6 ways to success with mindfulness
3
Find out how mindfulness meditation can make you a more successful entrepreneur with these six tips from Dr. Elise Bialylew- founder of Mindful in May
- Health hub/
- Stress relief & sleep support/
- 6 ways to success with mindfulness
Mindfulness meditation
Meditation creates an oasis of quiet, which gives the mind space to decompress at a time of information and technology overload.
Although meditation is not about actively trying to make something happen, ripples of thought, sensation and emotion can creatively collide and result in innovative ideas and solutions.
Researchers at Leiden University in the Netherlands published a study that demonstrated an improvement in creativity through a particular type of meditation which requires the mind to maintain open awareness.
The findings demonstrated that participants who engaged in this meditation performed better than the group who hadn’t meditated on a task that required new ideas to be generated.
As Einstein famously stated “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”.
Mindfulness meditation cultivates a different state of mind, which can support an alternative perspective in everyday life.
Being a good communicator is a fundamental ingredient in leading a team. Under stress our communication skills significantly decline and there are neurobiological reasons for this.
The fight or flight response, driven by our amygdala, is a reflex response to perceived threat, which evolved to protect us from danger. It re-directs our energy and blood flow away from the brain and into the muscles to help us literally run away.
The problem is that this warning system has not evolved for about 100,000 years where it developed to help us run away from physical threat and danger.
Nowadays rather than the threat of physical predators we face psychological stressors, like an argument with our partner or a looming deadline. It requires mental power to solve issues effectively, but our higher functioning brain, the prefrontal cortex, goes offline when we’re hijacked by the amygdala response.
Regular mindfulness meditation has been shown to increase the thickness of the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with such higher level brain functions as calming ourselves down in the heat of emotion and problem solving.
As we strengthen these regions of the brain we are more able to revert to higher levels of brain functioning under stress rather than react on automatic pilot from when we get hijacked by amygdala.
My path to becoming a social entrepreneur was an accidental one.
I had spent many years as a doctor specialising in the field of psychiatry.
In order to manage the stress of my work, I turned to meditation. It took a while before I was sold on it.
For someone who thrived on being active it was almost intolerable to sit still.
Many years later, meditation has become an integral part of my life. It gives my whole being a chance to decompress and re-discover how satisfying it can be to simply “be”.
But like many people who are driven to create and make things happen, I used to wonder why anyone would “just sit there” doing meditation.
However, as meditation became part of my regular mental fitness regime, it re-directed my life and catapulted me into becoming an accidental entrepreneur, which is a little ironic.
Three years ago I created Mindful in May, a global online meditation campaign that both teaches people how to meditate and raises money to build clean water wells in developing countries.
The idea came to me one day whilst I was sitting in meditation.
I imagined there were many people in the world who wanted an easy, accessible way to learn how to meditate.
Mindfulness meditation has supported me along the path to becoming an accidental social entrepreneur.
Here are 6 ways it can help you.
1. Tap into deeper creativity and innovation
Meditation creates an oasis of quiet, which gives the mind space to decompress at a time of information and technology overload.
Although meditation is not about actively trying to make something happen, ripples of thought, sensation and emotion can creatively collide and result in innovative ideas and solutions.
Researchers at Leiden University in the Netherlands published a study that demonstrated an improvement in creativity through a particular type of meditation which requires the mind to maintain open awareness.
The findings demonstrated that participants who engaged in this meditation performed better than the group who hadn’t meditated on a task that required new ideas to be generated.
As Einstein famously stated “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”.
Mindfulness meditation cultivates a different state of mind, which can support an alternative perspective in everyday life.
2. Communicate more effectively under stress
Being a good communicator is a fundamental ingredient in leading a team. Under stress our communication skills significantly decline and there are neurobiological reasons for this.
The fight or flight response, driven by our amygdala, is a reflex response to perceived threat, which evolved to protect us from danger. It re-directs our energy and blood flow away from the brain and into the muscles to help us literally run away.
The problem is that this warning system has not evolved for about 100,000 years where it developed to help us run away from physical threat and danger.
Nowadays rather than the threat of physical predators we face psychological stressors, like an argument with our partner or a looming deadline. It requires mental power to solve issues effectively, but our higher functioning brain, the prefrontal cortex, goes offline when we’re hijacked by the amygdala response.
Regular mindfulness meditation has been shown to increase the thickness of the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with such higher level brain functions as calming ourselves down in the heat of emotion and problem solving.
As we strengthen these regions of the brain we are more able to revert to higher levels of brain functioning under stress rather than react on automatic pilot from when we get hijacked by amygdala.
3. Manage the discomfort of uncertainty
As an entrepreneur you create your own path and there are no guarantees it will turn out well. When you invest all of your energy, working relentlessly to bring your vision to life, there will be moments of uncertainty that can trigger self-doubt, anxiety and confusion.
Mindfulness teaches you to make room for difficult emotions and find more effective ways of managing. Increasing your self awareness allows you to tune in to what is going on and find effective solutions. It encourages clearer decisions that are responsive rather than reactive.
4. Sharpen your focus
With invisible umbilical cords connecting us to our devices, staying focused is an increasing challenge.
Our attention buzzes around with the restlessness of a mosquito fluttering between emails, Facebook, Twitter, and text messages. We need to upgrade our “inner technology” of attention to meet the demands of an increasingly complex world.
A regular meditation practice helps you to develop an inner witness that monitors your attention.
Over time it’s like an inner coach who points out behaviours, thoughts or actions that are at odds with your goals or values. With mindfulness you are more able to stay on task and move forward in your most valued direction.
5. Manage the inner critic
The inner critic can hold us back from bringing our ideas into the world and beats us down when we are trying.
It has a brilliantly deceptive way of convincing of its authority on a matter, rather than revealing itself as what it truly is – a manifestation of our fear of failure or sense of inadequacy.
Mindfulness teaches you how to develop a new relationship with your thoughts by reducing the power they have over you. It teaches you how to recognise and unhook from self-perpetuating patterns of rumination and negative thinking by noticing what’s going on from moment to moment.
6. Sleep easy
As an entrepreneur your brain is like a twenty-four-hour popcorn machine of ideas. When you’re not bubbling with ideas you have a never-ending to do list.
Thinking is one of your most powerful tools but it can also be your Achilles heel. In particular, your ideas and “ to do” lists can be a real hazard at night when they stream through your brain like notifications that can’t be turned off.
Mindfulness meditation is a powerful tool to help you be master rather than slave to your mind and provides helpful techniques for improving sleep.
Elise Bialylew is a doctor, coach and mindfulness meditation teacher with a background in Psychiatry. She is the founder of Mindful in May, a one month global mindfulness meditation campaign.
Mindful in May has inspired thousands of people around the world to learn how to meditate, whilst raising money to build clean water wells in the developing world. When she’s not teaching mindfulness she’s often losing herself in salsa dancing or African
We accept
