Meditation Is an Essential Hack for All of Us

Finding time to slow down and take a breath can save your sanity and your life.

Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

Key points

• Meditation positively affects overall health and longevity.
• Giving your brain the chance to "blink, not think" can revitalize your perspective and performance.
• Meditation can help you re-center and strengthen your mental resources.

The world seems to be growing increasingly divided between “us and them” and swirling issues around behaviors that make us question what is moral, immoral, or amoral. There seems to be a war between kindness and cruelty and between lies and truth. Many are rooting for love to triumph over hate, but it can be challenging to shut out all the noise, focus on what is going right, and spend energy on what you can control.

There’s a saying that “if you want to know how the wind blows, look at the sand.” If your body was the sand, what would you notice – headaches, achy back, tension in your neck, What is your body telling you? If the wind represents your mind and your thoughts, what is this metaphorical wind around you blowing? Stress? Fatigue? Anxiety?

Meditation can help you re-center and strengthen your emotional and mental resources to bend with the wind, rather than struggle against it. Not only that, but mediation can slow down the aging process. It may also support a healthier and longer life.

Your Telomeres Will Thank You

In our cells, telomeres control how our cells, and our body, age. These are caps that are found on each strand of our DNA – they’ve been likened to the aglets on our shoelaces. Aglets are those little plastic things that keep laces from coming unraveled at the ends – just like the way that telomeres keep our DNA from being harmed. Unfortunately, telomeres are affected by the stress and anxiety that we experience in our lives. The more stress we experience in life, the greater the damage to our cells and the greater the aging our cells experience. However, research has shown that meditation can actually positively affect our telomeres and slow down the aging process – at least at the cellular level (Alda et al., 2016).

Other benefits of mediation include clearer thinking, better emotional well-being, enhanced physical health, and slower and healthier aging. It's been linked to reduced depression; increased calm; psychological balance; reduced blood pressure; lower levels of stress hormones; and better sleep which positively impacts the whole body.

Give Your Brain the Chance to Blink, Not Think

It’s important to allow your mind to have the chance to catch a break, regroup, and reset. Sometimes we need to let our minds catch up with our physical bodies – meditation is grounding in that way. By letting the mental dust settle, we can allow ourselves to just be present in the moment. By listening to your body you are more able to get in touch with your ability to know what is right for you. By knowing yourself, you learn to trust yourself. Taking time to be still in mediation, you are allowing yourself to give space to your inner knowing. Our intuitions and instincts are often overwhelmed by the world and words around us. Meditation is a way to get in touch with your gut instinct.

You Don’t Have Time to NOT Meditate

A recent article in Fortune magazine revealed that U.S. adults will spend 18 years, yes – years, online. That’s a huge block of time and the screens and dopamine fixes aren’t helping us think or feel better in our lives. We pick up our phones over 50 times a day and spend a total of over 17 hours a day looking at some form of screen.

There’s no excuse for not finding a few minutes to meditate during the day – re-route some of those “idle phone checks” into a consolidated five or 10 minute intentional mental health break. If you’re going to be using your phone, use it to play a guided meditation so that your well-being is enhanced, not compromised.

Mediation Is a “No-Fail” Activity

We can all learn to meditate and find a place of mindful stillness. As Nayyirah Waheed noted, “If the ocean can calm itself, so can you. We are both salt water mixed with air.” Practicing meditation, because it’s always going to be a practice – we never get it perfect -- requires just your breath. There’s nowhere to go, nothing you have to buy, nothing you have to own, nothing to lose, but so much to gain. Finding stillness during a stressful or chaotic day on the job or at home can give you peace of mind, which is priceless.

8 No-Fuss Ways to Incorporate Meditation at Work

1. Get to work a few minutes early and take five minutes to ground yourself through a "take-10 mindful breathing exercise" (10 deep breaths, five times).
2. At a break or lunch, engage in movement meditation such as a mindful walk, yoga, or Tai Chi.
3. When frustrations or unexpected events interrupt the day, take two minutes for a silent mantra meditation to get back on track and stay calm. It might be “Keep calm and carry on,” “All shall be well,” “I am at peace,” or simply, “I’ve got this.”
4. Engage in mindful eating to slow yourself down and enjoy every bite. Use all five senses as you eat – touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound.
5. To regain focus, notice five things (see, hear, feel).
6. Practice smiling meditation – especially when smiling is the last thing you feel like doing. As the Chinese koan asks, “Are you smiling because you are happy or happy because you are smiling?”
7. To clear your mind, “walk the paper labyrinth” or color a mandala.
8. If stress is building, give yourself a five-minute vacation meditation. Use a guided meditation if you prefer – remember, it’s okay to use training wheels until you gain confidence. And it’s okay to use guided meditations for as long as you like!