Mindfulness as a Pause Button: Harnessing Stillness in Busy Lives

(gentle music) Headspace Studio. (relaxing music) Hello and welcome to Radio Headspace. It's Eve here with you and it's Friday. I have to say I am ready for the weekend. As I was thinking about today's episode and the fact that the weekend is ahead of us, I kept thinking about this idea that mindfulness is really a pause button. You know when you watch a game show on TV and they have a big red button that the game show participants push to signal that they have an answer? Well, for me, mindfulness is my imaginary red button that I regularly push and practice through the day. There's a beautiful quote by Viktor Frankl, who was an Austrian psychologist, and it goes, "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." All day, every day, we are bombarded with distractions. Simply put, all that is stress, and it's not always big things. Someone cuts you off in traffic. You have a difficult call with your boss, and as a result, we hurtle through the week, dodging and diving all of that and arrive at the weekend a little exhausted. When we get caught up in the busyness of our lives, it can be so easy to forget to take a moment to pause and to reflect and come back to the present moment. I often hear folks say that they don't have time to practice meditation or mindfulness. Life is already too busy. The beauty of this practice is that you really don't need loads of extra time. No one has extra time lying around. Instead, it's actually about practicing as you go about your day. We all know that feeling of being stressed and overwhelmed. Sometimes it might feel like your head might actually pop. It's in those moments that you could pause, take a few deep breaths, even if it's just for one minute, that is you hitting that red game show button. By taking a few moments to focus on your breath, you can step out of the rush of your daily life and into a moment of stillness and calm, and that pause might help you recharge your batteries just a little bit. That is the space that Viktor Frankl was talking about, and it might seem so insignificant, but it's pretty amazing the difference it can make. By sharing this with you ahead of the weekend, I hope that you can take some time to create your own pause button. Recently, I actually canceled plans I had with some friends because it meant the weekend was just going to be too busy and I would've had no time to unwind and relax, and I was feeling pretty overloaded. It's not something I normally like to do because I find spending time with friends and loved ones really nourishing, but it can be helpful to just take...