Informed by the latest research and combining cutting-edge insights from psychology, economics, neuroscience, and medicine, The Willpower Instinct explains exactly what willpower is, how it works, and why it matters. The book’s official release date is December 29th. The book will be available in hardcover and Kindle editions. Click here to pre-order the book.

Your job isn’t to berate yourself for this, but to simply acknowledge the wandering and come back to the meditation. If you find it difficult to resist criticizing yourself, consider this: If you weren’t mindful, you wouldn’t even know you’d wandered off. What’s important is that you came back to the present moment. Working with the wandering mind offers three benefits: You’re training the brain: Every time you bring the mind back from wandering, you’re building the muscle of concentration....

Jack Kornfield, Ron Siegel, Tara Brach, Michael Yapko, Richard Schwartz, Mark Epstein, and Sharon Salzberg will lead you through an exploration of the strengths and limitations of two of the world’s most influential wisdom traditions, offering practical insights for your therapeutic practice and personal life. Click here to register. Do so by midnight, Friday, December 30th for early-bird savings.

“I wish every pregnant woman had the opportunity to take this class,” Tower Ewers says. “Whether you’re at home or in the hospital, having a caesarian or are doing natural childbirth, it’s enabling to know how to be present and be okay with whatever your circumstance is.” Our minds usually dwell in the past and the future. In the birthing room, this can mean that a woman gets wrapped up in fear of the next round of contractions instead of resting or gathering her energy between them....

CIHM is partnering with the Madison Metropolitan School District to bring the practice of mindfulness into classrooms to help students improve their academic performance, nurture their emotional well-being, and bolster their behavior. Read the press release. Learn more about the pilot study with fifth grade students and teachers. You might also want to check out the August issue of Mindful magazine. We talk to CIHM’s chair, renowned neuroscientist Richie Davidson, about how his research on how we can change our brains for the better has such huge—and promising—implications....

The truth is that happiness is a big part of health. The pleasure we get from food goes a long way toward helping us celebrate, remember, and even soothe ourselves. Emotional eating is so often maligned, but it is actually an evolution-based process that serves up a bounty of neurochemicals designed to help us feel good. In a world where many of us have access to an abundance of food, mindful eating can help us maintain a balance between momentary pleasure and genuine nourishment of body and mind....

“Being in nature, walking, cycling, and running.”“Simply listening, to engage in my world and to be fully present in my own life.”“Drinking tea with a loved one.”“Meditating and practicing qigong.”“Daily writing. Sharing my voice connects with my inner wisdom in a way that surprises me.”“Going back to bed in the middle of the day if I need it.” What is the biggest personal benefit of having purpose in your life?...

My clients (some kids and some adults contemplating their upbringing) very much wish more people who were charged with their care had learned how to see and reach “behind” their behavior. While they may have indeed misbehaved, and while they may acknowledge the need for consequences for these actions, they just want people to understand what was really driving things—an unseen inner landscape of turmoil and stress. Consider this anecdote from my co-author who bravely shares his experience as a young student....

By practicing loving-kindness meditation, you can learn to see the lives of others as related to your own. This doesn’t mean you must like everybody, or agree with everything they do. It means you can open up to the possibility of caring for others not just because you like them, admire them, or are indebted to them, but because your lives are inextricably linked. A Loving-Kindness Practice to Connect with Others Use this practice to recover your innermost knowledge of that linkage, dissolve barriers you have been upholding, and genuinely awaken to how connected we all are....

Previous research has shown 50 percent of those who have had the disease suffer from depression. Professor of nursing Jane Armer said: “Post diagnosis, breast cancer patients often feel like they have no control over their lives. “Knowing that they can control something—such as meditation—and that it will improve their health, gives them hope that life will be normal again,” she added. For more information, click here. For a personal glimpse into dealing with cancer, read this collection of stories on Mindful....

Travel Presence: Whether you are doing a “staycation” this year in your backyard or going on a trip to a distant place, you can turn your journey into a pilgrimage with a just few simple practices. Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat tell you how. Focus on Cycling: Alburquerque Bicycle Transportation Examiner Karolyn Hudson has been following a sports psychology program, with Dr. Dana Blackmer, to improve her cycling. In this third lesson, mindfulness becomes a part of the assignment....

Whether you’re experiencing feelings of shame right now or have buried shame that you’ve been avoiding, are you willing to get to know it a bit better? Remember, thoughts and feelings are larger and scarier when they’re left unexplored and kept in the shadows. A Guided Meditation to Let Go of Shame title: “Tame Feelings Of Shame With This 10 Minute Practice” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-03” author: “Ramona Kondo” Whether you’re experiencing feelings of shame right now or have buried shame that you’ve been avoiding, are you willing to get to know it a bit better?...

Take time to slow down and wholeheartedly savor with these three practices: First, allow yourself to fully experience the present moment. When we let go of the “stressing-out” aspect of figuring out travel schedules, worrying about making holiday dinners, or accomplishing anything else in particular, we can glimpse the ease of being (rather than doing) that’s available to us all. Listen to this 7-minute guided meditation on shifting from doing toward being....

Over the years that I’ve been running Samovar Tea Lounge in San Francisco, I’ve found that life doesn’t actually get better when we’re distracted—surfing online, updating our status, checking the news, generally immersed in our devices. Life gets better when we’re connecting with real people in real time. Not to mention that the less time we spend on our devices, the more time we have to actually do something. Write something....

The Breathscape Practice for Cultivating Mindfulness more from jon kabat-zinn Mindful Staff February 11, 2021 Jon Kabat-Zinn March 7, 2019 Jon Kabat-Zinn March 20, 2019

(…) A broad approach to ADHD starts with a proactive plan to address the most obvious ADHD symptoms, and then continues much further. It helps children build self-esteem and healthy relationships with parents and peers. It helps you manage your own stress because under stress, none of us acts at our best. It helps you examine your actions and cultivate skills that lead you and your children to be adaptable and resilient....

To help you deepen your practice (or get started), we’ve rounded up 10 guided meditations that have resonated most with you, our readers, over the past year. The Top 10 Guided Meditations of 2021 1) A 10-Minute Gratitude Practice to Notice, Shift, and Rewire Your Brain When things don’t go according to plan, it’s easy to spot all the ways things have gone wrong. This gratitude practice from Nate Klemp is designed to change that....