater quality of life and academic achievement (Viafora, Mathiesen, & Unsworth, 2015).

Buffer against Bullying and Depression

Mindfulness can even help kids deal with bullies!

A Chinese study on bullying victims and depression showed that mindfulness can protect children against the depressive symptoms that can arise from being victimized by bullies (Zhou, Liu, Niu, Sun, & Fan, 2017).

A dissertation by Sandra Mccloy (2005) on mindfulness as a coping tool for bullying suggested that mindfulness can help children consider perspectives other than their own and find constructive reactions in the face of bullying.

Mindfulness may even be an effective tool for addressing bullying at the source. Improving empathy with tools like mindfulness and improving social and emotional learning could be the key to stopping bullies before they become bullies (Kaldis & Abramiuk, 2016).

Provide Support and Boost Resilience

Mindfulness can also aid children who have been involved in the welfare or mental health care system. A study on a mindfulness program for vulnerable children found that mindfulness improved emotion regulation, mood, empathy, confidence and self-esteem, coping and social skills, and ability to pay attention and focus (Coholic & Eys, 2016).

Resilience is a very effective skill for children to cope with daily struggles and develop emotionally, psychologically, and academically. Mindfulness training has been shown to boost resilience in children and help them understand and regulate their own emotions (Coholic, 2011; Coholic, Eys, & Lougheed, 2012).

In the classroom, mindfulness can be as simple as adding a station for students to visit any time they are feeling a hard emotion. This station can have crayons and be a "pause" station for students to spend 5-10 minutes before reflecting on the emotion.

Another study showed that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for children reduced problem behaviors, attention problems, and anxiety while improving children's social-emotional resiliency (Semple, Lee, Rosa, & Miller, 2010).

And the benefits of mindfulness don't stop here. Mindfulness in the workplace also has numerous benefits for all levels of staff.

Advantages of Integrating Mindfulness in the Workplace

Although many of the benefits of mindfulness described above can and do affect individuals in all areas of their lives including work, mindfulness' impact on job performance may be the outcome that gets the most attention and interest from managers and executives.

There are several ways that mindfulness has been shown to impact job performance, including:

1. Gallant (2016) found that mindfulness can improve executive functioning by improving inhibition abilities;

2. Mindfulness in service industry workers improves job performance, even when controlling for workers' level of engagement (Dane & Brummel, 2014);

3. De Bruin, Formsma, Frijstein, & Bögels (2017) showed that mindfulness in the workplace can actually increase the number of contract hours worked by employees, a result that will certainly catch the attention of higher-ups;

4. Office employees who participated in an eight-week mindfulness intervention experienced lower levels of work-related stress, greater job satisfaction, and, ultimately, enhanced job performance as rated by their employers (Shonin, Van Gordon, Dunn, Singh, & Griffiths, 2014).

Beyond job performance, mindfulness has also been applied to the workplace for other benefits that can contribute to a healthy and productive work environment.

Reduced Work-Related Stress and Psychological Distress

One of the most common benefits of practicing mindfulness in the workplace is the decrease in stress experienced by employees.

Researchers Grégoire and Lachance (2015) found that employees at call centers who took part in a brief mindfulness intervention reported decreased stress, anxiety, depression, fatigue, and negative affect, while also experiencing greater satisfaction at work.

Similarly, employees from the Dow Chemical Company enjoyed less stress and increased resiliency and vigor after completing an online mindfulness intervention (Aikens, Astin, Pelletier, Levanovich, Baase, Park, & Bodnar, 2014).

Huang, Li, Huang, and Tang (2015) also found that mindfulness reduces stress, fatigue, and psychological distress, especially for employees struggling with poor mental health.

A study of public sector employees showed that this group was also able to benefit from the mental health effects of mindfulness. These employees reported less stress, reduced psychological distress, and improved social functioning and quality of life (Bartlett, Lovell, Otahal, Sanderson, & Tasmania, 2016).

Decreasing Turnover and Burnout

Along with the decreases in stress, mindfulness can also lower the incidence of burnout and turnover at work.

Researchers Taylor and Millear (2016) found that mindfulness helps employees construct a buffer between their work and becoming burned out.

Dane and Brummel's (2014) study also discovered an inverse relationship between mindfulness and turnover intention, meaning that employees who are higher in mindfulness are less likely to leave their jobs for any reason. The study referenced earlier by de Bruin and colleagues (2017) also uncovered the reduction in the risk of employees dropping out of work when mindfulness is encouraged in the workplace.

Burnout seems to occur less in workplaces that encourage and offer spaces for mindfulness.

Goodman and Schorling (2012) found that mindfulness-based stress reduction reduced work-related burnout and improved mental well-being among healthcare providers. A study of Australian psychologists added more support to this theory, finding a strong negative association between mindfulness and burnout (Di Benedetto & Swadling, 2014).

Further research on mindfulness at work showed that mindfulness can act as a buffer for unsupportive work environments, enhancing well-being at work and contributing to lower levels of burnout for employees from a range of careers (Schultz, Ryan, Niemiec, Legate, & Williams, 2015).

Clearly, mindfulness has some extremely positive impacts on both individuals and the work they produce. But how does mindfulness produce these outcomes?

Research on Mindfulness and the Brain

Recently, a lot of research has been conducted on what effects mindfulness has on the brain. It's clear that practicing mindfulness can lead to positive outcomes, but many researchers want to know why it works as well.

This is where neuroplasticity comes in.

Explaining Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity is, at its most basic level, the ability of the brain to change and adapt over time.

This adaptation happens regularly, as the brain constantly works to make itself more efficient and effective, but neuroplasticity is of specific interest to researchers in the context of brain injuries like a stroke. Our brains can actually reorganize themselves to ensure that functions continue unhindered after a traumatic injury (Honan, 2017).

Whenever we complete a new task or find a more effective way to do something, our brain takes note, often making structural or connection changes to facilitate our next attempt at this task.

When we practice mindfulness, we send the message to our brain that we are more effective at dealing with everyday tasks when we are aware, observant, nonreactive, and nonjudgmental. This causes our brain to make the changes that will improve our ability to function mindfully.

Note: For the more neurobiologically inclined among our readers, continue on in this section to read more about how the brain changes after practicing mindfulness. If you've already had enough talk of brain structures and gray matter, feel free to skip the jargon and head straight to the next section!

For example, meditation practice has been linked to an increased thickness in the cortex, an area that is important for a general cognitive function like attention and sensory processing (Lazar et al., 2005).

Similarly, long-term meditation is linked with a denser gray matter in the brain stem, an area that is linked to cardiorespiratory control (Vestergaard-Poulsen, van Beek, Skewes, Bjarkam, Stubberup, Bertelsen, & Reopstorff, 2009). This may help explain how mindfulness produces positive outcomes in cardiovascular, as well as general, health.

A study on an 8-week MBSR program showed that the regular practice of mindfulness increased grey matter in the left hippocampus, an area involved in learning and memory (Hölzel, Carmody, Vangel, Congleton, Yerramsetti, Gard, & Lazar, 2011). This finding can help us make sense of the improvements in academic achievement and job performance that can result from mindfulness.

Mindfulness has also been shown to result in changes in white matter, particularly in areas involving brain interconnection and self-regulation (Tang, Lu, Fan, Yang, & Posner, 2012). You'll recall from above that improved self-regulation is a key result of mindfulness practice, and can lead to a plethora of advantageous outcomes.

In general, mindfulness is known to impact brain systems that control emotion regulation and self-awareness (Paulus, 2016), which makes sense given the outcomes we have seen in the practice of mindfulness.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

More specifically, one study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess changes in the brain after an eight-week mindfulness course.

Results showed that the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, and other areas experienced heightened activity and connectivity, while the amygdala experienced decreased functional activity and earlier deactivation after exposure to emotionally charged stimuli (Gotink, Meijboom, Vernooji, Smits, & Hunink, 2016).

This means that the areas of the brain associated with higher-level functioning were more active, while the area of the brain that handles stress and strong emotions was less involved. These findings match the behavioral changes we see after a mindfulness program, like better emotion regulation, less reactivity, and even better performance on tasks.

Another study of brain activity related to mindfulness found evidence that mindfulness is associated with areas of the brain related to memory retrieval, decision making, and outward attention, all functions which can help link the bridge between mindfulness and improved mental health and job performance, among other outcomes (Gartenschläger, Schreckenberger, Buccholz, Reiner, Beutel, Adler, & Michal, 2017).

While the science of neuroplasticity in relation to mindfulness is still relatively young (as neuroscience as a whole is relatively young!), these studies and others have provided a solid foundation for continuing research on how mindfulness impacts the brain.

The Importance of Consistent Practice

"Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most."

Buddha

While everyone has something to gain from practicing mindfulness, there is one caveat: to reap the maximum benefits of mindfulness, it truly needs to be a practice, meaning that it must occur regularly and often.

Nearly all of the articles mentioned above on the benefits of mindfulness are based on a mindfulness practice of five to eight weeks, or more. While a regular practice is vital, it does not need to be a huge commitment. Even a brief, 10-minute daily practice can result in more efficient cognition and better self-regulation (Moore, Gruber, Derose, & Malinowski, 2012)!

Another study on the effects of a 10-minute mindfulness exercise showed that even just a few minutes of mindfulness practice can lead to better executive attention and recognition memory, leading to better performance on a simple task (Watier & Dubois, 2016).

If you need some tips on how to commit to a regular mindfulness practice, try the following (Lucid Living, 2013):

Find the right motivation and intention. If you are experiencing a busy day or just don't feel like practicing mindfulness, it might help to remind yourself why you practice and what it can do for you.

Find the right attitude and attention. Each practice will be different, but try not to think of them as "better" or "worse." There is no bad way to become more mindful.

Find the right time and timing. Just as each practice will be different, the length of time appropriate for your practice can vary as well. Some days you may need only a few minutes, and other times you may want to stick with it for a bit longer to make sure you have a rewarding experience.

Find the right spot and posture. It's important to feel safe and secure, wherever you decide to practice. That may be on a cushion on the floor, in your office chair at work, or even sitting in your car in traffic. You will benefit from finding a comfortable and familiar spot for your regular practice, but there's no harm in modifying your seat or posture if circumstances require it!

Find the right routine and stick to it! Although the length, location, and posture of your practice can and will change depending on your situation, it's best to make a minimum commitment when it comes to frequency. Whether practicing once a day works best for you, or multiple times a day, find a routine that you will be able to stick to in the long-term.

Another helpful way to support your commitment to a daily practice of mindfulness is to assign a different value to each day's practice.

Dr. Amit Sood, the chair of the Mayo Mind Body Initiative, provides the following mindfulness schedule as a template:

1. Monday: Gratitude - Find things to be thankful for throughout your day, and include them in your loving kindness meditation or a gratitude journal;

2. Tuesday: Compassion - Set an intention to decrease any pain or suffering in others that you encounter throughout your day;

3. Wednesday: Acceptance - Accept yourself as you are and others as they are; appreciate yourself and other people without trying to change them;

4. Thursday: Meaning and Purpose - Think about your ultimate purpose in life, and where and how you find meaning;

5. Friday: Forgiveness - Forgive yourself first, then extend your forgiveness to others for any past transgressions;

6. Saturday: Celebration - Make sure to take a day to celebrate all the joy in your life and the lives of others;

7. Sunday: Reflection - Reflect on your week, your month, your year, or whatever period of time makes sense to you at the moment. This can be accomplished through meditation, prayer, or simple awareness.

A Take-Home Message

This article was packed with a lot of information, but I hope you found that it was worth your time.

To recap, this article included numerous potential benefits of practicing mindfulness for adults, children, and employees, including:

Decreased stress and psychological distress in adults and employees;

Enhanced mental health and functioning;

Increased emotion regulation and self-control;

Decreased anxiety, depression, worry, and rumination;

Reduced incidence of problem drinking and symptoms associated with problem drinking;

Enhanced academic achievement in students, due to improved ability to focus and improved attention;

Improved social and relational skills;

Reduction in aggression and problem behaviors in children;

Reduced symptoms of burnout in employees;

A decrease in turnover and turnover intentions at work;

Enhanced job performance;

Increased ability to cope with bullying;

Enhanced resilience in children.

There are so many amazing benefits to practicing mindfulness, with more being discovered all the time. With such positive potential outcomes, the reasons not to practice mindfulness are quickly evaporating.

If you've decided to give mindfulness a try, restart a stalled practice, or if you're looking to enrich your mindfulness practice or contribute to a healthy practice by your clients, check out our pieces on mindfulness-based stress reduction, mindfulness exercises and techniques for adults, and mindfulness exercises and techniques for children and teens.

I hope you find these tips and techniques as helpful as I did!

Thanks for reading, and please be sure to let us know in the comments section if you have experienced any of these benefits in your practice, or benefits not listed here.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don't forget to download our 3 Mindfulness Exercises for free.

If you wish to learn more, Mindfulness X© is our 8-module mindfulness training package for practitioners which contains all the materials you'll need to not only enhance your mindfulness skills but also learn how to deliver a science-based mindfulness training to your clients, students or employees.

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23 Amazing Health Benefits of Mindfulness for Body and Brain

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If you've been following this blog, you know that there are countless ways to apply mindfulness in your everyday life. You have probably also noticed that there are tons of benefits of practicing mindfulness regularly.

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This beautiful book presents mindfulness as a tool to find calm and peace.

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When the world feels chaotic, find peace within through an accessible mindfulness practice from the bestselling picture-book dream team that brought us I Am Yoga. Express emotions through direct speech. Find empathy through imagination. Connect with the earth. Wonder at the beauty of the natural ...

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This  picture book for young children shares practices like rainbow breath and dragon breath to help children feel calm and happy. It is easy to read to a class or to your child.

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Breathe with Me guides young ones ages 4-8 through six exercises to promote body awareness, calm anger, feel stronger in new situations, energize in the morning, and relax at bedtime. Through visualization and play, this engaging breath-by-breath journey teaches children an essential set of self-care skills that will benefit them for a lifetime.

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Gratitude Messages, Letters and Lists (+ 23 More Practices)

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Gratitude Messages, Letters and Lists (+ 23 More Practices)

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Positive Psychology

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Last Updated on

Count your blessings. Be thankful. The message about gratitude can be heard these days, loud and clear. Being thankful is such an important practice to hold onto in this fast-paced world in which we live...simply noticing the things we are thankful of.

However, it's all well and good to know that gratitude ought to be a priority, but perhaps you are wondering about how to practice gratitude. Well, there is a vast number of ways in which to practically introduce more gratitude into our lives.

In this article, the overarching aim is to provide some clear, practical ways to bring gratitude to the forefront of our striving for well-being. I hope you find them helpful!

How Can We Best Practice Gratitude?

Although it may seem apparently straightforward, it is easier said than done to practice gratitude (Emmons & Stern, 2013). So, what does it even mean to engage in 'gratitude practice?' Well, according to the researchers Emmons and Stern (2013),

"gratitude practice is systematically paying attention to what is going right in one's life, to see the contributions that others make in these good things, and then expressing gratitude verbally and behaviorally" (p. 853).

Thus, in order to practice gratitude, the first step is to pay attention (Emmons & Stern, 2013). This aspect of gratitude refers to 'noticing and becoming aware of blessings that we normally take for granted' (Emmons & Stern, 2013, p. 853).

Focusing our attention on the positives also prevents the proliferation of the sort of thoughts and perceptions that are contrary to the experience of gratitude - for example, perceiving oneself as a victim (Emmons & Stern, 2013).

Techniques that enable an individual to focus - e.g. mindfulness meditation - can, therefore, lead to increased appreciation of the aspects of life that are a blessing and to rid the consciousness of thoughts that are incompatible with gratitude.

Practicing gratitude is all about making an intentional shift from the negative to the positive (Emmons & Stern, 2013). Practicing gratitude sees a person accepting that even difficult, painful and otherwise challenging times can be learned from and that we can therefore be grateful for such experiences (Emmons & Stern, 2013).

So, that is a little about practicing gratitude...perhaps, however, you are wondering exactly HOW to best practice gratitude... Here are some tips, suggested by Derrick Carpenter (n.d.), as to how to maximize the benefits of gratitude practice:

Try and focus on being aware of different things you're grateful for each day - i.e. don't always notice the same things. Even though you may always feel grateful for the same things - for example, your family - looking for 'fresh' grateful moments helps in the practice of gratitude.

Be aware of looking for specific things that you are grateful for - e.g. 'today my husband cooked my favorite meal for dinner because he knew that I'd had a tough day'. Being specific really maximizes the benefits of gratitude practice.

Look beyond the things that you are grateful for that may be immediately apparent. Looking for new things can help us best practice gratitude. Be creative! Enjoy the process!

Be kind to yourself and be realistic about gratitude practice. Be aware of obstacles that might hinder your efforts to practice gratitude. So, if you are likely to feel extremely tired at night-time and you are trying to schedule in time to practice gratitude, it may be best to set aside some time in the morning. Be a little flexible with yourself and don't put undue pressure on yourself to practice gratitude in a way that is simply not working for you!

Keep gratitude fun! Try new and creative ways to keep track of your moments of thankfulness.

This next suggestion is an interesting one - to try and make your gratitude practice social. It makes sense to think of others in practicing gratitude because it is our relationships with other people that are the most significant determinant of our happiness. According to expert Robert Emmons, making the focus of our gratitude the people we are thankful for, rather than particular circumstances or material items, can enhance our practice of gratitude and maximize the benefits of gratitude practice. So, perhaps one idea you can use is to write a gratitude letter (this is explained in more detail later!) or share grateful moments from the day at the dinner table.

Putting these simple strategies into action can really help us begin to best practice gratitude.

8 Ways to Make Gratitude a Habit

So, you have started to practice gratitude. How can you make it part of your regular routine? The following suggestions were put forward by Janet Miller (2016) and implementing them can help to make gratitude a habit...

1. Appreciate every good thing in life, not just the "big" things.

To develop a habit of being grateful, appreciate everything, and be aware of the fact that there is nothing too small to be thankful for. Even if your gratitude is for simple things, such as pleasant weather, it is important to recognize everything and not leave anything out when practicing gratitude.

2. Find gratitude in your challenges.

It is not the case that gratitude is being thankful only for positive experiences. Actually, sometimes considering challenging situations with an open mind can help you to become aware of what you are truly thankful for. By being thankful even for negative or difficult situations, it is possible to appreciate how such challenges have helped you to develop into the person you are today!

Make time each day to consider 5 - 10 things you are grateful for - really visualize it in your mind and notice the feelings of gratitude in your body. Being mindful helps re-wire the brain to be naturally more grateful and as such you will feel happier every time you practice gratitude. All it takes is 8 weeks of practicing gratitude for people to start showing different brain patterns that result in enhanced empathy and happiness. Training the brain towards gratitude plays a part in making gratitude come more easily.

4. Keep a gratitude journal.

Record your positive thoughts after each mindfulness session. Keeping a journal of all the things that you are grateful for can help you keep track of them and also serves as something you can look back at to note the positive things in your life. Making a note of positive thoughts helps you to pay attention to the positive aspects of life - and, the act of writing means that you have to pay attentions to what you are writing and consciously think about what you are grateful for without being disturbed by other distracting, ungrateful thoughts. You may choose to write in the gratitude journal each day after your gratitude practice, or, at other regular intervals. Do what works best for you, as this will maximize the benefits to be found!

5. Volunteer.

Giving back to others in the community has been shown to help individuals have more gratitude for things that they perhaps otherwise may take for granted. It can help promote gratitude and, at the same time, increase well-being which in turn helps foster even more gratitude! In " Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being ", Professor Martin Seligman looked into a range of variables that contribute to well-being. His research showed that volunteering is the 'single most reliable way to momentarily increase your well-being'.

6. Express yourself.

Instead of keeping your gratitude to yourself, you can actually increase your feelings of gratitude by expressing the gratefulness you have. One study conducted by a group which aims to find the "science of happiness" (Soul Pancake) showed that writing a letter to a person that participants were grateful for increased individuals' happiness by 2 - 4%. Interestingly, however, when these same people expressed their gratitude directly by making a phone call to the person who they were thankful for, happiness increased from 4 - 19%! Furthermore, expressing gratitude can make someone else's day better too!

7. Spend time with loved ones.

Spending time with friends and family not only gives you the opportunity to grow closer to them and strengthen your relationship, but it also enables you to share your gratitude. This may include supporting them, such as listening to them intently rather than waiting for your own chance to speak.

8. Improve your happiness in other areas of your life.

Being grateful can make you happy but, at the same time, being happy can also lead to feeling more grateful. Lifting mood - such as by taking part in your favorite pastime or exercising, makes it easier to show gratitude. When endorphins are increased, it will be simpler to list the things that you are grateful for.

By putting these 8 strategies into place, gradually gratitude can become a part of your every-day routine.

What are Gratitude Messages?

Gratitude messages are, put simply, expressions of appreciation. For example, one form of a gratitude message is simply saying 'thank you'. Or, it may be an expression of recognition of something that another person has done for you.

One easy way to try out a gratitude message is to send an appreciation message to a friend: e.g. in a brief text message, state "You always know how to make me laugh and lift my spirits. Thanks so much for being my friend!". Gratitude messages can have powerful effects for the grateful individual as well as the recipient!

The Gratitude Ritual

A gratitude ritual is a consistent time that is set aside to practice gratitude. Although rituals take commitment and effort in the beginning, with regular practice, the ritual will become second nature (Rider, 2017).

For example, perhaps the gratitude ritual you wish to implement is a routine of expressing your gratitude each night, just before bed. Use a small notebook - it's important in rituals to use pen and paper rather than to type (Rider, 2017). Keep the notebook at a place that you return to at the same time every day. Every night (or morning - whatever time suits you best to put aside) - write the date at the top of the page. Then, set an intention by telling yourself that you will write for a fixed amount of time (Rider, 2017).

As the ritual becomes a habit, the amount of time required for the ritual is usually less. For the amount of time that you have set aside, write about what you are grateful for - anything that comes to mind, from big things like your health to much smaller things...like chai lattes! Most importantly, be specific. Write as many things as you can in the set amount of time.

In this era of smartphones and tablets, perhaps the most convenient way for you to develop a gratitude ritual is setting aside a particular time to use a gratitude 'app'. Such apps, including 'Feed Your Happy' and 'Gratitude Journal' can really help with keeping a gratitude journal. (Libby, 2016). Research has also shown that regular gratitude journaling can boost mood and extend the feeling of gratitude for weeks or even months.

One more example of a gratitude ritual is to show appreciation for a meal...each evening, at the dinner table before you begin eating, have each person share something in their lives that they're thankful for (Libby, 2016). This ritual can also foster meaning and stability within the family, and set the scene for a positive meal-time (Libby, 2016). Gratitude rituals can be a wonderful way to cultivate thankfulness.

How To Write a Letter of Gratitude (Including a Sample Gratitude Letter)

Showing gratefulness to colleagues and friends lets them know that their efforts or acts of kindness have been noticed. Furthermore, people are likely to remember this gesture and therefore have a more favorable impression of you! (Hertzberg, 2018).

It is not especially difficult to write a letter of appreciation. It doesn't need to be lengthy - focus on keeping the letter simple and sincere (Hertzberg, 2018). To begin with, consider the appropriate format for the letter... is it a letter to a friend, and therefore casual, or are you writing to a potential employer following a job interview? This will set the tone for your letter.

Start with a greeting. Generally, 'Hi there [name]' is appropriate but in the case of a more formal letter write 'Dear [name]' or if it is a very formal letter - such as after a job interview - write 'Dear Ms/Mr [surname]' (Hertzberg, 2018).

In the body of the letter, outline what the recipient has helped you with. While expressing general gratitude is generally ok (such as "thanks for always being there for me") referring to specifics is even more effective (e.g. "thanks for being there for me last Thursday afternoon when my car broke down") (Hertzberg, 2018). Include a couple of specific details - such as, the things that the person did that were especially helpful, or give an example of a certain time that the person truly went above and beyond. Including specific details really shows the recipient of the letter that you noticed their efforts (Hertzberg, 2018).

To close the letter, end with a closing line - such as 'thanks again', and sign your letter (Hertzberg, 2018). The following is a sample letter, written in the context of expressing appreciation for a close friend:

I know that I don't say this nearly as often as I should, but I really wanted to thank you for being such a good friend. If I ever need you, you're there for me and are happy to listen when I need to talk. We've both shared the highs and lows of life together, and I never could have got through it all without you!

You are one of the most important people in my life. When I count my blessings, I always think of you. I don't think that I could have got through the last few years without you...remember the day last year that I turned up at your place in a sobbing mess, and together we hugged and cried at the unfairness of life? Through all the stressors of life, you have always helped me get through. I appreciate this more than you know!

Thank you again - you're a fabulous person and a wonderful friend. I feel lucky to have you in my life.

Keeping a Gratitude Box or List

Something as simple as a box can help in the practice of gratitude. Choose a box, and make it appealing by decorating it or adding other personal touches. If a box really isn't your 'thing' perhaps you can write a list...use special paper. The idea is to make the box or list special. Keep the box or list somewhere where you can see it so that you can use it easily and also so you don't forget about it when life gets busy! (Thornton, 2016). Put a pen and paper close by, too, so you're all set up to make entries. Perhaps you could even put a special pen in the box itself.

Then, record the good things that happen on small pieces of paper and either put the paper in your box, or write the good thing that has happened on your special paper (Thornton, 2016). Spend time regularly reflecting on whoever, or whatever, makes you feel appreciative and grateful (Thornton, 2016). Record the date on the piece of paper, and write about what you are grateful for that day - for example, perhaps you have had a pleasant surprise such as a gift, or maybe you accomplished one of your goals. It doesn't have to be something significant - you may simply record a fun or memorable moment (Thornton, 2016).

Then, choose a special day (such as New Year's Eve, or your next birthday). Open your box, or sit down with your list, and read over all the great things that have happened over the year that you are truly grateful for (Thornton, 2016). This is an easy and fun activity that helps you to reflect on happy memories.

Writing Gratitude Cards

Taking the time to write a card of thanks or appreciation can benefit both the writer and the recipient. While it is lovely to write and receive gratitude letters, what is even more special is to write a card. You can take the time to make a special card, using your favorite paper-craft materials or perhaps utilizing a template that can be found online. Decorate the card - enjoy the creative process! If you really are too busy to make a card, there are many commercially available thank-you cards that are lovely too.

Write a simple but meaningful message in the card. It need not be lengthy or wordy, keep it to the point. Then, either send the card via the post or, even better, hand-deliver it. The recipient of the gratitude card will be so touched that you not only took the time to express your appreciation, but that you went to the effort to make a card.

How to Make a Gratitude Wall

A gratitude wall is an effective way to express appreciation, either at home or in the workplace, by displaying your gratitude visually (Morin, 2018a). To make a gratitude wall, write down the things that you are grateful for on sticky notes (Morin, 2018b).

Then, stick the notes to a designated area either on a wall, or a door, or a mirror to provide visual reminders of all the good things that you have in your life (Morin, 2018b). You could even use a bulletin board on which to create a visual representation of the things you are thankful for (Morin, 2018a).

You can also include brief notes, such as simple words ("summer", "Mum") to remind you of the things and people who you are grateful for (Morin, 2018a).

What are Gratitude Rocks and Stones?

Gratitude rocks (or stones) act as reminders to be thankful. For example, one use of a gratitude rock is to keep it in your pocket to remind yourself to be grateful. Melody Beattie (n.d.) explained that this idea was portrayed in the movie called ' The Secret ' - Lee Bower describes that every time he touched the small rock, he would identify something, or someone, he was grateful for. In the morning when he places the rock in his pocket, he thinks about what he is thankful for, and then in the evening when he empties his pocket and takes out the rock, he reflects on those things that he is grateful for once again.

Alternatively, you could place the gratitude rock around the area in which you work and, every time you notice it, take the time to pick up the rock and think of one thing in your life that you are grateful for (Beattie, n.d.).

The best thing is, gratitude rocks are free! Or, if you chose to, you could even buy a special crystal. The rocks can help people to be present 'in the moment', and can also be used as a reminder to be grateful for something immediately around you - e.g. the drink you are having (Beattie, n.d.). A gratitude rock can also serve to help you switch to more positive ways of thinking - so, if you're just in a neutral mood, it can lift your spirits by reflecting on something you're grateful for. Or, if you're feeling upset or negative, it can help you to 'snap out' of the mood by taking time to be grateful.

Ideas for Gratitude Glass Jars

Gratitude glass jars are used similarly to the gratitude box described earlier in this article... you write down what you are grateful for (or, the things that you wish for) on small pieces of paper and then review them at a later time. Have your wishes come true?! There are some commercially available glass jars that can be used.... The following are ideas for different gratitude glass jars as available from here:

Wedding wishes glass jar

'Wish' glass jar

Baby wishes glass jar

Baby boy wishes jar

Baby girl wishes jar

Christmas wishes jar

Memories glass jar

Thanksgiving glass jar

Love glass jar

Let it go glass jar

Acts of kindness glass jar

New Year Resolution's glass jar

These jars provide a special place to harness the power of positive thinking and to capture wishes for all sorts of special moments in life.

23 Gratitude Exercises and Activities

Marelina Fabrega (n.d.) and Tchiki Davis (2017) have suggested the following gratitude exercises to foster gratefulness:
1. Morning coffee gratitude
Begin the day thinking of all the things you are grateful for.

If you think you won't find the time, or that you will simply forget, perhaps you can tie your gratitude practice with your first cup of coffee in the morning. To develop a sense of gratitude, begin by reflecting on what you're thankful for in regards to your coffee routine. Notice and appreciate:

The warmth and texture of the cup

The smell of the coffee

Tasting the first sip of coffee

Embracing the beautiful morning

Celebrate a new day

Take pleasure in the peace and quiet before the day officially begins.

2. Grace before meals
Give thanks for your food, and all the work that was necessary in order for you to be able to eat it. Pause before you begin to eat, and be mindful.
3. Things you take for granted
This exercise involves picturing what it would be like to lose some of the things that you take for granted - such as your senses, your home, and so on. Then, imagine that you get these things back and think about how grateful you would be for each of these things.
4. Put things in perspective
Use gratitude to deal with challenges such as failure, a setback, or some other sort of difficulty. Remind yourself that even difficulties present us with things of benefit - so, when dealing with adversity, consider the positives: e.g. is there something good in this situation? Can you learn something?
5. Gratitude charm bracelet
Buy a charm bracelet and choose charms or trinkets that are meaningful to you personally and that can serve as a reminder of something you are thankful for - for example, you may select a heart to symbolize your romantic relationship. Then, every time that you notice your bracelet, you can be reminded of those things you are grateful for.
6. Gratitude stroll
Go for a walk, and set yourself the task of finding how many positive things that you can notice.
7. Gratitude trigger
Use an object that can serve as a reminder to feel grateful when you see it - for example, you could put a small sign next to your desk that says "thank you", or perhaps you can put a 'welcome' doormat at the front-door to remind you to be thankful of your home.
8. Gratitude partner
Spend time with another person sharing what both of you are grateful for - you can both feed off each other's ideas, and if you know one another well you can even remind each other of things that you may have forgotten!

9. The 'rampage' of appreciation
This is an exercise about noticingpositive feelings. Look around you, and find something that pleases you. Then, focus your attention on the object, and think about its' positive qualities. The more you think about it, the more that positive feelings will increase. Then, notice that shift in your feelings and appreciate it. Once you begin to really experience the good feeling, choose another pleasing object in your environment to pay attention to.

10. Through the eyes of another
Occasionally, we begin taking the good things in our life for granted. Choose to try and see things, people, and places that you love in the way that another person would see them. Look at the ordinary aspects of your life through the eyes of another, and re-discover your appreciation for these things.

11. Gratitude for objects and tools
Spend some time considering all the various gadgets, devices and appliances you have that make life easier and more enjoyable. Take a moment to appreciate these things in your home and feel grateful for all the people who made it possible to have these things that make life so much more convenient.

12. Thankful tree
More so an appropriate activity for the Thanksgiving/Christmas season, this involves each person choosing a paper leaf, and writing something on it that they're grateful for. Then, the colored paper leaves are hung from some tree branches.

13. Four questions
In order to reflect on the things that you're grateful for, ask yourself these questions at the end of the day:

What touched me today?

Who, or what, inspired me today?

What made me smile today?

What's the best thing that happened today?

14. Gratitude lookout
Choose a particular day on which you're actively going to notice people you can thank. Keep an eye out for things that others do on that day that are , helpful, or considerate...don't be afraid to use 'thank you'!

15. Gratitude inventory
Write a list of 100 things that you are grateful for. If you wish, you can distinguish between different categories - assets, people, experiences, for example.

16. 365 Thank you notes
This activity is not for the faint-hearted! It involves setting about to write one thank you note for each day of the year. You will need to be on the lookout for people you can thank...your child's preschool teacher, the cashier at your local grocer, the post-man...

17. Going around the table
This activity is great for group/family dinners. Set the table, and put an index card and pen at each place setting. Then, each person writes the name of the person sitting to their left at the top of the card, and then writes something about that person for which they are thankful. Then, the card is passed to the right and that person can then continue the list on the index card. Every card will eventually get back to the person that the list was for. After the activity, read the 'thank yous' aloud.

18. Appreciation chair
Choose one chair to be the 'appreciation chair'. In turn, each person sits in the appreciation chair and everyone tells that person why they appreciate them and to express gratitude - for example, for kindness the person in the appreciation chair has showed, or help that they have given.

19. Ungrateful thought
Notice one ungrateful thought each day tochoose to transform into a grateful one...e.g. "what a rotten day at work, so stressful! I hate my job" could be transformed to "I am tired at the end of this day but I feel lucky to have my job that pays the bills".

20. Gratitude notes
Write one or two things that you appreciate about people who you are thankful for on sticky notes, and stick the note on their desk, on their car, or on their bag.

21. Gratitude letter
Write a letter to someone describing how thankful you are for someone who did something special for you. Explain how it made you feel and how grateful you are (n.b. this was explored previously in the article! Plus, a sample letter is provided!).

22. Track 3 good things
Every day, note down three good things about the day. As the week comes to an end, look at your list to remember that you have a lot to be thankful for.

23. Gratitude drawing
Create a picture of the people and things that you are most grateful for. Display it, such as put it on the fridge, which will help you recall what you're grateful for and be encouraged to continue practicing gratitude.

8 Group Activities to Practice Gratitude

Rick Kiley (2017) put forward the following activities to be carried out in the workplace - however, it could also be used in other group situations as well.

Take a gratitude break: during meetings, set aside time for individuals to show appreciation. It can be for simple things - try not to overthink it! Rather than being grateful for THINGS, instead show appreciation for others and their actions. An example could be "I am very thankful to Rachel today for making us all coffee".

Give gifts to share: both giving and receiving gifts in in itself rewarding. Share the happiness of giving and receiving by providing small gifts (like gift certificates) for members of the group to give one another as a symbol of recognition, or as a 'thank you'.

Put up a thankful tree: during the holiday season, put up a holiday tree (this has been described earlier in the article too). Supply paper cut-out ornaments. Encourage members of the group to write what they're thankful for on the paper cut-out and hang it on the tree.

Play appreciation 'hot seat' (another idea previously covered): this game involves each person taking a turn to sit in the 'hot seat'. Everyone else in the group then tells the person in the 'hot seat' why they appreciate them or are grateful for something they have done.

Participate in a gratitude challenge: the group can either arrange their own challenge, or participate in a community-wide program. For example, the business OpenIDEO ran a challenge for workplace teams investigating "How might we inspire experiences and expressions of gratitude in the workplace?".

Write little thank you notes: writing short thank you notes, of only 2 - 3 sentences, is a great group activity to foster gratitude.

Volunteer in the community: as a team, giving back is a natural way to boost gratitude. Volunteering together also helps teams to bond - particularly when the voluntary work requires .

Celebrate World Gratitude Day! This occurs annually on September 21st.

5 Gratitude Games for Adults

These suggestions come from Megan Anderson (2012) ...

1. "This just in": Reporting your blessings

Select someone to be a 'reporter' and someone else to be 'cameraman' (or, note-taker if there is no video camera available). The reporter's task is to find out from guests what they are most thankful for. The reporter can be as creative as they like with their questions! If it is possible, you can even actually video-record the 'interview' and play it to the group later. Or, alternatively, the reporter(s) and scribe can give a "live" report of what they found.

2. "Gratitude Pictionary"

This game is just like the traditional version of Pictionary - all of the same rules apply (i.e. no words, letters or numbers, 60 second time limit, once a word is guessed play goes to the other team, and so on). However, instead of drawing the usual Pictionary tasks, each person has a turn drawing something that they are grateful for. You can actually use the board game that comes with the usual Pictionary set, or otherwise you can simply enjoy drawing and guessing.

3. Gratitude Tree

This is popular during the festive season. As has been described in this article, you allow individuals to record something they're grateful for on paper cut-out ornaments and hang them on the tree. If you are hosting a gathering or party, the guests can either take their 'ornaments' home or they can leave them on the tree.

4. "Gratitude Guess Who"

This is a fun game for groups. Ask individuals to write down something that they're grateful for, and their name, on a piece of paper and them put them (folded up...no peeking!) into a bowl or basket. Then, everyone can take turns picking out the strips of paper and reading the item - but without reading the person's name. The other members of the group can guess who wrote it! If there are just a few members of the group, you could play "rounds" whereby each person writes according to a 'theme' - e.g. seasonal blessings, something about a person in the group, something you can see right now, etc.

5. "Gratitude Gab"

Find a jar or bowl and in it place a few questions or topics on folded up pieces of colored paper. Have everyone pass around the jar and take turns taking out a piece of paper. The purpose of this game is, rather than someone just stating one thing they are grateful for and then moving on, to provide conversations and stories that will enhance the group members' lives, develop feelings of gratitude, and 'nourish the heart'. Here are a few sample topics to write on the slips of paper:

Describe something lucky that happened to you last year and how your life improved

Describe a special favor you received, how it helped you, and how it touched you

Name someone you know who makes your life better and why

Think of something you used today that other people may take for granted

What do you appreciate most about the person sitting next to you?

Describe something that you do often that makes you happy and why

Describe something that happened this past week that you are grateful for and why

Describe something you have done that you are particularly proud of and why

A Gratitude Icebreaker and 20 Conversation Starters

The 'attitude of gratitude' icebreaker activity can be run face-to-face, or virtually. The face-to-face version involves asking each person, at the beginning of the meeting, to nominate three things they have been grateful for in the last 24 hours (Williams, 2008). Then, going around the room, ask everyone to read their list. In the virtual icebreaker activity, send a group email that describes 3 things you've been grateful for in the last day, and then ask each person to do the same (Williams, 2008).

Jayson Bradley (2015) has shared these 20 gratitude conversation starters about thankfulness:

1. What memory always makes you smile?

2. Do you typically think that you have more than you need, less than you need, or exactly what you need?

3. Can you remember a time you received something that you totally didn't deserve? How did that make you feel?

4. What's the best thing that happened to you today?

5. What positive adjectives do you think that people would use to describe you?

6. What do you hope that people will say about you at your funeral?

7. What is something you have given away that you regret?

8. Can you remember a time when you could have given something, but didn't?

9. If you could spend an entire day doing whatever you want, what would it be?

10. Who is the most generous person you know? What makes them that way?

11. What is your favorite season? What do you love about it?

12. What's the sickest you have ever been? How did you get better?

13. What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?

14. Do you have a story about a prayer that was answered? What happened?

15. Is there a time that you had a prayer go unanswered and it turned out for the best?

16. Imagine you're being interviewed for a newspaper article and the interviewer asks "Who made you the person you are today?". Whose names would you say?

17. What do you like about your home? City? Country?

18. What is the hardest thing you've ever learned to do?

19. What is your greatest accomplishment?

20. Who is the person you trust the most? What makes them so trustworthy?

20 Inspiring Gratitude Statements

The following are inspiring gratitude statements taken from Barrie Davenport's appreciation messages (n.d.).

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things"

"Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity...it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow"

"Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all"

"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful"

"Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see"

"When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around"

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others"

Still looking for inspiration? Here are more statements from the same excellent source.

Gratitude unlocks the unique treasures of life

Gratitude is equal to riches. Complaints are equal to poverty

Someone who feels appreciated will always do more than you expect them to do

Upon waking, allow your first thought to be, "Thank you".

Be thankful for everything you have in your life, and know that you will always end up with more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.

You have to stop and remind yourself that each moment is the only one you are positive you will have

A little appreciation goes a long way, but I can never say enough how much I appreciate you

Appreciation speaks louder in action than it does in words

The more you are grateful for in your life, the more opportunities for gratitude you will have

Each day is a new opportunity to be grateful for something new

It is important to be mindful so you can learn how to appreciate the present moment

You can choose to take things for granted or to take things with gratitude

It is never too soon to show your appreciation

Using Gratitude Affirmations (You Tube)

Are you still keen on learning more about gratitude? Perhaps you are interested in what gratitude affirmations are... here are some videos you can watch!

1. Gratitude Affirmations:

2. Morning Gratitude Positive Affirmations:

3. 5 Minute Guided Meditation for Gratitude:

A Take Home Message

This article has explored a range of different ways to practically incorporate gratitude into your life. Hopefully you are realizing that there are many more fun things you can do to embrace being thankful, beyond writing down things that you are grateful for in a journal (although that, too, is powerful in its' own right!). How will you choose to cultivate gratitude in your everyday life?

Perhaps, you might opt for a pretty glass jar and capture those moments of gratitude that occur on small pieces of paper which then create a BIG dose of thankfulness when you choose to re-read the blessings you have recorded. Or maybe, this week at work you could introduce a gratitude wall or even suggest playing a gratitude game with colleagues.

As you can see, the range of practical ways to harness the power of gratitude is vast. I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic! What do you do to nurture your sense of gratitude? Have you tried any of the activities and games discussed here? Do you have others to share? Please share your thoughts!

References

Anderson, M. (2012). 5 Gratitude Games! Retrieved from www.duo.com/newsletter/monthly/2012/november/funtimes.html

Beattie, M. (n.d.). Why A Gratitude Rock is The Next Thing to Have. Retrieved from https://www.the-benefits-of-positive-thinking.com/gratitude-rock.html

Bradley, J. D. (2015). 20 Family Gratitude Conversation Starters About Thankfulness. Retrieved from https://pushpay.com/blog/20-gratitude-conversation-starters

Carpenter, D. (n.d.). The Science Behind Gratitude (And How It Can Change Your Life). Retrieved from https://my.happify.com/hd/the-science-behind-gratitude/

Davenport, B. (n.d.). 101 Of the Best Appreciation Messages to Show Your Gratitude. Retrieved from https://liveboldandbloom.com/08/mindfulness/appreciation-message

Davis, T. (2017). Five Ways to Practice Gratitude. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/click-here-happiness/201711/five-ways-practice-gratitude

Emmons, R. A., & Stern, R. (2013). Gratitude as a psychotherapeutic intervention. Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session, 69, 846 - 855. doi: 10.1002/jclp.22020

Fabrega, M. (n.d.). 22 Gratitude Exercises That Will Change Your Life. Retrieved from https://daringtolivefully.com/gratitude-exercises

Hertzberg, K. (2018). How to Write a Letter of Appreciation: Helpful Tips and Examples. Retrieved from https://www.grammarly.com/blog/appreciation-letter/

Kiley, R. (2017). 8 Gratitude Activities for the Workplace to Try Today. Retrieved from https://www.gthankyou.com/blog/8-gratitude-activities-for-the-workplace

Libby, C. (2016). 4 Gratitude Rituals to Increase Kindness and Joy. Retrieved from https://www.livehappy.com/practice/4-gratitude-rituals-increase-kindness-and-joy?nopaging=1

Miller, J. (2016). 8 Ways to Have More Gratitude Every Day. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2016/07/08/8-ways-to-have-more-gratitude-every-day/#4462c2c91d54

Morin, A. (2018a). 5 Creative Ways to Experience More Gratitude (And How it Can Change Your Life Right Now). Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/amy-morin/5-creative-ways-to-experience-more-gratitude-and-how-it-can-change-your-life-right-now.html

Morin, A. (2018b). How to Incorporate More Gratitude into Your Life This Year. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201801/how-incorporate-more-gratitude-your-life-year

Rider, E. (2017). 2-Minute Gratitude Ritual That Will Change Your Life. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/2-minute-gratitude-ritual-that-will-change-your-life_us_5a023b92e4b02f3ab3377dfc

Thornton, H. (2016). The Gratitude Box. Retrieved from https://www.org4life.com/the-gratitude-box/

Williams, L. (2008). Icebreaker: 3 Gratitudes. Retrieved from https://collaborationzone.com/icebreakert-3-gratitudes

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Gratitude Messages, Letters and Lists (+ 23 More Practices)

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Last Updated on Count your blessings. Be thankful. The message about gratitude can be heard these days, loud and clear. Being thankful is such an important practice to hold onto in this fast-paced world in which we live...simply noticing the things we are thankful of.

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White Working-Class Yoga Devotee Tim Ryan Joins Crowded 2020 Field

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Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan joins an already crowded 2020 Democratic presidential field, offering a background and message tailored to the midwestern states Trump won, but with it some positions that will dismay progressives. Plus he's a big yoga fan.

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Can mindfulness help stressed teachers stay in the classroom?

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Can mindfulness help stressed teachers stay in the classroom?

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PBS

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A few years ago, Amy Lopes, a veteran fifth-grade teacher in Providence, Rhode Island, learned that teachers at her school could try a mindfulness and yoga training along with their students. Her immediate reaction: "What a bunch of baloney!"

"I said, OK, I'll try it, but it's not going to work," recalled Lopes, who teaches at the William D'Abate Elementary School. "But, within a couple weeks, I just let go and became a learner along with my students, and my whole world has changed."

"I love my students. I don't want to leave teaching...But I just felt really empty. Emotionally, I was at the end of my rope."

That training was given by a nearby nonprofit that had recently changed its name - from Resilient Kids to the Center for Resilience - because, said founder and executive director Vanessa Weiner, whenever trainers visited a school to work with students, "we kept hearing from teachers who said, 'We need this, too.'"

Teacher stress is growing, experts say, pushing educators out of classrooms and hurting learning. On top of chronic underfunding for education and the continued pressure of standardized tests, there's also the unrelenting pace of newer education reforms.

The mounting stress levels have sparked a trend of "resilience" trainings and workshops, which typically include yoga, mindfulness and meditation. Some educators worry that the push for resilience lets a broken system off the hook, arguing that more energy should go toward fixing what causes stress, not just helping teachers endure it.

"As we can see from the abysmal teacher attrition rates still going on, we need to do something more than just ask teachers to buck up and meditate," said Jason Margolis, a Duquesne University professor of education.

But backers of these programs say frazzled, emotionally exhausted teachers need coping strategies now, and that need isn't likely to disappear anytime soon.

Teacher stress and high turnover

Teaching ranks among the most stressful professions, according to Gallup research from 2014, in which about half of teachers reported high daily stress at work, tying medical professionals for the most-stressful jobs.

While it's hard to say precisely how much stress educators face, experts say the sources of stress have multiplied in recent years, including anemic public-school funding levels, the continued dominance of standardized testing and a constant stream of new reform efforts, ranging from technology platforms to personalized learning initiatives.

"Too often in school transformation efforts, nobody acknowledges upfront that it's going to be a slog, even when everybody in these schools wants to do something different," said Deborah Delisle, president of the nonprofit Alliance for Excellent Education, and a former assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education in the Obama administration.

Teacher stress fuels turnover, and staff shortages are hitting districts nationwide. About 8 percent of teachers leave the profession annually, and only half of those leaving retire, according to a 2017 report by the Learning Policy Institute, an education think tank. The biggest reason non-retiring teachers leave the classroom, the report noted, is dissatisfaction at work (55 percent).

Among teachers who stay on the job, about 28 percent are "chronically absent" (more than 10 school days a year), according to the most recent Department of Education statistics, which cover the 2015-16 academic year. While teachers can miss work for any number of reasons, stress can trigger a slew of physical ailments, such as migraines, asthma, obesity and heart disease. Indeed, that's why wellness - eating right, exercising and rest - features prominently in many teacher stress management plans, including those developed for the Atlanta schools working with Georgia State University's Center for Research on School Safety, School Climate, and Classroom Management.

The Center's original mandate was to study a range of student mental health and safety issues, such as bullying. But the director, Kristen Varjas, said that local school leaders kept telling researchers, "what we're really concerned about is the stress level of teachers."

"As we can see from the abysmal teacher attrition rates still going on, we need to do something more than just ask teachers to buck up and meditate."

When stressed teachers quit, it's often called burnout, but Doris Santoro, a Bowdoin College education professor, dislikes that term. Burnout, she said, wrongly implies that the ex-teachers simply weren't up to the challenge of their profession. What usually pushes teachers out of the profession, she said, is a disconnect between "deeply held values about what teaching is and what students need, and what school leaders expect them to do."

Santoro said school reform initiatives often rely on pre-packaged curricula, for example, that rob teachers of the flexibility to adapt lessons to students and find creative ways to engage them. Frustration can build even when teachers agree with the premise of a reform.

"If you look more deeply, teacher stress is often about teachers being frustrated with something that's not succeeding with their students," she said.

Teacher stress and student performance

The attention now being paid to teacher stress sprang from the growing focus on student stress and its influence on learning. The Center for Resilience, for instance, offers teachers a two-part training - first, building their own practice of mindfulness and self-care; then, a second round to help bring mindfulness to their classrooms, with breathing techniques, glitter jars (which students shake and silently watch settle), and other practices such as a body scan (a closed-eyes, focusing of attention on different regions of one's body).

"Teachers are trying to manage classrooms just by saying, 'Calm down and pay attention,' but we need to give kids the tools to be able to do those things," said Weiner, and teachers need to practice these skills before they can pass them on to students. "The analogy is that you can't teach somebody to play piano if you don't know how to play piano."

Studies suggest that lower teacher stress improves student learning. In 2018, for example, University of Missouri researchers compared students' behavior problems and their math and reading scores with the self-reported stress levels and coping abilities of their teachers. Students with low-stress teachers had the highest test scores and the best behavior. What's more, in classes led by highly stressed teachers, both student behaviors and their math test scores got worse as teachers' ability to cope with stress dropped (there were no significant changes in reading scores).

Of course, these results show correlation, not causation. Does teacher stress contribute to student academic and behavior struggles, or is it the other way around?

"I suspect the relationship is reciprocal. They build off each other," said the study's lead author, Keith Herman, who wrote the book Stress Management for Teachers (2015) with study co-author and fellow education professor Wendy Reinke.

Patricia Jennings, a University of Virginia professor of education, agrees, calling it the "burnout cascade."

Emotionally exhausted teachers, she observed, were more likely to overreact to minor student stumbles, and these reactions spiked student stress in turn, leading to more discipline issues, and so on, spiraling downward.

"You can't learn when you're stressed," said Jennings. With adrenalin and cortisol coursing through your veins, you can't think deeply about a problem, or immerse yourself in a book, which is partly why schools have been adding "social-emotional learning" lessons to help students cultivate empathy, resolve conflicts, and manage their emotions. But, it's hard to calm kids down with stressed-out teachers.

"I believe that teacher and student stress underlie a lot of our problems with learning," said Jennings. "If we want to improve our test scores, then let's all calm down."

To that end, Jennings has spent more than a decade working with colleagues on a 30-hour mindfulness-based professional development program for teachers called CARE (Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education). As part of the training, stretched across several weeks, teachers explore the cognitive and physical links to their emotions to better regulate them, and they role-play stressful classroom situations to practice mindful responses.

Emotionally exhausted teachers...were more likely to overreact to minor student stumbles, and these reactions spiked student stress in turn.

CARE proved effective in a 2017 clinical trial, in which 224 elementary school teachers interested in the training were randomly assigned to a participant group or to a control group that was waitlisted until the research was complete. Using a combination of teacher questionnaires and classroom observations, Jennings and her team found that CARE increased teachers' control of their emotions and reduced their stress, while also improving their sleep and making them feel less hurried overall.

But schools don't often put time or resources into fighting teacher stress until it grows into a serious problem and teachers are eyeing the exits, said Jennings.

Is resilience training a solution?

Early on a recent Saturday, about 100 Boston-area educators filled a local high-school cafeteria that had been cleared of tables to make space for yoga mats. The gathering was part of a 200-hour training in mindfulness, meditation, yoga instruction and community building offered in several cities by a company called Breathe for Change, based in Madison, Wisconsin. Tui Roper, the lead trainer, conducted a lesson on accepting gratitude.

During a break, several teachers explained why they were there. Some spoke of recent efforts to de-stress students, which spill over onto teachers.

"We need to be not only teachers, but social workers, and nurses, and mommies, and daddies, sometimes," observed Danita Kelley-Brewster, assistant principal of Boston's Charles Taylor Elementary School.

Others were simply worn out. "I love my students. I don't want to leave teaching," said Amy Martinez, an English teacher with the Central Massachusetts Collaborative, a multi-site special education partnership in Worcester. "But I just felt really empty. Emotionally, I was at the end of my rope."

Some education experts worry that the emphasis on teacher resilience puts too much responsibility on teachers themselves, and not enough pressure on the systems and policies that cause the stress.

"We have to pay attention to both," said Margolis, the Duquesne professor. For instance, he's looking into how schools can cultivate teacher-leaders to shepherd big, new initiatives, "rather than bring in a lot of outside consultants to do top-down professional development."

On top of chronic underfunding for education and the continued pressure of standardized tests, there's also the unrelenting pace of newer education reforms.

In one model, trained teacher-leaders spend half their time in their own classrooms and half coaching their colleagues, including co-teaching classes. "And when they meet, they talk about how to roll a reform out in a teacher-centered way, which often includes dealing with the stress of it," said Margolis. "If it's done well, then you get open honest dialogue about what's working and what's not, and how can we make this work at our school with our kids in a way that's least stressful?"

Backers of resilience training say it's a matter of triage, and they need to help educators now.

Indeed, the large crowd of teachers at the Boston training was testament to the growing demand for coping skills. Not only did the participants give up months-worth of Saturdays, but most of them paid the $2,650 tuition themselves. (Breathe for Change offers needs-based scholarships.)

At midday at the Boston training, teachers sat together, eating packed lunches. Leaning against a wall, Martinez, the Worcester English teacher, recalled the first Saturday, when she walked in not knowing anyone.

"We started in a big circle, and just to know that there were 100 other educators here who understood what I'm dealing with, emotionally and academically, all the pieces of it," she said. "There was already a sense of community and connectedness that was very uplifting."
This story about resilience training exercises was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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Can mindfulness help stressed teachers stay in the classroom?

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A few years ago, Amy Lopes, a veteran fifth-grade teacher in Providence, Rhode Island, learned that teachers at her school could try a mindfulness and yoga training along with their students. Her immediate reaction: "What a bunch of baloney!" "I said, OK, I'll try it, but it's not going to work," recalled Lopes, who teaches at the William D'Abate Elementary School.

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Mindful

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Armed with phones, we navigate our world with our heads down. But the basic project of mindfulness isn't just self-improvement-it's about being attentive to what's going on around us, and where we fit in, says Editor-in-Chief Barry Boyce.

An older man and woman carrying packages and two small children make their way onto a subway car-by all appearances grandparents with their grandchildren, who also are carrying bags. No one gets up to offer a seat, not even the young athletic man wearing earbuds.

The elevator door opens and you're about to get out, but several people, eager to enter, are blocking your exit. You have to jostle through.

On the way into a mindfulness event, I encounter a man who nearly knocks me over as he leaves the event, intent on whatever is on his phone. Excuse me is not in his vocabulary.

Is the speed of our lives and the many distractions in a universe flooded with information making us ruder? It may be. Even at mindfulness conferences, I've noticed people roughly jostling to get to someone famous or had people stop listening to a conversation as they drift off into the world of their phones. I cannot say I'm a paragon of manners at all times, and there are definitely times when someone should interrupt me in mid-sentence or even before I open my mouth. Nevertheless, like others, I find an increased ignorance of the effect we're having on those around us. Just the other day, I got a text from a close friend I was waiting to hear from. I stopped dead in my tracks to read it, blocking traffic at a museum and disengaging from the people I was with. My wife gave me a look. Wow. I need to up my game here, I thought. It's just way too easy to lose track of those around me and get caught up in my little world. It always was, but our devices and the speed of life are making it worse.

Being attentive to what's going on around us and where we fit in is indeed an element of our basic mindfulness

Being attentive to what's going on around us and where we fit in is indeed an element of our basic mindfulness, an outgrowth of the sensory system called proprioception. And yet mindfulness is not about walking on eggshells and constantly minding our P's & Q's. There's a certain natural flow we can tune in to-in a conversation, in a crowd walking down the street, in a group of people sharing a meal. When we click, it feels good; when we don't, it's awkward, and even allowing it to be awkward is part of being mindful. No need to fix everything.

Not only is it unwise to misinterpret mindfulness as hypervigiliance, there is also a common trap that can lead us down an unhelpful path when we take up practices intended to sharpen our mindfulness and awareness: the trap of self-absorption. Because mindfulness asks us to pay attention to ourselves, we can gradually turn it into an utterly self-involved project: the transformation of me. If we're not careful, before we know it, our own intense focus on how the big-project-of-me is going causes us to forget to see others and where they are and what they need and what they're saying.

Fortunately, just like coming back to the breath, it's easy to come back to the people around us, grateful for the opportunity to emerge from our self-inflicted dreamworld, and say "Excuse me, after you."

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Are We Distracted, or Just Rude? - Mindful

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Armed with phones, we navigate our world with our heads down. But the basic project of mindfulness isn't just self-improvement-it's about being attentive to what's going on around us, and where we fit in, says Editor-in-Chief Barry Boyce.

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Groundbreaking study examines effects of screen time on kids

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Groundbreaking study examines effects of screen time on kids

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60 Minutes

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If you have kids and wonder if all that time they spend on their smartphones endlessly scrolling, snapping and texting is affecting their brains, you might want to put down your own phone and pay attention. The federal government, through the National Institutes of Health, has launched the most ambitious study of adolescent brain development ever attempted. In part, scientists are trying to understand what no one currently does: how all that screen time impacts the physical structure of your kids' brains, as well as their emotional development and mental health.

At 21 sites across the country scientists have begun interviewing nine and ten-year-olds and scanning their brains. They'll follow more than 11,000 kids for a decade, and spend $300 million doing it. Dr. Gaya Dowling of the National Institutes of Health gave us a glimpse of what they've learned so far.

Dr. Gaya Dowling: The focus when we first started talking about doing this study was tobacco, marijuana, all drugs the screen time component really came into play because we were wondering what is the impact? I mean, clearly kids spend so much time on screens.

The first wave of data from brain scans of 4,500 participants is in and it has Dr. Dowling of the NIH and other scientists intrigued.

The MRI's found significant differences in the brains of some kids who use smartphones, tablets, and video games more than seven hours a day.

"We're sort of in the midst of a natural kind of uncontrolled experiment on the next generation of children."

Dr. Gaya Dowling: What we can say is that this is what the brains look like of kids who spend a lot of time on screens. And it's not just one pattern.

Anderson Cooper: That's fascinating.

Dr. Gaya Dowling: It's very fascinating.

The colors show differences in the nine and ten-year-olds' brains. The red color represents premature thinning of the cortex. That's the wrinkly outermost layer of the brain that processes information from the five senses.

Anderson Cooper: What is a thinning of the cortex mean?

Dr. Gaya Dowling: That's typically thought to be a maturational process. So what we would expect to see later is happening a little bit earlier.

Anderson Cooper: Should parents be concerned by that?

Dr. Gaya Dowling: We don't know if it's being caused by the screen time. We don't know yet if it's a bad thing. It won't be until we follow them over time that we will see if there are outcomes that are associated with the differences that we're seeing in this single snapshot.

The interviews and data from the NIH study have already revealed something else: kids who spend more than two hours a day on screens got lower scores on thinking and language tests.

Anderson Cooper: When the study is complete, is it possible that a researcher will be able to say whether or not screen time is actually addictive?

Dr. Gaya Dowling: We hope so. We'll be able to see not only how much time are they spending, how they perceive it impacting them, but also what are some of the outcomes. And that will get at the question of whether there's addiction or not.

Anderson Cooper: When will you have the answers that you're searching for?

Dr. Gaya Dowling: Some questions we'll be able to answer in a few years. But some of the really interesting questions about these long-term outcomes, we're gonna have to wait awhile because they need to happen.

That delay leaves researchers who study technology's impact on very small children anxious.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis: In many ways, the concern that investigators like I have is that we're sort of in the midst of a natural kind of uncontrolled experiment on the next generation of children.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis at Seattle Children's Hospital was the lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics' most recent guidelines for screen time. They now recommend parents, "avoid digital media use, except video chatting, in children younger than 18 to 24 months."

Dr. Dimitri Christakis: So what we do know about babies playing with iPads is that they don't transfer what they learn from the iPad to the real world, which is to say that if you give a child an app where they play with virtual Legos, virtual blocks, and stack them, and then put real blocks in front of them, they start all over.

Anderson Cooper: If they try to do it in real life, it's as if they've never done it before.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis: Exactly. It's not a transferable skill. They don't transfer the knowledge from two dimensions to three.

Dr. Christakis is one of the few scientists who have already done experiments on the influence screens have on children under the age of two. It's a critical period for human brain development.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis: If you're concerned about your teenager being addicted to their iphone, your infant is much more vulnerable and using the exact same device.

Anderson Cooper: Your infant is more vulnerable because why?

Dr. Dimitri Christakis: Because the experience of making something happen is so much more gratifying to them.

In a small pilot study that Dr. Christakis conducted on 15 children, researchers gave toddlers three toys: first a plastic guitar, then an iPad that played musical notes and finally an iPad with an app that rewarded the kids with lights, colors and sounds.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis: So at a very specific time, the research assistant will ask the child to give what they're playing with back.

Anderson Cooper: To give it to the research assistant.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis: To give it to the research assistant.

Sixty-six percent of the time with a traditional toy, the child will do just that.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis: With the iPad that simulates that, they give it back almost with the same frequency. But with the iPad app that when they push on it, it does all kinds of things, they're much less likely to give it back.

With the more interactive iPad app, the percentage of kids willing to hand it back to the researcher dropped from 60 percent to 45 percent.

Anderson Cooper: It's that much more engaging?

Dr. Dimitri Christakis: It's that much more engaging. And that's what we find in the laboratory.

It's engaging by design, as Tristan Harris told us in a story we reported more than a year ago.

Tristan Harris: There's a whole playbook of techniques that get used to get you using the product for as long as possible.

Harris is a former Google manager who was one of the first Silicon Valley insiders to publicly acknowledge that phones and apps are being designed to capture and keep kids' attention.

Tristan Harris: This is about the war for attention and where that's taking society and where that's taking technology.

Anderson Cooper: You know it's one thing for adults, for kids this is a whole other thing?

Tristan Harris: That is where this gets particularly sensitive...is developmentally do we want this war for attention to be affecting our children?

Anderson Cooper: Do you think parents understand the complexities of what their kids are dealing with?

Tristan Harris: No. And I think this is really important. Because there's a narrative that, oh, I guess they`re just doing this like we used to gossip on the phone, but what this misses is that your telephone in the 1970s didn't have a thousand engineers on the other side of the telephone who were redesigning it to work with other telephones and then updating the way your telephone worked every day to be more and more persuasive.

Until recently, it was impossible to see what happens inside a young brain when a person is focused on a mobile device. But now scientists at the University of California, San Diego have hacked that problem.

Dr. Kara Bagot is an investigator on that $300 million NIH study. Her team is scanning teenager's brains as they follow Instagram, the most popular social media app. When we met 18-year-old Roxy Shimp, she was about to participate in Dr. Bagot's study.

Anderson Cooper: How much time do you actually spend on screens?

Roxy Shimp: I check my phone pretty regularly I'd say.

Anderson Cooper: What's pretty regularly?

Roxy Shimp: Every at least 10 to 20 minutes.

Anderson Cooper: Is that a conservative estimate?

Roxy Shimp: Probably.

She can't take her phone into the MRI because of the powerful magnets in the machine, so a mirror has been placed above her face to allow her to look across the room at a movie screen displaying images from her Instagram account. This way, Dr. Bagot can see exactly which parts of the brain's reward system are most active while using social media.

Anderson Cooper: So you can actually see a part of the brain light up when you're feeling good.

Dr. Kara Bagot: Yes, in the scanner.

Anderson Cooper: In the scanner.

Based on her data and the results from other studies, Dr. Bagot is among scientists who believe screen time stimulates the release of the brain chemical dopamine, which has a pivotal role in cravings and desire.

Dr. Kara Bagot: So you're more likely to act impulsively and use social media compulsively instead of, like, checking yourself.

Anderson Cooper: You want to keep on it to keep getting--

Dr. Kara Bagot: The good feelings.

Teenagers now spend on average four and a half hours a day on their phones. All that time has resulted in a fundamental shift in how a generation of american kids acts and thinks.

Jean Twenge: When smartphones went from being something only a few people had to something that the majority of people had, it had this really big effect on how teens related to each other.

"it should be a tool that you use. Not a tool that uses you."

Jean Twenge is a psychology professor at San Diego State University. She spent five years combing through four large, national surveys of 11 million young people since the 1960's. She discovered sudden changes in the behavior and mental health of teens born in 1995 and later, a generation that she calls "I-gen".

Jean Twenge: They're the first generation to spend their entire adolescence with smartphones so a lot of them can't remember a time before smartphones existed.

Anderson Cooper: There have been generational shifts before in the past, haven't there?

Jean Twenge: Certainly. But this one's much more sudden and pronounced than most of the others.

The iPhone was introduced in 2007. Smartphones gained widespread usage among young people by 2012. Jean Twenge says she was startled to find that in the four years that followed, the percentage of teens who reported drinking or having sex fell. But the percentage who said they were lonely or depressed spiked. It's possible other factors may have played a role, but Twenge says she wasn't able to identify any that correlated as closely as the growing popularity of the smartphone and social media.

Jean Twenge: It's not just the loneliness and depression from these surveys. It's also that ER visits for self harm like cutting have tripled among girls age 10 to 14.

Anderson Cooper: What are teens doing on their phones that could be connected to depression?

Jean Twenge: It could be anything. There's kind of two different schools of thought on this. That it's the specific things that teens are doing on their phones that's the problem. Or it could be just the sheer amount of time that they're spending on their phones that is the problem.

Finding definitive answers about social media's influence on mental health can be a frustrating exercise. Eighty-one percent of teens in a new national survey by the Pew Research Center said they feel more connected to their friends and associated social media use with feeling included. But in a month-long experiment at the University of Pennsylvania, college students who limited themselves to just 30 minutes a day on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat reported significant decreases in loneliness and depression.

Jean Twenge: A lot of times with these technological shifts is these things are adopted because they're so wonderful and convenient. And we don't realize until later the possible consequences. And I think fortunately in the last year or so there's been more discussion about how can we manage the use of our devices.

Facebook and Instagram have introduced settings to allow users to monitor app use. And Apple, the company that started the smartphone revolution, has built a new feature for parents to set time restrictions on apps.

Anderson Cooper: Tech companies say there are tools out there that they have supplied and that they're doing their part.

Jean Twenge: A lot of parents, probably the majority I talk to, don't even realize those tools are available. and I wish they happened five years ago instead of now. But better late than never.

For its part, the National Institutes of Health has just finished enrolling the 11,000 kids for its landmark brain study. Early next year, the data will be made available to any researcher around the world investigating the effect of a device that's become the most dominant technological presence in young lives.

Jean Twenge: Smartphones are great things, They are a wonderful piece of technology. They allow us to find our way around and look up the weather and do all that kind of stuff. And if you do it for a half an hour or an hour a day, fine. No problem. Then you're using it for what it's good for. But you have to use it for what it's good for and then put it down. I mean, it should be a tool that you use. Not a tool that uses you.
Produced by Guy Campanile and Andrew Bast. Associate producer, Lucy Hatcher
More from CBS News

Anderson Cooper

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Groundbreaking study examines effects of screen time on kids

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60 Minutes goes inside a landmark government study of young minds to see if phones, tablets and other screens are impacting adolescent brain development

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How to Help Students Dealing with Adversity

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How to Help Students Dealing with Adversity

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Greater Good Magazine

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Six-year-old Jada feels a persistent expectation of danger. She overreacts to provocative situations and has difficulty managing her emotions, which often flare up without warning. To her teachers, Jada appears touchy, temperamental, and aggressive. She is easily frustrated, which makes her susceptible to bullying. When something happens at school that triggers Jada, she may lash out in fury.

How can teachers manage a kid like Jada who may have suffered trauma, but whose emotional reactions make it difficult for her to learn? Not by getting angry, for sure. That would just trigger her, because she's hypersensitive to criticism.

In my new book, The Trauma-Sensitive Classroom, I present key, alternative strategies teachers and schools can use to help kids who've experienced trauma to do better in school. I've found that when teachers recognize the symptoms of trauma, build supportive relationships and classroom environments, and build upon strengths to help traumatized kids learn self-regulation, they can play an important role in helping them heal.

How can teachers do that while still managing a roomful of other kids? It can feel overwhelming to contemplate, but many of the strategies are useful no matter who is in your classroom. And, as long as you couple them with care for your own well-being, they are certainly worth the effort.

Here are some of the suggestions I make in my book.

1. Build supportive relationships in the classroom

As human beings, the most important factor for our survival is supportive relationships. But trauma and adversity can disrupt the development of the important bonds that children need to reach their full potential. Fragmented families and communities make it harder for children and teens to find attachment figures to connect with, leaving many kids unmoored.

To support children and teens exposed to trauma and adversity, we can demonstrate alternative working models of relationships by building social trust. While a warm and supportive classroom environment is beneficial to all students, for students exposed to trauma and adversity, it's a necessity. Teachers can make efforts to get to know each student individually, their strengths and challenges. They can pay special attention to the classroom social network, promote positive peer relationships, and teach and reinforce kindness and respect, while avoiding competitive situations that create social hierarchies.

Teachers can build relationships with students by practicing a mind shift-one that focuses on students' strengths rather than their weaknesses. Instead of asking yourself, "What's wrong with him?" when a student exhibits difficulties, ask yourself, "What happened to him and how did he learn to adapt to it?" Reframing in this way will help you to understand where he is coming from and how best to help him.

It's best not to ask students who've misbehaved, "Why did you do that?"-because their behavior may be as perplexing to them as it may be to you! Educators need to understand that exposure to trauma often impairs self-awareness, self-regulation, and perspective taking, which interferes with these students' ability to understand or explain reasons for their behavior.

If teachers can move away from blame, and provide warmth, empathy, and a respect for students' strengths, it will go a long way toward building positive relationships in the classroom.

2. Create safe spaces

Effective treatment of complex trauma requires coordinated community systems that can effectively identify, treat, and provide support for children, teens, and families. The first order of business in building a trauma-sensitive school is creating a safe environment for all concerned.

What does that mean? It means that all students feel protected by and connected to their teachers and the school community, and that rules for the students are always fair, made with their needs in mind.

At the classroom level, teachers can help build safety by creating fair, logical rules that are consistently reinforced. For children exposed to trauma, this is particularly important, because they come from homes where rules may be associated with arbitrariness and severe punishment. It may help to use the word "expectations" rather than "rules" to communicate with students in a way that is less likely to trigger them.

Since children exposed to trauma often feel powerless around what's happening in their lives, having them participate in creating classroom rules, and giving them choices and alternatives when making assignments, can help empower them. However, it's important not to lower your academic expectations. I have witnessed teachers give trauma-exposed students a coloring worksheet as an alternative to a math assignment out of fear that the assignment might trigger an outburst. While offering alternative assignments may be helpful at times, the alternatives must give the student an appropriate opportunity to learn the same material.

What can teachers do when students act out? While you must always address behavior that disrupts the learning process, it's important not to rupture the students' connection with the school community. Exclusionary policies, such as suspension and expulsion, only reinforce students' feelings of rejection and low self- worth.

Instead, give students the opportunity to calm down by de-escalating the situation. Recognize that such behavior may be adaptive in their home environment and they may need support to learn adaptive strategies that are appropriate for the school environment. Alternative strategies include inviting the student to take some "time in" to settle and calm down, either in the classroom "peace corner" or in a "resilience room," a place set up to give students space to self-regulate at their own pace.

3. Build upon strengths by supporting self-regulation

Hypervigilance, hyperarousal, and a tendency to disassociate-these are all ways students who've been exposed to traumatic environments try to adapt. Unfortunately, while being adaptive in some stressful environments, they can interfere with a student's ability to focus their attention on schoolwork.

To support students exposed to trauma and adversity, teachers can help them learn to understand and manage their emotions better-both directly and indirectly. For example, you can monitor your students for signs of hyperarousal and use soothing talk to help them calm down. You can also teach calming strategies such as simple mindful awareness and relaxation practices, which help all students to deal with difficult feelings. Having a meditation or compassion-based practice yourself prepares you to teach practices to students and maintain your own resilience at the same time.

Be careful to avoid situations that are confusing, chaotic, or erratic. If these situations do arise, try to prepare these children in advance. Here is an example of how this might be done:

Let's say that you learn of an upcoming fire drill, and you fear that it will set off a student. While all students deserve a warning, you can give special support to a student who may be particularly frightened. Taking her aside during early morning recess and explaining what will happen can help avert a meltdown. Also, asking the student to take a leadership role-perhaps leading the other students as you walk out of the classroom-gives her a chance to feel empowered in the situation. Giving her a last warning just before the fire drill happens and preparing for her special role can help her to build some self-confidence.

Exposure to trauma and adversity during childhood and adolescence has a significant impact on a child's development, often interfering with learning and social and emotional functioning. While children may have learned to cope with a stressful environment in adaptive ways, their coping strategies can pose challenges to learning in school environments, especially if schools are not employing trauma-sensitive practices.

Schools can play an important role in helping students heal by recognizing and building upon their strengths and by building supportive relationships, creating safe and caring learning environments, and supporting their development of self-regulation. This requires adults who are committed to caring for themselves first, so they have the resilience to be compassionate in their teaching.

While this is not always an easy task, I believe that the benefits in terms of improved school climate and student learning are well worth the effort. Long-term, the benefits to our students and society may be immeasurable.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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How to Help Students Dealing with Adversity

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Six-year-old Jada feels a persistent expectation of danger. She overreacts to provocative situations and has difficulty managing her emotions, which often flare up without warning. To her teachers, Jada appears touchy, temperamental, and aggressive. She is easily frustrated, which makes her susceptible to bullying.

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Why we need Appreciation (not just recognition) at work

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Why we need Appreciation (not just recognition) at work

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Mike Robbins

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Why We Need Appreciation (Not Just Recognition) at Work

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Leadership expert Mike Robbins explains the difference between being recognized for performance and genuinely appreciated for who you are. Filmed at the GGSC's November 2017 conference, Gratitude and Well-Being at Work.

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Mindful

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Six steps to add meditation and awareness to your daily routine.

Awareness of your breath can serve as a steady basis for awareness in all you do. Explore this six-step practice to make mindfulness part of your daily routine:

1. First, select a suitable place for your regular meditation. It can be wherever you can sit easily with minimal disturbance: a corner of your bedroom or any other quiet spot in your home. Place a meditation cushion or chair there for your use. Arrange what is around so that you are reminded of your meditative purpose, so that it feels like a peaceful space. Let yourself enjoy creating this space for yourself.

2. Then, establish a regular time to practice that suits your schedule and temperament. If you are a morning person, experiment with a sitting before breakfast. If evening fits your temperament or schedule better, try that first. Begin with sitting ten or 20 minutes at a time. Later you can sit longer or more frequently. Daily meditation can become like bathing or toothbrushing. It can bring a regular cleansing and calming to your heart and mind.

3. Find a posture on the chair or cushion in which you can easily sit erect without being rigid. Let your body be firmly planted on the earth, your hands resting easily, your heart soft, your eyes closed gently. At first feel your body and consciously soften any obvious tension. Let go of any habitual thoughts or plans.

4. Bring your attention to feel the sensations of your breathing. Take a few deep breaths to sense where you can feel the breath most easily, as coolness or tingling in the nostrils or throat, as movement of the chest, or rise and fall of the belly. Then let your breath be natural. Feel the sensations of your natural breathing very carefully, relaxing into each breath as you feel it, noticing how the soft sensations of breathing come and go with the changing breath.

5. After a few breaths, your mind will probably wander. When you notice this, no matter how long or short a time you have been away, simply come back to the next breath. Before you return, you can mindfully acknowledge where you have gone with a soft word in the back of your mind, such as "thinking," "wandering," "hearing," "itching." After softly and silently naming to yourself where your attention has been, gently and directly return to feel the next breath. Later on in your meditation you will be able to work mindfully with all the places your mind wanders to, but for initial training, one word of acknowledgement and a simple return to breath is best.

6. As you sit, let the breath change rhythms naturally, allowing it to be short, long, fast, slow, rough, or easy. Calm yourself by relaxing into the breath. When your breath becomes soft, let your attention become gentle and careful, as soft as the breath itself.

There will be many cycles in this process, stormy days alternating with clear days. Just stay with it.

Like training a puppy, gently bring yourself back a thousand times. Over weeks and months of this practice you will gradually learn to calm and center yourself using the breath. There will be many cycles in this process, stormy days alternating with clear days. Just stay with it. As you do, listening deeply, you will find that mindfulness developed on the breath helps to connect with and quiet your whole body and mind.

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How to Make Meditation a Daily Habit - Mindful

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Six steps to add meditation and awareness to your daily routine. Awareness of your breath can serve as a steady basis for awareness in all you do. Explore this six-step practice to make mindfulness part of your daily routine: First, select a suitable place for your regular meditation.

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Psychology Today

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Giving kids and teens the gift of mindfulness is like planting seeds in a garden. Pause, breathe, notice, return - these are quiet actions that cultivate conditions for growth and well-being.

Strong evidence links mindfulness with positive emotion, enhanced life satisfaction, compassion, and overall wellbeing. Mindfulness practice can reduce risk for illness and stimulate physical and emotional health (Goleman and Davidson, 2017; Willard, 2016).

Whatever our role in our kids' lives - as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, friends -- mindfulness starts with us and our own practices. Psychologist Lea Waters (2017) points out several benefits of mindful parenting. Gains can include improved parenting in the moment; modeling effective ways to deal with relational conflicts and stressful situations; and mindful parents coaching their kids to become more mindful.

5 Ways to Plant Seeds of Mindfulness

It's hard to share mindfulness benefits with kids if we haven't experienced it ourselves. Engaging in mindfulness and modeling mindful awareness for young folks helps them become interested and motivated to try it. Just one breath with awareness can transform any moment.

1. S.T.O.P. -- This easy acronym is a reminder to plant daily mindful moments (Goldstein,2013).

Stop

Take a Breath

Observe (notice feelings, thoughts, sensations without judgement)

Proceed

STOP can be practiced within ordinary activities, such as: morning awakening; while tooth-brushing; walking to the kitchen for breakfast; during a break at work or recess; before a meal; in bed at night.

2. Find a quiet place -- Our world is busy and we can forget to pause. Find a quiet space for brief moments to sit with a youngster to read a book, share a conversation, express love and gratitude, or say a prayer.

3. Mindful Eating - Adding a moment of mindful attention to eating can transform the experience. Pause to notice what you're eating, to approach the food as a new experience, or to express gratitude before eating.

Stop. Take a Breath. Observe -- pay attention to the experience of that moment. Proceed.

For example, pause momentarily when your family sits down for dinner. "Let's wait a moment and just take a breath. Let's each share one thing we are thankful for today -- even a word will do. OK, let's eat this great food!"

4. 3 R's - Rest, Recognize, Return -- offer a simple process and mindful language when your mind wanders (Willard, 2018).

Rest your awareness - Use an "anchor" to help you to pay attention, such as the breath ("I am breathing in, I am breathing out"); a word; sounds you're hearing, such as quiet music, ocean waves, the traffic.

Recognize when (and where) your mind and thoughts wander.

Return to your anchor when you notice yourself wandering. Repeat this process as many times as needed.

5. Plant Seeds to Nurture the Garden of Well-Being - Consider these self-inquiries:

How can you incorporate a few moments of mindfulness in your day?

If you already practice mindfulness, how can you add a bit more?

How can you share moments of mindfulness with kids in your life?

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Giving kids and teens the gift of mindfulness is like planting seeds in a garden. Pause, breathe, notice, return - these are quiet actions that cultivate conditions for growth and well-being. Strong evidence links mindfulness with positive emotion, enhanced life satisfaction, compassion, and overall wellbeing.

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Mindful

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My stomach knotted as I came home after a long day at work to find my fifteen-year-old son Nick playing "Fortnite." Again.

Just yesterday, I'd spoken with him (read: snapped at him) about screen time. Today, an argument began. Again.

He felt angry. I felt frustrated. We both felt misunderstood.

Why do we zoom in on the things about our children that concern us more than the things that delight us? Why do we find it so hard to resist the urge to criticize, nag, and worry?

He felt angry. I felt frustrated. We both felt misunderstood.

Blame it on our brains. Our " negativity bias," an ancient survival mechanism, hardwires us to spot problems in our environment more quickly than we spot the things that are going well. I call it the Dirty Window Syndrome: A clean window doesn't attract your attention; you look straight through it. But a dirty window is something you notice. What's more, your focus on one specific part of the window-the dirt-means you'll often fail to see that the rest of the window is still clean and showing you a beautiful view.

It's the same with our kids. When things are going well, we take it for granted; but when things are going badly, that spot of dirt on the window snaps our attention into sharp focus. The dirt, in my case Nick's gaming, grows from a small spot to a big stain. It gets magnified, overshadowing our kids' positive qualities, thus creating the perfect storm for conflict and for feeling anxious about their future. A useful evolutionary feature that keeps you and your kids safe from danger can be counterproductive to fostering a positive relationship.

The good news is that by learning how to shift your attention to your child's strengths (the clean part of the window), you can override the negativity bias, clean the dirt, and prevent the problems from getting blown out of proportion-all while building up resilience and optimism in your children.

Psychologists have identified two broad categories of strengths: talents and character. Talents are performance-based and observable, including things like abilities in sports, music, art, IT, and problem solving. Character strengths are personality-based and internal, including things like grit, curiosity, courage, humor, and kindness.

By learning how to shift your attention to your child's strengths (the clean part of the window), you can override the negativity bias, clean the dirt, and prevent the problems from getting blown out of proportion-all while building up resilience and optimism in your children.

Although we tend to focus on our kids' talents, the two categories of strengths work hand in hand. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who has made the most of their talent without also drawing on their character: Imagine the Beatles without creativity or Neil Armstrong without bravery. As parents, we can help our kids enormously by intentionally cultivating their character as much as their talents.

In my own research, children and teenagers who have parents who help them to see and use their strengths enjoy a raft of well-being benefits, including experiencing more positive emotions and flow, being more persistent, feeling more confident, and being more satisfied with their lives. Kids and teens with strength-based parents are also less stressed, cope better with friendship issues, cope better at meeting homework deadlines, and get better grades.

These well-being benefits can also spill over into better behavior. In a 2010 study, after parents of pre-schoolers learned strength-based techniques in a 10-session program, the parents reported fewer behavior problems in their children.

Parents benefit, too. In one of my studies, published in the International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, parents were split into two groups. One group took a course teaching them how to identify and cultivate their children's strengths, while the second group had no training and continued to parent as usual. The results showed that the parents who went through the course felt happier with their children and more confident about their own parenting skills after the course compared with beforehand. Those who didn't go through the course showed no shift in happiness and confidence.

Of course, focusing on strengths isn't the be-all and end-all of parenting. My own findings have shown that strength-based parenting boosts many positive aspects of a child's mental health, but doesn't reduce anxiety (although it does lower stress and depression). In other words, connecting kids to their strengths helps make them feel good but may not necessarily make them feel less bad; the actions needed to reduce ill-being are different from those needed to produce well-being. But with so much focus on fixing children's problems these days, it's important to intentionally and independently seek to build well-being in our kids.

How to focus on your kids' strengths

Strength-based parenting is a style where we focus first on building up what is going right with our children before we focus on fixing what is going wrong. We help our kids to maximize and make the most of their talents and character, and we show them how to use these as leverage points to address weakness and problems.

So how to start?

Simply notice one strength in your child and comment on it: "You used good judgment today when you decided to pack your school bag ahead of time," or "Thanks for making me laugh-I really love how funny you are," or "I know your brother aggravates you, and I was so proud to see you rise above and show forgiveness." Repeat this strengths spotting approach as much as you can. Over time, your children will internalize their own strengths in their self-talk. Rather than using negative self-talk like "I'm stupid" or "I'll never get this" in difficult situations, they might say, "I know I'm persistent and can stick to the task," or "I'm curious and can learn new things."

Keep a strengths diary for the next two weeks and, at the end of each day, write down three strengths you saw your kids use in a diary or on your phone. If your child has a phone, you can send them a text the next day letting them know the strengths you saw them use. At the end of the two weeks, you can use your strengths diary to write a strengths letter to your child telling them about the strengths you see in them.

You can also map the strengths of your family. "We did a strengths profile of our family and put it on the fridge. Now we know our strengths, I create opportunities for the kids to use their strengths at home," one parent said. "I ask Olivia and Jackson to use their zest to welcome guests, while Elijah's judgment is used to rein in risk. The kids appreciate playing to each others' strengths within the family."

Finally, incorporate strengths into the questions you ask your children. When your child is nervous about a big project or event coming up, ask them, "What strengths do you have to help you with this?" If they have had a fight with a friend: "What strengths do you think were missing that may have led to the fight? What strengths will help you make up?"

If you keep practicing these skills, you will find that you can more easily shift out of fix-it (or nag) mode and into strength focus. When challenges arise, choose a strength you've identified in your child through the techniques above and suggest how they could use it to handle the situation. For example, I use my daughter's kindness to help her temper her impatience. A father I've worked with helped his athletic son channel his natural competitive spirit into a friendly contest to "win" at finishing homework, instead of having the same old battle about lack of discipline.

What strength-based parenting does (and does not) do

Strength-based parenting isn't about lavishing your kids with false and excessive praise. It's about real feedback based on your child's actual strengths. And since none of us is so perfect that we're showing our strengths all the time, there's no risk of creating a self-involved, narcissistic child who thinks she's the only special one in the world. If anything, strength-based parenting drives home the point that our strengths make us unique, but they don't make us special-because everyone has strengths.

Nor does focusing on strengths mean we ignore problems. Instead, it shows us how to use what we're good at to work on what we're not so good at. Knowing their strengths gives children a solid-enough identity to acknowledge and address the areas where they need to improve. Being strength-based allows parents to approach weaknesses from a larger context-seeing the whole window, not just the dirt.

In my case, I'm able to put Nick's gaming into perspective by reminding myself, "He's a good kid. He's creative and funny. He's social and loyal, and he likes to build good relationships (most of the time)." In the grand scheme of things, he's heading in the right direction. Despite my overactive worry button, he is actually doing OK. I can breathe a sigh of relief.

When I use a strength-based approach, two important things occur.

First, I am able to see that there are strengths involved in gaming that Nick can use in the rest of his life. The self-regulation and problem-solving Nick uses to choose his moves, and the grit he uses to continue even when his points are low, are the same strengths he can use to better monitor his screen time and balance this with his homework. When I comment on the humor and loyalty he uses to cheer up his friends when they die in the game, he sees how he can apply these to his relationships with his family.

Second, because I am calmer and able to engage more with Nick about the benefits of the game, he is more receptive to our conversations about balancing screen time with his homework, sports, and family time. When he sees that I am not demonizing technology and I am giving him a fair amount of time to play, he knows he also needs to be reasonable when we ask him to get off.

As a result, the negotiations about screen time are far more fruitful and less combative. This doesn't mean I have all the answers. The conversation about "Fortnite" is an ongoing one, and most days Nick tries to sneak in extra time. But the days I am strength-based are the days when he shuts the game off more quickly and more happily.

Our negativity bias helps us to survive, but our strengths help us to thrive. Showing our children how to harness their strengths is a key tool for their happiness, and a recipe for effective and enjoyable parenting. It's not a "cure-all'' but is most definitely a win-win!
This essay is adapted from The Strength Switch: How the New Science of Strength-Based Parenting Can Help Your Child and Your Teen to Flourish by arrangement with Avery, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2017, Lea Waters. This article was adapted from Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, one of Mindful's partners. View the original article.

Teens are experiencing increased levels of anxiety and perfectionism. Encouraging them to develop their strengths and see beyond themselves can help boost their self-esteem. Read More

Kids need ease and fun when it comes to difficult tasks like challenging negative self-talk, says Dr. Hazel Harrison. She introduces "The Critical Critter" for exploring self-critical thoughts with your child. Read More

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My stomach knotted as I came home after a long day at work to find my fifteen-year-old son Nick playing "Fortnite." Again. Just yesterday, I'd spoken with him (read: snapped at him) about screen time. Today, an argument began. Again. He felt angry. I felt frustrated. We both felt misunderstood.

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Entrepreneur

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Image credit: Westend61 | Getty Images

4 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

People ask me all the time how they can be happier, expecting to hear about a magic pill or an ancient secret that will boost their mood. The truth is, the secret to happiness takes work. Psychologist and author Barbara Fredrickson says we need a three-to-one ratio of positive to negative experiences to flourish in life. Most of us do not come close to hitting that mark.
Related: Cultivating Gratitude and Happiness Will Boost Your Business
First, let's start with what happiness is not. Happiness is not a condition you are born with or that is gained through flashy cars and bags of money. You can't buy happiness or earn it through success. You can, however, choose happiness. Happiness can be a choice that you make every single day by creating happy habits. After a while, these habits will carve new grooves, or pathways, into your brain making happiness an automatic process. Once you are happy, then you start noticing the rewards: better health, more success, more wealth.

Research shows that happier people are more motivated, persistent and outperform negative people. Happy people are creative problem solvers, enjoy what they do and see more favorable outcomes. Now, after reading this, what's stopping you from being happier?

Here are five actions you can practice every day to get more happiness in your life:

1. Practice gratitude.

Countless studies show that being grateful helps your body, mind and soul. Keeping a journal and noting three things to be thankful for and why every day is the most effective method of practicing gratitude. Martin E.P. Seligman, regarded as one of the founding members of positive psychology, writes in his book Flourish that by practicing this habit daily, you will be happier and less depressed in six months. Eventually your brain will be trained to look for the good in life.
Related: Investing in Your Happiness Is the Path to Success
2. Use your strengths.

One of the main tenets of positive psychology is focusing on what works and building from there. Maybe you aren't a natural-born leader, but teamwork is more in tune with your strengths. Just knowing that information sets you apart from those who don't. If you don't know what your strengths are, then go to the VIA Institute on Character's website and take the Via Survey. The cost is free but the self-knowledge is priceless.

3. Meditate.

You can't get anything done with a cluttered mind. Find at least 10 minutes in your day for yourself. Bill George, a leader in business and academia, meditates daily. He says his best creative ideas are illuminated by meditation. By shedding thoughts of yesterday and worries of tomorrow and just focusing on the here and now, you will lower your stress and find peace of mind.

4. Be kind.

This one is easy. Taking the time to help someone else, even if it is a stranger, is like giving a gift to yourself. Studies suggest that even thinking about an act of kindness can boost your mood. You can do something small, like hold the door for someone and help carry groceries. Kindness doesn't need to be a gift of money. In fact, a more enriching act of kindness is being a mentor for someone. I write in my book The Slight Edge, that one of the most influential persons in my life was a mentor to me. I benefited so greatly from that generosity that I return the favor because I know how powerful an act of kindness can be.
Related: 11 Tips to Get to Your Happiest Self
5. Build strong relationships.

]Many people think entrepreneurs are lone mavericks blazing their own trails, but trust me, no one can do it alone. What I mean by this is that behind every successful person are many people who are helping and who have helped along the way. Christopher Kukk, psychologist and author of the book The Compassionate Achiever, says anyone who believes their personal success hasn't benefited from others is simply lying. Ask yourself: Who has helped me get to where I am today? How many positive relationships helped me build a great business or career? Take the time to properly thank those people. Whether it is employees, mentors, family members or friends, every positive connection in your life serves as a catalyst to move you forward on your journey to success.

Practice these five actions every day and I promise you will start to see a whole new world of positivity opening for you. Life is too short to not live your best life today.

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4 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. People ask me all the time how they can be happier, expecting to hear about a magic pill or an ancient secret that will boost their mood. The truth is, the secret to happiness takes work.

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Mindful

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It's important that we not define mindfulness too narrowly, or confuse different notions of mindfulness with each other. Here's a quick guide to understanding the many facets of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is undeniably a buzzword in today's culture, reaching the heights of popularity that yoga enjoys. Similar to yoga, close inspection of the word "mindfulness" reveals that it doesn't just mean one thing-it's a complex term that names multiple, distinct yet interlinked ideas.

This plurality gives rise to confusion as soon as one definition is treated as interchangeable with another. Likewise, when it comes to critique, conflating different notions of mindfulness leads to a great deal of potential benefit going out with the bathwater.

Conflating different notions of mindfulness leads to a great deal of potential benefit going out with the bathwater.

Buzz or no, this is no common craze. Handled with care, mindfulness training holds immeasurable potential for human flourishing. It's therefore up to all of us speaking or writing about it to understand and communicate the nuance we intend.

Here are ten things we may be talking about when we talk about mindfulness:

1. A state of awareness with particular qualities: such as intentional, present, friendly, open, caring, and curious.

2. As opposed to the wider colloquial usage definition of awareness of a concept or principle. (That is, the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something e.g. "their mindfulness of the mainstream cinematic tradition.")

3. A human trait or capacity: the tendency or ability to be mindful. This trait is present to a greater or lesser degree in all of us-the basic human ability to be awake and aware of what we're doing, when we're doing it. This ability can be cultivated through practice.

4. A practice: an intentional and regular act which familiarizes the participant with the qualities of mindfulness and develops their capacity to be mindful. This might be formal meditation, mindful pauses, or informally remembering to be mindful during the day.

5. A 'toolbox' of several practices: the word mindfulness is sometimes used to refer to a range of different practices including attention training, cultivation of qualities of heart, and even forms of visualization. Inquiry practices examining specific mechanisms of mind also yield ways of seeing the world that ease patterns of distress in the long-term.

6. A training course or intervention that intentionally cultivates the trait (and state) of mindfulness. Training often includes a considerable amount of broader psycho-education, and may accompany and/or catalyze cultivation of other capacities such as gratitude or compassion.

7. A way of being in the world-both, a way of being "awake" as Jon Kabat-Zinn describes, as well as a culturally specific way of being thoughtful-people sometimes joke "oops, that wasn't very mindful of me!", when what they mean is that they've been accidentally thoughtless or hurtful.

8. An umbrella term for an aspect of the dharma: the word dharma is used in Eastern contemplative traditions to refer to the 'ways things are' and any teachings that describe this. It involves an understanding of the mechanisms of psychological distress and the wisdom that leads to freedom from patterns of suffering."

9. A social movement: Mindfulness (with a capital 'M') as a cultural phenomenon is an example of a generative social field (a co-created climate or environment that fosters positive collective outcomes.)

10. A research field: building the evidence base for mindfulness entails the counterintuitive task of making it measurable. Scientists "measure" mindfulness using self-report questionnaires, brain scans, and other methodologies-but can this complex factor be quantified so simply? Mindfulness as a research outcome may tell us something about mindfulness as a state, capacity or practice, but shouldn't be confused with any of them: the map is not the territory.

Are you supposed to clear your mind, or focus on one thing? Here's the Mindful definition of Mindfulness. Read More

Editor-in-Chief Barry Boyce on where mindfulness comes from and where it can go from here. Read More

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It's important that we not define mindfulness too narrowly, or confuse different notions of mindfulness with each other. Here's a quick guide to understanding the many facets of mindfulness. Mindfulness is undeniably a buzzword in today's culture, reaching the heights of popularity that yoga enjoys.

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Mindful

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Science suggests that expressing true gratitude boosts your health and spreads happiness. Here are a few simple exercises to help you build your capacity for gratitude.

We say "thanks" a dozen or more times a day: when someone holds a door open, bags our groceries, puts a report on our desk. It's a reflex, an almost knee-jerk reaction to simple daily transactions. We mutter it, often without really acknowledging the person we're thanking.

Yet as easy as it is to engage in the quotidian "thanks-no problem" exchange in our daily routines, we're often left, in moments of larger generosity, feeling unworthy or embarrassed by what's being offered. If you've ever thwarted a friend's attempt to treat you to dinner or received a gift that you insisted was "too much," you may be struck by that thankfulness gap.

So, if "thank you" is too easy to say in some instances, and out of our reach in others, how can we go beyond a muttered "thanks" to one that's truly underpinned with gratitude? And why would we want to?

Turns out, there's a great deal to be gained from truly feeling grateful. Research has linked gratitude with a wide range of benefits, including strengthening your immune system and improving sleep patterns, feeling optimistic and experiencing more joy and pleasure, being more helpful and generous, and feeling less lonely and isolated.

It even helps to mitigate depression. Researchers at Indiana University recruited 300 people (mostly college students) receiving mental health counseling, and randomized them into three groups. In addition to the counseling sessions, one group was asked to write a letter of gratitude each week for three weeks. The second group journaled their thoughts and feelings about negative experiences. The third group only received counseling but did no writing. Four and 12 weeks later, the gratitude-letter group "reported significantly better mental health" than either the journalers or those who received counseling alone. Other studies have found that counting blessings and gratitude writing reduces the risk of depression.

It's good for your relationships

Think back to that impulse to rebuff a gift or gesture for being "too much." What would happen if you didn't get involved in that narrative, and just allowed yourself to let that gift, that kind gesture, really sink in? To just feel...grateful? And if that still feels difficult, consider this: There's scientific evidence that feeling and expressing gratitude in relationships of all kinds strengthens them. Researchers from both the University of North Carolina and University of California found that gratitude acts as a "booster shot" for romantic relationships. And a review of close to 100 studies by researchers at the University of Nottingham determined that those who feel and express gratitude tend to be pro-social-kind, helpful, and giving.

It's good for humanity

It's relatively easy to feel gratitude for help offered when we're in need-a stranger who stops when you have a flat tire, the neighbor who watches your kids when you have to run out, the friend who makes you soup when you're sick. And starting to dig into what motivates that stranger, that neighbor, that friend can help us see the larger picture, and how we are interconnected. It may be harder to parse the motivation behind our smaller interactions. The last time you held the door for a stranger, you no doubt did so because that's just what people do. Still, can you see how even that tiny gesture ripples outward into something much bigger than any one of us alone?

Try This

Building your capacity for gratitude isn't difficult. It just takes practice.

The more you can bring your attention to that which you feel grateful for, the more you'll notice to feel grateful for! Those researchers at Indiana University did a further study. Using an fMRI scanner, they compared brain activity in the gratitude letter-writers with those who didn't write a letter. The letter-writers showed greater neural sensitivity in the medial prefrontal cortex, a brain area associated with learning and decision-making-and the effect persisted three months later. "Simply expressing gratitude may have lasting effects on the brain," they concluded, noting that practicing gratitude can lead to greater sensitivity to the experience of gratitude in the future. And that bodes well for everyone.

Start by observing. Notice the thank yous you say. Just how habitual a response is it? Is it a hasty aside, an afterthought? How are you feeling when you express thanks in small transactions? Stressed, uptight, a little absent-minded? Do a quick scan of your body-are you already physically moving on to your next interaction?

Pick one interaction a day. When your instinct to say "thanks" arises, stop for a moment and take note. Can you name what you feel grateful for, even beyond the gesture that's been extended? Then say thank you.

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A Simple Mindful Gratitude Exercise - Mindful

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Science suggests that expressing true gratitude boosts your health and spreads happiness. Here are a few simple exercises to help you build your capacity for gratitude. We say "thanks" a dozen or more times a day: when someone holds a door open, bags our groceries, puts a report on our desk.

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Mindful

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Before you begin your meditation, find a quiet space to walk. It could be outdoors, or in a hallway, or even a large room, walking back and forth.

Walking meditation can be a formal practice, like watching the breath. Or it can be informal, bringing awareness to this everyday activity, whenever you need to travel from point A to point B. Walking meditation gives us an opportunity to gather our awareness which so often becomes distracted or even stuck when the mind is left to its own devices. Whether moving between floors of a building, on a city street, or in the woods, it is an opportunity to guide ourselves out of the distracted autopilot we live in throughout so much of our day.

Paying attention in this way, we stay safe by remaining fully aware of whatever is around. On any walk, hike, run, or other physical activity, without effort we may mentally check out-or we can practice awareness instead.

Practice Mindfulness With a Walking Meditation

1. As you begin, walk at a natural pace. Place your hands wherever comfortable: on your belly, behind your back, or at your sides. If you find it useful, you can count steps up to 10, and then start back at one again. If you're in a small space, as you reach ten, pause, and with intention choose a moment to turn around.

2. With each step, pay attention to the lifting and falling of your foot. Notice movement in your legs and the rest of your body. Notice any shifting of your body from side to side.

3. Whatever else captures your attention, come back to the sensation of walking. Your mind will wander, so without frustration, guide it back again as many times as you need. Particularly outdoors, maintain a larger sense of the environment around you, taking it all in, staying safe and aware.

Whether you're indoors, in the woods, or in a city, pay attention to sounds without labeling or naming, or getting caught up.

4. Now for a few minutes, expand your attention to sounds. Whether you're indoors, in the woods, or in a city, pay attention to sounds without labeling or naming, or getting caught up in whether you find them pleasant or unpleasant. Notice sounds as nothing more or less than sound.

5. Shift your awareness to your sense of smell. Again, simply notice. Don't push or force yourself to feel anything at all, just bring attention to the sense of smell, whatever you discover.

6. Now, move to vision: colors and objects and whatever else you see. Patiently coming back each time something grabs your attention, or even if something needs addressing, like avoiding an obstacle. Staying natural, not overly rigid, not daydreaming and drifting, but with sustained awareness.

7. Keep this open awareness of everything around you, wherever you are. Nothing to do, nothing to fix, nothing to change. Fully aware, and walking.

8. In the last moments, come back to awareness of the physical sensations of walking, wherever else your mind found itself throughout the practice. Notice your feet again touching the ground. Notice again the movements in your body with each step.

9. When you're ready to end your walking meditation, stand still for a moment again. Pausing, choose a moment to end the practice. As you finish, consider how you might bring this kind of awareness into the rest of your day.

Meditation teacher Diana Winston and researcher Susan Smalley address some of the most common concerns that come up when people first try mindful breathing meditation. Read More

Meditation may appear to be a solitary pursuit, says Barry Boyce, but many benefits come from doing it with others. Read More

Breathe into challenging movement with a longer exhale, whether that be hitting laps on the stairs, running, hiking, climbing, or a high intensity workout. Read More

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A Guided Walking Meditation for Daily Life

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Walking meditation can be a formal practice. Take a break and boost your mood with this walking meditation guided by Dr. Mark Bertin.

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Mindfulness and Depression - Pros and Cons

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Mindfulness and Depression - Pros and Cons

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Greater Good Science Center

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As nearly 10,000 freshmen and transfers arrived on campus at the University of California, Los Angeles, last fall, they were invited to try something never before offered during student orientation: depression screening.

The hope, administrators explained, is that by identifying their risk for depression, students can get the support they need before they face the rigors of academia and the disorienting experience of living away at college. There's reason for the concern. In 2016, a record high of almost 12 percent of UCLA freshman reported "frequently" feeling depressed in the past year. And a report from Penn State, drawing data from 139 university and college mental health services, found that in the 2015-2016 year, use of these services increased by 30 percent, although enrollment grew by just 5 percent. This included "a persistent increase in 'threat-to-self' characteristics such as nonsuicidal self-injury and suicidal ideation."

The screening initiative-which will be extended to the entire student body eventually-is part of the UCLA Depression Grand Challenge, a landmark effort to understand one of the most pervasive and debilitating health conditions in the world, one that affects an estimated 350 million people and contributes to the suicides of 800,000 people, including 40,000 Americans, every year.

The university launched the challenge in 2015 as a multiyear, interdisciplinary study to develop better methods of understanding the genetic and environmental causes of depression and to improve detection, evaluation, and treatment. The goal is ambitious: to cut the global depression rate in half by 2030.

This comes at a time when public health officials around the world struggle to get their hands around what is considered the leading cause of disability among adults, costing some $210 billion in medical and long-term care and lost productivity hours each year.

"That depression has not been identified as our number-one health issue astounds me," UCLA chancellor Gene Block said in announcing the campus screening program in September 2017.

Unpacking the blues

While mental health experts are cautious about calling depression an "epidemic"-citing better screening and greater understanding and acceptance of the condition as possible reasons for increased diagnosis-the numbers are still startling: 350 million sufferers worldwide. According to UCLA, if you haven't experienced depression yourself, you know someone who has.

It is also now recognized as being at the core of numerous mental health conditions, from bipolar disorder (powerful swings between high and low mood) to postpartum depression, just to name a few.

Many of the symptoms of depression are familiar: persistent low mood, exhaustion, loss of appetite and sex drive, an inability to enjoy life or cope with everyday activities-like socializing or even getting out of bed. But some may not be as obvious, such as disordered and distorted thinking, agitation, physical aches and pains, and insomnia.

Yet despite how much we now know about what depression is, we still don't really know what causes it. What we do know is that a variety of wide-ranging factors seem to influence a person's risk of developing depression, including childhood adversity; genetic makeup; chemical changes in the brain and body; certain unhelpful styles of thinking and relating; and social, economic, and cultural deprivation.

The truth is, there are likely myriad interrelating causes involved in each case. "We're all vulnerable in a sense because we all have factors that contribute to that vulnerability," says Zindel Segal, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto who specializes in depression.

Further complicating matters, depression doesn't always act the same way from individual to individual, or from episode to episode, which can range from mild to severe. An episode can last from a few days to weeks, months, or even years.

All of these factors make treatment difficult, because each sufferer will need something different. Indeed, treatment for depression is a bit of a guessing game, with only a 50 percent success rate with the first intervention tried. Antidepressants work sometimes, but not always. Talk therapies help some people, but not others. Someone may feel better with increased social contact, a change in relationships, or a new job. For others, becoming less busy or starting an exercise regime is what makes the difference. Sometimes the passage of time is what helps. Unfortunately, because depression plays havoc with the capacity to see things accurately, it's hard for a depressed person to know what they need.

And while most people recover from a depressive episode, it's a chronic, relapsing condition, with recurrence ever more likely each time it strikes. It's commonly accepted that if you experience even one depressive episode, you have a 50 percent greater chance of experiencing another.

Dodging the wrecking ball

At this point you might be thinking, "Now you're going to tell me that this is where mindfulness fits in." After all, doesn't the practice of paying attention to the present moment enhance our ability to see clearly, stabilize the mind, and be freed from unskillful patterns of thinking and behavior? Doesn't it have salutary effects on the mind, brain, and body?

Well, yes. But, also, no.

Psychologists widely agree that mindfulness has an important role to play in managing the condition-as a self-care practice, and by helping us to tune in to the natural ebbs and flows of energy and mood.

In fact, having a regular mindfulness practice may help someone who struggles with depression to notice when they're at risk, allowing them to take appropriate action, if not to avoid an episode, then to at least minimize its impact.

"I think somebody who has a mindfulness practice and a history of depression will know themselves whether they need rest, or whether it would be better to walk the dog or go to work," says Willem Kuyken, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Oxford, and director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, which has pioneered mindfulness-based treatments for depression. "What's so beautiful and transformative about mindfulness is that it places the wisdom in the person and their own practice. They have a sense of 'what's happening with my mind and body at the moment?' and how to shift from automatic pilot to more of an experiential present-moment mode. From that place they can judge what feels skillful and discerning."

One model in particular, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), which offers mindfulness training in conjunction with cognitive-behavioral therapy, appears to be particularly effective. "We've got 10 randomized controlled trials suggesting that for people with a long history of depression, MBCT does much better than usual care," Kuyken says.

He explains that depression makes someone more likely to react to life's setbacks with negative, judgmental thinking, which can lower their mood and trigger a new episode. Mindfulness helps create mental space around these thoughts, enabling people at risk to observe, with kindness, the patterns of the mind that might otherwise drag them down.

He shared the example of a former client. "She was a young mother who was pushing her toddler son on a swing. It was a happy moment, but then a thought popped into her head: 'I don't deserve to be happy, and this happiness won't last.' We all have thoughts like this, but for someone who's vulnerable to depression, those shards of negative thinking can quickly spiral into a whole bunch of other negative thoughts, associated emotions, and behaviors."

For this woman, he says, the thoughts came in the form of "I'm a rubbish mother" and the internal thrashing that typically followed. Prior to MBCT, he says, going down that path "might have led her to do a 'duvet dive' and hide away from the world," resulting in more rumination and furthering the downward spiral. Instead, she was able to recognize the destructive pattern forming-what she called "wrecking-ball thoughts"-and take a sideways step, allowing the thought to pass through her mind without being knocked over by it.

Zindel Segal, one of the creators of MBCT, agrees. "Qualitative analyses show the core takeaway from MBCT is I am not my depression. That the self is bigger than that."

"That's a source of liberation, because they can choose how they want to act, rather than running to the first solutions that the mind offers, which can often be reactive," he adds. "Their symptoms may not reduce to zero, but their well-being and resilience increases as they develop a different relationship to them."

There's a time and place for mindfulness

For the great success mindfulness, and MBCT in particular, has shown for helping people with a history of depression to avoid or lessen the impact of those depressive dips, there are equally strong caveats against using the practice when you're in the throes of an episode.

"It's very hard to sit and do formal meditation practices when you're depressed," Segal says. "The executive control networks of the brain are often compromised when you're in an episode of depression, and it's difficult to engage." In other words, when the world goes dim and life feels bleak, your brain might not have the bandwidth to be a kind, nonjudgmental observer to its own thoughts, or to grasp the bigger picture.

Susan Woods, a psychotherapist and mindfulness teacher in Vermont, goes further: "If somebody is in a major depression episode, mindfulness is useless. There's just no energy there, no ability to concentrate for any length of time."

Even if a person with depression is able to engage with meditation, there is a risk that heightened exposure to the unpleasant symptoms of their illness, experienced while paying mindful attention, could actually increase their fear and aversion, triggering a reactive spiral of deepening low mood. "There is some evidence that vulnerable people exposed to mindfulness can have quite unsettling experiences," says Kuyken. "That makes complete sense," he says, because when people are depressed, the mind "can be quite dark and scary."

Also, if depression seems more to do with a person's life situation, rather than their inner patterns of thinking, feeling, and relating, they may need assertive action more urgently than meditation. "If someone is in circumstances of tremendous adversity or abuse, they first need to get to a place that's safe," adds Segal. "If your house is on fire, you need to get out."

A mindful exception

There are exceptions to every rule, of course. I learned to meditate toward the end of a two-and-a-half-year major depressive episode, and it was the key that released me from a prison of constantly fighting my inner demons, a pattern that kept them running rampant.

However, by the time I started practicing, I had already undergone intensive psychotherapy, begun to make much-needed lifestyle shifts, and understood some of the ingrained mental and behavioral habits that were maintaining my low mood. Meditation was a vital piece of the puzzle-a practical skill that helped me discover the art of letting go-but I also remember how tough it was the first times I tried to sit and focus on my breath. It felt like I was going to explode from the intensity of the sensations inside me. It took a lot of commitment, a lot of support, and a lot of going gently for the practice to bear fruit. In the earlier phases of my illness, I doubt it would have helped so much.

A few small-scale studies suggest MBCT can help people in the midst of an episode, but Segal notes the quality of evidence is low, and Woods points to the fact that the courses in these trials were often led by very experienced teachers, who were also specialists in treating depression. Kuyken shares their concerns: "With vulnerable clients, teachers need to be well-trained and very skilled in how they teach mindfulness."

Because it's so difficult for the depressed mind to discern what it needs, the best first step to wellness is professional support. A competent therapist can act as a guide to skillful action, helping you form a treatment plan. This, according to Woods, is likely to include antidepressant medication, slowly building in self-care activities that can help stabilize and elevate mood, and cognitive therapy to help you understand and work with your individual triggers. There is mindfulness here, but it comes from the therapist as a wise, compassionate friend-much needed when you can't locate your own inner compass.

Once mood has stabilized, mindfulness training can be part of the plan. At this point, says Segal, a mindfulness-trained therapist might recommend a mindful movement practice. Woods suggests short sitting practices, such as the three-minute breathing space, to be practiced several times a day and at the beginning of a therapy session. After a few months of stability, it might be time to enroll in a group-training program, such as MBCT.

Moving forward

So, when depression is present, it probably isn't the time to engage in meditation. However, there's cautious optimism that when mindfulness is developed and practiced while a person is feeling emotionally stable, it may increase their ability to navigate difficult situations or emotional upheavals in the future. In this sense, it may be a powerful buffer against the ups and downs inevitable in every life.

By showing people sad movie clips during an fMRI scan, Segal and his colleagues in Toronto found that mindfulness practitioners' brains showed more activation in sensory processing regions, such as the insula and somatosensory cortex, but less activation in midline prefrontal structures, which are associated with the mental rumination that is often problematic for people with depression. This indicates that while mindfulness-trained people feel their emotions intensely, they are less likely to think that sadness is a problem to fix, a cognitive stance that can lead to depression. Also, a key element of mindfulness may be a shift to enhanced sensory experience and a corresponding decrease in "living in your head."

Evidence also shows that practicing mindfulness can start an upward spiral of mood and behavior, enabling people to become more fully integrated in their lives, and bringing with it a greater sense of freedom and flourishing. "In the longer term, sustained practice is a profound generator of compassion and connectivity," explains Segal, "and that starts to change how people interact with one another. It's at a much broader scale than people just looking to deal with their mind disorder, although that is an important starting point."

This potential for wider social impact hasn't escaped the notice of politicians: A 2015 report by the United Kingdom's Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group recommended that MBCT be made more available in the country's National Health Service, and a global group of policymakers-including U.S. Congressman Tim Ryan-has formed to explore the possibilities further. Meanwhile, the Oxford Mindfulness Centre has begun a seven-year program of research into teaching mindfulness in schools to see if it can help students' resilience as they enter the teenage years, a common age for the first appearance of mental health problems. "Can we take 11 to 14 year olds," asks Kuyken, who's leading the project, "and teach them the skills to prevent depression from ever occurring?"

Preventing depression among those at risk is where more mindfulness training could be, as Segal says, "a public health win."

"It would have a huge impact on the health landscape, because people wouldn't be coming back into treatment, and they'd be more effective in parenting, as partners, and at work," he explains. "They could enroll in all sorts of activities that would have much-needed effects in areas of wellness aside from mental health."

Getting help

If you experience depressive episodes, you'll need to pay close attention to the types and doses of mindfulness practice you use and consider seeking the aid and advice of a therapist or psychiatrist who can assess your unique needs. MBCT has developed practices that have proved effective for some people with depression; however, mindfulness practice is not recommended during depressive episodes. If your depression is deeply interfering with your ability to live your life, it is best to consult a professional.
This article was originally published on Mindful. Read the original article, including first steps to take when you're depressed.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Can Meditation Help You with Depression?

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As nearly 10,000 freshmen and transfers arrived on campus at the University of California, Los Angeles, last fall, they were invited to try something never before offered during student orientation: depression screening. The hope, administrators explained, is that by identifying their risk for depression, students can get the support they need before they face the rigors of academia and the disorienting experience of living away at college.

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Why Mindfulness Belongs in the Classroom

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Four-year-old Faith already believes in the power of breathing to help her do her best learning. "I was trying to match some letters and I got really frustrated," says Faith. "And I needed to take a deep breath and I almost got it. I almost got it by myself and I felt just a little happy."

Faith knows that the simple act of breathing can help her focus to complete the task at hand. She attends the Momentous School, a program of the Momentous Institute, a 97-year-old organization devoted to the social emotional health of kids and families. The school has been tracking kids' progress for almost 20 years and have accumulated significant data showing the positive effects of incorporating mindfulness into education. Faith and her classmates are learning essential skills that research shows may give children lifelong protection against one of the most serious and quickly growing threats to child well-being in America today: toxic stress.

How toxic stress impedes healthy development in kids

Toxic stress is a prolonged activation of the stress response - without the buffer of safe relationships. It, along with " adverse childhood experiences" (ACES) - such as, poverty, abuse, domestic violence and more - is on the rise. Dr. Robert Block, former president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, feels that ACES "are the single greatest unaddressed public health threat facing our nation today."

A growing body of science, including the work of Harvard University's Center for the Developing Child, has found that toxic stress can impede healthy development, literally changing children's brains and affecting their capacity to absorb even the best instruction.

A growing body of science, including the work of Harvard University's Center for the Developing Child, has found that toxic stress can impede healthy development, literally changing children's brains and affecting their capacity to absorb even the best instruction. Mindfulness is a much-needed life preserver in this otherwise troubling picture.

While childhood trauma is sadly nothing new, science now better understands its impact on brain function. During stressful experiences, the amygdala essentially hijacks the pre-frontal cortex impeding its ability to come online. In other words, the part of our brain responsible for the fight, flight or freeze response takes over and blocks the part of our brain which processes complex thoughts, anticipates consequences and inhibits behavior.

To state the obvious, we must intervene upstream to prevent ACES in the first place. In fact, a recent study examining the long-term cost savings of social emotional health programs in elementary schools estimated a benefit-to-cost ratio of 11:1, meaning every dollar invested in the programs had an average return of $11 in benefits.

Mindfulness can help kids manage their internal worlds

Moving stress from toxic to tolerable involves increasing the number of protective relationships in children's lives and helping them learn how to regulate their nervous system, which is where mindfulness comes in. This skill allows children to manage their internal world regardless of what comes at them externally, which is a concept that even young children like Faith can understand.

At Momentous Institute, we use the analogy of a glitter ball or snow globe to convey the concept, explaining that the brain under stress is like a shaken snow globe- with the glitter swirling, they cannot see clearly. Breathing and other mindfulness techniques, which the children practice several times each day, help them " settle their glitter" so they can do their best thinking. We teach them that mindfulness and social emotional health can help them understand and manage their feelings, reactions and relationships. As Susan Kaiser Greenland illustrates in her books, The Mindful Child and Mindful Games, mindfulness practices can be right-sized for kids as young as Faith.

How mindfulness translates into improved academics

Science tells us why this works. Research shows mindfulness shrinks the amygdala and thickens the pre-frontal cortex. According to Dr. Richie Davidson, mindfulness strengthens connectivity between areas of the brain that support attention and concentration, thus weakening the amygdala's capacity to hijack the thinking parts of the brain.

With this understanding, it is easy to see how mindfulness and self-regulation can translate into improved academics. This is true for all kids, but especially important for our most vulnerable kids coping with multiple ACES.

In kindergarten, those in the mindfulness group scored higher on a standardized vocabulary/literacy assessment than those in the control group.

There is a scarcity of large-scale research confirming mindfulness improves children's life trajectories. However, there is a robust body of evidence about the benefits of mindfulness for adults. We hope it is only a matter of time before a large body of research about the impact of mindfulness on children becomes available.

Momentous Institute published one of two existing studies examining the impact of mindfulness practices on prekindergarten students' self-regulation and academic performance. This study indicated that prekindergarten students who received a yearlong mindfulness curriculum showed greater improvements in their working memory and capacity to plan and organize than students in a control group. In kindergarten, those in the mindfulness group scored higher on a standardized vocabulary/literacy assessment than those in the control group.

Other research at Momentous School has shown that after three years of participating in mindfulness practices, 5 th grade students' levels of empathy predicted their scores on standardized reading and math assessments. This tells us that Faith was right when she said breathing helped her figure out her letters. Mindfulness does not just help her feel better or calm down; it increases her capacity for academic performance.

Mindfulness for kids is not one-size fits all

Without question, there are no silver bullets when dealing with complex topics like education and trauma. Mindfulness can only thrive in schools where positive climate is a priority. In addition, mindfulness can never be reduced to a curriculum. This work only takes root in a sustainable way if the system adopts a commitment to consistent practice and the well-being of all involved-children and adults alike.

The systemic issues behind the rising stress levels - poverty, racism, sexism, violence and inequity-must be attended to with courage and conviction.

Embedding mindfulness in education is one important step. That alone, however, will never be sufficient in addressing toxic stress and ACES. The systemic issues behind the rising stress levels - poverty, racism, sexism, violence and inequity-must be attended to with courage and conviction.

By prioritizing these systemic shifts along with a true integration of mindfulness, we can provide children a sense of control and the opportunity to achieve their full potential. We believe the same breathing that helped Faith learn the alphabet can spell long-term thriving for our children and our society.

A Glimpse at a Mindfulness Class for Children

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Why Mindfulness Belongs in the Classroom - Mindful

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Four-year-old Faith already believes in the power of breathing to help her do her best learning. "I was trying to match some letters and I got really frustrated," says Faith. "And I needed to take a deep breath and I almost got it. I almost got it by myself and I felt just a little happy."

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This is a wonderful book about recognizing your child's strengths and helping your child to use them in a positive way.

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MIndful

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How often have you rushed out the door and into your day without even thinking about how you'd like things to go? Before you know it, something or someone has rubbed you the wrong way, and you've reacted automatically with frustration, impatience, or rage-in other words, you've found yourself acting in a way you never intended.

You don't have to be stuck in these patterns. Pausing to practice mindfulness for just a few minutes at different times during you day can help your days be better, more in line with how you'd like them to be.

Explore these five daily practices for bringing more mindfulness into your life:

Wakeup: Start with a Purpose

Intention refers to the underlying motivation for everything we think, say, or do. From the brain's perspective, when we act in unintended ways, there's a disconnect between the faster, unconscious impulses of the lower brain centers and the slower, conscious, wiser abilities of the higher centers like the pre-frontal cortex.

Given that the unconscious brain is in charge of most of our decision-making and behaviors, this practice can help you align your conscious thinking with a primal emotional drive that the lower centers care about. Beyond safety, these include motivations like reward, connection, purpose, self-identity and core values.

Setting an intention -keeping those primal motivations in mind-helps strengthen this connection between the lower and higher centers. Doing so can change your day, making it more likely that your words, actions and responses- especially during moments of difficulty-will be more mindful and compassionate.

This practice is best done first thing in the morning, before checking phones or email.

1. On waking, sit in your bed or a chair in a relaxed posture. Close your eyes and connect with the sensations of your seated body. Make sure your spine is straight, but not rigid.

2. Take three long, deep, nourishing breaths- breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth. Then let your breath settle into its own rhythm, as you simply follow it in and out, noticing the rise and fall of your chest and belly as you breathe.

3. Ask yourself: "What is my intention for today?" Use these prompts to help answer that question, as you think about the people and activities you will face. Ask yourself:
How might I show up today to have the best impact? What quality of mind do I want to strengthen and develop? What do I need to take better care of myself? During difficult moments, how might I be more compassionate to others and myself? How might I feel more connected and fulfilled?
4. Set your intention for the day. For example, "Today, I will be kind to myself; be patient with others; give generously; stay grounded; persevere; have fun; eat well," or anything else you feel is important.

5. Throughout the day, check in with yourself. Pause, take a breath, and revisit your intention. Notice, as you become more and more conscious of your intentions for each day, how the quality of your communications, relationships, and mood shifts.

Eat: Enjoy Every Mouthful

It's easy enough to reduce eating to a sensation of bite, chew, and swallow. Who hasn't eaten a plateful of food without noticing what they're doing? Yet eating is one of the most pleasurable experiences we engage in as human beings, and doing it mindfully can turn eating into a far richer experience, satisfying not just the need for nutrition, but more subtle senses and needs. When we bring our full attention to our bodies and what we are truly hungry for, we can nourish all our hungers. Try this:

1. Breathe before eating. We often move from one task right to the other without pausing or taking a breath. By pausing, we slow down and allow for a more calm transition to our meals. Bring your attention inward by closing your eyes, and begin to breathe slowly in and out of your belly for eight to 10 deep breaths before you start your meal.

2. Listen to your body. After breathing, bring your awareness to the physical sensations in your belly. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being that you don't feel any physical sensation of hunger and 10 being that you feel very hungry, ask yourself "How hungry am I?" What physical sensations tell you that you are hungry or not hungry (emptiness in stomach, shakiness, no desire to eat, stomach growling, etc.)? Try not to think about when you last ate or what time it is, and really listen to your body, not your thoughts.

3. Eat according to your hunger. Now that you are more in touch with how hungry you are, you can more mindfully choose what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat. This simple practice can help you tune in to your real needs.

4. Practice peaceful eating. At your next meal, slow down and continue to breathe deeply as you eat. It's not easy to digest or savor your food if you aren't relaxed.

5. If you don't love it, don't eat it. Take your first three bites mindfully, experience the taste, flavors, textures, and how much enjoyment you are receiving from a certain food. Make a mindful choice about what to eat based on what you really enjoy.

Pause: Get Your Brain out of the Fast Lane

It's estimated that 95% of our behavior runs on autopilot-something I call "fast brain." That's because neural networks underlie all of our habits, reducing our millions of sensory inputs per second into manageable shortcuts so we can function in this crazy world. These default brain signals are like signaling superhighways, so efficient that they often cause us to relapse into old behaviors before we remember what we meant to do instead.

Mindfulness is the exact opposite of these processes; it's slow brain. It's executive control rather than autopilot, and enables intentional actions, willpower, and decisions. But that takes some practice. The more we activate the slow brain, the stronger it gets. Every time we do something deliberate and new, we stimulate neuroplasticity, activating our grey matter, which is full of newly sprouted neurons that have not yet been groomed for the fast brain.

But here's the problem. While my slow brain knows what is best for me, my fast brain is causing me to shortcut my way through life. So how can we trigger ourselves to be mindful when we need it most? This is where the notion of "behavior design" comes in. It's a way to put your slow brain in the driver's seat. There are two ways to do that-first, slowing down the fast brain by putting obstacles in its way, and second, removing obstacles in the path of the slow brain, so it can gain control.

Shifting the balance to give your slow brain more power takes some work, though. Here are some ways to get started.

1. Trip over what you want to do. If you intend to do some yoga or to meditate, put your yoga mat or your meditation cushion in the middle of your floor so you can't miss it as you walk by.

2. Refresh your triggers regularly. Say you decide to use sticky notes to remind yourself of a new intention. That might work for about a week, but then your fast brain and old habits take over again. Try writing new notes to yourself; add variety or make them funny so they stick with you longer.

3. Create new patterns. You could try a series of "If this, then that" messages to create easy reminders to shift into slow brain. For instance, you might come up with, "If office door, then deep breath," as a way to shift into mindfulness as you are about to start your workday. Or, "If phone rings, take a breath before answering." Each intentional action to shift into mindfulness will strengthen your slow brain.

Workout: Activate Your Mind and Your Muscles

Riding a bike, lifting weights, sweating it out on a treadmill-what do such exercises have in common? For one thing, each can be a mindfulness practice. Whatever the physical activity-dancing the Tango, taking a swim-instead of simply working out to burn calories, master a skill, or improve condition, you can move and breathe in a way that not only gets your blood pumping and invigorates every cell in your body, but also shifts you from feeling busy and distracted to feeling strong and capable.

Ready? The following steps, good for any activity, will help you synchronize body, mind, and nervous system. As you do, you will strengthen your capacity to bring all of your energy to the task at hand.

1. Be clear about your aim. As you tie your laces or pull on your gardening gloves, bring purpose to your activity by consciously envisioning how you want your guide your session. As you climb on your bike you might say, "I am going to breathe deeply and notice the sensation of the breeze and the sun and the passing scenery." As you enter the pool, you might say, "I'm going to pay attention to each stroke, and the sound and feel of the water surrounding me."

2. Warm up (5 minutes). Try any simple moves- jumping jacks, stretching- and concentrate on matching the rhythm of your breath to your movement. By moving rhythmically, your brain activity, heart rate, and nervous system begin to align and stabilize.

3. Settle into a rhythm (10 to 15 minutes). Pick up the intensity, but continue to coordinate your breath and movement. If you have trouble doing this, then simply focus on your breathing for a few minutes. Eventually you'll find your groove.

4. Challenge yourself (10 to 15 minutes). Try faster speed, more repetitions, or heavier weights, depending on what you are doing. Notice how alert and alive you feel when pushing yourself.

5. Cool down (5 minutes). Steadily slow down your pace until you come to a standstill. Notice the way your body feels. Drink in your surroundings.

6. Rest (5 minutes). Quietly recognize the symphony of sensations flowing in and around you. Practice naming what you feel and sense. Chances are you'll feel awake and alive from head to toe.

Drive: Drive Yourself Calm, Not Crazy

There's nothing like heavy traffic and impatient drivers to trigger the "fight or flight" response. That's why road rage erupts and stress levels soar, while reason is overrun. The worse the traffic, the worse the stress. Los Angeles, where I live, has some of the worst traffic around, and some of the most unserene drivers. Emotions run high, tempers flare, tires squeal.

But it doesn't have to be like that. In fact, the snarliest traffic jam can provide an excellent opportunity to build your mindfulness muscle, increase your sense of connection to others, and restore some balance and perspective.

Here are the steps to a simple behind-the-wheel practice I've been doing for a while. I've found it can work wonders.

1. First, take a deep breath. This simple, yet profound advice helps bring more oxygen into your body and widens the space between the stimulus of the traffic and your heightened stress reaction. In this space lies perspective and choice.

2. Ask yourself what you need. It may be in that moment that you need to feel safe, at ease or you just need some relief. Understanding what you need will bring balance.

3. Give yourself what you need. If ease is what you need, you can scan your body for any tension (not a bad thing to do while driving in any case) and soften any tension or adjust your body as needed. You can sprinkle in some phrases of self-compassion, such as, "May I be at ease, may I feel safe, may I be happy."

4. Look around and recognize that all the other drivers are just like you. Everyone on the road wants the same thing you do-to feel safe, have a sense of ease, and to be happy. Chances are you'll see a number of fellow drivers who look a bit agitated, but you might also catch that one who is singing or actually smiling, and this will dissipate some of your own stress immediately. You can apply to all of them what you just offered to yourself, saying, "May you be at ease, may you feel safe, may you be happy."

5. Take another deep breath. In 15 seconds or less, you can turn around your mood by applying these simple tips. When you feel the frustration of traffic rising, choose whatever you need to work on, and offer that condition to others. If you need to feel safe, say, "May I be safe, may you be safe, may we all be safe." Breathe in, breathe out, you've sowed a seed of happiness.

Developing a Daily Practice

Five Ways to Find Time to Pause

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Take a Mindful Moment: 5 Simple Practices for Daily Life - Mindful

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How often have you rushed out the door and into your day without even thinking about how you'd like things to go? Before you know it, something or someone has rubbed you the wrong way, and you've reacted automatically with frustration, impatience, or rage-in other words, you've found yourself acting in a way you never intended.

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Five Ways to Help Teens Feel Good About THemselves

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Five Ways to Help Teens Feel Good About THemselves

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Greater Good U.C. Berkley

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No one wants to hang out with me. I'm a failure at school. All my other friends seem happy. What's wrong with me?
These kinds of negative thoughts are becoming more common in our homes and schools. Teens are experiencing increased anxiety, and studies indicate that college students in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States are becoming more perfectionistic over time, measuring themselves against unrealistic standards.

Why is this happening? We can't say for sure-but we do know there are steps teens can take to improve their mental health.

A 2018 study of early adolescents suggests that self-concept (your perception of self) plays a central role in emotional well-being. According to the study, a supportive classroom environment and positive social relationships also affect teen well-being-but the impact is indirect. Positive self-concept seems to be the key variable in the well-being equation. If a student feels good about herself, then she may be more likely to connect with others and benefit from the supports provided at school.

So, how can we influence how students think about themselves? This may feel like a very tall order; yet there is a lot of research out there that provides some clues for supporting the teens in your life. Here are five ways to help tweens and teens move toward a more positive self-concept.

1. Get physical

Although you may have heard this before, kids really can benefit from regular exercise (especially when their tendency is to sit in front of a screen). A recent review of 38 international studies indicates that physical activity alone can improve self-esteem and self-concept in children and adolescents.

Apparently, the exercise setting also matters. Students who participated in supervised activities in schools or gymnasiums reported more significant growth in self-esteem than those who exercised at home and in other settings.

Adolescents' self-concept is most strongly linked to their sense of physical attractiveness and body image, an area where many people struggle. So, encourage more regular exercise programs during and after school, and support team sports, strength training, running, yoga, and swimming-not just for their effects on the body but on the mind, as well. Getting out and engaging in some form of exercise can make us feel stronger, healthier, and more empowered.

2. Focus on self-compassion (not self-esteem)

Because self-esteem is a global evaluation of your overall worth, it has its dangers. What am I achieving? Am I good enough? How do I compare with my peers?

What would happen if we could stop judging ourselves? Researcher Kristen Neff claims that self-compassion-treating yourself with kindness, openness, and acceptance-is a healthy alternative to the incessant striving and performance orientation often tied up with self-esteem.

In her study of adolescents and young adults, she found that participants with higher self-compassion demonstrated greater well-being. Why? They were okay with their flaws, acknowledged that they struggled just like those around them ("Everybody makes mistakes; you are not alone"), and treated themselves with the same kindness they would extend to a friend ("It's okay; you did your best").

If you are interested in specific techniques and strategies for enhancing self-compassion in teens, take a look at the work of psychologist Karen Bluth. She recently developed a program called Making Friends with Yourself. Youth participating in this eight-week program reported greater resilience, less depression, and less stress at the end of it. However, if there isn't a program near you, consider sharing this self-compassion workbook with the teens in your life.

3. Avoid social comparison

When we focus on self-esteem, we tend to get caught up in comparing ourselves to others. Teens, in particular, often sense an " imaginary audience " (i.e., "Everyone is looking at me!") and can become highly sensitized to who they are relative to everyone around them.

Instagram and other social media platforms don't necessarily help. Some research suggests an association between social media and depression, anxiety, loneliness, and FoMO (fear of missing out) among teens. Their posts may not rack up the number of "likes" that their friends' posts do, or they may feel excluded when they see pictures of classmates happily spending time together without them.

A new app for teen girls called Maverick may be a healthier option than Snapchat or Instagram. On this social media platform, teens can connect with role models (called "Catalysts") and explore their creativity (such as designing their own superhero or choosing a personal mantra). Of course, there is always the option of taking a break from social media, as well.

Regardless of what teens choose to do online, many of our schools are also structured for social comparison. Grading, labeling, and tracking practices (grouping students based on their academic performance) don't necessarily honor the stops, starts, and inevitable mistakes that are a natural part of the learning process.

Here are some school-based alternatives designed to reduce social comparison:

Don't make grades public.

Provide opportunities to revise and redo assignments.

Avoid ability grouping as much as possible.

Focus on individual growth and improvement.

Acknowledge students' small successes.

4. Capitalize on specific skills

If you keep your eye out for teens' talents and interests, you can support them in cultivating their strengths. Your son may think he is a terrible athlete, but he lights up when he works on school science projects. Then there's that quiet, disheveled ninth-grade girl who sits in the back of your class. She may feel socially awkward, but she wows you with her poetry.

Researcher Susan Harter has studied adolescent self-esteem and self-concept for years. She claims that self-concept is domain-specific. Our overall self-esteem or sense of worth tends to be rooted in eight distinct areas: athletic competence, scholastic competence, behavioral conduct, social acceptance, close friendship, romantic appeal, job satisfaction, and physical attractiveness.

Talk to the teens in your life. What are their personal values and priorities? Share surveys with them like the VIA (which identifies character strengths like bravery, honesty, and leadership) or have them take a multiple intelligences quiz. Celebrate their talents and tailor activities and instruction around their abilities as much as possible.

It may not be easy to shift teens' global sense of self-worth, but we can certainly highlight and encourage areas of interest and particular skill sets so that they feel more confident, capable, and inspired.

5. Help others (especially strangers)

Finally, when teens reach out to others, they are more likely to feel better about themselves. A 2017 study of 681 U.S. adolescents (ages 11-14) examined their kind and helpful behavior over a four-year period. Researchers found that adolescents who were kind and helpful in general had higher self-esteem, but those who directed their generosity toward strangers (not friends and family) tended to grow in self-esteem.

Last Friday, I joined my daughter and her peers during the "action" phase of their "Change the World" project. Their social studies teacher, Tim Owens, tasked the eighth graders with choosing a sustainability issue, researching the problem and possible solutions, planning action, and implementing the action.

These middle schoolers spent a full day canvasing their neighborhoods to advocate for policies that protected people they don't know, like local refugees and homeless youth-as well as animals used for product testing. I've never seen my daughter and her friends more energized, confident, and engaged with their community.

As adults, we can actively support service learning projects in our schools and our teens' interests in advocacy and civil engagement. Adolescents around the world can also work remotely with non-profit organizations like DoSomething, "a digital platform promoting offline action" in 131 countries. On this site, young people can choose a cause, the amount of time they want to commit to it, and the type of help they would like to provide (e.g., face-to-face, improving a space, making something, sharing something, etc.)

When teens regularly contribute to a larger cause, they learn to think beyond themselves, which may ultimately help them to be more positive, empowered, and purposeful.

As many teens struggle with anxiety and perfectionism, our urge may be to jump in and fix their problems, whatever we perceive them to be. But a better approach, one that will hopefully help reverse these worrying trends, is to cheer them on as they develop the mental habits and strengths that will support them throughout their lives.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Five Ways to Help Teens Feel Good about Themselves

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No one wants to hang out with me. I'm a failure at school. All my other friends seem happy. What's wrong with me? These kinds of negative thoughts are becoming more common in our homes and schools.

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Mindful

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"Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced."
-John Keats, poet

The revelation that mindfulness can happen with movement is often profound for people-especially those who have resisted meditation because they don't like to sit still. If you're committed to morning workout sessions and enjoy the boost that physical movement can bring, you can try turning your activity into a mindfulness meditation.

Runner Ashley Hicks described it to Krista Tippett in a July 2017 On Being podcast this way: "I don't run with music, headphones, anything-I call myself a true minimalist runner. Literally, it's just me and my running clothes . . . it's just the idea of allowing myself to settle into the run, settle in and to feel the road beneath your feet, settle in and really acknowledge your surroundings. When I run, it's this idea of really being present and acknowledging where I am and what I'm doing and the purpose."

For devoted and aspiring exercisers, here is some good news. Research suggests that those who intentionally focus on the feeling of moving and deliberately take in their surroundings enjoy exercise more. After tracking how much people exercised, how mindful they were while doing it, and how satisfied they were with their workouts overall, scientists at Utrecht University in the Netherlands suggest "mindfulness may amplify satisfaction, because one is satisfied when positive experiences with physical activity become prominent." What that means for your daily routine is that being mindful can support your exercising habits, and vice versa.

What exactly does mindful exercise involve? You're paying attention to your body: your muscles, pace, breathing, resistance, and tension. How does it feel to get out of your comfort zone and twist and stretch beyond your usual seated or standing positions? How do you feel emotionally? Are you energized and determined, or are you feeling depleted, maybe needing a minute to refresh? Listen to your needs, and push or protect yourself accordingly. Be mindful of your thoughts too. Do you have a drill sergeant in your head? Are you comparing yourself to the person doing yoga next to you, or do you bring a curious, kind attention to how your workout is going?

With mindful exercise, you're also taking time to notice what's around-whether it's the rhythms of the gym or the changing scenery of an outdoor jog. Although music can be a great motivator, and the built-in TV screen on the elliptical machine is nice entertainment, try unplugging for at least part of your workout to truly meditate.

Harmonizing your mind and body is powerful. You're making strides-figuratively and literally-for your physical and mental health.

Any activity can work for mindful meditation, and you can find anchors for your attention in the motions: Maybe it's the point when your right hand enters the water while you swim (my go-to), or the contact of your feet on the pavement as you run. Weight lifters might use the up-and-down repetition of a barbell. Or, you could stick with the one anchor that is always available to you: your breath, in and out. Notice as it quickens or slows, and return to it whenever you find your mind drifting to a thought about that text message you forgot to answer, or the milk you accidentally left on the countertop.

Harmonizing your mind and body is powerful. You're making strides-figuratively and literally-for your physical and mental health. And, if the research holds, you're enjoying it more. With that reward potential, a sweaty mindfulness session might be easier to put permanently on the calendar.

8 Ways to Bring Mindfulness to Your Exercise Routine

1. Pause and consider your purpose. Remember why you want to meditate. Is it to train your mind to focus and sustain attention? To learn to navigate emotions? Consider your intention for exercise, too. Is it to live longer, lose weight, or have more energy for your kids? This twofold motivation can help get you up and out, and keep you going.

2. Unplug. To meditate during exercise, don't listen to your favorite playlist, talk on the phone, read a magazine, or watch TV. Be fully present where you are: in the woods, on the sidewalk, or on the treadmill.

3. Tap into body sensations. Bring your attention to your physical experience. Are there any parts of your body that are working extra hard? Does your body feel different today than it did yesterday? When I swim, I focus on the water gliding over my body, the muscles in my arms, and the sensation of my torso rotating with each breath.

4. Use your breath as a cue to challenge yourself more or ease up as necessary. As you learned with mindful breathing, your inhale or exhale can be an anchor of attention while exercising. If your mind wanders, noticing a new "For Sale" sign in the neighborhood while you run or recalling an email you forgot to return, just notice the thought and reconnect with your breath. Observe the tempo of your breath as you work harder and as you cool down.

5. Play with different anchors of attention. Experiment with attentional focal points other than your breath: each full rotation of your bike pedals, the up and down of a lunge. You can switch anchors as you vary your exercise, but stay focused on the rhythm of your anchor, returning to it when your mind wanders.

6. Note your surroundings. There are two aspects of directing attention-focused attention and open awareness-and you can practice both while exercising. To tap into the latter, check out what's around you. How is the air? Temperature? What are you hearing?

7. Renew your resolve - burning hamstrings and all. One of the attitudes of mindfulness is acceptance-not wishing the present moment to be different than it is. Exercising is a brilliant time to practice this. Do you notice any resistance to the workout experience-perhaps wishing you were almost done, or that the pain in your right foot would go away? Commit to your workout time, remember your reasons for being there, and try to stay present from start to finish.

8. Exercise kindness. Notice the quality of your thinking during workouts: Can you appreciate your current ability, speed, and endurance just as they are? If you work out in a group, can you let go of the "comparing mind" and instead thank yourself for showing up for this healthy activity, and then go at the pace that's just right for you?

Excerpt adapted from The Mindful Day by Laurie J. Cameron, © 2018. Reprinted by arrangement with National Geographic Partners, LLC.

3 Breathing Techniques for Mindful Running

Take a Mindful Moment: 5 Simple Practices for Daily Life

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"Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced." -John Keats, poet The revelation that mindfulness can happen with movement is often profound for people-especially those who have resisted meditation because they don't like to sit still. If you're committed to morning workout sessions and enjoy the boost that physical movement can bring, you can try turning your activity into a mindfulness meditation.

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Mindful Magazine

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Have you ever tried to have a conversation with somebody who wasn't listening to you? Could you tell? Have you ever seen yourself nodding and smiling during a conversation while in your mind you were landing the space shuttle? Expertly, you might add. And do you think it was obvious you were in orbit?

At its core, listening is really just taking time instead to experience what we're hearing in the moment.

Of all our communication skills, listening is the one most called upon-and neglected. Philosopher Martin Heidegger identified it as a key to maintaining meaningful relationships with family, friends, and even colleagues. But what is listening? Often we hear something and before we know it we've labeled, categorized, and shelved it. At its core, listening is really just taking time instead to experience what we're hearing in the moment.

I recently had a conversation with one of my mindfulness students about why he had taken my class. He became tearful as he told me he wants to nurture a deeper connection with his wife, but has difficulty listening when she speaks because there are so many things in his head competing for attention. His dilemma is that he wants to pay attention to her but doesn't know how. Most of us have difficulty focusing and sustaining our attention. So what happens when we continually get pulled to sports bloopers, or celebrity gossip, or fears, worries, and concerns beyond our control? Contrary to what we might wish to believe, evidence shows we can't really focus on multiple things at once. So when I'm planning email responses in my head while you are talking to me, it is virtually impossible for me to adequately absorb both my emails and your boring, nonsensical babble, no judgment intended. The brain simply doesn't function in this way.

Listening takes time and effort, and it's a skill that requires honing. The good news? You can hone your ability to listen.

First, you need to set a clear intention to be a better listener. That way you create a frame of reference for checking in with yourself, so you can catch yourself getting lost in your own thoughts while someone's talking to you. Once you recognize what you're doing, take a breath, smile because you noticed, and redirect back to genuine listening. It's like returning to your breath in meditation. And just like with meditation, noticing and returning to the present is really the goal. Your mind will drift away, so keep on coming back.

You need to set a clear intention to be a better listener. Once you recognize yourself getting lost in your own thoughts while someone's talking to you, take a breath, smile because you noticed, and redirect back to genuine listening. It's like returning to your breath in meditation.

Once you set an intention to listen, you can work on going deeper in conversation. Listening involves paying attention both to what another person is saying, and what that person is trying to communicate beyond words. The HEAR practice (below) can help you cultivate deeper listening skills.

The very first time you give your attention to someone, I bet you'll notice instant softening, openness, and connection. Now go ahead and give it a try... I'll be listening for you.

Mindfulness Practice: HEAR - A Way to Cultivate Deeper Listening

1) HALT - Halt whatever you are doing and offer your full attention.

2) ENJOY - Enjoy a breath as you choose to receive whatever is being communicated to you-wanted or unwanted.

3) ASK - Ask yourself if you really know what they mean and if you don't, ask for clarification. Instead of making assumptions, bring openness and curiosity to the interaction. You might be surprised at what you discover.

4) REFLECT - Reflect back to them what you heard. This tells them that you were really listening.

This article appeared in the February 2017 issue of Mindful magazine.

The Mindful Guide to Straight Talk

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Have you ever tried to have a conversation with somebody who wasn't listening to you? Could you tell? Have you ever seen yourself nodding and smiling during a conversation while in your mind you were landing the space shuttle? Expertly, you might add. And do you think it was obvious you were in orbit?

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Live Happy Magazine

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A life infused with purpose and meaning can lead to amazing achievements, allowing you to get the most satisfaction out of life. Here are 33 ideas to help you find your way.

1. "The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience." ―Eleanor Roosevelt

2. Read Living with Intent by Mallika Chopra.

3. Watch The Meaning of Life.

4. Do more of what you do best.

5. Tune into the Live Happy Now podcast.

6. "The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for." ―Fyodor Dostoyevsky

7. Read The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.

9. Help someone reach his or her goals.

10. Listen to " Your Life is Now " by John Mellencamp.

11. "To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind." ―Pearl S. Buck

12. Read Finding Your Own North by Martha N. Beck.

13. Watch About Time.

14. Live with dignity.

15. Listen to " Learning to Fly " by Pink Floyd.

16. Release your social butterfly.

17. "True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it." ―Pliny the Elder

18. Readby Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D.
Read More: 21 Ideas for Finding Your Passion
19. Watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

20. Keep your eyes wide open.

21. Listen to "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi.

22. Sign up for a continuing education course.

23. "The best way to insure you achieve the greatest satisfaction out of life is to behave intentionally." ―Deborah Day

24. Read Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success by Russell Simmons.

25. Take art or music lessons.

26. Listen to " You Can't Always Get What You Want " by The Rolling Stones.

27. "I know exactly what my values are and what I love to do. That's worth additional years right there." -Dan Buettner

28. Read Life Purpose Boot Camp by Eric Maisel, Ph.D.

29. Watch Last Holiday.

30. Consider what your 8-year-old self might say about your life today.

31. Watch Field of Dreams.

32. Do something that benefits others.

33. Read more: Get in Touch With Your Higher Calling

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A life infused with purpose and meaning can lead to amazing achievements, allowing you to get the most satisfaction out of life. Here are 33 ideas to help you find your way. 1. "The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience."

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Can You Put Your Strengths To Work by Michelle McQuaid

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Can You Put Your Strengths To Work by Michelle McQuaid

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E Book Available Here

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Can You Put Your Strengths to Work by Michelle McQuaid.pdf

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Harvard Gazette

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Mindfulness' popularity has been bolstered by a growing body of research showing that it reduces stress and anxiety, improves attention and memory, and promotes self-regulation and empathy. A few years ago, a study by Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist and assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and assistant researcher in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, was the first to document that mindfulness meditation can change the brain's gray matter and brain regions linked with memory, the sense of self, and regulation of emotions. New research by Benjamin Shapero and Gaëlle Desbordes is exploring how mindfulness can help depression.

The pioneer of scientific research on meditation, Herbert Benson, extolled its benefits on the human body - reduced blood pressure, heart rate, and brain activity - as early as 1975. He helped demystify meditation by calling it the "relaxation response." Benson is director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Mind/Body Medicine Distinguished Professor of Medicine at HMS.

In the 1980s, mindfulness had yet to become a buzzword, recalls Paul Fulton, a clinical psychologist who has practiced Zen and insight meditation (vipassana) for more than 40 years. In the mid-1980s, when he was working on his doctoral dissertation on the nature of "self" among Buddhist monks, speaking of mindfulness in a medical context among scientists was "disreputable," he recalled.

"Gradually because of the research, it became chic, no longer disreputable," said Fulton, a lecturer in psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at HMS and co-founder of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. "And now you can't step a foot out of the house without being barraged by mindfulness."

Melanie Denham, head coach of Harvard women's rugby team, recently attended a mindfulness workshop, intrigued by the idea of incorporating the techniques into her players' training regimen to help them cope with the pressures of "expectation and performance."

"In and out of the classroom, these student-athletes are immersed in a highly competitive culture," said Denham. "This is stressful. This kind of training can develop a more-skillful mind and a sense of focus and well-being that can help them better maintain control and awareness of their thoughts, emotions, and presence in the moment."

The growing interest in the field is reflected in Harvard's course catalog. This spring, Lazar is teaching "Cognitive Neuroscience of Meditation," Ezer Vierba leads an expository freshmen writing course on "Buddhism, Mindfulness, and the Practical Mind," and Metta McGarvey teaches "Mindfulness for Educators" at the Graduate School of Education.

Due to high demand, McGarvey, who holds a doctorate in human development and psychology, teaches a three-day workshop for educators. It offers tools to enhance their work and their focus through breathing practices and self-compassion exercises.

Mindfulness meditation made easy

Settle in

Find a quiet space. Using a cushion or chair, sit up straight but not stiff; allow your head and shoulders to rest comfortably; place your hands on the tops of your legs with upper arms at your side.

Now breathe

Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and relax. Feel the fall and rise of your chest and the expansion and contraction of your belly. With each breath notice the coolness as it enters and the warmth as it exits. Don't control the breath but follow its natural flow.

Stay focused

Thoughts will try to pull your attention away from the breath. Notice them, but don't pass judgment. Gently return your focus to your breath. Some people count their breaths as a way to stay focused.

Take 10

A daily practice will provide the most benefits. It can be 10 minutes per day, however, 20 minutes twice a day is often recommended for maximum benefit.

"A lot of them are working in really tough environments, with all kinds of pressures," said McGarvey. "The rates of burnout in some of the more challenging environments are very high."

Ayesha Hood, a police officer from Baltimore who is interested in running a day care center, attended McGarvey's workshop last fall, and found it helpful. "As a police officer, I live in high stress, and as a public servant, I tend to neglect myself," she said. "I want to calm myself and be conscious about it."

Christine O'Shaughnessy, a former investment bank executive who lead workshops at Harvard, said, "All day we're bombarded with social media, colleagues, work, children, etc. We don't have time to spend it in quiet reflection. But if you practice it at least once a day, you'll have a better day."

To skeptics who still view mindfulness as hippie-dippy poppycock, O'Shaughnessy has four words: "Give it a try." When she first signed up for a mindfulness workshop in 1999, she said she was skeptical too. But once she realized she was becoming calmer and less stressed, she converted. She eventually quit her job and became a mindfulness instructor. (She recently launched a free meditation app.)

"Doing mindfulness is like a fitness routine for your brain," she said. "It keeps your brain healthy."

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Less stress, clearer thoughts with mindfulness meditation

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Mindfulness' popularity has been bolstered by a growing body of research showing that it reduces stress and anxiety, improves attention and memory, and promotes self-regulation and empathy.

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Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative

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71 Habits for Living in the Present Moment

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Harvard Business Review

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Most feedback accentuates the negative. During formal employee evaluations, discussions invariably focus on "opportunities for improvement," even if the overall evaluation is laudatory. Informally, the sting of criticism lasts longer than the balm of praise. Multiple studies have shown that people pay keen attention to negative information. For example, when asked to recall important emotional events, people remember four negative memories for every positive one. No wonder most executives give and receive performance reviews with all the enthusiasm of a child on the way to the dentist.

Traditional, corrective feedback has its place, of course; every organization must filter out failing employees and ensure that everyone performs at an expected level of competence. Unfortunately, feedback that ferrets out flaws can lead otherwise talented managers to overinvest in shoring up or papering over their perceived weaknesses, or forcing themselves onto an ill-fitting template. Ironically, such a focus on problem areas prevents companies from reaping the best performance from its people. After all, it's a rare baseball player who is equally good at every position. Why should a natural third baseman labor to develop his skills as a right fielder?

The alternative, as the Gallup Organization researchers Marcus Buckingham, Donald Clifton, and others have suggested, is to foster excellence in the third baseman by identifying and harnessing his unique strengths. It is a paradox of human psychology that while people remember criticism, they respond to praise. The former makes them defensive and therefore unlikely to change, while the latter produces confidence and the desire to perform better. Managers who build up their strengths can reach their highest potential. This positive approach does not pretend to ignore or deny the problems that traditional feedback mechanisms identify. Rather, it offers a separate and unique feedback experience that counterbalances negative input. It allows managers to tap into strengths they may or may not be aware of and so contribute more to their organizations.

During the past few years, we have developed a powerful tool to help people understand and leverage their individual talents. Called the Reflected Best Self (RBS) exercise, our method allows managers to develop a sense of their "personal best" in order to increase their future potential. The RBS exercise is but one example of new approaches springing from an area of research called positive organizational scholarship (POS). Just as psychologists know that people respond better to praise than to criticism, organizational behavior scholars are finding that when companies focus on positive attributes such as resilience and trust, they can reap impressive bottom-line returns. (For more on this research, see the sidebar "The Positive Organization.") Thousands of executives, as well as tomorrow's leaders enrolled in business schools around the world, have completed the RBS exercise.

Positive organizational scholarship (POS) is an area of organizational behavior research that focuses on the positive dynamics (such as strength, resilience, vitality, trust, and so on) that lead to positive effects (like improved productivity and performance) in individuals and organizations. The word "positive" refers to the discipline's affirmative bias, "organizational" focuses on the processes and conditions that occur in group contexts, and "scholarship" reflects the rigor, theory, scientific procedures, and precise definition in which the approach is grounded.

The premise of POS research is that by understanding the drivers of positive behavior in the workplace, organizations can rise to new levels of achievement. For example, research by Marcial Losada and Emily Heaphy at the University of Michigan suggests that when individuals or teams hear five positive comments to every negative one, they unleash a level of positive energy that fuels higher levels of individual and group performance. Kim Cameron, a POS researcher, has demonstrated how this positive approach has helped the workers at Rocky Flats, a nuclear site in Colorado, tackle difficult and dangerous work in record time. Begun in 1995 and estimated to take 70 years and $36 billion, the Rocky Flats cleanup project is now slated for completion in ten years, with a price tag of less than $7 billion. Kaiser-Hill, the company in charge of the cleanup, replaced a culture of denial with one that fostered employee flexibility and celebrated achievements. The result was that employees developed new procedures that were fast, smart, and safe.

POS does not adopt one particular theory or framework but draws from the full spectrum of organizational theories to explain and predict high performance. To that end, a core part of the POS mission is to create cases, tools, and assessments that can help organizations improve their practices. The Reflected Best Self exercise is just one example of the kinds of practice tools available from POS. (For more information about POS, see the University of Michigan's Web site at www.bus.umich.edu/positive/.)

In this article, we will walk you through the RBS exercise step-by-step and describe the insights and results it can yield. Before we proceed, however, a few caveats are in order. First, understand that the tool is not designed to stroke your ego; its purpose is to assist you in developing a plan for more effective action. (Without such a plan, you'll keep running in place.) Second, the lessons generated from the RBS exercise can elude you if you don't pay sincere attention to them. If you are too burdened by time pressures and job demands, you may just file the information away and forget about it. To be effective, the exercise requires commitment, diligence, and follow-through. It may even be helpful to have a coach keep you on task. Third, it's important to conduct the RBS exercise at a different time of year than the traditional performance review so that negative feedback from traditional mechanisms doesn't interfere with the results of the exercise.

Used correctly, the RBS exercise can help you tap into unrecognized and unexplored areas of potential. Armed with a constructive, systematic process for gathering and analyzing data about your best self, you can burnish your performance at work.

Step 1

Identify Respondents and Ask for Feedback

The first task in the exercise is to collect feedback from a variety of people inside and outside work. By gathering input from a variety of sources-family members, past and present colleagues, friends, teachers, and so on-you can develop a much broader and richer understanding of yourself than you can from a standard performance evaluation.

As we describe the process of the Reflected Best Self exercise, we will highlight the experience of Robert Duggan (not his real name), whose self-discovery process is typical of the managers we've observed. Having retired from a successful career in the military at a fairly young age and earned an MBA from a top business school, Robert accepted a midlevel management position at an IT services firm. Despite strong credentials and leadership experience, Robert remained stuck in the same position year after year. His performance evaluations were generally good but not strong enough to put him on the high-potential track. Disengaged, frustrated, and disheartened, Robert grew increasingly stressed and disillusioned with his company. His workday felt more and more like an episode of Survivor.

Seeking to improve his performance, Robert enrolled in an executive education program and took the RBS exercise. As part of the exercise, Robert gathered feedback from 11 individuals from his past and present who knew him well. He selected a diverse but balanced group-his wife and two other family members, two friends from his MBA program, two colleagues from his time in the army, and four current colleagues.

Robert then asked these individuals to provide information about his strengths, accompanied by specific examples of moments when Robert used those strengths in ways that were meaningful to them, to their families or teams, or to their organizations. Many people-Robert among them-feel uncomfortable asking for exclusively positive feedback, particularly from colleagues. Accustomed to hearing about their strengths and weaknesses simultaneously, many executives imagine any positive feedback will be unrealistic, even false. Some also worry that respondents might construe the request as presumptuous or egotistical. But once managers accept that the exercise will help them improve their performance, they tend to dive in.

Within ten days, Robert received e-mail responses from all 11 people describing specific instances when he had made important contributions-including pushing for high quality under a tight deadline, being inclusive in communicating with a diverse group, and digging for critical information. The answers he received surprised him. As a military veteran and a technical person holding an MBA, Robert rarely yielded to his emotions. But in reading story after story from his respondents, Robert found himself deeply moved-as if he were listening to appreciative speeches at a party thrown in his honor. The stories were also surprisingly convincing. He had more strengths than he knew. (For more on Step 1, refer to the exhibit "Gathering Feedback.")

A critical step in the Reflected Best Self exercise involves soliciting feedback from family, friends, teachers, and colleagues. E-mail is an effective way of doing this, not only because it's comfortable and fast but also because it's easy to cut and paste responses into an analysis table such as the one in the main body of this article.

Below is the feedback Robert, a manager we observed, received from a current colleague and from a former coworker in the army.

From: Amy Chen

To: Robert Duggan

Subject: Re: Request for feedback

Dear Robert,

One of the greatest ways that you add value is that you stand for doing the right thing. For example, I think of the time that we were behind on a project for a major client and quality began to slip. You called a meeting and suggested that we had a choice: We could either pull a C by satisfying the basic requirements, or we could pull an A by doing excellent work. You reminded us that we could contribute to a better outcome. In the end, we met our deadline, and the client was very happy with the result.

From: Mike Bruno

To: Robert Duggan

Subject: Re: Request for feedback

One of the greatest ways you add value is that you persist in the face of adversity. I remember the time that we were both leading troops under tight security. We were getting conflicting information from the ground and from headquarters. You pushed to get the ground and HQ folks to talk to each other despite the tight time pressure. That information saved all of our lives. You never lost your calm, and you never stopped expecting or demanding the best from everyone involved.

Step 2

Recognize Patterns

In this step, Robert searched for common themes among the feedback, adding to the examples with observations of his own, then organizing all the input into a table. (To view parts of Robert's table, see the exhibit "Finding Common Themes.") Like many who participate in the RBS exercise, Robert expected that, given the diversity of respondents, the comments he received would be inconsistent or even competing. Instead, he was struck by their uniformity. The comments from his wife and family members were similar to those from his army buddies and work colleagues. Everyone took note of Robert's courage under pressure, high ethical standards, perseverance, curiosity, adaptability, respect for diversity, and team-building skills. Robert suddenly realized that even his small, unconscious behaviors had made a huge impression on others. In many cases, he had forgotten about the specific examples cited until he read the feedback, because his behavior in those situations had felt like second nature to him.

Finding Common Themes

The RBS exercise confirmed Robert's sense of himself, but for those who are unaware of their strengths, the exercise can be truly illuminating. Edward, for example, was a recently minted MBA executive in an automotive firm. His colleagues and subordinates were older and more experienced than he, and he felt uncomfortable disagreeing with them. But he learned through the RBS exercise that his peers appreciated his candid alternative views and respected the diplomatic and respectful manner with which he made his assertions. As a result, Edward grew bolder in making the case for his ideas, knowing that his boss and colleagues listened to him, learned from him, and appreciated what he had to say.

Other times, the RBS exercise sheds a more nuanced light on the skills one takes for granted. Beth, for example, was a lawyer who negotiated on behalf of nonprofit organizations. Throughout her life, Beth had been told she was a good listener, but her exercise respondents noted that the interactive, empathetic, and insightful manner in which she listened made her particularly effective. The specificity of the feedback encouraged Beth to take the lead in future negotiations that required delicate and diplomatic communications.

For naturally analytical people, the analysis portion of the exercise serves both to integrate the feedback and develop a larger picture of their capabilities. Janet, an engineer, thought she could study her feedback as she would a technical drawing of a suspension bridge. She saw her "reflected best self" as something to interrogate and improve. But as she read the remarks from family, friends, and colleagues, she saw herself in a broader and more human context. Over time, the stories she read about her enthusiasm and love of design helped her rethink her career path toward more managerial roles in which she might lead and motivate others.

Step 3

Compose Your Self-Portrait

The next step is to write a description of yourself that summarizes and distills the accumulated information. The description should weave themes from the feedback together with your self-observations into a composite of who you are at your best. The self-portrait is not designed to be a complete psychological and cognitive profile. Rather, it should be an insightful image that you can use as a reminder of your previous contributions and as a guide for future action. The portrait itself should not be a set of bullet points but rather a prose composition beginning with the phrase, "When I am at my best, I..." The process of writing out a two- to four-paragraph narrative cements the image of your best self in your consciousness. The narrative form also helps you draw connections between the themes in your life that may previously have seemed disjointed or unrelated. Composing the portrait takes time and demands careful consideration, but at the end of this process, you should come away with a rejuvenated image of who you are.

In developing his self-portrait, Robert drew on the actual words that others used to describe him, rounding out the picture with his own sense of himself at his best. He excised competencies that felt off the mark. This didn't mean he discounted them, but he wanted to assure that the overall portrait felt authentic and powerful. "When I am at my best," Robert wrote,

I stand by my values and can get others to understand why doing so is important. I choose the harder right over the easier wrong. I enjoy setting an example. When I am in learning mode and am curious and passionate about a project, I can work intensely and untiringly. I enjoy taking things on that others might be afraid of or see as too difficult. I'm able to set limits and find alternatives when a current approach is not working. I don't always assume that I am right or know best, which engenders respect from others. I try to empower and give credit to others. I am tolerant and open to differences.

As Robert developed his portrait, he began to understand why he hadn't performed his best at work: He lacked a sense of mission. In the army, he drew satisfaction from the knowledge that the safety of the men and women he led, as well as the nation he served, depended on the quality of his work. He enjoyed the sense of teamwork and variety of problems to be solved. But as an IT manager in charge of routine maintenance on new hardware products, he felt bored and isolated from other people.

The portrait-writing process also helped Robert create a more vivid and elaborate sense of what psychologists would call his "possible self"-not just the person he is in his day-to-day job but the person he might be in completely different contexts. Organizational researchers have shown that when we develop a sense of our best possible self, we are better able make positive changes in our lives.

Step 4

Redesign Your Job

Having pinpointed his strengths, Robert's next step was to redesign his personal job description to build on what he was good at. Given the fact that routine maintenance work left him cold, Robert's challenge was to create a better fit between his work and his best self. Like most RBS participants, Robert found that the strengths the exercise identified could be put into play in his current position. This involved making small changes in the way he worked, in the composition of his team, and in the way he spent his time. (Most jobs have degrees of freedom in all three of these areas; the trick is operating within the fixed constraints of your job to redesign work at the margins, allowing you to better play to your strengths.)

Robert began by scheduling meetings with systems designers and engineers who told him they were having trouble getting timely information flowing between their groups and Robert's maintenance team. If communication improved, Robert believed, new products would not continue to be saddled with the serious and costly maintenance issues seen in the past. Armed with a carefully documented history of those maintenance problems as well as a new understanding of his naturally analytical and creative team-building skills, Robert began meeting regularly with the designers and engineers to brainstorm better ways to prevent problems with new products. The meetings satisfied two of Robert's deepest best-self needs: He was interacting with more people at work, and he was actively learning about systems design and engineering.

Robert's efforts did not go unnoticed. Key executives remarked on his initiative and his ability to collaborate across functions, as well as on the critical role he played in making new products more reliable. They also saw how he gave credit to others. In less than nine months, Robert's hard work paid off, and he was promoted to program manager. In addition to receiving more pay and higher visibility, Robert enjoyed his work more. His passion was reignited; he felt intensely alive and authentic. Whenever he felt down or lacking in energy, he reread the original e-mail feedback he had received. In difficult situations, the e-mail messages helped him feel more resilient.

Robert was able to leverage his strengths to perform better, but there are cases in which RBS findings conflict with the realities of a person's job. This was true for James, a sales executive who told us he was "in a world of hurt" over his work situation. Unable to meet his ambitious sales goals, tired of flying around the globe to fight fires, his family life on the verge of collapse, James had suffered enough. The RBS exercise revealed that James was at his best when managing people and leading change, but these natural skills did not and could not come into play in his current job. Not long after he did the exercise, he quit his high-stress position and started his own successful company.

Other times, the findings help managers aim for undreamed-of positions in their own organizations. Sarah, a high-level administrator at a university, shared her best-self portrait with key colleagues, asking them to help her identify ways to better exploit her strengths and talents. They suggested that she would be an ideal candidate for a new executive position. Previously, she would never have considered applying for the job, believing herself unqualified. To her surprise, she handily beat out the other candidates.

Beyond Good Enough

We have noted that while people remember criticism, awareness of faults doesn't necessarily translate into better performance. Based on that understanding, the RBS exercise helps you remember your strengths-and construct a plan to build on them. Knowing your strengths also offers you a better understanding of how to deal with your weaknesses-and helps you gain the confidence you need to address them. It allows you to say, "I'm great at leading but lousy at numbers. So rather than teach me remedial math, get me a good finance partner." It also allows you to be clearer in addressing your areas of weakness as a manager. When Tim, a financial services executive, received feedback that he was a great listener and coach, he also became more aware that he had a tendency to spend too much time being a cheerleader and too little time keeping his employees to task. Susan, a senior advertising executive, had the opposite problem: While her feedback lauded her results-oriented management approach, she wanted to be sure that she hadn't missed opportunities to give her employees the space to learn and make mistakes.

In the end, the strength-based orientation of the RBS exercise helps you get past the "good enough" bar. Once you discover who you are at the top of your game, you can use your strengths to better shape the positions you choose to play-both now and in the next phase of your career.

A version of this article appeared in the January 2005 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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Most feedback accentuates the negative. During formal employee evaluations, discussions invariably focus on "opportunities for improvement," even if the overall evaluation is laudatory. Informally, the sting of criticism lasts longer than the balm of praise. Multiple studies have shown that people pay keen attention to negative information.

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Forbes

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It is a commonly held belief that once we reach adulthood our brains are 'hard-wired' and incapable of dramatic change. However, research in recent years has led neuroscientists to believe that our brains are in fact much more malleable, flexible and able to shift physically and psychologically than we first thought.

Throughout our childhood and teenage years, our brains grow and change naturally, undergoing drastic changes. Once we reach adulthood at around 25 our brain stops naturally forming new neural pathways and our habits, biases and attitudes become more set in stone and much harder to change.

Nevertheless, it isn't impossible to train our brains to changing later in life and throughout adulthood. There are some practical ways you can incorporate new habits into your daily routine, which will help keep your brain flexible beyond your youth and throughout your life.
1. Neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change itself constantly by creating new neural pathways and losing those which are no longer used. Encouraging the brain's neuroplasticity is the key to sustained adult learning and emotional intelligence, which will help the brain remain open-minded, intuitive and able to overcome biases throughout adulthood.

Unfortunately, keeping your brain plastic and flexible isn't as easy as simply doing a daily sudoku or crossword. For the brain to rewire itself it requires sustained practice of a new behavior which will sufficiently challenge the brain to think in a new way. Imagine how difficult it is to learn a new language or take up a new instrument - this is how hard your brain needs to work to stimulate growth and forge new neural pathways.
2. Brain agility
Reframing your current approach to situations and developing the brain functions which you currently underutilize can help maximize the brain's performance across diverse and unfamiliar tasks.

Most people are wired to avoid losses over acquiring gains, for example, most people would prefer not to lose $50 than to find $50. However, putting your brain outside its comfort zone and developing the skills you know you struggle with can help the brain become more flexible and resilient to switching tasks and focus.

We have all developed particular skills based on the everyday demands placed on our brains at work and at home, however with the world of work constantly changing our brains will need to continually renew our skills and be adaptable to new situations and ways of thinking.

Developing an agile brain could be more important than you think - as we see automation replace more jobs associated with systematic thinking, as individuals and collectively more of us will need to hone their abilities to think creatively, intuitively and empathetically in order to thrive in a changing jobs markets.
3. Mindset mastery
Recent theory developed by Stanford professor Carol Dweck has suggested that most people's brains can be described as having a fixed or a growth mindset. Someone with a fixed mindset avoids new challenges out of fear of failure, whilst someone with a growth mindset sees new everyday problems as opportunities to be seized and embraced as part of a wider learning experience. Those with a fixed mindset claim that skills and abilities are innate, however Dweck argues that most successful people tend to have a growth mindset and an ongoing desire to learn and develop personally throughout their life.

As we get older it can seem harder and more fruitless to try new things we believe we will not be successful at, however by becoming aware of our resistance to change it is possible train ourselves to overcome this resistance and expose ourselves to new activities.

Instead of avoiding taking up a new hobby or interest you have always been interested in for fear of failure, put yourself out of your comfort zone and give it a go. You will be surprised at how you will develop new ways of thinking through trial and error and how this will improve your resilience and flexibility.
4. Simplicity
Pressing the pause button on our hectic daily lives and helping simplify our brain's work can have a surprising impact on its ability to grow and change.

Focusing all of our attention on the present moment and our own breathing in the act of mindfulness can have both long and short term physical benefits on the brain. Short term it will decrease our stress by reducing our levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the blood.

Longer term, if it is practiced regularly (around three times a week), it will lead to increased gyrification - the formation of more folds in the prefrontal cortex. This is important because the prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain associated with our higher executive functions, namely our abilities to think flexibly and creatively, switch between tasks and make reasonable decisions. Try and work some type of mindfulness into your daily routine, whether by using an app such as Headspace or doing some yoga before bed.

Better understanding how your brain works can help you realize the importance of keeping your brain flexible throughout your life. Constantly changing how you think and approach situations might not seem natural, but working on our ability to stay emotionally intelligent, intuitive and flexible will benefit us as we grow older.

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The 4 Underlying Principles Of Changing Your Brain

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It is a commonly held belief that once we reach adulthood our brains are 'hard-wired' and incapable of dramatic change. However, recent research has suggested that our brains are in fact much more malleable, flexible and able to shift physically and psychologically than we first thought.

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The New York Times

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Meditation is a simple practice available to all, which can reduce stress, increase calmness and clarity and promote happiness. Learning how to meditate is straightforward, and the benefits can come quickly.

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Greater Good Magazine

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How can we create a happier world?

That question is on many people's minds today, as we celebrate the sixth annual International Day of Happiness. This event grew out of a United Nations resolution affirming happiness as a fundamental human goal-and suggesting that we should approach economic growth in a way that promotes well-being for everyone.

Social systems and institutions have a role to play in our happiness, and that's evident in this year's World Happiness Report. Researchers ranked countries by their average happiness levels and found, for example, that GDP, life expectancy, freedom, and corruption make a difference. In the ranking, Finland, Norway, and Denmark came out on top. The United States dropped four spots to number 18.

That's the big picture. But happiness is also a very individual pursuit-and there are attitudes and habits we can cultivate in daily life that will enhance our personal well-being.

For some inspiration, we decided to ask the experts-the researchers who are actually studying well-being-about their favorite happiness practices. Many of their nominations align with this year's International Day of Happiness theme around relationships, kindness, and helping each other. You'll also discover research-based happiness practices on our website Greater Good in Action.

Jane Dutton, professor of business administration and psychology at the University of Michigan: My favorite research-based happiness practice is to be alert to high-quality connections (HQCs) that I have with other people during the course of the day. I know that it is a high-quality connection when I sense vitality and aliveness in the interaction, even if it is a stranger. My practice is to notice, savor, elaborate, and remember these HQCs, which are like vitamins that strengthen me from within.

Laurie Santos, professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University: Loving-kindness meditation. I find this type of meditation a lot easier than other, more breath-based meditations, and I'm always surprised at how centered it makes me feel. I also love to see the downstream effects this practice has in my interactions with others and my patience with my own foibles, too.

Judson Brewer, associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School: Loving-kindness! It took me years to bumble my way into noticing how sweet this practice is. During my psychiatry residency training, I literally learned on the go: While biking to work, I started playing with offering kindness to drivers that honked at me, and found that when I got to the hospital I was peaceful and happy instead of angry at "those drivers." Life-changing practice.

Kristin Layous, assistant professor of psychology at California State University, East Bay: Practicing gratitude. Gratitude letters can be so moving, but I also just think that taking note of what's good in your life is quite powerful (like counting blessings). I don't keep a journal of my blessings, but just sometimes when my mind wanders or seems to be skewing negative, I try to re-focus to the very real good things in my life, and it helps me not to dwell on the bad.

Elizabeth Dunn, professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia: Exercise. Even though I'm really busy, I block off an hour every day to run, swim, bike, or do yoga. As well as reading the relevant research, I've monitored my own mood and discovered that this practice makes a huge difference for my happiness.

Hedy Kober, associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at Yale University: Meditation, gratitude, physical exercise. Together, they keep me flexible and strong. They keep my mind clear, my heart open, and my body able.

Michael Norton, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School: Chris Hsee's research on overearning shows that we become so obsessed with accumulating that we forget about enjoying. It's often on my mind, as I think about what is worth accumulating in life-and what is not.

Tim Kasser, professor of psychology at Knox College: Research shows that people who pursue intrinsic goals for personal growth, affiliation, and community feeling report higher well-being than those focused on extrinsic goals for money, image, and status. This is why I spend a lot of my time playing the piano and working in the garden, chatting with my wife and kids, and volunteering, and why I spend as little time as possible shopping or worrying about what other people think about my appearance or status.

Gregory Fricchione, associate chief of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital: It's all about feeling grateful for being connected to my family and community. It is what I choose to meditate on. That feeling we sense from the intense moments of attachment we are blessed with defines best for me what in religion we call the Holy Spirit. Josiah Royce wrote that this Holy Spirit is what binds us in the Beloved Community.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Nine Scientists Share Their Favorite Happiness Practices

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How can we create a happier world? That question is on many people's minds today, as we celebrate the sixth annual International Day of Happiness. This event grew out of a United Nations resolution affirming happiness as a fundamental human goal-and suggesting that we should approach economic growth in a way that promotes well-being for everyone.

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Students experience "flipping the negative" through Reynolds' charming story about a boy who draws "ish" pictures and maintains a growth mindset about his artwork.

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With a little encouragement from his sister, Ramon discovers that creativity is about a lot more than getting things just "right."

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The Harvard Gazette

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People spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they're doing, and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy. So says a study that used an iPhone Web app to gather 250,000 data points on subjects' thoughts, feelings, and actions as they went about their lives.

The research, by psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University, is described this week in the journal Science.

"A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind," Killingsworth and Gilbert write. "The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost."

Unlike other animals, humans spend a lot of time thinking about what isn't going on around them: contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or may never happen at all. Indeed, mind-wandering appears to be the human brain's default mode of operation.

To track this behavior, Killingsworth developed an iPhone app that contacted 2,250 volunteers at random intervals to ask how happy they were, what they were currently doing, and whether they were thinking about their current activity or about something else that was pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.

Subjects could choose from 22 general activities, such as walking, eating, shopping, and watching television. On average, respondents reported that their minds were wandering 46.9 percent of time, and no less than 30 percent of the time during every activity except making love.

"Mind-wandering appears ubiquitous across all activities," says Killingsworth, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard. "This study shows that our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the nonpresent."

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.

"Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people's happiness," Killingsworth says. "In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged."

The researchers estimated that only 4.6 percent of a person's happiness in a given moment was attributable to the specific activity he or she was doing, whereas a person's mind-wandering status accounted for about 10.8 percent of his or her happiness.

Time-lag analyses conducted by the researchers suggested that their subjects' mind-wandering was generally the cause, not the consequence, of their unhappiness.

"Many philosophical and religious traditions teach that happiness is to be found by living in the moment, and practitioners are trained to resist mind wandering and to 'be here now,'" Killingsworth and Gilbert note in Science. "These traditions suggest that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind."

This new research, the authors say, suggests that these traditions are right.

Killingsworth and Gilbert's 2,250 subjects in this study ranged in age from 18 to 88, representing a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and occupations. Seventy-four percent of study participants were American.

More than 5,000 people are now using the iPhone Web app.

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People spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they're doing, and this mind wandering typically makes them unhappy, according to research by Harvard psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert.

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Fast Company

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"People don't start meditation because they think it's boring and demands patience," says John Chisenhall, director and owner of DeRose Method Greenwich Village, a high-performance training firm that includes meditation. "Nothing could be further than the truth. Meditation can help you become more driven and focused."

If you've tried meditation and wondered why it didn't work, you might be making mistakes that are derailing your practice. Here are seven common missteps when it comes to benefitting from meditation.

Related: Meditation Techniques For People Who Hate Meditation

Judging Yourself

It's common to judge yourself when you first start to meditate, but this is a mistake, says Nina Smiley, director of mindfulness programming at Mohonk Mountain House, a spa resort in New Paltz, New York. "They question whether they are meditating correctly or effectively, which sets up a barrier that only discourages you from continuing to meditate in the future," she says.

Instead of focusing on yourself, focus on being present and mindful. "Use your doubts as an opportunity to grow in your meditation practice by actively clearing your thoughts and returning your attention to your breathing," says Smiley. "The most important aspect of meditation is all about being mindful and judgment-free, and each self-questioning thought can be used as a learning opportunity."

It can help to know there is no right or wrong when it comes to meditation, adds Alexis Conason, a New York City-based clinical psychologist who specializes in mindfulness. "People often think that a good meditation session is one where you can keep all of your attention on the object of your practice, such as your breath, but the nature of the mind is to be active, and noticing the active mind is itself part of meditation practice," she says.

Meditating When You're Tired

Meditating when you're in a sleepy passive state, such as at the beginning or end of the day, might make your meditation more difficult, says Chisenhall. "The body biology expects that when you close your eyes, it's time to sleep," he says.

Instead, make the most of the practice by doing it when you're fully awake or after you exercise. "It's best to coordinate with breathing, strength, and flexibility exercises," says Chisenhall. "When you sit down to meditate, you will have a cumulative effect."

Not Practicing Consistently

Meditation is designed to be a daily practice, and consistency is key to produce desirable results, says meditation coach Ben Turshen. "It's like brushing your teeth," he says. "If you brush your teeth once every three weeks, it's not going to do much. Same with meditation."

Related: This Is How I Managed To Finally Squeeze Meditation Into My Busy, Distracted Life

Become non-negotiable with your practice and commit to make it happen every day, Turshen suggests. "Non-negotiable doesn't mean perfect, optimal, or ideal," he says. "Many techniques come with a number of preferences for their practice. Meditation is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It's better to sacrifice a few preferences than not to meditate at all."

Always Meditating By Yourself

When you're first starting with meditation, going alone is fine, but to go deeper into the practice, people should reach out to a group or mentor, says Gustavo Oliveira, CEO of DeRose TriBeCa. "Sometimes people think they are truly meditating, but if they are not truly focused, it's the opposite of meditating," he says. "You need to become very aware of the moment and work on what you're doing. This can be tricky if you're doing it by yourself."

"Find a meditation viewpoint you connect with, and you can go deeper," adds Chisenhall.

Doing It To Escape

Thinking that meditation is about disconnecting is a common mistake, but it's actually the opposite. "Meditation is a state of awareness and lucidity," says Chisenhall. "It's a way to be able to better integrate with yourself, society, and your family, and gain new insight. When you're in a conversation, for example, you won't be thinking about something in the past or the future. If you're not fully engaged, you lose a lot of information."

Meditation helps you better connect to the moments that matter the most, adds Oliveira. "Some of those moments can be at work," he says.

Thinking It's Easy

People think that meditation should be easy; all you have to do is sit there, says Beth Brombosz, yoga teacher and founder of Sublimely Fit. "It actually is a lot harder than it looks, especially if you're used to letting your mind run wild all day," she says.

Don't underestimate its difficulty, and be prepared to handle distractions. "If you sit down to meditate but start thinking about your grocery list or a conversation with your boss, you need to be gentle with yourself and simply guide yourself back to the meditation practice," says Brombosz.

Long-time meditators will tell you that the mind will still have its chatter and activity, adds clinical psychologist Sarah Gray, an instructor at Harvard Medical School. "But [with practice] it gets easier to avoid being hooked into the chatter, and easier and faster to bring the mind back to the focus of the meditation when it happens," she says.

Expecting A Spiritual Experience

People often interpret meditation as being spiritual and religious, but the origin was actually in a naturalistic society in ancient India, says Chisenhall. "An archeological discovery shows small images of people meditating," he says. "There were no statues, castles, altars, or any spiritual religious deities. These meditators would probably have been closer to modern-day scientists trying to understand the world they lived in."

People often talk about enlightenment when talking about meditation, but it's really simple and straightforward, he adds. "It's an uncomplicated process to unclutter the mind," he says. "Meditation isn't going to solve all of life's problems, but it makes you more aware. You increase your ability to filter things that are not important. And you identify the things that are important to get better results, and insight on how to best take action."

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This Is Why Meditation Isn't Working For You

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"People don't start meditation because they think it's boring and demands patience," says John Chisenhall, director and owner of DeRose Method Greenwich Village, a high-performance training firm that includes meditation. "Nothing could be further than the truth. Meditation can help you become more driven and focused."

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The three keys that matter most for our daily health and well-being, as well as our engagement in our work.

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The Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller

Tom Rath, author of six influential bestsellers, reveals the three keys that matter most for our daily health and well-being, as well as our engagement in our work. Drawing on the latest and most practical research from health, psychology, and economics, this book focuses on changes we can make to create better days for ourselves and others. Are You Fully Charged? will challenge you to stop pursuing happiness and start creating meaning instead, lead you to rethink your daily interactions with the people who matter most, and show you how to put your own health first in order to be your best every day.

This book is part of a new series from #1 New York Times best-selling author Tom Rath that challenges people to rethink what's most important for their work and well-being. The series includes a feature-length movie, interviews with top social scientists, a new children's book, an app, and a website ﬁlled with resources for improving well-being.

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The Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller Tom Rath, author of six influential bestsellers, reveals the three keys that matter most for our daily health and well-being, as well as our engagement in our work. Drawing on the latest and most practical research from health, psychology, and economics, this book focuses on changes we can make to [...]

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Brief Mindfulness Training May Boost Test Scores, Working Memory

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Brief Mindfulness Training May Boost Test Scores, Working Memory

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Association for Psychological Science

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Mindfulness training may help to boost standardized test scores and improve working memory, according to a new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Every year, millions of college and graduate-school applicants take standardized tests, such as the SAT and GRE. The tests supposedly provide a way to gauge students' cognitive abilities and predict how they'll perform in school and, eventually, the workplace.

A multibillion-dollar test-prep industry has emerged out of the idea that boosting performance on these tests is possible, but it's unclear whether this boost reflects improvements in more fundamental cognitive abilities.

Psychological scientist Michael Mrazek of the University of California, Santa Barbara wondered whether targeting mind wandering could be a way to improve performance on tests like the GRE:

"Despite the wide recognition that mind wandering is a pervasive and often disruptive influence in our lives, almost no research has established effective strategies for reducing mind wandering. We set out to find ways to reduce mind wandering and thereby improve performance within educational contexts," says Mrazek, a graduate student in the lab of UCSB professor of psychology Jonathan Schooler.

We all mind-wander in our daily lives - our attention strays and suddenly we're thinking about everything but the task at hand. While some mind wandering is normal, it can have negative consequences for our ability to perform cognitive tasks; mind wandering has been linked with impairments in working memory capacity, fluid intelligence, and SAT performance.

But recent research suggests that practicing mindfulness may help to ward off these negative effects.

With this in mind, Mrazek, Schooler, and colleagues wanted to investigate whether cognitive abilities that have historically been considered fixed - such as working memory capacity - might actually be improvable through mindfulness training.

The researchers randomly assigned 48 college students to a mindfulness class or a nutrition class. The classes met for 45 minutes, four times per week, over two weeks and were taught by professionals with extensive experience in their respective fields.

The mindfulness class emphasized physical and mental strategies that help people to maintain focus on the present moment, in the face of interrupting thoughts and perceptions. The students were required to integrate mindfulness into their daily activities over the two-week session. The nutrition class covered fundamental topics in nutrition science and emphasized strategies for healthy eating. Students were asked to log daily food intake, but were not required to make any dietary changes.

Participants completed a working memory capacity task and the verbal reasoning section of the GRE (modified to exclude vocabulary-related questions) in the week before the class started and again in the week after the class ended.

The results were clear: Participants who received mindfulness training showed improved accuracy on the GRE and higher working memory capacity, compared to those who received instruction in nutrition. Analyses indicated that the improvement could be explained, at least in part, by reduced mind wandering during the task.

The researchers estimated that mindfulness training resulted in the equivalent of a 16 percentile-point boost on the GRE, on average.

Mrazek and colleagues were surprised by the clarity of the results.

"Even with a rigorous design and effective training program, it wouldn't be unusual to find mixed results," Mrazek says. "But we found reduced mind-wandering in every way we measured it and improved performance on both reading comprehension and working memory capacity."

Taken together, the findings provide considerable evidence that even a brief mindfulness training program can help people to reign in their wandering minds and, in doing so, improve fundamental cognitive abilities.

Mrazek and colleagues are continuing this research to find out how far this effect might extend. They're conducting similar studies in K-12 schools to see whether improvements in attention and performance can be achieved by school-age children. They're also investigating whether web-based mindfulness interventions, which are accessible to a much broader population, could be an effective vehicle for enhancing cognitive performance on a bigger scale. And they're examining whether the benefits can be further enhanced by teaching mindfulness as part of a more holistic program that targets nutrition, exercise, sleep, and personal relationships.

In addition to Mrazek and Schooler, co-authors on the study include Michael S. Franklin, Dawa Tarchin Phillips, and Benjamin Baird of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The research was supported by U.S. Department of Education Grant R305A110277 and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant DGE-0707430.

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Brief Mindfulness Training May Boost Test Scores, Working Memory

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Mindfulness training may help to boost standardized test scores and improve working memory, according to a new study in Psychological Science , a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Every year, millions of college and graduate-school applicants take standardized tests, such as the SAT and GRE.

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Pebble meditation is a playful and fun activity that parents and educators can do with their children to introduce them to meditation. It is designed to involve children in a hands-on and creative way that touches on their interconnection with nature.

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a handful of quiet: happiness in four pebbles

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mind & spirit / mindfulness & meditation

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family & relationships / parenting / general

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family & relationships/parenting - general

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juvenile nonfiction / activity books / general

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juvenile nonfiction / paranormal & supernatural

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books for kids 5-7; childrens books by age 5-8; books for 4 year olds; mindfulness for kids; books for 8 year old boys; books for 5 year olds; books for 7 year old girls; books for 6 year old boys; books for 7 year old boys; books for 5 year old boys; kids books ages 6-8; meditation for kids; activity books; gifts for 6 year old boys best sellers; mindfulness books for kids; mindfulness for teachers; buddha; buddhism for kids; fitness; books for 5 year old girls; conscious parenting; activity book

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gifts for 6 year old boys best sellers;mindfulness books for kids;meditation for kids;mindfulness for teachers;mindfulness for kids;buddha;buddhism for kids;fitness;books for 4 year olds;books for 5 year old boys;activity books;books for kids 5-7;books for 5 year olds;books for 7 year old boys;books for 8 year old boys;books for 5 year old girls;books for 7 year old girls;conscious parenting;activity book;books for 6 year old boys;childrens books by age 5-8;books for 6 year old girls

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mind & spirit / mindfulness & meditation

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family & relationships / parenting / general

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family & relationships/parenting - general

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juvenile nonfiction / activity books / general

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juvenile nonfiction / paranormal & supernatural

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A Handful of Quiet: Happiness in Four Pebbles

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A Handful of Quiet: Happiness in Four Pebbles [Nhat Hanh, Thich] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A Handful of Quiet: Happiness in Four Pebbles

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Through lovable characters and easy to follow rhymes, this beautifully illustrated picture book sends a subtle yet important message about appreciating our world.

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The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance

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The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance

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Shawn Achor

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TEDxBloomington - Shawn Achor - "The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance"

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Shawn Achor is the winner of over a dozen distinguished teaching awards at Harvard University, where he delivered lectures on positive psychology in the most popular class at Harvard.

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Martin Seligman

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The new era of positive psychology | Martin Seligman

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http://www.ted.com Martin Seligman talks about psychology -- as a field of study and as it works one-on-one with each patient and each practitioner. As it moves beyond a focus on disease, what can modern psychology help us to become?

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Andy Puddicombe

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All it takes is 10 mindful minutes | Andy Puddicombe

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When is the last time you did absolutely nothing for 10 whole minutes? Not texting, talking or even thinking? Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe describes the transformative power of doing just that: Refreshing your mind for 10 minutes a day, simply by being mindful and experiencing the present moment.

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The Power of Believing that you can Improve

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The Power of Believing that you can Improve

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Carol Dweck

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The power of believing that you can improve | Carol Dweck

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Carol Dweck researches "growth mindset" - the idea that we can grow our brain's capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that's slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it ...

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Sometimes children need a break from our noisy, over-stimulating world.Charlotte and the Quiet Place shows how a child learns and practices mindful breathing on her own and experiences the beauty of silence.

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Charlotte and the Quiet Place has 114 ratings and 30 reviews. C. said: "Charlotte And The Quiet Place" is about lacking peace in a city. I was incredulou...

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An award-winning, shareable, cozy hug of a picture book featuring Ishi, an optimistic little rock who reminds readers to choose and share happiness!

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Shows readers how to consistently choose the questions that can lead them to success, both personally and professionally. This technique, called ""QuestionsThinking,"" stimulates innovation, accelerate productivity, and create more rewarding relationships.

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Professor Todd Kashdan reveals how cultivating curiosity is the road to happy, healthy, and meaningful living and the true key to falling in love with life.

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A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being

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Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience *

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Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience *

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Teaches how by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness and greatly improve the quality of our lives.

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Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

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Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) [Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

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Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

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GRIT: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

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GRIT: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

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A book about what goes through your head when you fall down and how that not talent or luck makes all the difference .

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" Grit is a persuasive and fascinating response to the cult of IQ fundamentalism. Duckworth reminds us that it is character and perseverance that set the successful apart."-
Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers

"If you have recently bumped into that word, grit , Duckworth is the reason...In education and parenting circles, her research has provided a much needed antipode to hovering , by which children are systematically deprived of the opportunity to experience setbacks, much less overcome them...What sticks with you [in Grit ] are the testimonials, collected from sources as disparate as Will Smith, William James, and Jeff Bezos's mom, that relentlessly deflate the myth of the natural."-The Atlantic

" Grit is a useful guide for parents or teachers looking for confirmation that passion and persistence matter, and for inspiring models of how to cultivate these important qualities."-The Washington Post

"This book will change your life. Fascinating, rigorous, and practical, Grit is destined to be a classic in the literature of success."-
Dan Heath, co-author of Made to Stick , Switch , and Decisive

"I kept wanting to read this book aloud-to my child, my husband, to everyone I care about. There are no shortcuts to greatness, it's true. But there is a roadmap, and you are holding it."
- Amanda Ripley, author of The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way

"Readable, compelling and totally persuasive. The ideas in this book have the potential to transform education, management and the way its readers live. Angela Duckworth's Grit is a national treasure."-
Lawrence H. Summers, Former Secretary of the Treasury and President Emeritus at Harvard University

"Invaluable...In a world where access to knowledge is unprecedented, this book describes the key trait of those who will optimally take advantage of it. Grit will inspire everyone who reads it to stick to something hard that they have a passion for."Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy
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"A combination of rich science, compelling stories, crisp graceful prose, and appealingly personal examples...Without a doubt, this is the most transformative, eye-opening book I've read this year."
- Sonja Lyubomirsky, Professor, University of California, Riverside and author of The How of Happiness

"A thoughtful and engaging exploration of what predicts success. Grit takes on widespread misconceptions and predictors of what makes us strive harder and push further...Duckworth's own story, wound throughout her research, ends up demonstrating her theory best; passion and perseverance make up grit."Tory Burch, Chairman, CEO and Designer of Tory Burch
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"I love an idea that challenges our conventional wisdom and 'grit' does just that! Put aside what you think you know about getting ahead and outlasting your competition, even if they are more talented. Getting smarter won't help you-sticking with it, will!"
- Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last

"An important book...In these pages, the leading scholarly expert on the power of grit (what my mom called 'stick-to-it-iveness') carries her message to a wider audience, using apt anecdotes and aphorisms to illustrate how we can usefully apply her insights to our own lives and those of our kids."
-Robert D. Putnam, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard and author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids

" Grit delivers! Angela Duckworth shares the stories, the science, and the positivity behind sustained success...A must-read."-
Barbara Fredrickson, author of Positivity and Love 2.0 and President of the International Positive Psychology Association

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Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

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Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance [Duckworth, Angela] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

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Created by teachers for teachers, this is the ultimate guide for unleashing students’ potential through creative lessons, empowering messages and innovative teaching.

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The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work

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500 things to be happy about

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A powerful contribution to the field of positive psychology and a gift to people who have sought to take their happiness into their own hands.

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Live Happy: Ten Practices for Choosing Joy

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Live Happy: Ten Practices for Choosing Joy

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Live Happy brings together illuminating real-life happiness stories, eyeopening examinations on the science of happiness, and simple and inspiring everyday ''happy acts'' to empower readers to achieve big happiness breakthroughs.

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Rare in its scope and ambitious in its message, Love 2.0 will reinvent how you look at and experience our most powerful emotion.

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Love 2.0 has 714 ratings and 101 reviews. Morgan said: In a nutshell. This book is about a particular contemplative practice from the Buddhist tradition ...

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The mindfulness strategies in this book are inspired by mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), a clinically proven program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

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A cross-country quest to tackle the myths, misconceptions, and self-deceptions that stop people from meditating.

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Offers valuable information about how mindfulness can help teachers manage the stressful demands of the classroom, cultivate an exceptional learning environment, and revitalize teaching and learning.

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"Jennings provides a powerful and compelling case for teachers to practice mindful consciousness as it helps teachers analyze their thoughts and emotions before they become actions. The intricate definitions, impactful activities, and clear process for practicing mindfulness are both practical and accessible for any teacher. In fact, it is difficult to read her book without wanting to practice mindfulness."
- Teachers College Record

"For teachers and school personnel wishing to incorporate mindfulness into their lives, this book provides an invaluable resource. . . . Drawing upon her own wealth of experience as a mindfulness practitioner, teacher, and scientist, Jennings has accomplished her own stated intentions in this book by providing a timely and inspiring illustration of how mindfulness practice can be used to reduce teacher stress and suffering, and also how mindfulness has the potential to enhance and transform teacher's ability to educate today's youth."
- Mindfulness

"[Jennings'] careful research on how teachers can employ mindfulness in the classroom is vital to the field. This book . . . can help teachers continually find the spirit of joy and engagement that brought them to teaching in the first place."
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"Patricia Jennings has topflight expertise in mindful education, and shares it with other teachers in a reader-friendly, useful way. Mindfulness for Teachers offers a suite of practical tools for building a more positive, compassionate classroom―one where teachers do their best and students can shine. This book deserves your full, mindful focus."
- Daniel Goleman, PhD, author of Emotional Intelligence

" Mindfulness for Teachers draws on research, theory, and Patricia Jennings' extensive experience in education to present a very readable set of guidelines for creating a mindful and caring classroom. This impressive book should be required reading for teachers during their training. The ideas here will help any teacher develop a greater awareness and find greater joy and personal fulfillment in teaching."
- Mark T. Greenberg, PhD, Bennett Chair of Prevention Research, Pennsylvania State University

"This book is a wonderful resource for teachers. Patricia Jennings has a real understanding of the challenges teachers face. Utilizing her strong foundation in mindfulness practices, she provides effective exercises and a wealth of information to support educators both inside and outside the classroom."
- Sharon Salzberg, Co-Founder of the Insight Meditation Society and Author of Real Happiness

"This book provides strategies for all educators to use their emotional energy to their advantage. Bringing the myriad of ways that mindfulness is a timeless component of pedagogy to readers' attention, Jennings demonstrates how attuning to their own emotions will allow educators to fully engage as creative professionals with individual students. Mindfulness for Teachers emphasizes that to truly connect with the hearts and minds of our students, teachers must first sustain their own presence and wellness."
- Linda Rosenbury, Middle School Principal, New York City Public Schools

"Jennings blends years of personal practice with classroom experience and research to create a pertinent resource for any teacher wishing to begin or enrich a cultivation of mindfulness. An understanding of the human brain, and its' reactions to stress, are provided as a pathway to guide teachers to build a self-care practice that acts as a model for students and a foundation for classroom wellness. Through refined attention to and mindfulness of daily habits and actions, Jennings illustrates how repeated forms of inquiry can operate as pedagogical techniques for learning."
- Jennifer Dauphinais, Magnet Resource Teacher, Quinnipiac STEM Magnet School, New Haven, CT

"Essential information on a subtle topic, presented with clarity and simplicity, and beautifully written, Patricia Jennings 'gets it' about being a teacher. She has been there, and now she is back with a great story about the enormous value of mindfulness, and she has the evidence to back it up. Teachers, take one of your most valuable possessions―your time―to read this thoughtful and thorough book!"
- Robert L. Selman, PhD, Roy E. Larsen Professor of Human Development and Education and Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry, Harvard University

Mindfulness for Teachers is the result of my over 40 years of personal and professional experience as a teacher, teacher educator, and scientist. It is informed by my deep appreciation for, and commitment to, the teaching profession.

While our educational systems are facing huge problems, I remain optimistic. Challenging situations offer great opportunities for change. We may be poised to be part of a dramatic transformation in education. While there has been a growing recognition that our society needs greater mindfulness and heartfulness, science is showing us how the simple practice of attending to the present moment can change lives. This book applies this new knowledge to the art of teaching. As you read this book, you will learn ways to apply mindful awareness in your daily life to reduce stress and improve your teaching and your students' learning.

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mindfulness for teachers: simple skills for peace and productivity in the classroom (the norton series on the social neuroscience of education)

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education/teaching methods & materials - general

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education/teaching methods & materials - general

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Mindfulness for Teachers: Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom (The Norton Series on the Social Neuroscience of Education)

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Mindfulness for Teachers: Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom (The Norton Series on the Social Neuroscience of Education) [Jennings, Patricia A., Siegel M.D., Daniel J.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.

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Mindset: The New Psychology of Success  *

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Mindset: The New Psychology of Success  *

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Mindset reveals how great parents, teachers, managers, and athletes can put this idea to use to foster outstanding accomplishment.

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Positive Psychology in the Elementary School Classroom

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Positive Psychology in the Elementary School Classroom

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Presents the basics of positive psychology to educators and provides interactive resources to enrich teachers’ proficiency when using positive psychology in the classroom.

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Practical mindfulness techniques from a range of wise voices on everyday topics like difficult emotions and painful habit patterns.

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Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

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Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

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Angela Lee

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Grit: the power of passion and perseverance | Angela Lee Duckworth

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Brené Brown

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The power of vulnerability | Brené Brown

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by Amy Purdy

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David Steindl-Rast

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Want to be happy? Be grateful | David Steindl-Rast

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by Robert Emmons

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Robert Emmons explains how gratitude has the ability to heal, energize, and change our lives.

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Jon Kabat-Zinn

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ABC World News Tonight

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Panic Attack on Live Television | ABC World News Tonight | ABC News

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story | TED

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Goldie Hawn and Dan Siegel

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Goldie Hawn and Dan Siegel at TEDMED 2009

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Goldie Hawn, along with Dan Siegel, talks about the power of mindfulness to help children focus, battle stress and control negative emotions.

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Barbara Fredrickson

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Barbara Fredrickson: Positive Emotions Open Our Mind

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Sonja Lyubomirsky

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It was an honor to talk with Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside, Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The Myths of Happiness and The How of Happiness. She shares with us what happiness means to her, how her studies have changed lives, and what is next for her.

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The book thoughtfully portrays scenes in which children can imagine themselves and helps them to identify and explain their feelings.

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With light-footed rhymes and high-stepping illustrations, this tale is gentle inspiration for every child with dreams of greatness. (destiny)

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This heartwarming book encourages positive behavior by using the concept of an invisible bucket to show children how easy and rewarding it is to express kindness, appreciation and love by "filling buckets." (destiny)

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What would you do if the ant you were about to step on looked up and started talking? Would you stop and listen? What if your friends saw you hesitate? That’s what happens in this funny, thought-provoking book. (destiny)

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Meet Nancy Carlson’s peppy pig—a character who is full of good feelings about herself. Her story will leave little ones feeling good about themselves, too! (destiny)

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From the bestselling author Todd Parr comes a reassuring book about being who you are.

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Making a Splash: A Growth Mindset Children's Book *

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Making a Splash: A Growth Mindset Children's Book *

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This book advocates the growth mindset philosophy that says intelligence is malleable and can be developed through dedication and hard work, as opposed to the belief you’re born with a fixed amount of smarts.

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Master of Mindfulness is a unique and empowering book written for kids by kids, with cool illustrations and tips that show you how to be confident, get focused, stay calm, and tap into your own inner strength so that you can be your own superhero—no matter what life throws your way!

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A deck of 55 mindfulness games for kids that takes a playful approach to developing attention and focus, and identifying and regulating emotions

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With the delightful Monkey and his serene friend Happy Panda guiding readers to a calmer and more attentive mind, this whimsical yet warm presentation will delight all readers.

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This wonderful picture book for children and adults alike introduces the powerful practice of mindfulness in a fun and exciting way. With the delightful Monkey and his serene friend Happy Panda guiding readers to a calmer and more attentive mind, this whimsical yet warm presentation will delight ...

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This vibrant and funny children's book is a playful way to introduce children to the power of meditation.

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Shared via Kindle. Description: It all started one stupid, rotten day when everything went wrong... Peter the cow is having a BAD day. After missing the bus and wiping out on his bike he loses his temper and gets in trouble. To make matters worse all the ot...

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Using a spectrum of vibrant colors and a menagerie of animals, this unique book does for the range of human moods and emotions what Oh, the Places You’ll Go! does for the human life cycle. (destiny)

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Dr. Seuss's youngest concept book is now available in a sturdy board book for his youngest fans! All of the stunning illustrations and imaginative type designs of Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher are here, as are the intriguing die-cut squares in the cover. A brighter, more playful cover design make...