Overthinking ushers in a host of adverse consequences:
It sustains or worsens sadness, fosters negatively biased thinking, impairs a person’s ability to solve problems, saps motivation, and interferes with concentration and initiative. Moreover, although people have a strong sense that they are gaining insight into themselves and their problems during their ruminations, this is rarely the case. What they do gain is a distorted, pessimistic perspective on their lives.
When you are visited by your personal demons – your fears, anxieties, doubts and wounds – can you sit down and have tea with them?
Can you turn your attention toward the demons and explore what you can learn about yourself?
For many reasons, we often can’t. But the intention to investigate that which is between you and feeling free can sometimes result in new possibilities where none previously existed.
The acronym RAIN can be helpful.
R = Recognize or Realize what is happening
A = Accept or Allow your experience to be what it is
I = Investigate or be Intimate with what is here
N = When we can do the above, you may begin to experience a degree of
Non-attachment, Non-judging and Natural awareness
As I mentioned, sometimes we can’t shift unpleasant sensations, emotions or mental conditions easily or quickly. Over time, with patience, consistency and presence, we begin to feel more confidence that we can be with whatever arises.
Study after study has shown that people who function well under stress share several core beliefs:
see times of change and uncertainty not as dangerous but as exciting opportunities;
focus on what they can do to improve a stressful situation, rather than growing helpless; and
maintain a sense of commitment to the world around them, instead of withdrawing.
…
Studies of everyone from classical musicians to competitive swimmers have found no difference at all between elites and novices in the intensity of their pre-performance anxiety; the poised, top-flight performers, however, were far more likely to describe their fear as an aid to success than the non-elites. No matter what skill we’re trying to improve under pressure—working on deadline, public speaking, staying cool on a first date—learning to work with fear instead of against it is a transformative shift.
There is a rapidly accumulating body of evidence which suggests that prolonged sitting is very bad for our health, even for lean and otherwise physically active individuals.
The good news? Animal research suggests that simply walking at a leisurely pace may be enough to rapidly undo the metabolic damage associated with prolonged sitting, a finding which is supported by epidemiological work in humans. So, while there are a lot of questions that remain unanswered (e.g. Is there a “safe” amount of daily sedentary time?), the evidence seems clear that we should strive to limit the amount of time we spend sitting. And when we do have to sit for extended periods of time (which, let’s face it, is pretty much every single day for many of us) we should take short breaks whenever possible.
Finally, if you take only one thing from this post, let it be this—sitting too much is not the same as exercising too little.
Consciously increasing tension in a muscle can help people carry out unpleasant tasks and avoid unhealthful foods.
Firming one’s muscles [e.g., clench fist, contract calves, tense bicep] can help firm willpower and firmed willpower mediates people’s ability to withstand immediate pain, overcome tempting food, consume unpleasant medicines, and attend to immediately disturbing but essential information, provided doing so is seen as providing long term benefits.
Brain regions associated with attention, interoception and sensory processing were thicker in meditation participants than matched controls, including the prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula, areas shown to be involved in the integration of emotion and cognition. Meditators may be able to use this self-awareness to more successfully navigate through potentially stressful encounters that arise throughout the day.
Between-group differences in prefrontal cortical thickness were most pronounced in older participants, suggesting that meditation might offset age-related cortical thinning. Finally, the thickness of two regions correlated with meditation experience. Connections between sensory cortices and emotion cortices play a crucial role in processing of emotionally salient material and adaptive decision making.
The main focus of Insight meditation is the cultivation of attention and a mental capacity termed ‘mindfulness’, which is a specific nonjudgemental awareness of present-moment stimuli without cognitive elaboration. This form of meditation does not utilize mantra or chanting. Participants were not monks, but rather typical Western meditation practitioners who … meditated an average of once a day for 40 minutes, while pursuing traditional careers in fields such as healthcare and law [some were meditation or yoga teachers].
Compiling research from psychologists and economists (including colleague Richard Thaler), Professor Hsee provides tips on how to make the people around you—employees, significant others, friends, relatives—happy.
Separate gains.
Combine losses.
Announce good news early.
Announce bad news late.
Unpredictable gains are better than stable gains.
Stable losses are better than unpredictable losses.
Choice is bad for good options,
good for bad options.
Wanted is better than needed.
Memorable is better than usable.
Novelist Amy Bloom surveys the literature on happiness for the New York Times and distills these five essentials. I have recently rediscovered the importance of number 2.
The Fundamentally Sound, Sure-Fire
Top Five Components of
Happiness:
Be in possession of the basics — food, shelter, good health, safety.
Get enough sleep.
Have relationships that matter to you.
Take compassionate care of others and of yourself.
Have work or an interest that engages you.
I don’t see how even the most high-minded, cynical or curmudgeonly person could argue with that.
Americans today have plenty of time for leisure, says Professor John Robinson. Robinson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland and Director of the Americans’ Use of Time Project.
What [Robinson] does not dispute is that people think they have no time. “It’s very popular, the feeling that there are too many things going on, that people can’t get in control of their lives,” he says. “But when we look at people’s diaries, there just doesn’t seem to be the evidence to back it up. It’s a paradox. When you tell people they have (more…)
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Brain regions associated with attention, interoception and sensory processing were thicker in meditation participants than matched controls, including the prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula, areas shown to be involved in the integration of emotion and cognition. Meditators may be able to use this self-awareness to more successfully navigate through potentially stressful encounters that arise throughout the day.
Novelist Amy Bloom surveys the literature on happiness for the
Americans today have plenty of time for leisure, says 
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