Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Dr. Elise Bialylew’s best-selling book, The Happiness Plan. 

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Few experiences can compare to holding a human brain.

It was my first year of medical training. I was 19 years old, and as I stood in the cold, sterile dissection room with a brain in my hands, I wondered how a lifetime of memory, feelings, and thoughts could arise from this one-kilogram, tofu-like substance.

This fascination with the brain, coupled with my desire to help people live happy and meaningful lives, led me to a career in psychiatry. But as I moved deeper into my career, I discovered that while psychiatry helped save people’s lives, it often left the flourishing part of the equation to other health professionals. I realised that this was the part of the journey I was most passionate about.

I wanted to support people in thriving, not just surviving.

Truth be told, throughout my training, as I worked 24-hour shifts on the wards, my own health and happiness were being affected. As a highly sensitive person who deeply cared about her fellow human beings, the work I was doing was taking its toll, at times leaving me stressed and overwhelmed.

I wasn’t alone. As I spoke with my colleagues, I discovered a silent epidemic of doctors experiencing vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and existential crises of their own. One day I turned up to work to find that one colleague had admitted himself to a psychiatric clinic. The pressure had sent him spiralling into a severe depression.

Alarmingly, the World Health Organization now considers depression as the leading cause of ill-health and disability worldwide. And for a great number of the people suffering, there are simple, free, and non-pharmaceutical ways of managing their mental health.

Much of the research in the field of mindfulness explores the impact of 30-45 minutes of meditation a day on physical and psychological well-being. Excitingly, in my own scientific research, I discovered that just 10 minutes a day of mindfulness meditation over one month was enough to support more positive emotions, reduce stress, increase self-compassion, and strengthen focus in daily life.

There’s plenty of examples in the scientific literature that explain why mindfulness is not just a fad, but will continue to be further integrated into our home and work life. Research shows that people who suffer from depression and negative mood states have more electrical brain activity on the right side of the brain, compared with those who have more of a positive, resilient attitude in life.

One study, by Richie Davidson, demonstrated that with regular mindfulness practices, the electrical brain activity shifted from right to “left-sided anterior activation,” indicating a transition to more positive emotional states. Simply put, meditation leads to greater happiness.

And a groundbreaking study found increased amounts of an enzyme that protects DNA from age and stress-related damage among regular meditators, suggesting that meditation can protect the cells from age-related damage.

Although genetics undeniably has an influence on our mental health, the new science offers a more empowering perspective, where we can, to some extent, become sculptors of our own brains by practising mindfulness.

When we practise worrying, the worrying circuits of the brain are reinforced. When we practise gratitude, the brain becomes more capable of noticing the good in our lives. When we practise mindfulness meditation, it forms new neural pathways that support focus, calm, and emotional balance.

I wanted to share a few easy methods you can implement to deal with stress in your life through mindfulness practices:

Use your breath to calm yourself down.
You breath is intimately connected to your nervous system. Use it to your advantage when you’re feeling stressed to calm yourself down by slowing your breath and extending your exhalation. This will quiet your entire nervous system, keeping you calm rather than reactive, and helping you make better decisions about what is needed.

Name it to tame it.
Neuroscientific research demonstrates that when we’re stressed, talking or writing about how we’re feeling helps us to calm down. As we become more mindful of difficult emotions, we reinforce neural pathways that help us remember to pause when we’re in the heat of an emotion, and use the most evolved part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, to calm ourselves down.

Take a 10-minute holiday for your mind. 
Although when we’re stressed the last thing we want to do is stop and meditate, research shows that meditating for just 10 minutes can help you be more focused and effective. Give your mind a 10-minute holiday and it will reward you with a powerful return on investment of greater focus, clarity, and effectiveness.

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Author: Dr. Elise Bialylew
Image: Sylvia movie
Editor: Nicole Cameron
Copy Editor: Catherine Monkman