In this TEDx talk, Bridgeen Rea‑Kaya presents mindfulness as an accessible, everyday practice that can be performed anywhere, from a chair in a conference room to a traffic light. She guides the audience through a brief body‑and‑breath exercise, explaining how such simple attention to the breath activates the parasympathetic (rest‑and‑digest) nervous system, lowers heart rate and blood pressure, and releases positive hormones. Rea‑Kaya then cites neuroscientific research showing that regular mindfulness practice leads to neuroplastic changes: the stress‑related amygdala shrinks while the happiness‑related frontal lobe thickens. She references the work of researcher Shauna Shapiro, who identifies three core mechanisms of mindfulness—intention, attention, and attitude (kindness, compassion, non‑judgment). The speaker acknowledges common obstacles (busy minds, self‑criticism) and encourages cultivating a gentle, compassionate attitude toward one’s own wandering thoughts. Throughout, she offers concrete suggestions for integrating brief mindful moments into daily life—at work, in traffic, during sunsets, or with family—emphasizing that these micro‑practices accumulate to greater presence, well‑being, and even potential health benefits such as reduced anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and slowed aging. The talk concludes with a quotation from Thích Nhất Hạnh, reinforcing the message that mindfulness requires no special setting, only the willingness to stop, calm, rest, and heal.
Chapters
Stopping. Calming. Resting. Healing. This is what I teach people. This is the miracle of mindfulness. Now, sitting up straight in your chair, uncrossing your legs, Becoming aware of your feet on the floor, the soles of your feet in contact with the floor, your buttocks on the chair, the whole body sitting, the weight of your body going down, the height of your body rising up. Placing a hand on your abdomen and a hand on your chest and noticing the fact that you're breathing in and you're breathing out. You can even say to yourself, I am breathing in. I am breathing in. I am breathing out. In, out. In, out. This is mindfulness. We didn't have to go to a mountain in Tibet. We didn't have to shave our head or walk about barefoot. Mindfulness is something that's actually very accessible, it's very normal, and it's actually very simple. You might have had many moments of mindfulness in your life already. So what I do is I train people to build their mindfulness muscle. What we were actually doing there is we were Activating our parasympathetic nervous system, which is your rest and digest system, which is the opposite of the fight or flight. So the fight or flight system is what's happening when we're stressed. And so we're all so busy all the time. We're trying to get somewhere, we're trying to do something, we're trying to achieve. Even when we're sitting here, we're tweeting, we're being encouraged to tweet. We're trying to be somewhere else. We're not actually here now. in this moment. And what happens is, as we all know, as you all know, without me needing to tell you, we get caught up, we get stressed out, we're stuck in traffic, we're frustrated, we're in a meeting, we're standing on stage in front of 200 people. You know, these are the times when you can practice mindfulness. These are the times when you can bring your awareness and your attention to your breath, to the simple fact that you're breathing in and you're breathing out. As well as activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which I like to think is calling in the paramedics, because it comes in and helps you, it lowers your heart rate, your blood pressure, it activates all those nice, happy hormones that you need in your body, we're also changing our brain. So there's really good news if you've never done mindfulness before, and you're interested in trying it, it'll— there's something called neuroplasticity, and what they're able to show now is that when you practice this, when you start to do mindfulness and you do it for a while, the parts of the brain that are about stress, called the amygdala, at the back of the head there, they start to shrink. And the parts of the brain at the frontal lobe here, which are about happiness and contentment, they can increase. They get thicker. So it's actually something that's been studied, clinical trials, science. There's been many trials with people who are depressed, people who are anxious, chronic pain, even helping people who have cancer. In fact, it's been shown to help slow the aging process, which I think everybody is interested in. So There's lots and lots of science behind it. So once again, sitting straight in your chair, feeling the feet on the floor, noticing the inhale. Inhale. And exhale. Coming into this moment, here, now. Breathing in, breathing out. So I know for some of you it's hard to believe that something so simple can have such a profound effect, can have such enormous range of benefits. You might not have read all the scientific papers and things that I've looked at. You might not have had the experience of doing it yourself. So there's a woman called Shauna Shapiro. She's a researcher in Santa Clara University in California, and she was interested— she looked at what are the mechanisms of mindfulness, and she said there's 3 things. And the first thing is intention. So we need to have an intention to practice, an intention to be present, an intention to be in the room right now. So we set our intention. The second thing we do is we pay attention. So attention is Attention is very powerful, and mindfulness is kind of like a training in attention. So we train our attention to stay, to be here now, activating this power of now. You've all heard of the power of now. So we pay attention on purpose. And then the third aspect is attitude. And this is very powerful, and really makes all the difference. It's a certain type of attitude. It's one that's a little bit counterintuitive and countercultural, and it's an attitude of kindness, of compassion for ourselves, and non-judgment. So, while we have done that short little practice that I did with you there, you might have already had thoughts such as, oh, I can't do this. I'll never be able to do it. My mind's too busy. You might already be thinking about what you're having for dinner, or still about what somebody said earlier this morning. So it's very difficult. Once we start to practice, we realize how difficult it is to keep the mind present, to keep the mind here, focused on what we're doing right now. So we cultivate this certain attitude of kindness, of compassion. We start to understand that it's just the nature of the mind. It's not your mind, it's everybody's mind. All our minds are like this. All our minds are going from here to there and everywhere. So we need to start to change a little bit of how we are, become human beings and human doings. We're always running to get to the next thing. So it's about coming back, taking a little bit of time, a few moments. So when it comes to the 31st of December, 2014, And you look back over the year and you think, where did that year go? Time's speeding up, things just fly by. I can't even remember what I did in September. You can know that you were there, that you have kept your appointment with life, that you've actually been there in this moment. So right now, we've nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Just breathe in and breathe out. The breath is like the link between the body and the mind. So when we practice this conscious breathing, we notice what's happening in the body and what's happening in the mind, and we can experience this moment, and we know that right now we're all safe, We're all well enough to be here. So even if you don't want to start a mindfulness practice and start taking 10 minutes a day to sit quietly or stopping and breathing at the traffic lights instead of getting frustrated by them, you can practice this little thing that a lot of the neurosciences are now saying can also change your mind, can incline your mind towards happiness. The way our minds are at the minute, they're like Velcro for Negativity, and they're like Teflon for positivity, and we want to increase the positivity. We don't want to dwell on the negative things and the complaining and things like that. So what happens when we come out of work, we might have had a stressful day, but there's a beautiful sunset. So instead of just walking on to the car, we can stop, we can look at the sunset, and we can breathe. Just 3 breaths. And take that in and feel that moment. When you go home, when you're with your family and your children, and you're having a pleasant evening, you can actually notice this is a happy moment, and you can breathe, and you can feel it, and you can take like a mental Polaroid, a snapshot. And if you start to do that on a regular basis, you're starting to show up for your life. For the people in your life. You're starting to be mindful of what's happening, where you're going, and what you're doing. So for the last time, noticing the feet on the floor, the body sitting, The body breathing. You don't have to try too hard. The body is being breathed. Breathing in here. Breathing out now. Here. Now. Here. Now. Here. Now. Here. Now. And in the words of my teacher, Thích Nhất Hạnh, there is no need to run, strive, search, or struggle. Just be. Stopping. Calming. Resting. Healing. This is the miracle of mindfulness.
