The Belief Road Map by Matt Gersper

Author:Matt Gersper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Matt Gersper
Published: 2016-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

I also use a practice of daily meditation to rest my brain. Thousands of years of tradition, along with four decades of brain research, have proven that the brain is transformed by meditation2. These are the ways I make meditation a daily practice for me:

1. Meditate first thing in the morning.

To reinforce this behavior, I prepare my coffee machine the night before and do my 15 minutes of meditation while my coffee is brewing each morning.

2. Use helpful resources.

I personally like to use Headspace, a digital health platform that provides guided meditation training for its users. During the 10-day free trial, the founder of the company, Andy Puddicombe, teaches the basics of meditation.

Puddicombe is a former Buddhist monk and meditation expert. I like the way he teaches and guides me through each session. Through using Headspace, I learned the importance of self-awareness as a foundation to meditation. At the beginning of a new meditation session, Puddicombe instructs me to scan my body (sensation) and mind (emotion) to see how I feel at the moment, and then to consider why I decided to sit and meditate (intention).

Practicing this “sensation, emotion, and intention” technique has helped bring self-awareness to any task I am involved in, at any time during the day.

3. Measure for consistency.

When I measure something, I focus my attention on it. Headspace supports this best practice by automatically tracking the number of days I have meditated since beginning the program. It also keeps track of “run streaks” which are the number of days I have meditated in a row.

4. Embrace the power of community.

Turning a new behavior into a habit is easier when you share the experience with others. Headspace makes it easy to add a buddy to your meditation group and shows you how many people are meditating throughout the Headspace community.

5. Relax and let go.

I can become embarrassed when I think about how others might judge my meditation practice. I overcome this obstacle by focusing on how important meditation is to me. I just let go of any feelings of embarrassment and sit anyways. Another obstacle I often face is the frustration I feel about my wandering mind. I overcome this challenge by acknowledging that meditating each day is way more important than doing it the “right” way. When my mind wanders I just relax into the feeling and bring my attention back to the moment – without judging the session or myself.

6. If meditation is a priority, then I must meditate.

I heard somewhere that it takes 21 days to form a habit. I do not know if that is fact or myth, but the more I do something, the easier it gets. At some point, it becomes a part of my normal routine. The more I meditate, the more natural it becomes.

I exercise my brain by working out and reading.

It turns out that my practice of lifelong exercise is good for my brain. Scientists now know that exercise promotes the process of neurogenesis, which is your brain’s ability to adapt and grow new brain cells, regardless of your age3.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.