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  • So we are addicted to a certain way of living. We are addicted to living permanently attached

  • to our devices and often addicted to stress and burnout. For me the first change, the

  • first habit that I changed, the keystone habit as it is known in habit literature was sleep.

  • I went from four to five hours sleep to seven to eight hours sleep. And that transformed

  • my life truly.

  • Now, of course, we have conclusive scientific findings that sleep is really a miracle drug,

  • it improves our health and strengthens our immune system, improves our mental clarity

  • and makes us more joyful in our daily lives. And I recommend that we start simply by adding

  • 30 minutes to how much sleep we are getting. I think everybody can do that and people who

  • say they can't do that I think need to look at how much time do they spend watching House

  • of Cards or staying up to Jon Stewart or anything like that, you know. We have a lot more discretionary

  • time than we think.

  • Meditation is another step that I recommend and I recommend starting with five minutes

  • and recognizing the thoughts will keep coming. But what meditation teaches us is to not attach

  • ourselves to our thoughts and to find some stillness beyond the thoughts. And I don't

  • see meditation as one more thing to put on our to do list. Meditation does us. It's something

  • that enhances the quality of the rest of our day simply by connecting us to that place

  • in us, that center that every religion and many philosophers and scientists have talked

  • about using different language which is the place of wisdom, strength and peace in us.

  • The place that Archimedes, the Greek mathematician, referred to when he said give me a place to

  • stand and I can move the world.

  • Well the great thing about introducing mindfulness and meditation into our lives is that it does

  • make it easier for us to unplug from our day and actually go to sleep. And having some

  • rituals, a little transition period could be just ten minutes between our day life and

  • actually going to sleep is incredibly helpful. I have such rituals that I recommend in the

  • book like having a hot bath or shower to kind of wash the day away, making sure as I do

  • that my bedroom is a device free zone. I don't take my smartphones to bed. I don't even take

  • my kindle or my iPad to bed. I just read real books in bed and I prefer to read books that

  • are not related to work, you know, like poetry or philosophy or novels. And as we learn through

  • meditation for example to still our mind, it becomes easier for us to be able to go

  • to sleep.

So we are addicted to a certain way of living. We are addicted to living permanently attached

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