Reading Time: 3 minutesHow to have a mindful holiday season.

Reading Time: < 1 minuteDon’t have time for a traditional meditation session? Here’s an easy way to bring mindfulness into your life without carving time out of your day.

Reading Time: 3 minutesSometimes you decide to meditate, but it feels like your mind didn’t get the memo. Our expert shares a simple strategy to help quiet down the voice that asks: “how much longer?”

Reading Time: 7 minutesWhat is mindfulness? And does it really work, or is it just a New-Agey trend? Our expert is here to fill you in on the basics with a down-to-earth approach to mindfulness.

Reading Time: 4 minutesIf you’ve heard a ton about mindfulness but have no clue where to begin, this video is for you.

Reading Time: 2 minutesLearning to use our phones and other digital devices in moderation takes a little (or a lot of) effort, but it’s worth it. Here are a few tips on how to mindfully reduce screen time.

Reading Time: < 1 minuteMeditation is proven to reduce racing thoughts, stress, and unhappiness. Best of all, meditation can be done anywhere, anytime! Don’t know where to begin? This basic breathing technique can help get you started.

Reading Time: 2 minutesStressed out? No worries! This meditation technique–called “floating noting”–will teach you how to accept your current situation and prevent your mind from spinning out of control.

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The holidays are coming up, and I know two things for certain: (1) My aunt will re-gift me an old book and pretend she bought it for me, and (2) someone will start an argument at the big family dinner. It’s usually good-natured bickering, but now and then, it gets heated—and sometimes I get pulled in. Even though we love each other, we can end up saying angry or hurtful things, and it takes time for everyone to calm down. Maybe you’ve been in a situation like that before.

When we find ourselves getting upset with someone, we have two choices. We could cut loose and vent our emotions, which is tempting and might feel satisfying at the time. But those feelings of relief won’t last long. In the end, you might hurt people’s feelings and deepen the conflict.

OK, so maybe we really have only one choice, or at least one good one—we can apply strategies to calm down, see our emotions clearly, and respond rather than react. As the great psychiatrist Victor Frankl wrote, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is the power to choose our response.”

In the video below, I share one method for calming down in the midst of a conflict. Give it a watch, then give it a try. Happy holidays.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text][school_resource sh101resources=’no’ category=’mobileapp,counselingservices’] Get help or find out more

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Reading Time: 2 minutes

June is here, and several massive changes are just around the corner. First, no more mindfulness columns until next fall! (I know; I’m sad about it too.) Second, summer break is coming up, if you care about that sort of thing. Third (getting serious now), a major transition like the end of the school year offers a special opportunity, and here it is:

Transition periods are among the easiest times to create new habits, according to psychology research. Want to create a simple, low-effort habit that will integrate the practice of mindfulness into your day? Create a mindfulness trigger—something that sets you up for a few moments of mindfulness several times a day.

How to find your mindfulness trigger

Pick any minor, routine activity that you do every day (e.g., washing your hands or flipping on a light switch). Make this activity a mindfulness trigger: Every time you do the activity, try to remember to do it mindfully. That means paying nonjudgmental attention to the experience through your senses.

For example, when you turn on the faucet, think, “Aha! This is my trigger to be mindful.” Then, as you wash, tune your attention into the raw sensory experience of washing: the sensations of coldness, wetness, and contact as the water hits your hands, the sound and sight of the water, and so on.

Be more interested in the sensory experience than in evaluating the experience (e.g., “This feels good!” “Ugh, this water is too cold!”) or telling stories about it (e.g., “I’d better wash fast, I’m running late…”). This exercise has two benefits. It sharpens your mindfulness skills and helps bring mindfulness to the forefront throughout your day. In addition, it turns routine activities into surprisingly rich and enjoyable experiences.

Unless you are the Dalai Lama, you will sometimes forget about your trigger and carry out the activity obliviously. For example, you may wash your hands and not remember until a half-hour later that you were supposed to do so mindfully. That’s OK! This is a practice, and proficiency takes time.

Eventually, remembering this trigger activity will become a habit. Then, when you feel ready, you can add a second activity. Over time, you’ll add more and more mindful moments to your day.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Ever notice that more stuff seems to happen in the first few weeks of school than in the next six months? So many people to meet and events to check out and flavors of ramen to try. All that activity can be a blast, but it can also be overwhelming. It’s easy to get anxious, worried about missing out, or afraid of making a bad impression. Sometimes we get so fixated on the future that we forget to savor the present.

Are you going to be in your head (not that fun) or in the moment (way more fun)? You can choose.

How to gently help yourself stay in the moment

“All his life he looked away to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was! What he was doing!” —Yoda (bad grammar, good point)

When you start to spin off into anxious thoughts about the past or future, this technique lets you catch yourself and come back to the present. It’s an old meditation practice, and it works as well today as it did a century ago. Here’s what you do:

1. When you notice you’ve gotten lost in a thought about the past or future, give it the mental label “thinking.” Just say “thinking” in your head. Not “thinking about my reading assignment” or “thinking about what I’m wearing tonight.” Just “thinking.”
   The labeling should be gentle, like touching a soap bubble with a feather, says Pema Chodron, a meditation master and all-around cool lady. That’s all it takes.

2. Return to the present by bringing your attention to your senses. For example, notice your feet on the floor, or feel your stomach rise and fall as you breathe, or take in the sounds around you.

3. That’s it!

This technique may seem weird at first, but it quickly becomes second nature. It can be very powerful. Getting caught up in our worries, fears, and judgments is totally normal. It’s going to happen. This labeling technique can help us untangle ourselves from all those mental knots and come back to the now—where the good stuff is.