Happiness – Page 2

Mindfulness — the goal of meditation — means being fully aware and present in the moment you live in. To achieve it, practitioners recommend paying close attention to your thoughts and feelings, observing your breath, and focusing.

Essentially, mindfulness is “this little kindling of interest in the most mundane fact of your existence,” Clifford Saron, a research scientist at the Center for Mind and Brain, tellsInverse.

Anyone can achieve it. But some people learn how to be mindful by regularly practicing specific techniques, including meditation, yoga, and breathing exercises.

The evidence is mounting that meditation is beneficial for both the mind and the body. Studies show that mindfulness may curb anxiety and depression, and may even improve your heart health. Other research shows mindfulness may treat alcohol addition, or increase resiliency in the face of stress. Other studies show that even just a brief introduction to mindfulness meditation may lessen pain and negative emotions.

Most recently, a pair of research papers to be published in March 2020 suggest that mindfulness may benefit you at work, too, by boosting attention and resilience in high-tension professional settings.

Mindfulness may go even further — a 2012 brain scan study found eight weeks of meditation quite literally changed participants’ brain structure.

But, while the science behind meditation and mindfulness grows, experts in the field believe the lay market in mindfulness may have gotten a little ahead of itself.

“This is a fraught area with inconclusive and highly variable results in which the press about the effects of meditation is way ahead of the actual data and the methodological issues involved,” Saron says.

Smiling Mind— A go-to for younger users interested in meditation.

Founded in 2012, this Australian app has quickly become a go-to for youth mindfulness meditation.

The app provides users with a survey to assess their base levels of happiness, contentedness, and alertness. It is customizable, meaning it can be tailored to enable younger users — especially those in school — to meet specific goals they have for their mental health and well-being.

Smiling Mind made it into the top picks because of its sports meditation programs: The app includes 6 modules with 12 sessions (made in partnership with Cricket Australia) designed to help users in their athletic performance.

There are longer sessions ideal for training and off-season periods, and shorter booster-style sessions that may help users get ready on the day for the big game.

January 1, 2020March 1, 2020

Wear sunscreen

The Video

The Lyrics

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97

Wear sunscreen

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it

A long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists

Whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable

Than my own meandering experience, I will dispense this advice now

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, oh, never mind

You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth

Until they’ve faded, but trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back

At photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now

How much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked

You are not as fat as you imagine

Don’t worry about the future

Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing Bubble gum

The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind

The kind that blindsides you at 4 p.m. On some idle Tuesday

Do one thing every day that scares you

Saying, don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts

Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours

Floss

Don’t waste your time on jealousy

Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind

The race is long and in the end, it’s only with yourself

Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults, if you succeed in doing this, tell me how

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements

Stretch

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life.

The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives

Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t

Get plenty of calcium

Be kind to your knees

You’ll miss them when they’re gone

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t

Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t

Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the ‘Funky Chicken’

On your 75th wedding anniversary

Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much

Or berate yourself either

Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can

Don’t be afraid of it or what other people think of it

It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your own living room

Read the directions even if you don’t follow them

Do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly

Brother and sister together we’ll make it through

Some day a spirit will take you and guide you there

I know you’ve been hurting but I’ve been waiting to be there for you

And I’ll be there just helping you out whenever I can

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good

Be nice to your siblings, they’re your best link to your past

And the people most likely to stick with you in the future

Understand that friends come and go

But a precious few, who should hold on

Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle

For as the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young

Live in New York City once but leave before it makes you hard

Live in northern California once but leave before it makes you soft

Travel

Accept certain inalienable truths

Prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too, will get old

And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young

Prices were reasonable, politicians were noble

And children respected their elders

Respect your elders

Don’t expect anyone else to support you

Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse

But you never know when either one might run out

Never mess too much with your hair

Or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85

Be careful whose advice you buy but be patient with those who supply it

Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past

From the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts

And recycling it for more than it’s worth

But trust me on the sunscreen

Brother and sister together we’ll make it through

Some day a spirit will take you and guide you there

I know you’ve been hurting but I’ve been waiting to be there for you

And I’ll be there just helping you out whenever I can

Everybody see it oh yeah yeah

Everybody see it oh yeah

He want you to feel good!

December 20, 2019December 27, 2019

TED talks about you in the future

A new decade in the making

Soon, we enter a new phase…

It is a great time to reflect on your goals for the next year, and perhaps for the next ten.

Below are five great TED Talks, that can help prepare you to be the person you want to be this coming decade:

What Makes A Good Life? Lessons From The Longest Study On Happiness by Robert Waldinger

Inside The Mind Of A Master Procrastinator by Tim Urban

How Craving Attention Makes You Less Creative by Joseph Gordon-Levitt

How To Build Your Confidence—And Spark It In Others by Brittany Packnett

Your Elusive Creative Genius by Elizabeth Gilbert

March 31, 2019March 30, 2019

Ill wind

My music for this week

Maybe we should do the opposite in our life and risk a little of more harm in the pursuit of more happiness and joy…

Ill Wind

Radiohead

Keep your distance
Then no harm will come

No ill wind
Will blow
Will blow

Sudden words
Must never be spoken

All ill wind
Will blow
Will blow

Keep your cool
Do not give into emotion

An ill wind
Will blow
Will blow