Move Your Mind

CHAPTER 8PATHWAY 4: STILL YOUR MIND

Meditation, mindfulness and sleep are three key ingredients when it comes to mental health and wellbeing. In recent times, they've become buzz words, with thousands of books, apps, videos and programs covering it all. Like everything in this book, I want to make things easy, so I'll provide real stories, information and simple tools to put in place without overwhelming you.

I'm going to explore a range of real-life examples of mindfulness and meditation, dive into some short stories and look at different techniques of mindfulness practice. I'll also discuss sleep: why it's so important and how you can create better sleep patterns. Finally, I'll cover why this is a global issue and ways for you to incorporate meditation and mindfulness into your daily life.

Key learnings

Mindfulness and meditation are incredibly powerful. Don't listen to the naysayers — give them a go using the following tips and find out for yourself just how life-changing they can be.

1. Find a style that works for you. Many people think meditation is a weird spiritual thing when it's actually scientific. At its core, it's about training your brain to focus on one thing at a time. Remember this because that's basically all there is to it.

   It's not an outcome-based practice either. There's no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ meditation and it's okay if you don't feel ‘Zen’ the entire time. The key is the repeated process of returning your attention to one idea.

   Luckily, there are many ...