Meditation: 10 Tips on How to Do It and 5 Reasons Why You Should!

Hey guys, what's up? This is Bry. We've got another video. This one's on meditation, how to do it and why you should. We're going to take a quick look at meditation and I'm going to give you some reasons why I think it's pretty awesome. And then I'm going to give you 10 of my top tips on how to develop a great meditation practice and achieve these benefits. So meditation is one of the things that Alexander and I talk about quite a bit and we're asked quite often again how to build a practice and why we should do it. And I'm excited to tap into some wisdom from a number of different notes. We've got everything from wherever you go. There youe Are by Jon Kabat Zinn. Conquest of Mind by Eknath Escwaron. Great book, great guy. Why meditate? Matthew Ricard. Buddha's brain. How God changes your brain. The Relaxation Revolution. Amazing stuff on how meditation changes our genetic expression. And then the Happiness Hypothesis. We'll go ahead and start there. Happiness Hypothesis. Jonathan Haidt. He's a research psychologist and teacher professor at the University of Virginia. One of the world's leading thinkers in the positive psychology movement. He wrote a great book called the Happiness Hypothesis. And this is what he tells us. This is a conservative guy. I don't think he has a woo woo bone in his body. And he says, suppose you read about a pill that you could take once a day to reduce anxiety and increase your contentment. Would you take it? Suppose further that the pill has a great variety of side effects, all of them good. Increased self esteem, empathy and trust. It even improves your memory. Suppose finally that the pill is all natural and costs nothing. Now would you take it? The pill exists. It's called meditation. It's pretty amazing stuff. Again, conservative guy, research scientist. The science tells us that meditation is extraordinarily powerful. It decreases anxiety, decreases pain, decreases depression, decreases anger, decreases the Ixos. And what does it do? It increases attention, it increases our immune system functioning and it increases our overall well being. Smiley face. That's a good thing. So here are five specific reasons in addition to those I just gave you, why I think meditation rocks. Number one. And the number one reason why I meditate is, is that it strengthens our mind. So we know through recent research that our brains are plastic. There's something called neuroplasticity, which my hunch is you're familiar with that at this point. And it basically means that we can reshape our brains. Every thought we have is Literally shaping our brains. It's an amazing thing to consider. Every single thought we have is basically just rewiring our brain just subtly in one direction or the other. And when we meditate or what we're doing is we're essentially training our attention. It's kind of like strength training for your brain. And as you know, as you've listened to some of these videos and a lot of my other work, the number one thing we need to do if we want to optimize our lives is to get more control over the contents of our consciousness, as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi puts it. In other words, we want to develop a better sense of and a better ability to put our attention where we want, when we want. The ancient thinkers called this samadhi training, where we're developing one pointedness again, the ability to put our mind where we want, when we want. Nothing is more important than that. And meditation is the primary way we can build that power, or certainly one of the primary ways. And as we discussed in the note from actually earlier today or the big idea video from earlier today, meditation is also the biggest way to build willpower. So if you want to build your willpower, you start by strengthening your mind through meditation. And what happens is when we actually meditate, what's happening is we're building the blood flow to our prefrontal cortex. It's kind of like when you go to the gym and you work out, you get more blood into your muscles. Well, same thing with meditation. When you meditate, you bring more blood into your prefrontal cortex, which is what's in charge of you and your self control. So again, meditation is huge. Strengthen your mind, build your willpower. You also optimize your immune system in profound ways. We know by eliciting the relaxation response and getting out of the fight or flight response, we literally change our DNA's expression, we boost our immune system and we change our DNA. We have over 50,000 different genes, right? And research has showed that if you meditate and you practice other mind body techniques, you can actually change for the better. 1500 plus different genes will be expressed turned on more positively when you do things like meditate. That's pretty cool. I like that idea. And then finally and not least, is that the fact that we're connecting to something bigger than ourselves when we meditate. And it kind of goes in this order for me, a lot of people get all excited about connecting to something bigger. But you know what, you need to kind of go through stages. In my Mind, you need to be able to elicit the relaxation response. You need to have enough willpower so you can actually sit down and strengthen your mind. When you do that and you slow down long enough and you can get to that state of calm, then you're connecting to something bigger than you. But you do it not just in your meditation, but throughout your day to day life. Really important point that we're going to talk about in the how. So those are some quick things we want to think about on the why front. It's a matter magic pill, meditation. Let's take it and experience these benefits. Now. That's the why. Hopefully I convinced you to at least consider it more strongly. Now let's look at the how. I'm going to give you 10 quick tips on how to rock your meditation. The number one tip is to pick a reason why you want to meditate. You got to start with a strong why. Anytime you want to do anything in your life, I suggest the ultimate reason. And this is from Jon Kabat Zinn's Wherever you go, there you are. You want to transform yourself so you can transform the world. And meditation we know is one of the most powerful ways to do that. By building all this goodness. That's number one. Pick a reason why. Without a strong enough why, the rest of this stuff won't really be that compelling. Number two, once you've got that why, commit, Make a commitment and make that commitment 100%. I talk about the fact that 99% is really hard. It's a bitch. As Jack Canfield says, 100% is easy. When you make 100% commitment, you're not negotiating with yourself all the time. You make the commitment and you do it. It's non negotiable. And a lot of these teachers talk about the fact that it's hard work, but. But once you make the commitment and you don't feel like doing it, it doesn't matter. What does feeling like it have to do with it? Nothing. When you have 100% commitment and you're truly, truly committed, it doesn't matter what you feel like, you do it anyway. We're going to come back to that theme again and again and again. And then another idea here is from Eknath Eswaron, a great guy who actually walked with Gandhi, extraordinary meditation teacher. And he says, don't be a hero in the beginning. Don't be a hero in the beginning. Where you come in, you got trumpets and fanfare to kick it off, but then you kind of sneak out the back door once it gets a little bit difficult. He says, don't be a hero in the beginning. Commit and then keep going even when it doesn't feel like fun anymore. That's the key to developing any habit. You've got to be committed enough and then move through the times when you inevitably want to give up. Don't do that. Be a hero throughout. So that's kind of the high level thinking, right? Get a why commit, make it 100% and don't be a hero in the beginning. Now let's look at some practical tips. How do I sit? Is a question a lot of people ask. Well, there's a lot of different ways you can sit, but keep this in mind. Sit with dignity. If you were going to sit with dignity, how would you sit? You wouldn't slump over and be lazy, but you also wouldn't be ramrod stiff. You'd be dignified. It's an amazing word, dignity. Think about that the next time you sit down to meditate. You'll have a totally different posture. Even right now, sit in a dignified posture as you listen to this video and your energy shifts. So sit with dignity. That's rule number one. As you kind of get going in the actual practical, the next thing is to pick an anchor. An anchor is what you basically use to point your attention at. So you can pick an anchor, any number of different things. Any. And you want to bring your mind back to this anchor whenever it wanders. And it will wander, which we'll talk about in a second. Now you can focus on your breath, you can focus on a mantra. You can focus on a prayer. You can count backwards, almost like a shot clock in basketball. 24, 23, 22. You can count backwards what you want to do. Whatever you do, you just want to pick an anchor. Then you want to focus on it. You don't need to be sitting there thinking. You want to observe your thoughts while you attend to this anchor point. I personally love to follow my breath. I also use a mantra quite often. A mantra is literally a mind tool. Mantra means a tool of the mind. Really, really cool stuff. Now you can play with different things. A prayer, if you're religious, that's an amazing thing to do. Say whatever. Prayer inspires you as many times as you want. Super, super powerful stuff. So, so pick an anchor and go into more detail on this. And I'll probably go into more detail on meditation in the future. But for now I just want to zip through it and give you some ideas. Now the next idea you're sitting with Dignity. You've picked an anchor when your mind wanders, which it will simply say, oh well. Oh well, passively. Don't get upset with yourself. Your mind will wander, period. No matter how long you do this, your mind will wander. You'll create longer gaps between thoughts, right? But you're going to have thoughts and when you just get going, it's going to be quick, no problem. Bring it back to your anchor. Just say, oh well, bring your attention back, bring your attention back. Bring your attention back. And it's kind of like lifting a weight. The strength training we talked about, it's kind of like lifting a weight. Each time you bring your attention back to your anchor is huge. And you're building muscle in your mind that you'll be able to use in the rest of your life. When someone cuts you off in traffic, oh well, bring your attention back to your breath. Bring your attention out of the habitual response into something more powerful. Really, really cool. Patiently bring yourself back. Don't get stressed. People have this naive idea that you're going to get rid of your thoughts. You're not. You're just going to be able to create a better ability to maintain your focus and bring it back when it slips. Huge distinction number eight. Remember, it's not about how you feel during meditation, but who you are in your life outside of meditation. A lot of people get all geeked up about feeling some transcendent state during meditation. They want to levitate or something. It's not what it's all about. Make it simple. Show up consistently whether you feel like it or not, and just let yourself become a better human being gradually, little by little by little. But don't look for the state experience and give up if you're not feeling something all crazy awesome during your meditation. It's about who you are outside of your meditation, not what you experience during your meditation per se. That's a big idea. Another tip is just do it. If you're going to brush your teeth, you don't go to your dentist and say, how do I brush my teeth? Am I doing it okay? Like, I'm just not sure. Same thing with meditation. Just do it. Just sit down, get your dignified position, find an anchor, breathe, be patient, bring your attention back and just do it consistently. You're not judging your tooth brushing experience every morning and night, I hope. Don't judge your meditation experience. Just brush your brain. That's a great idea from Herbert Benson, who wrote the book the Relaxation Response. I love that idea. And then the final idea here on how to rock your meditation is to realize that all life is meditation, all life is yoga. As Aurobindo said, every moment gives us an opportunity to practice meditation. It's that arete concept we talk about a lot. Make your life your practice. That's ultimately what it's all about and how we want to approach life if we want to optimize our life. So there you go. That's a really quick look at some of the thoughts I have on why I think you should meditate and how to go about doing it. Quick recap. We've got a magic pill that decreases anxiety, pain, depression, anger, exhaust and increases attention. Immune system, well being, and it's all free. The pill exists. It's called meditation. We know that meditation strengthens our mind, it builds our willpower, optimizes our immune system, it changes our DNA. And it has the opportunity to connect us to something bigger than ourselves. It's pretty awesome. 10 quick tips. Pick a reason why. Transform yourself to transform your world. Be a better human being in your family and your communities in the world. 2. Commit. Make it 100% commitment. 99% is hard. 100% is paradoxically easy. What does feeling like it have to do with it? Nothing. Just do it. Don't be a hero in the beginning. Stay with it. Sit with dignity. Pick an anchor, whether it's your breath, mantra, prayer, counting backwards, whatever. Say a well, when your mind slips and bring your attention back. Bring your attention back. It's not about how you feel during meditation, but who you are in your life outside of meditation. Just brush your brain. It's just like brushing your teeth. Don't make it a big deal. And then all life is meditation. Really, really cool stuff. There was something else I wanted to say. Where did my notes go on that? Oh, there it is. So one thing we're going to do when we do this too is we're going to develop the observer and the kind of witness perspective. We're going to be able to watch our thoughts and it's kind of like a waterfall. A waterfall is kind of like our thoughts just pounding over our heads. Well, meditation allows us to get outside of that and to see the cascading thoughts that usually just bombard us. When we practice this in meditation during our lives, we can see when we're getting caught up in a stream of thoughts. That's ultimately what's so awesome about meditation. We develop this capacity to step out of our habitual response, step in between stimulus and response, and choose our most powerful and empowered response to any given situation. This is becoming rather long, so I'm going to stop now. Hope you enjoyed it. Let me know if you have any more questions. If anything else you want me to go into more detail on. And as always, let me know what you think. And hope I inspired you to get your meditation on. Have an awesome day. Look forward to sharing more with you soon. See ya.