{"id":11545,"date":"2019-07-30T05:00:07","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T09:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alifeofproductivity.com\/?p=11545"},"modified":"2022-09-15T02:31:43","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T02:31:43","slug":"5-practical-things-meditation-can-teach-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chrisbailey.com\/5-practical-things-meditation-can-teach-you\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Practical Things Meditation Can Teach You"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Takeaway:<\/b>Meditation saves you time because it allows you to work more efficiently. Five practical benefits of having a meditation ritual: you\u2019ll be happier (which makes you more productive); you\u2019ll have greater clarity of what\u2019s important as you work; you\u2019ll develop deeper relationships; you\u2019ll focus deeper; and you\u2019ll become less dependent on your addictive devices.<\/p>\n

Estimated Reading Time:<\/b>4 minutes, 8s.<\/p>\n

Podcast Length<\/b>34 minutes, 12s (link to play podcast at bottom of post).<\/div><\/div>\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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For a simple, accessible guide on how to meditate, check out this post<\/a> I wrote a while back!<\/div><\/div>\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Meditation is a topic I often<\/a> write about on ALOP. Why write about meditation on a productivity blog? Simple: a meditation practice will provide you with some remarkably practical benefits, chief among which is that it actually saves<\/em> you time.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Most writers focus on the spiritual benefits of meditation. While I find these nice, they\u2019re not why I meditate. I meditate because doing so makes me more productive. <\/strong>For every minute I spend meditating, I get many more back in how much more efficiently I\u2019m able to work. I\u2019m more focused, resilient, and calm. My mind is better organized, I have more energy, and I\u2019m better able to relate to other people.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019m confident you\u2019ll experience these same things if you decide to adopt a meditation practice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In this week\u2019s episode of Becoming Better<\/em><\/a>, I’m joined by special guest co-host Jon Krop<\/a>. In addition to being a good friend with a decent microphone, Jon is a Harvard-trained lawyer who teaches meditation<\/a> at the largest law firms across the United States. He credits meditation with allowing him to turn his life around when he was studying to become a litigator, and is convinced a practice will help you out immensely, too. Having experienced many of the benefits, I\u2019m inclined to believe him. In this week\u2019s episode, we cover<\/strong> what meditation is and how to do it, <\/strong>and take turns sharing our favorite practical, tactical benefits of adopting a practice. In case you don\u2019t have the time or inclination to listen to this one, here are the five practical benefits we dig into!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

1. Meditation makes you happier.<\/strong> Once you begin meditating, you’ll notice that your quality of life drastically improves. According to Jon, this is the main reason that we should meditate\u2014other benefits are subsidiary to this one. Negative emotions become less punishing. You experience more joy, and less suffering. You\u2019re able to feel content regardless of your external circumstances. From the outside in, your life doesn’t change much. Meditation doesn\u2019t change the things you experience. But it teaches you to relate to the things you experience differently: the bad things don\u2019t affect you as much, and you\u2019re able to savor the good things more fully.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

2. Meditation gives you clarity of what\u2019s important.<\/strong> One of my favorite benefits of meditation is how it helps us step back from the mental chatter in our head. This is a nice benefit in general, but it\u2019s especially powerful during stressful times. When ^$% hits the fan at work, you\u2019re able to focus. When the water tank starts leaking in your house, you\u2019re able to calm down and take care of things more easily. During stressful times, the mental chatter in our head can obscure the way we perceive things. Meditation helps us become one step removed from this mental chatter, so we can maintain clarity of what’s important.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

3. Meditation makes you kinder, and a better person.<\/strong> I’ll never forget something that my now-wife said to me during my productivity experiment to meditate for 35 hours in a week<\/a> (while being as productive as possible). While we were chatting over dinner, she said to me, “You know what, Chris, I’ve never felt more loved as I do right now, with you doing this weird experiment.” As David Augsburger, a Baptist minister and author, has put it: \u201cBeing heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.\u201d Meditation makes you compassionate, loving, and kind. It also better equips you to be of service to people, because you\u2019re more focused and effective\u2014there\u2019s more room to be there for others. Meditation doesn\u2019t just let you give more of yourself to your work; it lets you give more of yourself to the people in your life.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

4. Meditation makes you more focused.<\/strong> Studies show<\/a> that our mind wanders for 47% of the day. In other words, we’re focused on what\u2019s in front us just 53% of the time. Let\u2019s say you\u2019re awake for 16 hours. That equals 7.5 hours you spend unfocused each day so any amount of improvement in how well you’re able to focus can save you a ton of time. Thankfully, meditation improves the quality of your attention in this way. Let’s say that through practicing meditation, you’re able to improve the number just a bit\u2014to 37% instead of 47%. That increase alone leads you to be focused for 1.6 more hours each and every day.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

5. Meditation makes you less dependent on your most addictive devices.<\/strong> Some tactics for dealing with distraction are pretty helpful. Putting your phone screen in \u201cgreyscale mode\u201d (which turns your phone\u2019s screen black-and-white), disabling notifications, and setting screen time limits all help. But these solutions are external<\/em>. The best internal<\/em> strategy for making your mind less reliant on digital distraction is to make your mind less stimulated (if you\u2019re curious, I chat more about this idea in a recent talk<\/a>). The best strategy for making your mind less stimulated? Practice meditation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Hope you enjoy the episode!<\/p>\r\n