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Get Some Headspace
10 Minutes Can Make All the Difference
- Read in 13 minutes
- Audio & text available
- Contains 8 key ideas
Synopsis
Get Some Headspace (2011) paves an easy path to understanding meditation and the ways it can benefit us. Drawing on his own experience as a Buddhist monk, Puddicombe offers a strong case that even the busiest people can take ten minutes a day to get some much needed headspace and live better because of it.
Key idea 1 of 8
Headspace means living just as you already do – with an added sense of peace and fulfillment.
Imagine a life in which you can relish the moment and are free of extraneous thoughts, worries and distractions. This clear-headed state can be referred to as headspace. Sounds blissful, right? But how do you get there?
As you may have guessed – through meditation. By practicing regular meditation, you can teach your mind to relax back into its natural, chaos-free state.
So what exactly is meditation? It’s a gentle unfurling of the mind in order to cultivate a more direct insight into the moment. It’s being conscious of how and why we feel the way we do. Engaging in meditation offers respite from all the pressures and distractions of the modern world that make a perfect breeding ground for anxiety, and in turn affect our happiness and our relationships.
Furthermore, meditation is the skill of knowing how to step back and not let yourself get caught up in endless spirals of unproductive negative thoughts. A frantic, anxious mind is like a wild horse: to train it, you must be easy on it, cut it some slack and give it the space it needs. Gentleness is key.
Great techniques to ease into meditation include simply sitting still and allowing your thoughts to drift by without becoming attached to them. You can elaborate on this exercise by focusing on a particular sense, such as sight or sound, and if you find yourself getting hijacked by your thoughts, simply refocus your attention to that particular sense.
If you’re looking for moments of clarity, they will come from “not doing” and stepping back to allow the mind to wind down when – and how – it wants.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a good or bad meditation. There is only a distracted or undistracted meditation or an aware or unaware person.
Key ideas in this title
- Headspace means living just as you already do – with an added sense of peace and fulfillment.
- Knowing how to approach the practice of meditation is key to getting results.
- Meditation doesn’t have to be an hour-long session, just ten minutes a day gives results.
- You can find headspace no matter what you are actively or passively doing.
- Meditation can be integrated into all aspects of your life and improve your relationship with others.
- A more mindful life can lead to better sleep and being able to control eating disorders.
- Regular meditation reduces stress and anxiety and leads to an enhanced quality of life.
- Final summary
