Get Some Headspace: 10 minutes can make all the difference (22 page)

Researchers investigating the effectiveness of mindfulness found that after just ficve days of meditating for a very short time, participants showed increased blood flow to the area of the brain that helps to control emotions and behaviour. After eleven hours of meditation had been completed, actual physical changes in this part of the brain had occurred. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, in preliminary studies mindfulness has been shown to be effective in the treatment of drug addiction, smoking and eating disorders. In one such study, binge eating decreased by over 50% in just forty-two days.

Neuroscientists at the University of Pennsylvania investigated whether mindfulness could help offset the loss of mental performance of Marines in stressful situations. In the words of the lead researcher, ‘Building mind-fitness with mindfulness training can help anyone who must maintain peak performance in the face of extremely stressful circumstances, from first responders, relief workers and trauma surgeons, to professional and Olympic athletes.’

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School developed an effective approach to sleep which incorporated meditation as an integral component. The study found that 58% of diagnosed insomniacs reported significant improvements and 91% of those using medication either reduced their dose or stopped taking it completely. In a separate, but related study at Stanford Medical Centre, neuroscientists discovered that, after just six weeks of mindfulness, participants were able to fall asleep in half the time than usual – averaging twenty minutes instead of forty minutes.

In several mindfulness-based studies, researchers have found that practitioners showed significant improvements in their cognitive skills after only four days of training. They performed particularly well on physical and mental tasks requiring sustained attention – and also in stressful tasks performed under time constraints. I’ll leave it up to the experts of just one of those studies to give you their verdict: ‘The meditation group did especially better on all the cognitive tests that were timed . . . In tasks where participants had to process information under time constraints causing stress, the group that briefly trained in mindfulness performed significantly better.’

Researchers at Emory University in the US set about comparing the brains and cognitive skills of meditators to a similar group of non-meditators. In the control group they found that the older participants had lower accuracy and speed of response, as you might expect. However, this age-related decline was not found in the meditators. Using sophisticated brain-mapping techniques they discovered that the reduction in grey matter that typically comes with aging had actually been offset by the meditation.

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: meditation only works if you do it! It’s only when you sit down and do it on a regular basis that you’ll see any benefit. So while the practice of mindfulness can be applied any time, any place, anywhere, there’s no substitute for a daily meditation session. Those ten minutes will give you the very best opportunity and conditions to become familiar with what it means to be aware. It’s also likely to provide you with a sense of stillness which is very difficult to replicate in everyday life when you first begin. So, whether you think of it as an isolated exercise to get some headspace, the foundations for practising mindfulness throughout the day, or simply as a new hobby, the importance of sitting down to do it daily cannot be overstated.

It doesn’t matter whether your mind is currently busy or quiet, happy or sad, stressed or relaxed. All of these mind states are appropriate starting points for meditation. What matters is whether you are able to rest in awareness of that mind state, with a sense of ease. And this is something that can only be done through consistent, regular practice. And it is this experience that has the potential to fundamentally transform your perspective of life.

Remember, we’re only talking about ten minutes of your day. There are truly very few people in the world who don’t have ten minutes to spare in the day. This is not work, some additional chore (although, strangely, people often perceive it that way), these ten minutes are your time to relax. They are probably the only ten minutes in your entire day when you have absolutely nothing to do at all except be aware. How could that be considered a chore? We’re so used to doing
something
that we find the idea of doing
nothing
somewhat alien or boring at first. You don’t need to think of meditation as ‘working on yourself’, it’s simply ten minutes out of your day to allow the body and mind to unwind, while becoming more familiar with the idea of being present, of being aware.

Before we come to the practicalities of your practice, there are a couple of points that can’t be avoided. I said at the beginning that this book wasn’t about telling you how to live your life, and this remains the case. How you choose to live your life is up to you. It may be that as a result of practising meditation you decide to make a few positive changes in your life, and that’s your choice. But meditation and mindfulness are not something separate from the rest of life. The mind goes with us wherever we go. Even if you run away to a mountaintop in the Himalayas, your mind will still be there with you (I can vouch for it). So if our meditation reflects our everyday state of mind, then how we live our life is going to have a significant impact on our meditation.

With that in mind, it makes sense to increase those aspects of life that promote wellbeing, and decrease those aspects that might cause guilt, fear, regret, anger and the like.

The comparison of training at the gym is a useful one. You may be diligently going every day and feeling pretty good about it, then a trainer suggests that you could see even more benefits if you eased up on the family-sized portions of deep fried chicken for lunch every day. And so it is with meditation. I know from my own experience that how I choose to live is reflected in my practice. If I treat someone badly, then when I sit down to do my meditation my mind will experience an unusually high volume of challenging thoughts. Likewise, if I go out and get hammered after work, there’s a good chance that the same session will descend into a drunken sleep. Neither approach provides conducive conditions for being aware, to experience more calm or more clarity.

And there’s little point in training your mind if you neglect the wellbeing of your body. Most people respond very well to some kind of physical activity or exercise each day (even those who are not terribly enthusiastic about the idea). In fact many people say that their ability to apply just the right amount of effort to their meditation is even enhanced in some way when they do some exercise first. It doesn’t have to be yoga, but it’s fine if it is. It can be anything, but preferably something you enjoy. Similarly, ask yourself how certain foods make you feel. Do you find that some help you to feel vital and alive, whereas others leave you feeling agitated or sleepy? Investigate these areas, take the time to notice what aspects of your life seem to improve the quality of headspace, and which aspects detract from it.

Here are just a few of the practicalities that will help you to establish a fruitful and regular meditation practice. You’ll find lots more useful advice on our website at
www.getsomeheadspace.com

Few of us have the luxury of our own meditation room, but fortunately you can learn to meditate just about anywhere. There are a few useful things to bear in mind when you start. Find a place where you can sit, undisturbed, for ten minutes. This is easier said than done in some family homes, so it’s important you communicate this requirement with your family. If there’s nobody else around to look after young children, then you may need to wait for them to go to sleep before you begin, or practise before they wake in the morning. When you’re starting out it’s important to have that space, those brief ten minutes, to yourself if you can. People often worry about the amount of external noise, but as I mentioned earlier, this need not be a concern and can be incorporated into the exercise. That said, if you have the choice between a noisy environment and a quiet environment, opt for the latter.

You may like to use the same space each day. There’s something useful in doing this in terms of reaffirming the new habit. There’s also something comforting about returning to that same place each day. You may find it more relaxing if the space is relatively tidy too. Think back to the last time you walked into a very messy room, or a very tidy room. How did they make you feel? Did the tidy room bring about a sense of calm? For many people it will do, so if that’s the case for you then you might like to keep that room, or at least that area of the room, clear and tidy.

Finally, while you can position yourself anywhere you like in the room, you might find it more comfortable to have some space around you. When you are wedged into a corner, or stuck between two pieces of furniture, it can sometimes feel a little cramped, which is not so good for the mind. Meditation can be done anywhere. In fact, I know several people who have resorted to doing it while sitting on the toilet (with the lid down) as this is the only space they can find where they’ll be undisturbed.

It doesn’t really matter what you wear to meditate, so long as you’re comfortable. That’s just one of the many things that makes meditation so flexible. You can do it on the way to work in a suit, at home in your jogging suit, or even in your pyjamas. However, there are a couple of tips for clothing that you might find useful. Probably the most important is having enough room to breathe. It’s no good sitting to relax if your jeans are so tight that the stomach can’t move, so make sure to loosen any belts or even to undo a button or two if necessary. It’s also helpful to have your feet placed firmly on the ground, so make sure you take off any heels if you’re wearing any. You don’t need to do it barefoot (although that’s fine if you want to), but you’ll probably feel more grounded if the feet are flat on the floor and it will make the first part of the exercise easier to do too. Finally, if you’re wearing a tie or a scarf then you might like to loosen it. Feeling any sense of restriction can be off-putting as you sit there, so make sure you do everything you need to do to make yourself comfortable.

First and foremost, it’s what you do with your mind rather than what you do with your body that is most important. The body plays a part too, but as I’ve said, there’s nothing special about being able to sit in a perfect lotus position on the floor if your mind is all over the place. If you are considering taking up meditation as a full-time career, then there are some benefits in learning to sit in the traditional way. But for the purposes of a daily practice, it’s perfectly acceptable to use a chair. Having trained in one particular monastery, where all our meditation was done sitting on chairs, I can assure you that meditation works every bit as well in this way. The important thing is to be comfortable, relaxed and at ease, but with a feeling of being focused and alert at the same time.

Take a moment to think how the body reflects the mind. If we’re very tired, or feel a bit lazy, then we tend to lie down. If we’re energetic or speedy, we might need to keep active. If we feel angry our bodies generally get tighter. On the other hand, if we feel very relaxed, the body tends to feel a bit looser. This feedback loop is worth remembering when you sit to meditate each day. You are looking to take up a position on the chair that is stable, confident and alert, and yet at the same time that is relaxed and at ease. By adopting a physical posture that reflects the qualities of mind you’d like to develop, it will make it that much easier to do so.

Any chair can be used for this purpose, but you might find it easier to use an upright kitchen or dining room-style chair. Armchairs and sofas, and most definitely beds, are all a little too soft and spongy for this purpose. They might give you the feeling of relaxation, but are unlikely to give you the feeling of being alert. So a chair that encourages just a little bit of effort to maintain your posture might be best. There are a few general suggestions for sitting: