How to be more mindful

In his 2005 commencement speech, “This is Water,” David Foster Wallace explains that us humans are “hard wired” to be self-centered stuck in this “default setting” falling victim to being unaware of our day to day surroundings. But Wallace’s message, that we have the power to choose how we think, offers a way out. We can choose to be mindful, to step off the autopilot, and really notice what's happening around us. But of course just reading this speech won't drastically change your life, transforming you into some perfectly calm and wildly cognizant Buddhist monk. Luckily though, there are many protocols you can implement in your daily life to gain a better quality of mind, become more mindful, and appreciate the present moment. Today we’ll explore one of them: meditation.

I know when you hear the word “meditation” you probably get the picture of that Buddhist Monk and it sounds so boring. But in reality meditation only takes out 5-10 minutes out of your day and has been proved to provide a near endless list of benefits. Scientifically, meditation has proven to increase creativity, decrease aggression, increase compassion, reduce anxiety etc. etc. Meditation also gives us a means to slow things down to unwind our minds and release pent up stress, and provides a way to learn the skill of mindfulness.

There are many ways to begin your journey with meditation, but the two that I would recommend are Headspace’s meditation series on Netflix and Sam Harris' waking up app. Both of these are great ways to start since they provide guided practices to help you understand how to effectively use mediation. Headspace’s meditation series has only 8 episodes each focusing on a different meditation technique that helps with specific situations such as dealing with stress, pain, or anger. Sam Harris' waking up app (Harris is a well known American philosopher and neuroscientist) has new guided practices every day with a heavy focus on training the skill of mindfulness.