Get Some Headspace: 10 minutes can make all the difference (3 page)

It may seem implausible that meditation could have such a broad range of benefits. But if you think about it, whatever you do that involves the mind is going to benefit from meditation. It’s like fine-tuning the hard drive of a computer. And is there anything you do that
doesn’t
involve the use of your mind? Given what a central role the mind plays in our lives, it’s remarkable that this meditation revolution hasn’t happened sooner. We don’t think twice about exercising our bodies (well, most of the time anyway) and yet the wellbeing of the mind tends to take a back seat. Whether that’s because nobody else can see it or because we think it’s a lost cause is neither here nor there. The fact is, our entire existence is experienced through the mind. We depend on it for our sense of happiness and fulfilment in life and for positive relationships with others. So taking a few minutes out each day to train and maintain it is simply good common sense.

As well as being a skill, meditation is also an experience. This means you need to
do
it in order to fully appreciate its value. Meditation is not just another fluffy concept, or philosophical idea; rather, it’s a direct experience of the present moment. In the same way that it’s up to you to define the
purpose
of meditation, it’s also up to you to define the
experience
of meditation. Imagine a friend describing an amazing meal they’d eaten at a restaurant. Now imagine going there and eating it yourself. Hearing about the food and tasting the food are two completely different things, right? Or imagine reading a book about skydiving. No matter how much you reflect on the author’s words and visualise yourself jumping from 10,000 feet, the experience will never come close to actually launching yourself out of a plane and hurtling towards the ground at 120 mph. So in order to
get
meditation, you need to
do
it.

I’m sure you know what it’s like to buy a new book, become inspired, commit to changing your life and then, within a few days, be back in the same old habits wondering where it all went wrong. In the same way that sitting at home reading a diet book while eating chunky chocolate fudge ice-cream is never going to make you any thinner, simply
thinking
about what’s written in this book is not going to give you any more headspace. Well, OK, it might give you a
little
more headspace, but the point is you need to actually
do
the exercises to experience the real benefit. And preferably not just once or twice either. Like going to the gym, it only works if you actually go and do the exercise on a regular basis. In fact, the real change will happen in those moments when you put the book down and practise the techniques. The change is subtle, intangible yet profound. It involves a growing sense of awareness and understanding that can’t help but change the way you feel about both yourself and others.

But to really make the most of this book it’s worth considering the possibility that not everything you’ve heard or read about meditation is necessarily true. In fact, some of the myths are spectacular. Unfortunately, many of the more popular misconceptions about meditation simply reinforce the same old patterns of thinking that most people would like to change. We’re often rather attached to these ideas, and like old friends they feel familiar and comfortable to be around. But for genuine change to take place a certain amount of openness is required, a willingness to investigate. So this book isn’t written to give you a definitive answer, to tell you what to believe and how to think. Nor is it written to solve all your problems and give you everlasting happiness. But it
is
a book that has the potential to fundamentally transform your experience of life if you put it to the test.

Meditation isn’t about becoming a different person, a new person, or even a better person. It’s about training in awareness and understanding how and why you think and feel the way you do, and getting a healthy sense of perspective in the process. It just so happens that when you do that, any changes you want to make in your life become that much more feasible. More than that, it shows you how to be OK with the way you are right now and how you feel. But put it to the test. Don’t simply believe it works because that’s what the scientists say. As valuable and fascinating as that research is, it will mean nothing if you don’t directly experience the benefits yourself. So use the instructions, refer back to them, give it time, be patient, and see what 10 minutes a day can do for you.

Although this book contains everything you need to know to get started with meditation, you’ll find the Headspace website at
www.getsomeheadspace.com
to be an invaluable tool and companion. To download your audio-guided meditations and animations visit
www.getsomeheadspace.com/headspace-book/get-some-headspace

Many find it easier to learn how to meditate when they are guided through the exercise by a teacher’s voice. Make sure you visit
www.getsomeheadspace.com/headspace-book/get-some-headspace
to access the content for all the meditation and mindfulness techniques presented in this book. These downloads will give you the flexibility to meditate wherever you are. You’ll be prompted to enter a simple password. Please remember not to listen to the audio downloads whilst driving.

Throughout this book you’ll find specific exercises designed to get you started and keep you going with your meditation practice. It may be a short two-minute exercise, introducing a particular aspect of meditation, or the full ten-minute version, known as Take10 in The Practice section. Or it might be a mindfulness exercise, designed to bring awareness to everyday activities such as eating, walking and exercise. There’s even an exercise to help you get a good night’s rest. But remember, it’s when you put the book down and close your eyes to meditate that you’ll feel the real benefit of these techniques.

Meditation instructions always used to be given in the form of a story and this is a tradition I’ve continued in writing this book. Stories make difficult concepts easy to grasp, and forgettable instructions easy to remember. Many of the stories presented here involve my own misunderstandings and struggles with meditation along the way. Sure, it would be easy to write about the times when I felt relaxed, calm and even blissful during meditation, and also about the radical, positive change that meditation has made to my life. But the real value is in looking back at the mistakes that I’ve made and sharing those with you, because that’s where the learning took place and it’s from those very same experiences that I can help you to get some headspace.

In recent years the advancement of MRI technology, together with sophisticated brain-mapping software, has meant that neuroscientists are now able to observe the brain in a whole new way. This means that they’ve been able to discover exactly what happens to the brain when we’re learning to meditate, and also some of the effects of long-term practice. At first it was assumed that it was simply the
activity
of the brain that changed during meditation, but multiple studies have shown that the structure of the brain itself can change, in a process known as neuroplasticity. So, in the same way that training the body can make a particular muscle thicker and stronger, so training the mind with meditation can make the area of the brain associated with happiness and wellbeing thicker and stronger.

For many people this new research can be motivating, inspiring and help to build confidence – especially in the early days of learning meditation. It’s for this reason that I’ve included a handful of these research findings at the end of The Approach, The Practice and The Integration. They relate specifically to the information in those chapters, but have a much broader relevance too. But if you’d like to find out more about the research into meditation and mindfulness, then why not visit our dedicated research section of the website at:
www.getsomeheadspace.com/Clinical-Research

In addition to the stories described above, you’ll also find a chapter entitled Tales from the Clinic, which brings together a number of case studies from over the years. Some of these people have been referred to me by their doctor or GP for specific symptoms, but many more have come simply because they’re looking for more headspace in their life. Written with the kind permission of each individual, these case studies demonstrate the simplicity, power and potential of a daily meditation practice.

Although meditation is all about letting go, keeping a diary when you’re starting out can really make a difference. You can use the diary section provided at the back of this book to help keep track of your progress and visit our book page on the Headspace Facebook site to share your experiences,
www.facebook.com/HeadspaceOfficial

•

Let’s be honest, it’s hard to hear the word ‘meditation’ without thinking of a yogi in a loincloth on a mountain-top somewhere in the Himalayas. That, or a shaven-headed monk or nun sitting in a monastery, chanting, chiming bells and blowing horns, while cloaked in thick clouds of incense and orange robes (been there, done that). Or perhaps stoned-out hippies in tie-dye T-shirts spring to mind, or groups of New Age enthusiasts running around in the woods taking it in turns to hug a tree or two. There’s no escaping it, the word ‘meditation’ comes with baggage.

When a few progressive Western doctors tried to introduce meditation into mainstream healthcare more than thirty years ago, they were pretty much laughed out of the hospital they worked in. Not to be deterred, they changed the name to ‘mindfulness’ and continued with their research. Now although mindfulness, in the form it has come to the West, has its origins in the Buddhist meditation tradition, there is nothing inherently ‘Buddhist’ about it. Mindfulness is the key ingredient of most meditation techniques and goes far beyond the formal aspect of sitting down with your eyes closed. Mindfulness means to be present, in the moment, undistracted. It implies resting the mind in its natural state of awareness, which is free of any bias or judgment. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? This is in contrast to how most of us live our lives, which is to be constantly caught up with all the little (and big) thoughts and feelings, and to be critical and judgmental of ourselves and others.

It’s usually when we’re caught up in all the little things that we start to make mistakes. At least that’s the way it’s always been for me. And those mistakes can affect our performance at work, our relationships with others, even the bottom line in our bank account. Whenever I think about a lack of mindfulness I’m reminded of a time when I was living in Moscow. The school where I worked used to pay me in US dollars and as the salary was quite good I was able to save up a bit of money each month. It was just after the financial crisis of the late 1990s, and so nobody trusted the banks. People either hid their money under their mattress, or tried to find a way to squirrel it out of the country. I’d been saving up for a meditation retreat, so on my next flight back to the UK I decided to take what money I had with me.

The government had introduced strict rules about taking money out of the country – the main rule being that you
couldn’t
take any. So I’d resorted to tucking $500 down the front of my underwear. Standing there in my monk’s robes with a wad of cash shoved down my pants, I couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty, no matter how good my intention was to spend it on a retreat. In fact, I got so caught up in all the little thoughts of anxiety, of rehearsing my Russian for the customs officials, that when I went to the toilet I completely forgot I’d put the money down there.

As it happens, the restroom was busy and so, with no urinals free, I went into one of the cubicles. I won’t go into detail, but these toilets had seen better days and whoever had used it beforehand had forgotten to flush. I was still lost in thought and worry as I stood there and lifted up my robes. And then it happened. Before I could do anything, I watched in horror as $500 in loose notes fell into the pan. Needless to say, had I been more mindful and less caught up in all the thoughts, it would simply never have happened. I got distracted, and when you get distracted, you make mistakes. You may be wondering what happened next – did I really leave $500 floating in the toilet, or did I roll up my sleeves and do the unthinkable? Let’s just say I ended up going on that retreat.

So mindfulness means to be present. It means being ‘in the moment’, experiencing life directly as it unfolds, rather than being distracted, caught up and lost in thought. It’s not a contrived or temporary state of mind that you need to somehow create and maintain. On the contrary, it’s a way of stepping back and resting the mind in its natural state, free from the usual chaos. Take a moment to imagine what it might be like to live life this way. Imagine how it would be to drop all the baggage, the stories, the arguments, the judgments and agendas that take up so much space in the mind. This is what it means to be mindful.

But after a lifetime of being lost in thought, the right kind of conditions are needed in order to learn how to step back in this way. That’s where meditation comes in. There’s nothing mystical about it. Meditation is simply a technique to provide you with the optimum conditions for practising the skill of mindfulness.

Of course you can experience being ‘in the moment’ or fully absorbed in the present with any activity, not just with the practice of meditation. In fact, you’ll have no doubt experienced this feeling many times in your life before. Perhaps you were skiing down a mountain, riding a bike, listening to your favourite bit of music, playing with your child, or even watching a sunset. The problem with this approach is it tends to be a bit hit and miss and so we don’t get to experience the feeling all that often. But by sitting down to meditate each day, even if it’s for a very short time, that feeling of being present, aware, and in the moment, becomes increasingly familiar and is then that much easier to apply to the rest of your life. As with learning any new skill, if you want to get the very best out of it, you need to provide yourself with the very best conditions in which to learn. In fact the practice of meditation provides
such
good conditions for learning mindfulness that for many that’s as far as they want to take it. Simply having ten minutes of resting the mind each day can feel enough.