Slow Down, Life is Happening

(air whooshing) (mouse clicking) (bright music) Headspace Studios. (gentle music) Hi and welcome to Tuesday and to Radio Headspace. It's Eve here. So I was driving down a street in L.A. the other day and it had a sign that said, "Slow down, drive like your kids live here." And it got me thinking about a sign that I know I could benefit from having in my life. And it would say, "Slow down, life is happening." I don't mean the kind of slowing down where you just stop doing things that you need to do. I mean the type of slowing down that means you can actually be with the things that you're doing or the people that you are with. And I was asked a really great question about this from a Headspace user. The question was, "I feel like having a mindful life "is always tied with slow living. "Is there an example or activity showing "how you can live a fast-paced life mindfully?" And I think about the response to this question in a few ways. The first part is that it can be really helpful to slow down in order to practice meditation. This is where we intentionally take some time out of the day to cultivate the qualities of mindfulness, bringing our attention into the present moment with a soft and open mind. But really, the practice and the skill is how we then integrate those qualities into our daily lives and life can be very busy and fast-paced. In many cases, physically slowing down may not actually be that helpful to us, but we can still bring our full attention to whatever it is that we're doing. Do you see the difference? And there's a really great acronym that I often use as well that was developed by John Kabat-Zinn as part of the mindfulness base stress reduction program and it's called STOP. So S is for stop whatever you're doing and just pause momentarily. T is take a breath. Reconnect with your breath knowing that the breath is an anchor to the present moment. O is observe. Notice what is happening. What is happening inside of you and outside of you. Where has your mind gone? What do you feel? What are you doing? And P is proceed. Continue what you were doing or don't. Use the information gained during this check-in to change course if needed. This is such a great framework to help you to reengage and reconnect with the world around you. So I hope you found this helpful. And for more on how to slow down and focus, we have a lovely exercise called easing into work on the Headspace app. Thanks for listening today, I'll leave it there and look forward to seeing you back here soon. (gentle music)...