Presented by Parneet Pal
Tags: brain, meditation, mindfulness, practice

Mindfulness
- To keep something in mind
- Breath – quality of breathing
- Body – check-ins
- Thoughts – attention to thinking
- Emotions – attention to feelings/emotions
- Observe self (body, feelings, etc.) in moments
- Enhances our capacities to manage stress, triggers and to empathize with others
- 25 years of research in this area
Brain Networks Strengthened through Mindfulness
- Attention
- Tied to emotional regulation and prosocial networks
- Emotional Regulation
- Greater ability to manage stress response
- Triggers threshold gets higher
- Enhances emotional intelligence of self and others (and distinguishing the two)
- Prosocial
- Greater ability to empathize with others
- Being compassionate
- Inflammation in cells through its activity on the stress response is reduced
Science of Building New Habits

- Simple but not easy
- Three main areas:
- Skill
- Technique has to be correct
- Learning from a credible source
- Optimizing Physical Environment
- Surrounding self with things that will help maintenance
- Reminders, technology, what’s getting in the way of practice, calm, focus
- Surrounding self with things that will help maintenance
- Optimizing Social Environment
- Surrounding self with people that will help maintenance
- Support system
- Surrounding self with people that will help maintenance
- Skill
- Notice the practice you are drawn to; you can build on it later
- Intention: what do you want to practice
- Motivation: what is your drive to meditate
Motivation – Daniel Kahneman
- Motivations and the way we behave in the world and make decisions involves 2 aspects of the brain:
- Fast (unconscious) Brain
- Accounts for 95% of our behaviour
- Tied to emotional centers of the brain
- Habits and routines
- Motivated by survival (safety, reward, connection, self-identity, values)
- Slow (conscious) Brain
- Accounts for 5% of our behaviour
- Used for paying attention
- Connections are slower than that of the Fast Brain
- Fast (unconscious) Brain
Slow Brain, Conscious Intention (e.g., taking care of health)
- In moments of stress, the Fast Brain does not care about what your doctor has said regarding your health
- Can be overridden by the intentions and motivation of the Slow Brain
- Asking “Why” will land you on a emotionally charged reason that brings more meaning to the outcome you’re looking for
- The “Why” is more likely to build your intention through motivation
- E.g., Intention: to improve health + Motivation: family, more time to live
- The “Why” is more likely to build your intention through motivation
Global Cognition Crisis – Adam Gazzaley

- With the current state with how we are learning and how we are learning not to pay attention is affecting:
- Our ability to manage the stress of our lives
- The ways that we think in everyday situations
- Our attention (easily distracted, quickly overwhelmed)
- Our ability to make decisions properly
- Our ability to empathize and be compassionate
- Has risen in parallel with our use of technology, which as lead to:
- Reliance on social image rather than our true inner values
- Effects on teenagers self-esteem
- Rising rate of anxiety and depression
- An epidemic of loneliness
- Interactions with technology are hurting the quality of relationships
- Less in person interactions which are important for our capacity to build empathy and compassion
- Constantly on autopilot, not present, very reactive, poor methods for dealing with emotions
- To learn more, watch: Cognition Crisis – Dr. Adam Gazzaley
- Mindfulness is our access to an inner technology that we can tap into no matter where we are and that we can build and get better at
- Helps with decisions in personal and professional life
- Benefits the ways we show up in the world and the kinds of businesses we build and how they impact the climate crisis and the planet
- Mindfulness, Mindful Leadership, Compassionate Leadership
- You can have a sphere of influence no matter what work you do!
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