Actively take care of your mind by exploring emotions and learning skillful ways to handle difficult feelings, just as you would physical health.
Establish meditation as a foundational practice to understand your mind and monitor what truly helps or hinders your well-being.
Practice mindfulness of the body to stay grounded in the present moment, especially when feeling lost in mental chatter or future worries.
Incorporate short periods (5-15 minutes) of walking meditation or mindful movement into your day, feeling your body move during ordinary activities.
When practicing mindful movement, use the simple mantra ’each step’ to focus your attention on the present moment, one step at a time.
Practice mindfulness of thoughts and emotions as they arise, allowing you to observe them without being carried away or caught up in their patterns.
Create a healthy distance from your thoughts and emotions, observing them rather than becoming entangled or identified with them.
Beyond merely recognizing thoughts and emotions, pay attention to how you relate to them, avoiding aversion or identification, which can feed difficult states.
Cultivate acceptance of unpleasant emotions like fear or anxiety, letting go of aversion to allow them to flow through naturally, rather than feeding them.
When strong emotions arise, bring a sense of interest and investigation by asking what you’re feeling, how it manifests in the body, and what thoughts it generates.
Employ mental noting—softly and silently labeling experiences like ’thinking,’ ‘worry,’ ‘fear,’ or ‘stepping’—to create distance and objective awareness.
Pay attention to the tone of your mental notes; a judgmental or aversive tone reveals underlying reactivity, which you can then address with more kindness.
When experiencing difficult thoughts or emotions, ask yourself, ‘Is this helpful?’ to cut through their seduction and create space for a more appropriate response.
When you notice difficult thoughts or emotions and find yourself being self-critical, use the phrase ‘welcome to the party’ to foster self-compassion and acceptance.
Remind yourself with the phrase ‘it’s okay’ to cultivate openness and acceptance towards whatever difficult feelings are arising, allowing them space to flow.
Allow suffering and distress, both personal and global, to be fertile ground for cultivating compassion, which is an ennobling and uplifting quality.
Be willing to take in information about the suffering of others to foster compassion, but do so mindfully to avoid becoming overwhelmed.
Let compassion motivate you to ask, ‘How can I help?’ considering your unique circumstances, skills, and interests, and stay open to opportunities to be of service.
Extend compassion and loving-kindness to yourself, recognizing that self-care allows you to be more effectively helpful to others.
In formal meditation, visualize someone suffering and silently repeat the phrase, ‘May you be free of this suffering,’ to cultivate a stronger sense of compassion.
Understand that while empathy is feeling others’ feelings, compassion adds the desire to help, which can be empowering and prevent overwhelm.
Consciously manage the amount of time you spend consuming news and online information, asking if it’s serving you or leading to overwhelm.
Strive to cultivate a calm demeanor, as your inner state can positively influence those around you, just as panic can spread.
Explore various modalities for support beyond meditation, such as connecting with friends/family, engaging with music/poetry/art, exercise, or therapy.
Understand that consistent meditation and mindfulness practices strengthen neural pathways, making skillful responses and states of mind more habitual and default.
Actively explore and investigate different creative ideas and tools that help you achieve the right balance in your mind, as individual approaches vary.
Consider writing poetry as a practice to find clarity in confusing situations, as the form itself can demand and foster clear thinking.
Reflect on historical or cosmological perspectives (e.g., the ‘pale blue dot’ image) to gain a sense of spaciousness and inner balance, providing a broader context for current events.
Engage in the challenging but profound exploration of your relationship with death and mortality, asking yourself if you are prepared to die, as this can lead to a more peaceful understanding of existence.
Practice daily reflection on the impermanent nature of life, acknowledging that whatever is born, grows old, gets sick, and dies, is a natural part of existence.
Healthcare workers can access the 10% Happier app for free by visiting 10%.com/care to gain support during stressful times.
Join the 10% Happier Live daily sanity break on YouTube (10%.com/live) every weekday at 3 PM ET / noon PT for guided meditation and Q&A with teachers.