For some people happiness comes easier than others, but what we’re starting to understand is that happiness—that sense of connection and ease of appreciating the good moments and being more graceful and resilient during the difficult ones—is a skill and strength that we can all build. Note: Set all judgments aside when you read this, practice these techniques for yourself, and let experience be your teacher. Practice happiness for other people’s happiness – When you see others doing good things for themselves such as exercising, laughing with a group of friends, or experiencing an accomplishment, practice being supportive of them in your mind....

Every memory you consolidated last night while you slept, each micro-movement used to brush your teeth this morning, every smoothie you tasted, step you took, daydream you pondered, daydream you snapped out of, work you intently focused upon, yawn you took, anxiety you felt, drop in blood sugar you experienced, was a manifestation of lots of talking. A plethora of dialogue went on inside of you today, and you need to know it....

To comprehend love, I think of an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg, the part that sticks up out of the water—this is the part we allow other people to see. For some of us, or in some situations, that visible part is very small. We’re closed off. When we share ourselves more, and when another person holds that space for us, it feels amazing. It feels so good that we want to share even more....

Cooper also interviewed Congressman Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) for the 60 Minutes segment. Ryan is the author of A Mindful Nation and is considered Washington’s mindfulness guy. In Mindful‘s June 2013 issue, Ryan talks about how it’s time for Americans to find quiet—for their own well-being and for the good of the country. During the segment, Cooper speaks with Jon Kabat-Zinn, the pioneer of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on why he thinks mindfulness is the answer for people “who are so overwhelmed by life, they feel they aren’t really living at all....

The Green Path In her book, Mindfully Green, Stephanie Kaza argues that environmentalism must be about more than the personal actions we take or the public policies we support. To be truly transformative, it must change the way we see ourselves, our world, and the relationship between the two. Do We Really Need Nature? Too little green in your life? You’re not alone. But can science prove that you’re hardwired to crave nature?...

That’s what Marian Matthews says about her students at Baker Butler Elementary school in Albemarle, Virginia, where she teaches Mindfulness and Movement: a class in meditation, mindful yoga, and breathing practices initiated by the University of Virginia’s Contemplative Sciences Center. Marian visits Baker Butler classes once a week for 30 minutes to teach students of different grades how to integrate mindfulness into their daily lives. As I watched, a fifth-grade class began with a deep breathing exercise designed to allow students to focus on their thoughts....

Mindfulness actually uses meditation to examine the phenomena of experience (e.g. body, thoughts, emotions and feeling tone -the pleasant, unpleasant or neutral charge of an experience) rather than debating issues related to the “self”, authentic or otherwise. Mindfulness teaches us how too much “selfing” leads to fixed identities, that result in suffering if we hold on to them vigorously. It is easy for us to take our “selves” too seriously, getting stuck in self-importance that either emphasizes how bad we think we are or how great....

Across all of my work and home forays into the intricacies of parenting, one truth shines through: the emotional pains of modern parenting are universal. ALL parents come up against significant surges of strong negative feelings and, unfortunately, many get mired in needless suffering as a result of what’s happening internally—how they’re reacting to these painful emotions. This truth has led me to the following conclusion: Parents need a new way to relate to the inevitable suffering and universal emotional pain of parenthood....

Having it all remain in your head, though, lacks a feeling of good old gravity. That approach can make it seem like floating—as though we don’t have to walk. We can just waft. But meditation begins and ends in the body. It involves taking the time to pay attention to where we are and what’s going on, and that starts with being aware of our body. That very act can be calming, since our body has internal rhythms that help it relax if we give it a chance....

Truth Busyness = cognitive overload An overloaded brain hinders performance. It impairs our ability to think creatively, plan, organize, innovate, solve problems, make decisions, resist temptations, learn new things easily, speak fluently, remember important social information (like the name of our boss’s daughter, or our daughter’s boss), and control our emotions. Turnaround Single-task Brains are not computers. They’re not designed to run on multiple tracks simultaneously. Switching back and forth makes us tired, less efficient, and error-prone....

Looking for a meditation instruction video that is both informative and adorable? Well look no further, because Dan Harris and Happify have teamed up to bring you the cutest meditation instruction video ever. This 2 minute animation gives you the basics of meditation and mindfulness. Dan Harris narrates and emphasizes the fact that as soon as you sit down to meditate, your brain is going to go nuts! And that’s okay!...

In 2010, 239 Aetna employees volunteered to participate in a mind-body stress reduction program including mindfulness meditation and yoga. The 12-week mindfulness meditation-based online program was developed and offered by eMindful. Participants interacted using video, audio and instant messaging chat or in-person instruction. Among other things, participants learned stress reduction techniques, more effective management of workload and better ways to prioritize tasks to increase efficiency and effectiveness. “Helping people take control of their health is a critical step in achieving better health and reducing the cost of health care,” said Aetna CEO and president Mark Bertolini in the press release....

Or something like this has happened to you: It’s 8 a.m. and you’re in the office. On your desk is a clear list of the four important priorities of the day. Your phone rings, you answer it, and, before you know it, it’s 5 p.m. and time to go home. Your list is still there, untouched and unfulfilled. Both cases are examples of action addiction, a deep-rooted human condition caused by imbalances in the chemicals of our brain....

And thanks to a craft chocolate boom, the world’s favorite confection now enjoys a foodie reputation rivaling coffee and wine—with prices to match. In some groceries and specialty shops, it’s not unusual to find small-batch, single-source chocolate bars costing up to $15. Yet despite its sunny, universal appeal, creating chocolate remains an intensive process with a far-reaching impact. The chocolate trade is rife with human and environmental abuses, making enjoyment of this delicious treat far more complicated for the mindful consumer....

Listen to Episode 4: The System Was Built This Way, But We Can Rebuild It Guided Meditations to Pair with this Episode of Burnout 1) A 20-Minute Meditation for Exploring Interconnectedness 2) Investigating Our Experience in Community 3) A Practice to Reflect on the Wounds of Racism 4) R.E.S.T.—A Guided Practice for the Tired and Weary read more Mindful Staff May 10, 2022 Mindful Staff May 17, 2022 Mindful Staff May 24, 2022

The purpose of the study is “to better understand how people experience everyday desires, how they enjoy their desires, and how they deal with these desires when they threaten to conflict with goals and plans” with a focus on how mindfulness may positively influence experiences of desires or cravings and their control in everyday life. The “Tracking Desires Study” is in its sampling phase, meaning the team is looking for participants....

Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Prenatal Instruction In a pilot study, researchers at the University of Illinois tested whether a mindfulness-based childbirth preparation program would ease new parent distress better than typical prenatal instruction. They randomly assigned 30 expectant mothers in their third trimester to either two-and-a-half days of a mindfulness program or standard childbirth education. The mindfulness group was taught strategies for coping with labor pain and fear, and for parenting an infant, and were given audio of guided mindfulness practices for optional use....

This “what is beautiful is good” stereotype manifests in a slew of real-life situations and is by no means a one-study wonder: it has been documented in piles of research. Taken as a whole, the studies show that this is one of the more robust cognitive biases operating in the human mind. It may also be one of the oldest. The Greek poet Sappho is credited with first asserting, 2,600 years ago, that “what is beautiful is good,” while in 1882 the German romantic poet Friedrich Schiller wrote that “physical beauty is the sign of an interior beauty, a spiritual and moral beauty....