Real Food Stories

97. Harnessing the Power of Meditation: Transform Your Stress, Focus, and Well-being with Anne Swanson

• Heather Carey • Season 3 • Episode 97

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Can meditation truly transform your life?

Join us for an enlightening conversation with Anne Swanson, a renowned yoga therapist and author, who shares her incredible journey from battling chronic pain and anxiety to finding peace and clarity through the power of meditation. You'll gain deep insights into how meditation acts as a "boot camp for your focus," promoting structural and biochemical changes in the brain that lead to lasting mental and physical health benefits. Anne's new book, "Meditation for the Real World," serves as a powerful resource for understanding and integrating these practices into your daily life.

Discover how just one minute of meditation can significantly impact your stress levels, awareness, and overall well-being. We bust the myth that meditation requires long, silent sessions, and instead explore the practicality of short, mindful moments throughout the day. Experience a one-minute guided meditation with us and learn how these brief practices can improve decision-making, and relationships, and cultivate a balanced life. Anne also shares valuable tips on mindful eating and cooking, enhancing your sensory experiences and mindfulness.

For women navigating perimenopause and menopause, Anne offers tailored meditation techniques to alleviate symptoms such as headaches, anxiety, and sleep disturbances. Explore the importance of finding meaning during life transitions and the innovative use of scientifically-engineered sounds to enhance meditation. With actionable advice and scientific insights, this episode makes meditation approachable and effective for everyone. Don't miss out on learning how to integrate these powerful practices into your life for lasting benefits.

Ann's Book Meditation For The Real World
Join Ann's 21-Day Meditation Challenge here

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Speaker 1:

Hi everybody and welcome back to Real Food Stories. I have been dabbling in meditation practice for years, as well as promoting it to my clients, because of all the stress-relieving benefits, but how it works and why is still sort of a mystery to me. So I'm calling in the experts today, and I have Anne Swanson with me. Anne Swanson teaches meditation to busy people with busy minds. She is a yoga therapist, speaker and the author of the bestselling book the Science of Yoga, which has been translated into over 15 languages. Her new book, Meditation for the Real World, illuminates the fascinating science behind meditation, with step-by-step practices to find peace in everyday life.

Speaker 1:

However, Anne wasn't a naturally chill person, as she says, and meditation didn't come easy to her. Overcoming chronic pain and anxiety led her to India to study yoga, to China to explore Tai Chi and ultimately to earn a master's of science in yoga therapy. Now Anne blends cutting-edge research with ancient wisdom, resulting in realistic techniques. You'll find yourself integrating into your day. So welcome, Anne, I'm so excited to have you on into your day. So welcome, man, I'm so excited to have you on. I know meditation is just the thing that we all need to be doing. I mean, you hear it everywhere. Right, we all should be meditating, but why don't we just start with a little bit of your background, your story, how you got into it, and then we'll? I have a million questions I could be asking you and we'll talk about your book too.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely, and I mean it's just like we all know that we should eat well, but sticking with it is the hard part. You know we, at this point the evidence is so strong with this exponential growth and research supporting meditation. You know the neuroscientists are doing it, the CEOs are doing it and we know we should in quotes you know meditate. But finding a practice that works for us and sticking with it can be a challenge, and you know, for me it didn't come easy. I actually first came to these practices for the physical part through yoga, and by the time we would get to the portion of the yoga class where we'd be meditating, at the end I'd be looking at my watch like it is time to go. This is a waste of time. I am a recovering perfectionist type A type person, so I have things to do, you know, and it didn't really click for a while. And then, over time, you know the physical practice prepares you for meditation, and so over time, I started to like open up to it and we would do techniques that would work and it would feel like this weight was taken off of my shoulders, and that's when I started to really feel the magic working.

Speaker 2:

You know I came to yoga specifically for my own chronic pain and my own pretty debilitating anxiety and you know the physical practice made a big difference. And then the meditation part of yoga has also just made the hugest impact. And that's what I'm sharing nowadays, because people feel like they can't do it. You know, just as I felt. I felt like it was a waste of time, I didn't get it, I felt like my mind was too busy. But if you have a busy mind, that's more reason to meditate, because it's boot camp for your focus. It's going to help you be able to focus better. And you know it takes practice. It's a skill we learn, like reading right, we learn the skill of reading. We're not born with it and then, once we learn the skill of meditation, it opens up a whole new world of possibilities, just like when we learn to read.

Speaker 1:

That sounds really exciting. I know exactly what you mean about that last 10 minutes of a yoga class and they're like, okay, in 10 minutes and all I have felt sometimes is like, great, I get to just sit here and close my eyes and maybe take a little nap, or like you know, like just you know, it wasn't so much about the relaxing, but I I understand what you're saying. I mean, I know that it's. It is a really important part of the practice, right, it works.

Speaker 1:

It's like exercising your brain rather than just exercising your body, and but it's still, I think, for a lot of people, very vague and very like what is it doing for me? What does it mean? How long do I have to do it for? You know, sometimes I, you know, even when they say like just meditate for five minutes a day. You sometimes, you know, even when they say like just meditate for five minutes a day, five minutes suddenly feels like five days. You know, it's like suddenly like I don't have five minutes to meditate, like how all of a sudden it feels like that's going to take like so much of my time. So you say that there's science behind it, and I and I was looking through your book which is great, by the way and tell me, I love science and I love research and I love things that are backed up by information. So what is the science in a nutshell?

Speaker 1:

I mean, I know there's a lot of science, I mean just reading your book that there's a lot of research done on it, but what is the science behind it that really proves that meditation is helpful for us?

Speaker 2:

I teamed with Harvard neuroscientist Dr Sarah Lazar on this book, meditation for the Real World, to integrate the most cutting edge research in a very concise way with pictures, also teamed with the New York Times illustrator, so it shows you, you know visually, what's going on in your brain, in your body, and every system of your body is actually positively affected by meditation. So of course, the brain is one of the areas where we hear the most about. Right. It's going to help with our mental health, it's going to help with our focus, and what we see is both structural, like physical changes in the brain from meditation, and we see biochemical changes from meditation. So structurally, that's more long-term. Even just eight weeks, though, counts as long-term. We see structural changes in that short of time of starting to meditate is that your brain tissue and very critical areas having to do with focus, emotional regulation, self-control, memory, those areas get strengthened, the connectivity in them builds, and so literally the gray matter, the tissue, gets bigger, your brain gets bigger in those areas and those areas tend to degrade as we age. So to have that counteracting the natural aging process can help you feel sharper and have better emotional regulation and mental health as we age, and so the chemical changes actually begin right away and that's why often we feel that immediate, like ah.

Speaker 2:

When we do a meditation, even a one minute meditation, a five minute meditation we see changes in these chemicals like endorphins being released, those feel good chemicals that also help with, you know, pain, because they're, you know, your natural morphine that is released immediately. We have a balancing of serotonin, dopamine and these other chemicals that have to do with our happiness and motivation are balanced. Our happiness and motivation are balanced. So those things happen immediately and over time. The balancing of your hormones and these neurotransmitters and then we can look at every system of the body is changing. We have less sick days at work. When we practice meditation, we improve our immune system. Overall, we improve our cardiovascular health that's one of the hugest areas of research lowering your blood pressure, bad cholesterol levels, improving your heart rate variability, that's, your heart's ability to respond quickly to challenges and be resilient amidst challenges. So it's like stress resilience that we're building through meditation. So we're building the capacity to go from 10 out of 10 intense stress to relax and at ease. You're building your muscles of being able to relax and then go back to go, go, go and be able to do that consciously, we could really break down every single system of the body.

Speaker 2:

So if there's a particular area you're interested in, we can go into the genetic level and the cellular level. Your DNA is expressed. The expression of the DNA is better, so we have better immune system expression rather than having autoimmune diseases expressing. So if you and your family have specific diseases, understand that your genes are not your destiny. Your genes are not your destiny.

Speaker 2:

We understand now that the majority of whether or not you get chronic diseases is actually lifestyle. We see this with twin studies that over 90% of your likelihood of getting a disease many diseases is because of your lifestyle what you eat, what you think, how you sleep all of these factors and meditation improves lifestyle choices. You're going to start noticing that you make better food choices. You're listening to your body better. You notice what things cause you to trigger your chronic pain or your symptoms. You're going to sleep better. Make better choices around sleep hygiene. You're going to have better relationships. So meditation has been shown to improve lifestyle choices, which is going to cascade into every other aspect of your life as you get more in touch with your body and what it's asking for.

Speaker 1:

Just reading your book and just hearing you talking, I mean, it does promise a lot and just hearing you talking, I mean it does promise a lot, right, I mean there's like. I mean it's really like. It's almost like this magic pill that could be. That costs nothing, really, except for your time, right, and your practice. If they could pill it up, they'd make so much money, right, exactly.

Speaker 2:

But it involves a little discipline, right? Even if it's a one minute meditation, you can start to see impacts, or five minutes, as you mentioned, it doesn't mean you need to sit for 20 minutes on a cushion in perfect silence, so with chanting in the background on the floor. You know that's not what it is. The cover of the book meditation for the real world is a woman sitting on a subway and you know you can have your eyes open. She's the only one that looks chill and itst all these people hunched over their phones. What do we do when we're waiting? We scroll while we wait and we know that's not good for our brain. And she is the only one with headphones on. Maybe she's listening to an audio meditation and guided, or she's perhaps listening to a song and just very present in that moment. You can meditate while you wait, fitting in these one minute, three minute, five minute meditations in critical points of your day, and you'll feel a big impact.

Speaker 1:

So what about that? I hear you mentioned that, this perfectionism thing that I think a lot of women might say like well, if it's only going to be one minute, that's not going to be enough, unless I'm doing it for 30 minutes. You know, it's all, I'm all in or I'm nothing, but all or nothing. Yeah, I mean, so can one minute really make, have an impact.

Speaker 2:

You know what? Let's do it. Let's do one minute. Even if you're driving right now, you can totally do this and practice this as like mindfulness.

Speaker 2:

So you know, just don't close your eyes but, whatever you're doing, as you're listening, take in what you see and if you're looking at a screen, look away from the screen for a moment. Ideally, look out a window or look in the distance, even if you're inside. Look far away and allow your vision to expand, to expand, relax the eye muscles, taking in what you see the light, colors, shadows, seeing it in a different way. And, if it's comfortable and appropriate for you, you're welcome to close your eyes and continue to take in what you see, as you still see colors and light. It's just an option. And then shifting your attention to what you hear, my voice sounds in the distance, even Sounds inside your space and up closer, perhaps even the sound of your own breath.

Speaker 2:

Take a deep inhale through the nose. Notice any smells and exhale slowly. Taste any tastes that are present and bring your attention to your physical body, under your skin, feeling deep within. You might even feel compelled to adjust your posture or to move a little bit. Feel free If your body's asking for something, deliver. If it's asking for a sip of water, take a sip of water. Listen to your body's intuition. Body's always speaking to us, but we don't always listen. This is your chance to listen.

Speaker 2:

Gently open your eyes, if they're closed, take in all your senses simultaneously, notice what you see, hear, smell, taste and feel physically, and then bringing the sense of awareness with you as we continue talking about the benefits of what we just did, which you might've felt immediate effects your blood pressure lowered, your heart rate lowered. Immediately you probably released those endorphins, those feel good chemicals. You are changing your brainwave patterns from that kind of like pattern that has to do with listening and focusing you know the beta brainwaves to alpha brainwaves, which are more relaxed and at ease. And in meditation we can even go into some of those deeper brainwave states that are like typically only seen in sleep, or like really creativity, memory consolidation. So you might have experienced some of those patterns.

Speaker 2:

But we are changing things immediately and it only takes a minute. You know that's the kind of meditation you can do. You could turn your office chair around when you get that stressful email. Before you press send and your response, look out the window and just go through your five senses. That's it, and it could be less than a minute. Turn back and I guarantee when you get back to that email you're going to have more clarity.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean I, I sat here and just kind of closed my eyes a little bit and, and you know, and listen to you, and it's just right for one minute as a as a recovering perfectionist as well, you know, I'm like you can change your brain in a minute. I mean you can get much more relaxed and just get centered and it does work. So we can just start with one minute at a time, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And, I think, fitting these one minute meditations throughout your day, before, during or after a critical moment. So before you go into that stressful meeting you're nervous about, or step on stage. Or before you pick up your kids while you're waiting for them, right Before all those kids hop in your car and you're going to have this new stimuli to deal with. Or perhaps after you just had a stressful conversation and you need to transition from that work conversation to being with your family. So we can fit these moments in and those critical times in our life, and you're going to see that it changes the way you interact with your family, with your job. You're going to speak better when you go on stage and so you'll feel the immediate effects of that one minute or less meditation.

Speaker 2:

And that's one of my favorite qualities or features of the book Meditation for the Real World is I have these sort of like one minute meditations scattered throughout for specific situations. You know, right before you eat, taking a deep breath, smelling your food and becoming present with what you have a sense of gratitude for the food, for the company you know, and really settling before you eat. You're going to eat slower, more mindfully, more presently. So it's going to change the way you behave, and I think one thing that I've struggled with in the meditation world is this whole concept of just being mindful all the time and this expectation that we can just be mindful all the time. You know we need these resets. This is like a reset button to your nervous system. When you notice you're distracted, when you notice you're not being present, you can do this and get back into the moment.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's definitely a practice right. I mean, this is not something that just comes naturally right. We have to be mindful of practicing it right. And, as you were just talking, I'm just wondering what could help to just even remind you to take that one minute pause and meditate. Would it be a reminder on your phone, or I mean, do you have any tips for that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I mean those, those things can help, but I do encourage people to kind of get away from screens. To you know, it seems like all the meditation apps have become so gamified and I'll spend 20 minutes searching for the perfect meditation, feeling extra anxious when I finally find it. So you know I that's one reason why I wrote a physical book is for the like book lovers that want to have something physical. You know, put it, put it by your bedside, put it on your coffee table, on your desk, to flip through and find. You know, what am I dealing with right now? Oh, I'm dealing with you. Know, what am I dealing with right now?

Speaker 1:

Oh, I'm dealing with you know this, this feeling of of overwhelmed because I've been doom scrolling.

Speaker 2:

There's a meditation for doom scrolling, you know. So you find what, what is the specific thing that you're dealing with, and then you can read through that. So I think getting away from the phone could be helpful. But yes, that is a technique. Let's use the science of building a habit to do this unique. Let's use the science of building a habit to do this. So we want to pair our new habit meditation with something else we already have a strong habit of. We already do naturally in our day.

Speaker 2:

So we want to fit it before, during or after that activity, so that works. If you want to do like a five or 10 minute meditation and it actually is a gift to your listeners, if they go to meditationfortherealworldcom they get the meditation challenge, which incorporates 10 minute meditations for five days in a row and they're science backed and very like, simple, accessible. So definitely go to meditationfortherealworldcom if you want to develop that longer practice. But for these one minute meditations you know it's the same philosophy. We want to fit it before, during and after.

Speaker 2:

Every time when you pick up your kids, you know you got that minute to spare. That's when you're going to do it, right. So that's before you pick them up, before you go into for you. You know, before, heather, you go into a, a podcast, before you press accept and let them in there, right. Or if you're in a meeting, before you go into the meeting, before you press accept, take a one-breath meditation, come into your five senses, so you could fit it in a lot of people.

Speaker 2:

You know, if you drive to work or even you work from home, there's this sense of like transitioning from the work environment to your home environment, even if it's just walking into your living room, so creating a little ritual, you know, or right, when you arrive home, driving home, sitting in the car in the driveway for a minute and do a one minute meditation there so that you can be your best self coming into the household. So fit it into a moment that you already know. You know I have this before, during or after, moment that you already know. You know I have this before, during or after, but during your commute you know if you are on a train or a bus that's a great time too.

Speaker 1:

I love that. I love, I love like coupling another habit that you do on autopilot with with with this new habit of just even one minute of meditation. I think that's great way to like just right, link them up and so that you don't forget, and because we can get all so busy, right, you know doing our millions of things, so that that's a really good way to look at it and to create the new habit. I wanted to talk to you. We've dabbled a little bit in like food, you know, and food is my food, is my thing as a culinary nutritionist, and food is, you know, really important for me to to practice mindfulness, and it's it's definitely an area that I talk to my clients about a lot, all of it, from like step one.

Speaker 1:

You know, mindful cooking, mindful eating, right, you know, just, even when you're chopping the carrots for the soup you're making, and you know, and using all of your senses and the smelling and the listening, and and I know that you have a little mini chapter in your book about mindful eating, so that really caught my attention. Or how, how do you? You know, for me it's, it's I just tell people just to practice it, you know like, just try to really practice it. It's something that's so incredibly helpful for me. To be mindful with my food, it's what's. You know, I lost a good deal of weight years ago and it was one of the things that absolutely moved the needle for me, and I'm still very, very mindful of my food every single day, and but especially in the kitchen and cooking. So what, what do you have to say about it? What are your thoughts about just mindful eating and just being in your kitchen and practicing, and where can meditation sort of fit in there? Or is just mindful? Is mindfulness just the meditation practice?

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, let's kind of define the difference between mindfulness and meditation. First, because mindfulness has become such a mainstream word that I think it's lost some of its meaning. So, according to researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn, who incorporates actually mindful eating into his protocol, he calls mindfulness four different components. It's paying attention on purpose to the present moment, without judgment. I like to think of that one as with compassion, like with self-compassion, you know when your mind wanders or when you're frustrated with something, or that's the without judgment, because a lot of us get down on ourselves and feel like, oh, we're not good at it because my mind wandered. But that's not true. Mind wandering is a part of meditation. So you can be mindful during anything. You could be mindful, as you said, while you're cooking, while you're eating. Now, meditation is typically defined as more of a formal practice. You don't have to be seated on a floor level, formal, but it's where we are focusing on one thing, what you're physically feeling. It could just be a sense, or it could be a word you repeat, or affirmation, a phrase I am strong, I am strong. It could be a word or a phrase you repeat. So meditation tends to be, especially in the research, a more formal practice, but we can incorporate mindfulness as the technique for it, and meditation can be thought of, as you know, bootcamp for your focus, so that you can become more mindful in your everyday life, more or in that like flow state. You know, when you're cooking and you're like, ooh, I'm into this, ooh, I smell that, let me add a little bit of this and you're like totally in flow, totally immersed whatever you're doing. And it're like totally in flow, totally immersed in whatever you're doing, and it feels like a meditation. It is a meditation and movement, but that formal practice of meditation, even if it's just a minute, prepares you for that. It helps you get into that flow state and become more mindful in your everyday life. So that's one thing you could do is, right before you start cooking, you have perhaps everything all set out. You have the recipe sitting there. That's kind of my thing that I need to get myself to do is read through the recipe first, have it sitting there, have everything set out, and then you do your one minute meditation or a few breaths of a meditation, meditation or a few breaths of a meditation, and and just a sense of gratitude could be your focus for what you have. What's here for this time. That's a beautiful focus for a meditation, I think, around food. Um, it could be the smells already that you're focusing on. So just taking a moment to do that, like you could physically touch the vegetables and be like, take a couple of deep breaths. It could be just a couple of breath, meditation, and then you're going to be setting the stage to be mindful or present during that activity, and I think that could be a really helpful thing.

Speaker 2:

And I like to also integrate I think I mentioned this earlier is that it's less than a minute event, that like deep breath before we eat, when we have the hot meal sitting in front of us and my partner and I were sitting there and we're like take a deep breath together, smell it, feel it, and then we literally say out loud something we're grateful for. I'm so grateful for this food and something really specific, though not the same thing every time. You know this, this particular food that we never really get to get here on the island, and that we have this new food, and that I'm so grateful that you were able to, you know, take off the afternoon. Something very specific that's been shown in the research when you're specific with your gratitude, it helps. So we try to say something.

Speaker 2:

And the thing about this practice is, you know, throughout history people have been doing prayer and formal sort of ceremonies around food. It's just a natural human thing to do and I noticed that when we're in a big group even out if I don't do it as a formal let's hold hands and say what we're grateful for. I go around the room unless it's Thanksgiving, but I'll just be like, wow, I'm so grateful that we all got together and that the food came quickly. And then you'll notice somebody else pops up and they say well, I'm grateful that blah, blah, blah, you know, and everybody just kind of popcorns, a gratitude thing, and so that is a really great intention setting for the practice of eating also.

Speaker 1:

I love that and thank you for that explanation. And to distinguish between mindfulness and meditation, because there is a. I mean meditation sets you up for mindfulness and then for gratitude and maybe the practice of prayer, and so it does. So I hate what I'm hearing you say is that meditation is really at the base of all of these other practices that you end up developing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I just want to add, you know, I think meditation pairs beautifully with a prayer practice. When we look at the neuroscience of prayer, the areas of your brain that light up when you pray and we're talking, like maybe there's different types of prayer, so like the kind of prayer where you're you're speaking to God, maybe saying what you're grateful for, you're saying your wishes, whatever it may be that those areas are the areas related to speaking to somebody, to paying attention and speaking to somebody, and then the areas that light up related to meditation, are more similar to visualizing and listening. So I like to think of prayer, as you know, speaking to God or, you know, speaking to a higher power, and then meditation as listening, and we're also listening to our intuition, listening to our bodies. What does my body want? You're going to eat better. You're going to choose the food better. You're going to eat slower when you listen to your body's cues.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I have, I have I'm very familiar with that too is that prayer is speaking to a higher power. Meditating is taking the time to listen back and hear any messages or or answers back, so that's a really nice way to look at it as well. There's so much more in your book. I wanted to because I know I'm just thinking about time and everything but I wanted to really touch on one section that you had which is very curious about was the section on perimenopause and menopause and the benefits of meditation for that, because I'm a woman in menopause right now, and so are a lot of my clients, and I think I'd always thought like meditation just to help me relax. You know as far as that, but is there other science behind meditation for perimenopause and menopause?

Speaker 2:

Yes, We've found that it helps during that transition period. It helps lower symptoms. And when we break down what meditation does, a lot of the symptoms that women deal with during perimenopause and menopause are symptoms that meditation separately has been shown to improve, like headaches, feeling, you know, anxiety and depression and just kind of dealing with those ups and downs, sleep issues being a huge area, and we know that meditation, as I mentioned earlier, helps to balance hormones and for us to feel more balanced overall. So you know, all these issues that we kind of combated at like a more intensified period during that time of our life meditation can help with separately. So that's one of the things that I did in the book is like okay, if you're dealing with sleep issues, go to this space, because I have a whole section on sleep. If you're dealing with headaches, go to this space because I have a whole section on sleep. You're dealing with headaches. There's a whole section on headaches where meditation has been really shown to be quite helpful with headaches and migraines. So you can flip through the book, for sure, and find those different areas. But overall, just meditation has been helpful during this time to lower symptoms, to help coping time, to lower symptoms, to help coping and, I think, to help shift from that feeling of struggle that is part of it to that growth mindset. You know, meditation ultimately, if we look at the practice, it helps us find meaning and purpose. So finding meaning and purpose in this transition, in this new, like stage of life, is another thing that it can offer. That we can't really quantify as much, but I think that that's a big area. Whatever transition stage you're in in life, meditation can be helpful during that, and it's hardest to remember to meditate when you're in the transitions.

Speaker 2:

However, as a yoga therapist, I'm constantly thinking well, how can meditation help me with this? Right, I'm struggling with sleep. I'm going to meditate. Actually, honestly, I meditate in the bathtub before I go to bed. So getting that warm bath has been shown to help with sleep, because then your core body temperature is going to release some heat and you're actually going to feel cooler when you get out of the bathtub and you you want to snuggle up, and that's what we want is our body temperature to lower before sleep, and so you get more deep sleep when you have a warm bath or shower. And so I'll do that, and you can even meditate in the shower, feel the warmth of the water on your skin. Take some deep breaths. I like to like spray this essential oil in my shower because I don't like to put it on my skin. I have very sensitive skin, but if I smell it it's fine and it kind of steams up. So, taking some deep breaths, smelling the smells or even of your shampoos and soap and becoming present, use your nighttime like a wind down routine as part of your meditation. Integrate meditation into that, and then you know.

Speaker 2:

Another therapeutic thing we can do is incorporating some breathing techniques to help with when you're having a hot flash or just like you're feeling really, really warm all of a sudden. So if you can roll your tongue, how you do it this is a yoga breathing technique is you roll your tongue? So not everybody can, but if you can roll your tongue, go ahead and roll your tongue. If you can't roll your tongue, no worries, there's a way we can do this where we just put the top teeth in alignment with the bottom teeth and so you kind of like I guess it's a, what is that? An underbite over underbite. You touch them together.

Speaker 2:

So and then what? Whichever one you're doing, you're going to breathe through your mouth with the deep inhale and suck it in Like you're sucking in with a straw, and then close your mouth and exhale through the nose. Okay, a few breaths like this. The saliva cools the breath. The slow breathing also helps during this moment, this hissing breath sound. This is a yoga, pranayama or breathing technique that helps with cooling the body and it works immediately. Just a few deep breaths like this and you'll feel cooler during that hot flash. So we can therapeutically use different breathing techniques and meditations to help with the symptoms in the moment and, like I said, with one minute meditations, if you fit them in the right moment, you're going to feel the immediate benefits.

Speaker 1:

That sounds great. That's like a nice action step that you can take for something very specific, like hot flashes, and that's a little practice. Just finally, you mentioned you've talked about a lot of different types of meditation or, like you know, you've, I think, through our conversation, just thrown out a couple different ways to practice. Yeah, are there practices that are better than others? And you know, I know we've, we've highlighted the one minute meditation today because I think a lot of my audience is very busy and they, you know there's a lot of things that get in the way of of even considering, like, doing a 20 minute meditation. So, but are there? I know in your book you have different types of meditations. Are there ones that are more beneficial just overall, or does it not matter, I mean, as long as you're just meditating?

Speaker 2:

It's a really great question. The absolute best type of meditation is the one that you actually enjoy and you do, the one that works for you. Right, and that's why I'm not saying that there's one type and my type of meditation is better than the other. Teacher's meditation, you know, all the gurus say my type's better than yours. It's not like that. I have 83 different meditations in here. I think another key aspect is what type of meditation for what situation. I would give a very different meditation for depression or grieving the loss of a loved one than I would for anxiety or right before you're going to walk on stage to give a presentation. So I think that that tailoring of meditation not only for the person but for the situation, that tailoring of meditation not only for the person but for the situation, the life situation, is really critical and that's you know the the whole that I saw in the industry is is like oh, everything was just be mindful or this is the one type that's the best.

Speaker 2:

And I've had some experiences, and maybe some listeners have tried a type of meditation where it actually made me more anxious when I meditated on my breath and my breath sensations during an acute anxiety sort of situation at the doctor's office where I felt like I was going to pass out and then my breath it started to betray me and it started to go faster and boom, I passed out faster than I've ever passed out before. No, so apparently, with people with acute anxiety, breath awareness or even body awareness like you'll feel the tightness in your chest and you'll feel yourself going pale. Like that is not what you do during an anxiety attack. That is not what you do during that overwhelm of when you're feeling anxious, in the moment about to walk on stage. You don't do that, you know, and so I think tailoring the type of meditation for the situation could be helpful. So, to your listeners, if you've ever done a type of meditation that you know, maybe you feel more anxious or you just didn't feel like it worked for you. It's not that you're bad at meditating, it's that you were just doing the wrong meditation for you or for that situation.

Speaker 2:

You know, during acute anxiety I would say you know, if you're about to have a panic attack, you're feeling really overwhelmed. Rather than bringing your awareness inward, bring it outward. So when I'm at the doctor's office, I will notice what I see, I'll notice what I hear, I'll feel my body against the outside of my body, against the floor, maybe my feet on the ground. I'll turn my palms facing down and ground down, move a little bit of my shoulders to feel so I'm not inside my body, I'm on the outside and I'm becoming more present. Or, honestly, if I'm getting a dental procedure, I use visualization I am at the beach, I am smelling the salty water, I'm taking some deep breaths, feeling the sound, hearing the sound of the ocean wiggling my toes as if they're in the sand. So visualization is a meditation technique that we can incorporate into those moments. So I think it's critical to see that it's not the one best type, it's the one best type for you in that situation type for you in that situation?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Great point. I mean, I think, especially for busy women who tend to be perfectionist right, If you're not doing it correctly, then you're not going to do it. So, whatever I think, really, whatever works for you, I mean I'm not going to sit cross-legged on a meditation pillow with my hand, I'm just not. I like to lie down usually when I meditate and that's what I'm going to do and like if it's not good enough, then too bad. You know that, that's just. That just works for me.

Speaker 1:

Or you know, and I and again, depending on the situation and the type of meditation, I mean that was a really good point too, that for what's going on with you in the moment, you don't want to start focusing on your breathing when you're feeling very anxious, or that. That might not work best for you. I know, the other night I was doing I was alone in my house and I was doing this a sound meditation, but it was the meditation teachers really having us focus on all the sounds in my house, really having us focus on all the sounds in my house, and it was nighttime and I was alone in the house and I was getting myself real, like all of a sudden I started focusing so much on noises that I don't think I've really ever paid attention to in my house.

Speaker 2:

You're in a city or somewhere, you hear the road noise you don't normally hear.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but these were like unidentifiable noises to me and I was like what is, what is, I don't know. It just started to get me really anxious and I was like this is not working for me, like like that's not, that's, I've learned. That's not my best meditation and that's okay.

Speaker 2:

And I I'm really glad you shared that because I think that we need to let people know. You know, if you've had an experience like that, it's not because meditation doesn't work for you, it's just the wrong one. And one thing I found is that you know sound can be really helpful for people. I have a whole section in meditation for the real world about the science of sound and how we can integrate it into meditation with you know pink noise and brown noise, what we call in the research hearing you know like rainfall as pink noise. It helps with memory and relaxation. And the like waterfall is brown noise.

Speaker 2:

Your brain actually thinks you're by a waterfall Like your brain can't differentiate if you really visualize and you hear it. So I incorporate these science-backed sounds into the meditation challenge at meditationfortherealworldcom, as well as music that has been engineered to optimize your brainwaves so that can help you get into the zone. If you've ever found like music or nature sounds like help you relax, then that can enhance it. So how can we enhance the experience? So that's something I found also is like I like to integrate sounds that are really relaxing and can help me get present.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, relaxing I mean this was. I was starting to hear like a noise in my basement. I'm like, what is that? That's exactly what I started. I'm like, is there somebody in here? I was just spooking myself. But yeah, that's exactly what I started. I'm like, is there somebody in here? I was just spooking myself, it was, but I understand the using other noises, like the sound of rain, and I really love that too. So that's yeah, that's not the kind of noise I was experiencing with my meditation. So I want to just hear a little bit more about your meditation challenge and I'll definitely put that link in the show notes so people can get that. What? Tell me how that that works? Did they get a email every single day, or yes?

Speaker 2:

exactly so. If you go to meditationfortherealworldcom, you'll find out, like, how to get the book, the links to get it. You can get it wherever you know books are sold, but I'll give you all the links. And then, as a free gift, you get the meditation challenge, which is five days of a variety of different techniques so you can experience them. And not only am I giving you that 10-minute meditation with the science to support it, but little tips on like, okay, here's how we would do this as a one-minute meditation, here's how you're going to fit this into your day, little bits of homework and it's, yeah, just five days, 10 minutes a day.

Speaker 2:

And I'm incorporating those sounds that have been engineered by my, my sound editor. She has two master's degrees in music, so we've really got deep into the science of like what's going to help us get into the brainwave activity that puts us in the state for meditation. And in the research, the researchers literally call specific sounds that have been engineered to change your brainwaves. They call them digital drugs. That's how powerful they are. So it can really help you get into that flow state really well. So, yeah, go to meditationfortherealworldcom and check that out.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that sounds fantastic. I'm looking forward to that myself. Thank you so much, anne. This has been so incredibly helpful for me and, I know, for my listeners. I think it breaks down the science of meditation, plus, you've made it sound just more actionable and easy and doable, so I think people are really going to get a lot out of our talk today. So thank you, thank you, thanks for having me.