Hub Adelaide member Jen Capo is part of 1 Giant Mind, an organisation working to help everyone experience the importance of mindfulness and meditation, and discover how it can help their daily lives.
Jen has shared some of her insights on meditation, how it can assist, and how to prioritise wellbeing.
“Mindfulness is a word that’s been buzzing around since Google and the tech giants announced sustainable cafes and unlimited holidays – then came notifications, a handy reminder that we can be instantly distracted in the most intimate of moments.
Slowly and steadily, we accepted an ‘always on’ culture where doing more is instantly reward with a thumbs up.
In comes ‘mindfulness’.
The gentle giant that you forgot to remember, always there waiting for the SOS.
Your stress-o-meter hits the red zone and you dart off in fight or flight, and mindfulness jumps to your attention. We grab our meditation apps, plug in, and take a breath. Then we observe ourselves taking a breath. Then we observe the observer observing the breath.
“Wherever you are, be there totally.”
I say it playfully, but in all truth I’m guilty – I’ve allowed my wellbeing to take many hits of stress over the years.
We’ve all been there. We’re not designed to be always doing, doing, doing because we’re human beings and at some point, without balance, it can all come crashing down on our health and we take inventory. We then decide, “I just want to be” and daydream about quitting our job and moving to the hillsides of Bali.
The good news is that you don’t have to move to an island to find inner peace. There is a formula for finding a mindful balance in work and life, but it starts with understanding the root of the problem. It comes down to two things:
- The lack of awareness to recognize when we are becoming too stressed.
- Knowing how to sufficiently recover from it when we are.
Stress, for many, is a lightning bolt that injects the elixir of adrenaline, cortisol, and norepinephrine through our body at all the wrong times.
In truth, stress isn’t necessarily good or bad, and it’s just gotten an awful rap. Stress operates on a spectrum from low to high and can move from healthy to unhealthy. Our levels of stress are totally dependent upon our own capabilities, at any given moment in time, to meet those demands.
In turn, the scale changes as our capacity changes. Life is full of unavoidable demands, and we meet them daily without a flinch when we are in a healthy stress zone.
However, when our capability and resources are depleted and we’re fatigued, we can easily feel overwhelmed by the idea of having to face these same demands. Once we tip into unhealthy stress levels, it wreaks havoc on our systems.
Stress hormones aren’t a cocktail for tapping into our intelligence. In fact, we cut off any intelligence while these adrenals flow through our bodies.
People are starting to understand this and meditation is becoming more popular, especially in high functioning individuals that want to stay in optimal zones and flow states. They have gotten a taste of daily practice over time and understand that they can create a higher capacity to function under more demands…and wellbeing isn’t compromised.
In this Perceived Stress Scale survey, 1 Giant Mind interviewed over 6,000 app users before they began a 12-Step Learn Meditation challenge and then again after they completed. Users reported a 20% increase in managing personal problems and a 22% increase in their ability to manage difficulties.
You’ll find articles from other credible resources demonstrating the scientifically proven benefits of mindfulness and meditation. Everything ranging from improved concentration to reduced anxiety. Not to mentioned, it’s an anti-brain-aging regimen. If only I had learned a little sooner!
If you want to learn to meditate, you can download our 1 Giant Mind app for free. We are on a mission to teach the world to meditate, and we’re happy to share the love.”
