Passion Struck with John R. Miles - 10 Benefits of Meditation for Transforming the Mind and Body w/John R. Miles EP 160

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast, meditation is really about bringing your awareness and intentions to everything and everyone around you. And learning when your mind wanders off, you can bring it back to the present. Through your breath and by paying attention to it, just as it is. Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people, and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener

Starting point is 00:00:43 questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to Momentum Friday, an episode 160 of Passion Struck. Recently ranked is one of the top 10 alternative health podcasts in the world. And thank you to each and every one of you who comes back weekly to listen and learn, how to live better, be better, and impact the world. In case you missed my episodes from earlier in the week, they featured Vice Admiral Sandy Stowe's

Starting point is 00:01:23 who spent 40 years in the Coast Guard, ultimately serving 12 of those on ships, and she was the first female to ever captain an icebreaker on the Great Lakes and to become the superintendent of one of the US Armed Services academies. And we talk about leadership tips through her new book Breaking Ice and Breaking Glass. And I also head on my personal friend, Enable Academy classmates, Stephen Conkley, who's a Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and multiple Amazon best selling author of over 20 different thriller novels. And we discuss his journey from our time at the Academy to becoming the author he is

Starting point is 00:02:00 today. And if you missed my solo episode from last week and you want to catch up on how you can actually learn how to reverse aging, I did one on exactly that and the steps that you can take to reduce your biological age. Now I wanted to acknowledge our fan of the week Shane Chadwick who writes, just awesome. I discovered this podcast recently in every episode that I'd listen to brings so much useful information. Everything has an explanation, and John Miles just makes it so easy to understand. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:02:31 And thank you, Shane, so much for your 5-star rating in review. Ratings like those mean so much to our show and its popularity. And if you like any of the episodes I just talked about, or the one you're going to hear today, please consider sharing it with a friend or family member. Now, let's talk about today's episode. Life as we know it is full of many ups and downs. These challenges cut across every sphere of everyday life, including social interactions, finances, health, and spirituality. We might find ourselves overwhelmed, depending upon our mental capacity to handle them. What if I told you that there was a better way to handle these situations?

Starting point is 00:03:05 What if there was something that you could do to get back on track? When challenges threaten to throw you off balance, it is meditation. But I have learned that meditation by itself is not hard. However, learning to meditate is inherently challenging. Meditation is about living life as if it really matters, moment by moment

Starting point is 00:03:24 instead of merely a technique. And it's not only about getting your mind out of a bad place, it is as much learning to stay in or get to a better place. In the words of Theravada Buddhist monk Ajahn Brahm, it is like a gym in which you develop powerful mental muscles of calm and insight. I was first exposed to meditation over 20 years ago when I was assigned to naval special warfare unit 10. One might be initially surprised that Navy SEAL's practice mindfulness. Because when we think of the special operations community, we often think about

Starting point is 00:03:57 the physical capabilities of soldiers. However, during this assignment, I learned that the strength of an elite soldier is really dependent on their cognitive functioning and their ability to stay present in the moment in the face of stress and adversity. It is the most critical element, some would say, to overall military health and resiliency. As we were preparing for a mission, one of my favorite teammates taught me that meditation is not about compelling the mind to be entirely still. Instead, it's releasing resistance to whatever materializes.

Starting point is 00:04:30 When I left the military and entered the civilian workforce, I found that people really struggled with mindfulness because it can seem like an intangible concept. There are several reasons for this. Some people believe they're just too busy to practice and can't find the time. Others have a tendency to think that there's no point to it and fail to see it as a tool for performance improvement. Others feel that stopping your mind from thinking is like trying to stop ocean waves. It's impossible. And then some just believe it's just some kind of new age hype. But I can assure you through my studies of passion struck vanguards that mindfulness and meditation

Starting point is 00:05:03 training is not some fluffy soft skill. They are skills that the elite practice and possess, whether that is an elite athlete, artist, a former business leader, soldier, or creator. In today's episode, I will be enlightening you on how the power of meditation can be effectively harnessed for transcending the limitations of self and how it can positively influence our minds and our bodies to get into their best states. To convey this, let's take a look at the story of well-known journalist Dan Harris, who, through meditation, learned to recognize and heal from a major underlying trauma that significantly impacted his life. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your hosting guide on your journey

Starting point is 00:05:46 to creating an intentional life. Now let the journey begin. Newsreader on the Good Morning America Show. He was excited and ready to read the news as he had done so many times before. However, on this particular morning, while he was in the middle of the first story, he got overtaken by a tantalizing bout of fear. This resulted in a panic attack where he found his heart racing.

Starting point is 00:06:19 His palms getting sweaty, his mouth drying up and his lungs seizing up. He found himself in front of a live TV audience of over 5 million viewers. He couldn't continue the newscast, and they quickly shifted back to the show's host. It was a thoroughly embarrassing moment for him. Days after, Harris wanted to go see a doctor who's an expert on panic attacks. The doctor led him through a series of questions, including if he did illicit drugs, which he admitted to doing. Upon further thought, Harris realized that what ended up leading him to partake in drugs was partly because of his intense desire for achievement and to perform greatly at his job.

Starting point is 00:06:59 Dan Harris had gotten into ABC News when he was 28 years old and was working with much more experienced, older, and famous TV personalities. He had his dream job, but also had significant doubts about whether he was good enough. He became a workaholic to compensate for his perceived inadequacy and to prove his worth. Then after the 9-11 attacks, he volunteered to travel and spend time reporting on the ongoing wars throughout the Middle East. After a few years of reporting, he returned home, but due to the overwhelming experiences that he witnessed,

Starting point is 00:07:35 he suffered from PTSD and depression. This led to self-medication and the use of recreational drugs to cope. The doctor made it clear that the ecstasy drugs that he was using caused an increase in his adrenaline level in his brain and ultimately facilitated a panic attack. This experience forced Dan to make some very difficult changes in his life, which set him off on an unplanned journey towards wholeness. Coincidentally, at the same time, his boss reassigned him to cover faith and spirituality for ABC News, which he didn't want because he was raised in a secular environment by parents who were scientists.

Starting point is 00:08:12 However, he ended up taking the task and spent many years meeting people of different face, which changed his view of the world and showed him the value of having a worldwide view larger than one's narrow self-interest. During his assignment, he read the book The Power of Now, a guide to spiritual enlightenment by a self-help guru named E. Cartel, recommended by one of his producers as something that he should read. At first, he thought the book's contents were irredeemable garbage, and mere pseudo-science that had no actual application. He got intrigued by a portion where Eckhart says,

Starting point is 00:08:47 we all have a voice in our head, our inner narrator that is constantly talking to us. He recognized that that voice described him, and in fact was responsible for all the things that he was most ashamed for in his life, including the panic attack that he experienced. This completely captivated him and marked the beginning of his journey into meditation. He realized that meditation, which he had always thought was uniquely ridiculous, had some

Starting point is 00:09:15 actionable impacts on overcoming the voice in your head. He has discovered that there is a vast amount of science that illustrates how meditation is a brain exercise that can create an astounding impact on the brain and the body. And so he decided to give it a shot. He started to do five to ten minutes of meditation each day. And within weeks, he began to see benefits, boosting his focus and helping him become calmer and more mindful. Today, Dan Harris is a daily meditator, and more interestingly, a public evangelist on the power of meditation.

Starting point is 00:09:47 He acknowledges that meditation will not solve all your problems, but can change that relationship between you and that voice in your inner head for good. Like the story of Dan Harris here, all of us can relate to times when things were not feeling right in our lives or in situations where we have been out of control. With meditation, we can remedy some of these conditions and live out the fullest life that

Starting point is 00:10:09 we hope for. We will now examine what meditation really entails, how it can be effectively practiced and the 10 vital benefits that it offers. Do you have a topic like todays that you would like to see us cover? You can reach us at Momentum Friday at passionstruck.com. Keep your emails concise. Use a descriptive subject line. That keeps things easy for us.

Starting point is 00:10:33 Reach out to us if there's a topic you're interested in learning about. There's something that maybe you're going through, any big decision that you're wrestling with or perhaps you just want a new perspective on work, love or life. Whatever's got you staying up at night, hit us up at Momentum Friday at PassionStruck.com. We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous now, back to PassionStruck.

Starting point is 00:10:57 So what exactly is meditation? American philosopher William James said, human beings by changing the inner attitudes of their minds can change the inner attitudes of their minds can change the outer aspects of their lives. And that light meditation is really about bringing your awareness and intentions to everything and everyone around you. And learning that when your mind wanders off, you can bring it back to present. Through your breath and pay awareness to it just as it is.

Starting point is 00:11:24 And for thousands of years years meditation has been practiced. Today, this phrase is frequently associated with religion and mythology, although in general, meditation simply first to one's direct observation of one's mind. According to Dave Vago, research associate professor and director of the contemplative neuroscience and mind body research laboratory at Vanderbilt University who was also a prior guest on the PassionStruck podcast. Meditation allows you to create a distance with your negatively oriented thoughts and that distance we sometimes refer to is psychological distance or as a centering practice. So you're de-centering away from your own thoughts. Meditation simply boils

Starting point is 00:12:06 down to awareness. Being aware of what you're thinking and noticing your current feelings, and meditation, there is no need to create anything. Simply remain and keep your consciousness. Some people often embark on meditation in a quest for some special or self-transcendent experience. Meditation shouldn't be undertaken in search of a unique experience, but instead to focus on the reality of one's thoughts, whatever that reality may be. Now that we've talked about what meditation is, let's talk about how you actually meditate. Meditation is easier than you may think. Actually, you can meditate at any time and any place. Whether taking a morning walk, riding the evening bus, practicing yoga, waiting for a coffee order, or even in the middle of a stressful

Starting point is 00:12:49 work meeting. Let's take the example of my favorite way of practicing meditation, walking. Not only is walking a proven stress-releaser, but it's also a great way to incorporate mindfulness and everything around you. When your thoughts stray to concerns, simply guide them back to your walk and to your surroundings. And don't let the concept of meditating properly add to your anxiety.

Starting point is 00:13:12 You can always take group classes or attend special meditation centers where they have certified instructors where you can also commence practicing meditation on your own and may find help from several meditation apps that are on the market. Meditation can be as informal or formal as you desire. However, it serves your lifestyle. Many people incorporate meditation into their daily lives just as Dan Harris did. They

Starting point is 00:13:36 could, for example, begin and conclude each day with meditation. Remember that all you actually need is a few minutes of uninterrupted meditation time that you practice consistently. Also, you need to recognize the types of meditation that are available, which include mindfulness meditation, focus meditation, movement meditation, transcendental meditation, and loving kindness meditation, and settle for the ones that are most suitable for you and the outcomes that you're trying to achieve. There are many reliable meditation experts like David Vago, who I mentioned earlier, David Yaden, Professor at Johns Hopkins University, Sharon Salzburg, Deepak, Chopra, and so forth.

Starting point is 00:14:15 That you can follow and there are also great books that can give you a tremendous amount of information on how to incorporate this daily practice into your life. So now that we've talked about what meditation is and how you can practice it, let's talk about the vital benefits that meditation has to your life, that center around improving people's mental,

Starting point is 00:14:33 physical, and spiritual health, and generally improving the quality of life. The following are 10 ways through which meditation can accomplish this. The first thing it does is it slows down aging. In my episode from last week I talked about reverse aging and highlighted that reduce some stress is one of the ways that reverse aging can be accomplished. Meditation has been scientifically shown to increase the length of telemores

Starting point is 00:14:57 and thereby reduce the rate of cellular aging. A 2015 study at the University California Los Angeles revealed that long-term meditators had healthier brains than non-meditators. They found significant changes in meditators' brain volume, which developed more gray matter with more consistent brain volume. So it has been determined that meditation holds back many of the detrimental effects of aging while enabling a healthier and more productive mind with improvements in attention and the clarity of thinking to back many of the detrimental effects of aging while enabling a healthier and more productive mind with improvements in attention and the clarity of thinking to keep your mind young. Secondly,

Starting point is 00:15:30 it positively influences your perception of pain. It was discovered in 2011 by a study in the Journal of Neuroscience that meditation directly impacts pain mechanisms that are in your brain. The causes for pain were both the same for meditators and non-meditators, but meditators were found to have a stronger capability to cope with discomfort and even experience a lessened awareness to pain. Because pain in various ways is a mental process, it can be rightfully influenced by your thoughts. For instance, you took a hike the previous day and now you have aching feet.

Starting point is 00:16:03 The moment that you can focus on the positive impact of the hike, which includes your goal of becoming more fit, you will be able to recognize the pain as one that's needed for the greater good and be better able to cope with it. If you can control your mental state through meditation, you can also control your pain. Third, it improves your efficiency. Recent research from neuroscientist Amishi Jock proved that meditating for 12 minutes a day, five days a week, can safeguard and bolster your ability to pay attention, which is a critical factor in improving your efficiency level. Meditation has been shown to boost concentration, performance, and working memory capacity. By training your brain to ignore distractions, meditation helps you focus, retain more information, as well as

Starting point is 00:16:45 learn faster, making you be able to effectively and efficiently handle work, as well as other aspects of your life. Fourth, it helps you connect with compassion and connect better. Meditation makes you more appreciative of people who love you and people in general. In a 2012 study from the clinical psychology review, researchers tested whether this was actually true or not. They used two different types of meditation techniques. One was called loving kindness meditation, and another was called compassion meditation. In theory, they both should develop areas related to kindness and compassion in your brain. Upon conclusion,

Starting point is 00:17:19 they found a significant increase in those parts of the brain, resulting in a higher capacity for compassion and empathy. Meditation also increases patients and tolerance levels. They're by reducing pent-up anger and thus making practitioners more compassionate towards not only themselves, but others. Fifth, it's a remedy for stress and anxiety. If stress makes you anxious, tense and worried, try meditation.

Starting point is 00:17:44 Even doing it for a few minutes can help you restore your calm and inner peace. A study after a three-year follow-up showed clinical implications of a mindfulness meditation based stress reduction intervention and determined that mindfulness meditation can have long-term beneficial effects, and treating people diagnosed with anxiety disorders. It was also discovered that meditation has a neutralizing effect on social anxiety. As little as 15 minutes a day can reduce your self-inflicted stress and soothe your general nervousness, giving you more confidence in any situation that you won't encounter. 6. It can help you fight addictions. Science has proven that meditation may aid people to refocus their tension,

Starting point is 00:18:25 control their emotions, and improve their awareness of the causes behind the dependencies, on drugs and other forms of addiction, just like in the case of Dan Harris. The resulting mental discipline developed through meditation can help you break dependencies by increasing your self-control and awareness of triggers for addictive behaviors. 7. It relaxes your mental network. Your brain is full of networks and systems like the default mode network. This large pack of neural structures spans most of your brain, and it handles all cognitive functions, from the creation of selfhood to episodic memory. So you really couldn't live without it. But the default mode network isn't always your friend. As an overactive network can lead to mind wandering, which is caught up in cycles of what ifs, worries, and doubts. Studies have shown that too much wandering makes people unhappy and unfocused.

Starting point is 00:19:16 A 2011 study from Yale University found that people who meditate have less default mode network, allowing them to focus on the present and lifting their spirit. Eighth, it increases imagination and creativity. Zen master, Sing, Yon said, meditation will not carry you to another world, but it will reveal the most profound and awesome dimensions of the world in which you already live. This connotes that meditation enables you

Starting point is 00:19:41 to assess the deaths of imagination and creativity that can be applied to any field that you are in. Be it music, arts, medicine, engineering, and what have you. When this happens, you'll be able to bring new and amazing things to life and ultimately bless the world with your gifts. 9. It promotes social gratitude. Gratitude comes naturally when you meditate. You begin to discover value in many things that you previously took granted. It helps you reflect on an in-depth level and find what's most important in life, love, and relationships. Meditation also helps you see and value the good in your situations, ultimately yielding a grateful mindset. 10th, meditation boosts overall health. It helps promote

Starting point is 00:20:21 self-image and create a better outlook on life. They're by not only improving your mood, but promoting your emotional health. High blood pressure causes the heart to work harder, contributing to poor cardiac functions over time. Meditation can improve physical health by reducing the cardiac strain. By learning to control or redirect the racing or runaway thoughts that often lead to insomnia, meditation helps you sleep better. Additionally, it can help you release tension off your body and place you in a calming state. This will ultimately result in a boost to your overall health. So I've covered a ton here in today's episode. So let me do some wrap up and analysis for you in an interview with neuroscientist Richard Davidson and the

Starting point is 00:21:00 Dalai Lama. Dan Harrison asked Davidson if his work with the Dalai Lama, Dan Harrison asked Davidson, if his work with the Dalai Lama sparked the new public health revolution, Davidson explained, health is not simply the absence of illness and that meditation practices could be useful in helping people to have more peace of mind and generate more positive emotions in ways that can affect their everyday life and can potentially reduce healthcare costs

Starting point is 00:21:25 because it can enable people to be more healthy. I started today's discussion by talking about my experiences with Navy SEALs. The physical training that we did made our bodies fitter, stronger, and more flexible. When combined with mindfulness training, it cultivated the innate capacities of our mind to be present, allowed us to stop operating in automatic mode

Starting point is 00:21:46 and created space where we could face adversity, do strategic planning with calmness and more focus. If you still need more evidence, even after you've heard everything that I've gone through today, realize that the most critical evidence that you will get is that from which you will gather actually doing the practice.

Starting point is 00:22:03 The scientific evidence may convince you to start the journey towards meditation, but your actual practice will enable you to get the benefits from it. The most important step that you can take after hearing today's episode is to commence your journey. So make intentional efforts to incorporate meditation into your daily life.

Starting point is 00:22:20 While at it, realize it's gonna take time to seek the changes that you want. So remember to be patient with yourself. Use the available resources that I will place in the show notes to improve your practice and consistently keep up with it. Take charge of your health today. Put meditation into effective practice and enjoy all its benefits. I hope you all enjoyed the show and I wanted to thank everyone who wrote in this week and of course everyone who listened. And if you're new to the show or you would like thank everyone who wrote in this week. And of course, everyone who listened. And if you're new to the show or you would like to introduce it to a friend or family member,

Starting point is 00:22:48 we now have episodes starter packs, which are collections of our fans favorite episodes that we put both on the PassionStruck website and Spotify. You can go to passionstruck.com slash starter packs to check these out and get acquainted to everything that we do here in the show. A link to the transcript will be in the show notes. Videos are on YouTube at John Armiles. Please go there and subscribe. We have over 330 different videos now.

Starting point is 00:23:11 Avertisers, deals and discount codes are at PassionStruck slash deals. Please consider those who support the show. I am at John Armiles, both on Instagram and Twitter, and you can also find me on LinkedIn. You're about to hear a preview of my PassionStruck podcast interview with Professor Sarah C. Medna, who is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine,

Starting point is 00:23:32 an author of the Hidden Power of the Downstate and take your nap, change a life. We emphasize the upstate, and we don't emphasize the importance of the recovery. So how can we bring more of this kind of recovery time during the day? Because I think our culture is designed to sort of start the hustle in the morning and didn't just ramp it up all day long. So at the end of the day, people are frazzled. They're not just exhausted, but I think they're frazzled.

Starting point is 00:24:03 Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share this show with those you love. And if you found this episode useful and you know someone in your life who would like to learn more about meditation and mindfulness, please share it with them. In the meantime, please do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And until next time, live life, passion struck.

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - 10 Benefits of Meditation for Transforming the Mind and Body w/John R. Miles EP 160

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