This meditation is a little different.  I am proposing a structure to get you started, but you should do what makes the most sense for you.  Take 15 minutes and practice praying.

A timer may be useful.  Some kitchen timers have a single beep every five minutes.  That would be great for this exercise.  Each morning, find a quiet space.

It may be useful to make lists throughout the day so you can include things in your prayers.  Remember, there’s no “cheating” when it comes to prayer–any way you pray is the right way.

First, focus on Thanksgiving for fives minutes.  List the things you’re grateful for:  Family, friends, success, opportunities, your talents, inspiring people, and so forth.  List as many things as you can.  When you run out of things to list, sit quietly for the remainder of the five minutes.

Second, make Petitions for five minutes.  Ask for focus, for clarity in your goals.  Pray for people you know, for the souls of those who have passed on, for aunts and uncles and cousins.  Pray for people with whom you work.  Ask for the skills and the ambition to do your best in your work.  Again, when you run out of things to list, sit quietly for the remainder of the five minutes.

Third, sit quietly and Listen.  Close your eyes.  Take a few deep breaths.  Focus on your breath as you can feel it moving in and out.  Don’t focus on your thanksgivings or your petitions.  Don’t try to think.  If a thought or noise draws your attention, make note of it and bring your focus back to your breathing.  Do this for five minutes.

Then, find some quiet time in the evening and repeat this prayer activity.  It may be for a shorter period of time, but try to include all three pieces.  Repeat for 30 days.

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There’s a lot of “universal” advice out there.  The always-present everyone says don’t smoke, exercise more, eat your fruits and vegetables.

One piece of universal advice is to stop worrying, or at least reduce the level of worry in your life.  After all, we have plenty to worry about—Money, our children, our parents, our spouse’s happiness, a long list of problems at work, even the health of our pets.

Worrying, we are told, adds stress to our lives and focuses on the negative.  It keeps us awake at night, gives us ulcers and is bad for the economy.

I think that’s all a bunch of baloney.

Worrying is natural.  In moderation, worrying is good.  There’s something wrong with people who don’t worry enough!

In the big scheme of things, there are a few people who worry too much (some tiny percentage of the population).  They have intriguing phobias that become fodder for news stories.  This condition (worrying too much) is so rare that most people only learn about it from afternoon TV junk-talk shows.

There is much more of a problem with people who don’t worry enough. Think about this.  What’s your image of someone who doesn’t worry about what other people think, doesn’t worry about social norms, doesn’t worry about paying his bills or insuring his car, doesn’t worry about keeping himself clean or being responsible for his own actions?  The picture in my mind is a young person who is completely irresponsible, who has made a mess of his life and others and who has left it up to other people to fix his messes.

A handful of these people make it to adulthood without changing their ways.  Most, however, go through a long painful process of paying their debts, raising their children, having to work hard and becoming responsible adults.  At which point they find themselves worrying a normal amount—just like the rest of us.

Worrying is a fundamentally good behavior.                                                                                                                                         

As with any other behavior, there is a great benefit to be gained by:

1)      Examining the behavior

2)      Learning to control the behavior

3)      Focusing the behavior

4)      And integrating the behavior into our overall understanding of ourselves.

Thus, the behavior–worrying–becomes one more important piece of our success.

Let’s look at three aspects of worrying

–  What is worry?

–  How much worrying is right?

–  How can we focus our worry in order to reap its benefits?

By “worrying” we generally mean that we are thinking about something; the something is usually a problem that needs to be solved (e.g., “Where will be get the money to . . .”) or a concern about future events (e.g., the health of a loved one); our mind wanders back to the something whenever it has the opportunity; and we find ourselves thinking about the something when we don’t want to.

Thus we find ourselves worrying while we try to sleep or while we’re driving, but not when we’re engaged in a project that requires our full attention.  For example, work keeps our mind off our troubles.

Interestingly, most people “try not to worry.”  In practice this means we try to not think about our problems.  But our unconscious mind knows that the problem needs to be addressed.  So whenever our mind isn’t busy with something else, the thing we should be thinking about pops up to get its share of attention.

What are you trying to avoid addressing in your life?  Why is it that humans think some problems will go away if you ignore them?

Don’t think about the roof and it won’t leak.  Don’t think about your teenager’s risky behavior and it will stop.  Don’t think about your relationship problems and they’ll all smooth out.

Baloney!  You know it’s not true.

We have problems we want to avoid:  We know we should think about them but we don’t want to.  One way that we avoid thinking about problems we don’t want to think about “right now” is to spend time on a hobby or on busy work.

Have you ever noticed that our hobbies tend to be rather technical and detailed?  Whether it’s carving or needlework or gardening or making things or whatever.  Our hobbies fill our minds and are distractions.  This is good—in fact it’s extremely good for our mental health—unless we’re using it to avoid thinking about a problem that needs to be addressed.

Let’s face it, we have problems we embrace and we have problems we avoid.  Those we embrace are labeled “projects” and those we avoid are labeled “worry.”  The only substantive difference is whether we’re ready to address the problem.

Now we know what worry is.  How much worrying is the right amount?  That’s difficult to quantify.  I believe we need to think about the problems in our lives enough so that we understand them.  Notice I didn’t say that we need to “solve” the problems.  If a loved one is gravely sick, there’s little most of us can do to “fix the problem.”  We’re sad, perhaps depressed, maybe scared.  We have a flood of conflicting emotions that we “don’t have time for” or otherwise wish to avoid.

In such a circumstance, we need to force ourselves to sit down and think about what’s going on.  Let the emotions flood in; become overwhelmed; have a good cry; say a prayer; and then go back to our routine for awhile.

It may be necessary to do this every day for some time.  We need to let ourselves feel the feelings we’ve been trying to avoid.  We need to let all the aspects of this experience come out.  It’s difficult and physically draining.  But you need to let yourself experience what’s going on.

Some problems you can solve, but right now you don’t see the solution.  For example, financial problems.  Too many bills, or not enough income, or an unexpected expense.  It’s all too overwhelming, so we set it aside.  Intellectually, we know the problem will just get worse.  But it’s “just too much” to think about right now.

The answer, of course, is to consider all the pieces of this problem:  Your income, your regular bills, your credit, possible sources of loans or other income, payment plans, and so forth.  This is definitely a problem that can be solved.  It requires a lot of thought; it requires a plan of action; it requires some change in behavior; and it requires asking others for help.

These are just a few examples.  In each case the amount of “worry” (thinking about the problem) required is the same. You need to think about it enough to understand the problem.

Oddly enough, most of us spend more emotional energy avoiding our problems than we would spend understanding them if we tried.

Reducing Worry

You can reduce the amount of “worry” in your life by taking time to relax and simply reflect on what’s going on.  If you take time every day to sit down and relax and focus on yourself, you will find these problems a lot less overwhelming.

I try to sit down every day and reflect on four aspects of my life:

- Myself as an individual

- Myself as a father

- Myself as a friend

- Myself as a businessman.

I rarely make lists of what needs to be done or what problems need to be addressed.  I simply think about what’s going on and what I need to do today.  If there’s a problem in one of these areas, or with something else, I let my mind consider it.  I don’t look for solutions or answers.  I do try to consider all aspects of the problem.  The goal is to understand everything about the problem.  When I think I really understand the problem, then it becomes clearer what I need to do.

Worry brings benefits.  That sounds odd to us.  Let me rephrase it:  Spending time thinking about problems brings good things into our lives.

There are two types of “focusing” on problems.  The first is to open your mind and let the problems flood in.  Perhaps focus is the wrong term.  This is more like out-of-focus.  Sit down with a pencil and paper and relax.  Take a few deep breaths and try to clear your mind.  Think about nothing.  Focus on the way your breath feels moving in and out.

Relax.

If you have things to worry about, they will interrupt your relaxation.  As a “worry” presents itself, write down a brief note (not a long paragraph).  For example, you might write

-          College Savings

-          Business partner

-          Ad revenues

-          Etc.

Don’t pass judgment, don’t try to solve the problem, don’t get into details.  Just list your worries.  Set yourself a time a do this listing for ten or fifteen minutes each day for a week.  I guarantee that by day four you will be a lot less worried at night or when you’re concentrating on something else during the day.  Why?  Because your mind has been allowed to spend some time on the things it knows you should be thinking about!

The next step is to focus more clearly on your problems.  For the next several days spend your 10-15 minutes sitting comfortably and “organizing” your problems.  You may want to sort the list into categories such a family, finances, employees, etc.

Then spend a little time writing a bit of detail about each concern.  For example:

I’m worried about college savings for my kids because I’m starting late.  I wonder what college will really cost.  What’s my goal?  How do I get started?  Who can help me?  I need to talk to my spouse about this.

Set yourself a strict limit on this activity.  No more than 30 minutes a day!  You’ll be amazed!  It will give you energy.  Worry will stop draining your energy.  And as you focus on the problem you will naturally break it down into smaller pieces that are much more manageable.

This, in turn, will lead to taking actions that address the problem.  In other words, you’ll be working on a solution!  What you’ve done is to stop spending your energy trying not to worry.  Instead, you are spending a limited amount of energy focusing on issues that need some attention.

Instead of letting “worry” have an unscheduled, unlimited amount of your time, you have allowed a specific amount of time to be used improving your life!

Again, I guarantee that you will see a dramatic reduction in the amount of time spent on unscheduled worry during the day (and night).  Your mind knows that you need to spend time on these activities.  When you allot this time, your mind is more relaxed and it doesn’t need to force these thoughts upon you.

And, even better, when such thoughts pop into your mind now, they will be productive and bring solutions.  The process of focusing on a problem for a specific period and then setting it aside has tremendous power.  It organizes your unconscious mind, which works on possible solutions while you’re doing other things.  Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the solutions come forth into your conscious mind.

Problems never solve themselves:  You need to worry in a healthy way and you will find a solution.  Just as we have to focus on our happiness and our family and our health, we also need to focus on our problems.

You will never be without problems.  But you can be without excessive, unnecessary worry.  Allow yourself time to work on your problems and you’ll have a much more restful mind throughout the day.  Because you’re worrying enough—and not too much.

“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen.” – Benjamin Franklin

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I am lucky to work with some wonderful people. Recently the work I do with a couple of different people has coincided with events in my personal life. And it has been a powerful experience.

Jenifer Landers (http://www.fullyexpressedcoaching.com/) is my life coach. She helps me with business and personal challenges. Because of all the changes going on in my life this year, she has talked to me about leaving space in my life for people and things to “show up.” For example, my daughter graduated from high school and will be going to college in the Fall. Yikes. That will leave a big space for me to fill.

Or, if you think about it, I don’t have to fill that space. I could just leave it open for awhile to see which opportunities arise.

Another wonderful person I work with is Kelli Wilson. Kelli recently published a book: The Clutter Breakthrough (See her blog). In this very powerful book, Kelli does NOT go through a “plan” to clean up the clutter. Instead, she looks at the root causes of clutter. Her argument is that people have painful experiences in their lives, and they fill up their lives with something in order to avoid the pain.

Some people fill these spaces with alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping, or any number of other things. The goal is not about the alcohol (etc.), but about coping mechanisms that keep them from having to experience the pain or the emptiness.

Analogy: Nerves

There’s a great medical device called a TENS unit. TENS stands for Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation. A TENS unit operates from a 9-volt battery. It creates tiny electrical impulses and has pads that are attached to your skin. For example, if you have muscle spasms in your back, a doctor might use a tens unit to block the pain.

The electrodes are taped to the body near where the pain is.

Inside your body there are large nerve fibers and small nerve fibers. Of course these nerves carry pain signals. Well, actually, only the small nerve fibers carry pain. The TENS unit sends tiny electrical impulses down the nerve fibers. It floods the nerve fibers with these harmless impulses. Once the nerves are “filled” with these harmless electrical impulses, the pain signals cannot travel through the nerves.

This is a great analogy for thinking out the spaces in your life. Space might left because of a true loss: A death, a divorce, the loss of a job, or having a child leave home. Similarly, if you have a space that’s filled with pain, you need a mechanism to either stop the pain or at least take your mind off the pain.

And so the coping mechanisms we develop help us to 1) Fill empty space in our lives, and 2) Avoid dealing with the painful spaces in our lives that we’d rather not address. Just as a TENS unit fills the nerves with electrical impulses that keep the pain from getting through, we can use a variety of behaviors to fill our lives with *something* that’s better than the nothing or the pain.

Whether the space is empty (for example, loneliness) or filled with pain, “coping mechanism” are always a short-term solution. Coping mechanism might help you get by today and tomorrow. But longer term, you need to find more permanent solutions.

In the case of pain, the most important goal is to stop the cause of the pain. In terms of emotional pain, the cause is probably YOU and not whatever you think the cause it. Yes, the original cause of the pain was very real. But the ongoing cause of the pain is probably your willingness to continue dwelling on it. Counseling, prayer, and meditation can help you understand the pain and diminish it over time.

But you need to be aware that that process will leave a space where your “old friend” pain used to be.

In the case of loss or loneliness, you will also have an empty space.

No matter how this empty space comes about, you need to find healthy ways to fill that space. But I really encourage you to take some time filling the space. It takes a great deal of self-awareness to leave spaces in your life and not give in to the urge to fill them with “stuff” (physical stuff, activities, hobbies, bad habits, etc.).

Daily quiet time can be an extremely powerful tool to help you with this process. Whether you use it for meditation, prayer, or some other means of being away and clearing your mind, the very fact that you spend time considering your life will help you to work on the spaces in your life.

You may legitimately decide that you want to take up a new hobby, buy some clothes, or do whatever. But with daily contemplation about where your life is going, you will have a much healthier perspective for examining your options.

You may also find that you’ve managed to create a great deal more contentment than you had before.

:-)

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Last week my daughter Victoria (age 17.9 years) embarked on an adventure. The plan was to spend three days in New York City just seeing the sights, then hop over to England and Scotland for a week. She has two weeks for Spring Break and this is her senior year.

We had plans for the first night and the last night in the UK, but nothing in between. We had Britrail passes and tube passes, so we were set to just go. Our plan was to wake up every day and figure out what to do that day.

In this modern era it is very easy to hop on the internet and find a hotel at a good price on short notice.

Note: This approach takes a certain willingness to believe that you will be okay and that things will work themselves out. I have been cultivating that spirit for some time.

Meditation helps, as does an actual commitment to being a low stress person.

I believe you can always choose how you will respond to your environment. Sometimes it’s easier than others. The more planning you have, the easier it is. But, as the saying goes, sometimes life gives you lemons and you have to make lemonade.

So here’s what happened to our vacation plans.

After three fun days in New York City, we went to the airport to catch an all-night flight to England and arrive at 8:30 AM. But my daughter could not get on the airplane because of a problem with her passport.

Stop. Vacation gone. Plane departing in two hours. Fix it or forget it.

At this point some people would add: Panic.

I was a little panicky, of course. But I decided a long time ago that I’m not the kind of person who blows up, yells and screams, abuses the person behind the counter, etc. I tried to stay calm, gathered the information I could.

It quickly became clear that I could not solve this tonight and we were going to miss the plane. Period. Nothing we could do about that. We could contact the passport office in New York or Connecticut. Quick phone call. NY was a seven day wait. No good. Connecticut might get us in within 8 business hours in an emergency. And might get a new passport within 8 business hours. But that means 1-2 more days in NYC with 1-2 days sitting around a government office, just so we could spend a day flying to England to continue the vacation.

We decided to do England another time. The next question was: Do we go home or reboot the vacation?

Important factor: My daughter only gets one spring break her senior year in high school.

So where do you want to go? The entire East Coast is at your disposal. Or we could rent a car and drive home, seeing the sights. Or take trains and see America. Or whatever.

We decided to catch the next flight to Florida and spend time in the sun. Went online and booked one-way airfare. Cheap, even at the last minute. Thank goodness for the Internet.

Total elapsed time since vacation destroyed: about 60 minutes.

Was I happy about the situation? No. But I had decided to NOT panic, NOT make it a disaster, and NOT focus on what I can’t control.

Yes, it will cost a lot of money. But we can use those Britrail passes another time. And we had almost no other out of pocket expenses except airfare. Called the airline and cancelled. They’re rebating a good portion of what we paid.

And here’s the key: We can’t control what we can’t control!

The mindset of not wasting energy on things you can’t control is a mindset that you can practice. You can create that approach to life.

The mindset of creating lemonade when life gives you lemons is a mindset that you can practice.

You get to choose how you will respond to the world.

I hope that my daughter will love the new vacation we are creating and that she will always take the attitude of slowing down and looking on the positive side when things go wrong.

“Stuff” happens in life. You can make yourself miserable and dive into the well of dispair, or you can pick up the lemons and start making lemonade.

Daily quiet time, meditation, and prayer go a long way to making this possible.

Status Report: We just finished three days in Orlando. We’re working our way through the Disney parks. On Sunday we’re heading to Church (It’s Easter) and then off to Daytona Beach. We got a nice hotel ON the beach for $46/night. Thank goodness for the Internet.

We’ll head home when we had planned. It won’t be the vacation we planned, but it’s been a Great vacation and a great adventure so far.

:-)

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This Friday (today) I wander off to a retreat center for my annual silent retreat. This will be my ninth year.

If you’ve read Relax Focus Succeed, or many of my newsletters, than you know I’m a big fan of quiet time, prayer, and meditation. Sometimes our lives become just so “busy” that we forget to stop and take stock of our lives. My annual retreat gives me time to do that.

On one hand, the timing is terrible. First weekend in December? Yikes. Beginning of Christmas season. Lost a weekend to Thanksgiving. Christmas and end of year are rushing toward me like a freight train.

On the other hand, when is a good time?

Retreating from the busy-ness of the season is a great habit. And one I’m proud to be developing. Some say you need 37 repetitions to form a new habit. Some say 40 or 42. Whatever it is, this is only my ninth in a row. So I can’t really call it a habit yet. :-)

Sometimes they call this a three-day retreat, but it’s really two full days. I arrive Friday afternoon and leave Sunday afternoon.

The most common question I get is: How can you be silent for two days? My daughter once told me “You have to talk to stay alive.” Of course she was fourteen at the time and it may have been true for her. I would reply that you need to stop talking to bring meaning to your life.

To get the most out of my two days, I try to increase meditation in the weeks leading up to the retreat. This helps me get in the mood and set my attitude to be open to a higher level of self-analysis.

I don’t really go into the weekend with an “agenda” so much as an openness to self examination. The retreat leaders provide a theme and some guidance. But they also encourage folks to wander off, take a walk, take a nap, and spend time in contemplation.

I have faced a number of personal challenges recently and the retreat is coming at a perfect time for me this year.

If you haven’t been on a retreat of any kind, I highly recommend it. Just do an Internet search for “Retreat” and your city. You’ll be amazed at how many retreat centers are scattered all over the place. Some are religious. Some are just relaxing. Start with the one most appealing to you.

My retreat is religious in nature, although the greatest benefits come from my quiet time during the weekend and not from the actual theme. Early on (retreats one, two, three) the guidance and themes mattered a lot more. But when you bring your own intentions of openness to the retreat there is less need for “starter” activities.

There are no promises that I’ll be a better person on Monday. But I look forward to a quiet weekend unplugged from the frenzy.

:-)

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Regarding the last post, Richard had a Question:

“I’m a fan of “quiet time”, I really easily fall into the habit of working without thinking about priorities, so find it helpful to find focus.

However, in the past week or so I’ve really struggled to stop the chattering voices during these time-outs. I usually turn to some familiar Hynotherapy MP3’s during these times when I struggle to relax, but this past week even this hasn’t helped.

Do you mind me asking what your own personal technique for relaxing is when those problem voices in your head just won’t shut up?”

My Response:

As for quieting my monkey mind, I find that it helps to have a spoken meditation.

I get tired of almost all audio along these lines, so I collect $10 CDs and mp3s and just cycle through them. I find that “relaxation” audio is good because they just take you through relaxing various parts of the body and you can focus on those words rather than on whatever your mind wants to work on.

My wife and I have really enjoyed various Yoga Nidra CDs. The name is a little misleading as it has nothing to do with Yoga as we westerners know it. You lie on your back and they walk you through a series of relaxation techniques.

Hope that helps.

Other tips, anyone?

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I’m a big fan of Quiet Time. That might be meditation, prayer, or just sitting in the back yard watching the birds as the sun comes up.

And I’ve written on several occasions about how I’ve solved problems through Quiet Time. But some people confuse these activities.

Meditation/Prayers/Quiet Time is not an active attempt to solve a problem. It is not intended as a time for you to sit down and think about your problems or attempt to come up with an answer.

Quiet Time is a process of training your mind to escape from the noise of everyday life. Stop the whirring engine that’s constantly juggling problems from work and home. Stop worrying about finances. Stop planning the next picnic. Stop analyzing the news.

Stop twittering and instant messaging and the “always on” communication.

Let me give you two relevant quotes:

“Accessing wisdom requires little more than the confidence in knowing that when you quiet your mind, your mind isn’t turned off.”
–Richard Carlson

“One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: You bear with them until they solve themselves.”
– Thomas Merton

We all get overwhelmed from time to time. I’ve been working through some problems in my personal life recently. And after years of spending time praying and meditating, I find it hard to do sometimes.

Problems beg to be solved. But at some point, your conscious mind has done all it can do.

It takes persistence and practice to sit down and NOT think about problems. The closer you can get to thinking about nothing, the more your mind has a chance to put all the puzzle pieces back together.

When you try really, really hard to solve a problem, you add force and tension to the issue. Relaxing and taking a step back will allow that tension to subside.

It seems to me that many problems exist because I have build a shell around myself. I have a public image, or a boss image, or a parent image. I want certain things to happen, even if I can’t articulate why.

And that shell is not ME. It is just outside of who I am. Many “problems” are really just a realization that there’s too much space between the real me and the shell I’ve built around myself.

As a result, problem solving doesn’t consist merely of action on my part, but of a realization that I need to relax and let that shell dissolve. What’s left is me. And I’ll build another shell. If I’m lucky it will be a lot closer to who I am than the last shell.

. . .

And all of this is a lot harder than you might think!

In other words, sitting in a chair doing nothing may be the hardest work you do all day!

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If you’re just a little bit overwhelmed with the world around you, consider conjuring up some memories.

The human mind is a very interesting place. If I were to go back to school, I’d make a point of learning more about it. In particular, about memory.

Your memory can be affected by many things, including pain and stress. I suspect that the pain of childbirth serves two purposes. First, it gives the wife something to hold over the husband’s head for the rest of his life. :-)

Second, the pain causes the brain to wipe out the memory of pain. This makes it possible to agree to have a second child.

On a more serious note, we know that people with chronic pain also have memory problems. These are not problems related to cognitive function, directly, but more of an inconsistency in remembering all the little things in life.

Stress does the same thing. We become overwhelmed and our mind takes over our body. We’ve all experienced how mental stress can cause physical exhaustion.

The last several months have been hard for many people. The economic collapse was “out there” for most people. It only affected those with money in the stock market. But now there are lay-offs and fears about further cut backs.

We can feel alone and afraid in this environment.

But guess what? You have at least one resource available to help you feel better right now: Nostalgia.

Research shows that nostalgic thoughts can relieve loneliness and help us to feel supported by our environment.

This makes perfect sense. Remember back to a favorite Christmas, a special dinner, etc. When you bring back these memories, you bring back the emotions as well. You don’t simply conjure up flat, 2-dimensional pictures. No, your experience of that event includes sounds and smells and emotions.

You can make nostalgic moments a conscious plan for your day. Take some time to sit quietly and remember your first car, your graduation, your wedding, and so forth. Relax and enjoy it. You’ll find yourself remembering the food, the weather, and even the people you haven’t seen in some time.

Our society looks down on people who “live in the past.” But taking a moment to remember the moments that make us happy and made us who we are is very healthy.

After all, every minute of your life is in the past. Savor it and let it help you achieve a happier state today.

Try it.

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There’s a good book called Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most Out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder by Edward M. Hallowell, John J. Ratey.

The book deals with a wide variety of subjects and not just ADD. Among other things, the authors make some recommendations for basic principles of what you might call “Brain Management.” In other words, here are some tips for maintaining a well-oiled and well-working brain:

• Take 30 second breaks from work or any activity that keeps your brain “on”
• Get enough sleep
• Rest your brain as you feel overloaded – just 30 seconds
• Eat the right food
   - not too much carbs
   - not too much caffeine
   - not too much alcohol
   - whole foods
   - balanced diet
   - proteins with breakfast
   - omega 3 fatty acids
• Exercise 3x week
• Pray or meditate – even for 3-5 minutes
• Have positive human contact. That is, do fun things with interesting people. Don’t stay in your room, isolated from the world.
• Keep a Journal

These are interesting pieces of advice for everyone with a brain. In a very real sense, they apply to everyone, everywhere.

The authors contend that we don’t give our brains a chance to turn off. We don’t give it natural breaks.

Interestingly, there is research to show that, for most of us, the brain naturally takes a break between activities. We finish a task and the brainwaves settle down into a pattern of inactivity. In other words, our brain shifts into neutral for a few seconds before we go on to the next task.

But that doesn’t always happen, and it doesn’t happen for everyone.

The really great news is that you can simply do this for yourself. In other words, you can simply take a 30- to 60-second break and get a huge boost in productivity.

Your brain can never really be “off” at any time. But there are many parts to the brain. Your autonomic systems keep your heart beating and your lungs working. Don’t touch that part.

Other operations, such as conscious and unconscious “work” are another story. We can consciously choose to stop thinking about one thing and begin thinking about another thing. So taking a break with our conscious mind is very easy. It can be as simple as staring at picture, or closing our eyes for a few seconds.

At the same time, the unconscious mind continues working away. Giving it a break takes a little more effort — but not much. A 3-5 minute break in which we pray, meditate, or just do a breathing exercise, can be extremely refreshing.

I’ve had people argue that they don’t have time to exercise, relax, or spend 30 minutes a day in quiet time. Okay. I don’t agree with that.

But when I tell you that a series of 30-second breaks every hour will give you a major boost in brain power, isn’t that worth checking out?

Try it. What have you got to gain?

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If you are interested in getting started with a little “intro level” meditation, I’ve got a great resource for you.  Check out Yoga Nidra Meditation CD: Extreme Relaxation of Conscious Deep Sleep by Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati. You can find it on Amazon.

Yoga Nidra is not “yoga” as we tend to think of it. The only thing you do with your physical body is lie on the floor and remain motionless. Meanwhile, your mind is focused on a tour of your body. As with most meditations, the goal is to focus your mind on essentially nothing. You remain awake, but not consciously using your mind to do work.

We spend so much time letting our mind focus on work and troubles and problems, that our poor brains never get to rest. This is particularly true of people who experience chronic pain. Recent research shows that brains of people with chronic pain do not get a chance to “rest” between periods of activity. This contributes to fatigue and restlessness at the same time.

The practice of Yoga Nidra is intended to help you achieve a restful state while remaining completely awake. It is very relaxing and many find it energizing.

This CD is particularly good for beginning meditation for two reasons. First, you are guided the entire time. When you haven’t meditated much, you mind tends to wander. The constant narration of this CD keeps your mind from wandering back to work, troubles, etc.

Second, the CD just jumps into the meditation. There’s no discussions about religious philosophy or new age light sprouting from your aura. It just gets down the project at hand: relaxing and meditating. That other stuff gets old about the second time you listen to an audio program.

I believe that, if you’re going to use a guided meditation CD, the CD should not contain philosophical discussions that people don’t want to listen to every time they do their meditation.

Overall, this is an excellent CD for beginners. It’s also good for experienced meditators because it adds a nice variety.

Hey, for $15 you can’t go wrong.

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