Click the infographic to enlarge it or click here. Above excerpt from Uncovering Happiness by Elisha Goldstein. So you’re waiting in the hallway with your mind spinning about how it’s been a pretty crappy day and life just doesn’t seem to be moving in the direction you’d like it to. Your friend walks by you and although you raise your hand to wave hi, she looks at you and just walks by....

Part of the challenge is that the brain is built to scan for danger. It’s the oncoming bus or runaway bear – a necessary survival skill, which we carry with us into everything we do. “We’re in vigilance mode all the time,” says Jeff Bostic, M.D., psychiatrist at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital. It’s a hard thing to shut off. This week the French Open begins. The best players in the world will make inconceivable winners and also dump easy put-aways into the net....

This is what it sounds like when our worrying mind takes over. For many of us, these thoughts can fill up the unconscious background of daily life. They’re a lot like a soundtrack, an unnoticed but powerful emotional backdrop proclaiming what could go wrong, how things might not work out, and of all the horrible things that could happen. From an evolutionary perspective, this ordinary worrying habit of the mind makes complete sense....

But what is it, exactly, that makes MBCT so powerful? In this video from Big Think, psychologist and author Daniel Goleman breaks down the science behind combining mindfulness with psychotherapy to treat depression. Cognitive therapy is considered a gold standard treatment for depression—it teaches patients how to notice when they are mired negative self-talk and redirect that thinking. When combined with mindfulness, individuals can work on noticing negative thought loops—not attempting to fix the content of the thoughts, but redirecting from them....

I’m particularly interested in this concept because I just completed a long treatment process for breast cancer involving two surgeries, six rounds of chemo, 33 doses of radiation, and a targeted-therapy infusion drug I received every three weeks for a year. Having completed this process, I’m naturally curious about how to own my newly acquired “breast cancer survivor” identity while promoting a sense of well-being in my body. The assertion I often hear is that we create our own reality, and by harnessing powers hidden deep within the mind, we are capable of altering destiny....

What is meditation? “Most people assume that meditation is all about stopping thoughts, getting rid of emotions, somehow controlling the mind,” says meditation expert Andy Puddicombe at the 2012 TedSalon. “It’s more about stepping back, seeing the thought clearly—witnessing it coming and going—without judgment, but with a relaxed, focused mind.” Getting Started There are many forms of meditation, but it’s best to begin with the basics. Here’s a seated meditation practice:...

I haven’t run into a single person that doesn’t want to be happy and successful at work and life. However, in today’s accelerating business world we’re exposed to a 24X7 round-the-clock atmosphere and faced with an increasing amount of information to digest, with demands to deliver more with less. People are constantly being told they don’t manage their time well and it’s no wonder why more and more people every day are left feeling exhausted, unfocused, unproductive, unhealthy, and burnt out....

A study from the Yale Stress Center, published in the journal of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, demonstrates how people with chronic stress take longer to recuperate from a high-impact exercise session. First, researchers tested the stress levels of 31 undergraduates with a psychological assessment. Then, participants performed a heavy workout, including leg weights. An hour after the workout, students with the lowest stress regained 60 per cent of their leg strength....

According to research, yes. Imagine this: you walk into the laboratory, and are a shown a series of 20-second video clips. In each clip, a different person is shown listening to another person. You can’t hear what the speaker is saying; there is no sound to the clip. But you’re told that the speaker is talking about a time when they suffered. The researchers ask you to rate how compassionate the listener is, just by what you can see: his or her body language and facial expressions....

“The people who trigger us to feel negative emotion are messengers. They are messengers for the unhealed parts of our being” —Teal Swan. This message is worth being curious about. What if we could change our perception to seeing difficult people as messengers or teachers who arouse something inside of us that needs to be cared for or loved? If we do this, might we become less reactive toward ourselves and other people?...

In a recent talk on Mindful on Wall Street, Matt Harris, cofounder of the multi-billion dollar investment fund Global Infrastructure Partners, captured this sentiment when he said that from an early age, he felt that his “worth as a human being was very much predicated on how successful I was.” This is a message many of the leaders I work with received early on, and the pain and underlying fear of not being good enough can become powerful driving forces for throwing ourselves into constant work....

It starts with debunking the myth that emotions don’t belong in the workplace. Unfortunately that mindset is still far too prevalent. If we’ve learned anything from last year, it’s that this is a time when we’re most in need of our humanity. And one of the traits that most defines us as human is that we feel and have emotions. As the U.S.C. neuroscientist Antonio Damasio has said, humans aren’t thinking machines, “but rather feeling machines that think....

Perhaps one key to Vivekananda’s popularity was that he at once fulfilled and debunked Indian stereotypes, enabling Americans to romanticize him and his country without abandoning too many of their own values. For his lectures, the young swami decked himself out in scarlet or orange robes and a yellow turban. Yet he spoke fluent, articulate English, ate meat and ice cream, and used snuff, which he hawked copiously on the floor....

1. Recognize the warning signs that you’re getting ticked off Do you notice rising irritation, a sense of frustration, increase in your breathing rate, or a quickening pulse? Take a moment to get things in perspective and explore your feelings. Breathe mindfully for a few breaths as you notice your body sensations change. Listen for your thoughts without adding to the inner dialogue, or trying to silence them. What are your thoughts saying?...

Britt Wray • Alfred A. Knopf Canada Feel it all. Connect inward to transform oneself. Connect outward to transform the world. These are Britt Wray’s reminders (and the aptly titled sections of her book) as we “shore ourselves up against what’s to come” in facing the climate crisis. At a glance, these calls to action may make mitigating eco-anxiety and effecting change seem like individual pursuits, akin to recycling our way out of planetary disaster....

Mindfulness teachers like Selassie remind us that the lighthouse in this storm of disruption is found in our innate connection to the earth. At any time, we can turn toward these challenging thoughts and emotions and choose to respond with kindness—kindness that extends to yourself, to other people, to the global home we share. You might start with these ways you can ease the ache by practicing kindness to yourself, and kindness to the earth....

1) Drama You might be attracted to it or you might create it—either way its purpose is to distract from and avoid unpleasant issues. As a way of dealing with fear or uncertainty (or putting off dealing with it), it’s common for people to invent “stories” to fill in missing details. For example, people create their own theories about why changes are happening in business strategy or personnel. The next time a little melodrama comes your way, try to see the story and return to the facts....

McGonigal’s thesis is simple—as humans, we are hardwired for movement. She builds her case through a wide-ranging survey of scientific studies, interviews with movers of all kinds, and her own personal experiences as a group-fitness leader and enthusiast. She starts with the “runner’s high,” which lights up the same reward center in the brain as cocaine and other addictive drugs do. But since addictive drugs don’t seem to serve any evolutionary purpose, McGonigal digs into studies that reveal the runner’s high may be connected not only to our hunting-and-gathering past, but also to the kind of cooperation that saw us sharing the spoils of our endeavors, and thus surviving together....

To set some intention, I wrote down a list of seven mindfulness-related questions that seem live and unresolved. Many of them are concerned with the continuing rapid expansion of interest in mindfulness, and the possible opportunities and challenges this presents. I plan to touch on each of them more fully in the coming weeks and months. The list isn’t meant as definitive or exhaustive, and there may not (yet) be clear answers to any of the questions....