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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners

10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation

What is Meditation?

Mindful LivingSleep
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Cory Muscara

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The 5-Second Rule

Personalized support for learning how to integrate mindfulness into your life. Delivered fresh everyday by our world renowned experts. Choose meditation duration:

Hi, welcome back to

your Daily Mindfulness.

In today's session, I want to talk

about a strategy you can use for

working with fear and taking action.

So a lot of times we have an

intuitive sense of what would be

good for us, something we want to

try, something that excites us.

But the idea of moving toward it

activates the fear part of our being.

The thoughts start coming in saying,

oh, I don't know if I can do this,

or, what would happen if I did or,

it feels like a big leap, I'm scared.

So there's a simple strategy

by Mel Robbins that I like.

And it's called the five second

rule, which she suggests is when

you have something you know you

want to do, like a pattern, a habit,

you start counting down from five.

So maybe you just want to

get out of bed earlier.

And so the alarm goes off,

your tendency is to hit snooze.

As soon as the alarm

goes off the first time.

You hit it and turn it off.

And then you start going 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

And you see what happens

once you start counting down?

It creates a bit of urgency in the system.

It's different than counting one

through five, which can be endless.

1, 2, 3, 4.

Something about 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

It's like there's supposed

to be a blast off after that.

And so it overrides some of that fear

response in the brain and just causes

us to push into action a little bit.

I don't think this strategy is

necessary or useful in all contexts.

As I've talked about before, there

are times where we really need to

work with that fear-based part of us.

But if we know there's something that

we really want to do and the inner

child or that younger part of us is

just, it's maybe complaining a little

bit, or it's just caught and it's fear

and we just need to push through just

a little bit to get over that hump,

then I think this strategy is useful.

And try it out in your day.

Something simple that you want to try,

that you want to work on, instead of

maybe procrastinating and just getting

to work when you feel that urge,

like I should do this, but then the

mind goes, I don't really want to.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

And then you just start.

Try

it out.

Thanks for your practice.

Let's settle in for today's meditation.

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