How you live everyday is how you live your life. Read below for three ways (beyond meditation) to disrupt your routine to embrace a new year’s mindset of mindfulness.
By Meadowlark Monaghan
While New Years is the time we collectively agree to imbue the energy of turning a page to a fresh chapter, the truth is we have the power to push a reset button for ourselves at any given time. And sometimes, a reset button to the brain is exactly what we need.
Throughout my grappling with how I wanted to approach New Year’s resolutions this year, I found myself reflecting on some of the most poignant lessons I’ve learned during the previous one. Quite immediately, AIM’s Mind, Meditation, & Movement Event for World Mental Health Day came to mind.
I am honored to sit on AIM’s Youth Advisory Board and to have played a part in the organization of this event because it was, far and away, one of my most illuminating memories of 2022. While each panel expanded upon different facets of mental health support and healing for young adults, I found that each theme’s (plant medicine, meditation, and the mind-body connection, respectfully) bottom line kept returning to the fundamental importance of mindfulness and presence. The very subject that led to the most profound mindset shift for myself back in my teen years.
During high school, my mother gifted me a copy of Ram Dass’ book “Be Here Now”— my first account of presence and mindfulness that shook me to my core, resulting in a colossal shift to my mindset. Funnily enough, also beginning during my high school days and every subsequent January since, my mother calls me with one of her favorite jokes: “I’ve made some resolutions for you!” to which I obligingly chuckle as if I haven’t heard that one for ten years. While neither of us feel it’s quite effective for parents to go around making resolutions for their children (hence, the joke), encouraging and modeling a mindset of mindfulness may just be the best way for young people to head off into a new year.
Most folks during January fall into two camps: those ready to attack New Year’s resolutions with the gusto of a 23-year old who just discovered Andrew Huberman’s podcast, and those who will not be told what to do or when to change by a culturally perpetuated narrative. In either case, both decisions (yes, doing nothing is also a choice), come back to our mindsets.
Here’s a statement that stings and empowers simultaneously: our mindset is always within our control. “It’s not what happens to you; it’s how you perceive what is happening.” Kim Egel, a San Diego based marriage and family therapist, highlights the importance of bringing a healthy perspective into 2023 by choosing to focus on what we can control. “Resistance toward what is happening will always make things harder than they actually are. This is not to discount your pain. Rather, it’s to highlight what you can control, which is your perspective.” Essentially, you can either repeat what you have been doing or you can evolve it.
While many of us view our mindset as deeply ingrained conditioning that keeps us stuck in a pattern or a perspective, the truth is we can view our mindset in two ways. The former, or, as if we are on the verge of reinventing and rewriting our self narratives at any given moment.
When we think about making a shift to our perspective, typically we move first to analyzing our thoughts. As the classic model of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy tells us, it is a lot easier to control our thoughts and our behaviors as a means of healing, as opposed to, say, our emotions or physical conditions. Basically, it’s more manageable to train your thoughts than it is to command yourself to stop feeling stress. Therefore, in the case of adopting a new mindset for the new year, focusing on our thoughts may be exactly the first step we need.
In 2010, Harvard researchers discovered that the average person spends 47% of their day on ‘autopilot’ engaging in behaviors with a lack of mindfulness as their thoughts drift beyond the tasks at hand. Interestingly enough, the participants also reported higher levels of unhappiness during these autopilot moments.
Now I have to admit, my go to answer for almost everything these days is a daily meditation or mindfulness practice. Meditation has some of the most research-backed support for a vast myriad of mental health challenges, stressors, and daily life hurdles. A meditation practice keeps us grounded in the chaos, creates space between our reactions and responses, develops a sense of self confidence and self worth, improves our levels of anxiety, depression, stress, and so much more.
It also, most notably, is exactly the daily commitment that trains our brain to stay in the present, off autopilot and into consciousness, giving us much more access to control over our thoughts and attention. (Side Note: I recently have been using the Open app which has guided meditations, breathwork, and workouts, for my mindfulness fix. It’s been a great addition to my daily practice, particularly the breathwork. Did you know a recent Stanford study found that in a head-to-head comparison, brief (5min/day) breath-work out performed meditation for improving mood, autonomic regulation, and lowering stress around the clock?!)
In our attempts to adopt a new mindset, mindfulness disrupts our autopilot mode and gives us the space to consciously choose to shift our perspective. On that note, here are three ways (beyond meditation) to disrupt your routine to embrace a new year’s mindset of mindfulness:
Be a deliberate thinker: When our minds are out of the present, we are typically more unhappy. Staying present with our thoughts allows us to be deliberate about what we are thinking and how our thoughts are serving us. This intention allows us to build a new mindset, one thought at a time. While practicing to slowly untangle our negative and limiting beliefs may feel daunting, there are two key pieces to keep in mind that contribute to our efforts significantly. First, remind yourself that “you can do hard things”. Beyond being a catchy mantra for Glennon Doyle, reminding ourselves that we are choosing to engage in this challenging practice (looking at you, meditation) to better ourselves sets off an intrinsic reward system that actually produces more dopamine while we are actively in the practice. Therefore, rewarding us along the way of the journey, not simply when we reach our destination or goal as “a meditator”. Plus, as we learned recently, rewards along the way helps us achieve our goals. And second, we can also utilize our brain’s ability to evolve and grow with more fun coping strategies that are equally supportive. Which leads us too…
Utilize neuroplasticity: Neuroplasticity is our brain’s ability to change through growth and reorganization. Simply taking a new route home from work does this. Listening to music can do this. Even getting yourself into a flow state by mindful coloring can promote neuroplasticity. Engaging in small disruptors to our ubiquitous, daily routines quite literally rewires our brain for growth. These small disruptors act as a bridge from telling our brains that we actually enjoy trying new things (aka forming new neural pathways) from trying a new culinary cuisine all the way up to rewiring our thoughts to support an entirely new mindset. A 2020 Literature Review of neuroplasticity in children and adolescents found that neuroplasticity seems to support increased cortical thickness and served to mitigate gray matter volume decreases (which is seen in neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD). Neuroplasticity and environmental interventions together were associated with increased attention, planning, memory, math and reading performance, and even symptom severity for children with OCD and anxiety. (Weyandt, Clarkin, & Thompson, 2020).
Be willing to be a fool: A recent clip of Trevor Noah was circulating social media in which he shares how his hack for learning new languages is through imitation. He goes on to explain that unbridled willingness to imitate without insecurity is why it’s much easier for children to learn new languages than adults. Kids are simply more willing to try something new and be a fool while doing it. If we abandon our self preservation to try new things, even at the risk of looking foolish, we expand our horizons, (again) building neuroplasticity, to bring a little more joy into our lives. Actively challenging our limiting beliefs or subconscious feelings through willingness to be silly can lead to an entirely new mindset of how we view ourselves.
How you live everyday is how you live your life. Embracing small disruptors to the monotony of our daily routines brings us more deeply and enjoyably into the present moment, to actually be witness to this wild ride we call life.
______________________
About the Author
Meadowlark Monaghan (she/hers) is a consultant using her knowledge gained as a mental health professional to act as a liaison between brands, creators, + online communities with the field of psychology and mental health. She also co-hosts the personal development podcast, Thoughts May Vary. Her work has been seen with Madhappy, Local Optimist, The Mayfair Group, Lonely Ghost, AIM Youth Mental Health, NAMI San Diego and more.
Moving Upstream: A Proactive Approach to Addressing Behaviors and Bullying
Krista Reuther is the Assistant Director of Ohana’s Community Health and Prevention Program. She received her Masters in Public Health and Social Work at UC Berkeley. She comes to this position after 14 years of clinical social work experience at Stanford Children’s Hospital in pediatric oncology, critical care, and bereavement. Her goal is to reduce the incidence of mental illness in children and adolescents in Monterey County.
Dr. Guss is a 35-year veteran educator with a doctorate degree in Educational Leadership. She served as a classroom teacher for 10 years, including two years as a teacher in a bilingual program in South Central Los Angeles. She has also served as a college professor, mentor teacher for new teachers, and a master teacher for teacher candidates completing their student teaching experience. She continues to be a strong advocate for the teaching profession.
Fellowship: Stanford University School of Medicine (1994) CA
Michael G. Thompson, Ph.D. is a consultant, author and psychologist specializing in children and families. He is the supervising psychologist for the Belmont Hill School and has worked in more than seven hundred schools across the United States, as well as in international schools in Central America, Europe, Africa and Asia.
is 15 years old and a sophomore at Marina High School in Marina, CA. Her academic interests include math, history, and psychology. She joined the AIM Ideas Lab in 2021 because she wanted to be a part of something that could have a great impact on her community. Marwa is interested in youth mental health because she has always been fascinated with the human mind and she wants to support those that are suffering who may feel like their challenges in life aren’t important enough or are too afraid to seek necessary help.
Giovanna Panetta is a 16 year old junior at Carmel High School. She has always been called to STEM subjects, specifically biology. The AIM Ideas Lab instantly attracted her attention as a research opportunity. Gia has always comprehended the importance of mental health. She knows that COVID only exacerbated previously existing problems, and that as a community we can try and find the root of those problems. Mental health is an integral part of life, and can impede a body’s ability to be healthy. She strongly believes that life is worth living, and she wants to help anyone that thinks otherwise.
Dr. Friedman completed her undergraduate degree in Psychology from University of California San Diego (UCSD). She went on to complete her masters and doctorate degrees (Ph.D.) in Clinical Psychology from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science/Chicago Medical School. Dr. Friedman completed her pre-doctoral internship at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, and her post-doctoral fellowship training at the VA San Diego Healthcare System. Her clinical training and experience has been focused primarily on comprehensive assessment and effective treatments for anxiety, mood and related disorders. Dr. Friedman has extensive experience in providing Cognitive Behavioral Therapies for anxiety disorders (e.g. worry, OCD, social anxiety, phobias and PTSD), depression, adjustment disorders/life stress, insomnia and body-focused repetitive behaviors (e.g. Trichotillomania and skin picking). She has received training in evidence-based interventions for a variety of specific problems, including exposure with response prevention (ERP) for treatment of OCD, Prolonged Exposure (PE) for treatment of PTSD, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I). Moreover, she has specialty training in the treatment of childhood anxiety and related disorders, such as ADHD, selective mutism, separation anxiety, PTSD, depression and specific phobias. In addition, Dr. Friedman has developed an expertise in research on Trichotillomania and body-focused repetitive behaviors, which has led to numerous local and national presentations. Dr. Friedman regularly attends local and national conferences, training seminars and workshops in order to stay informed on the most up to date treatments and apply state of the art science into her clinical practice.
Dr. Piacentini is a board-certified clinical child and adolescent psychologist and Professor in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. He directs the UCLA Child OCD, Anxiety, and Tic Disorders Clinic and Tourette Association Center of Excellence which provide diagnostic evaluation and treatment (both therapy and medication) for youth with the above problems. He also directs the UCLA Center for Child Anxiety Resilence, Education, and Support (CARES; carescenter.ucla.edu) which provides education and programming to parents, teachers, and clinicians about anxiety prevention and management.
Citlalli Nava is 18 years old and a first year majoring in Psychology at Hartnell Community College in Salinas, CA. She is passionate about understanding how mental health affects how youth think, act, and feel. Citlalli joined the AIM Ideas Lab in 2021 after witnessing the increase in mental health challenges in teenagers and considering the mental health issues they are facing. Citlalli is interested in youth mental health because it is a real problem faced by her generation.
Clinical and community psychologist and health care innovator Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD, is CEO of the American Psychological Association, the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. With more than 146,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students as members, APA promotes and disseminates psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve lives – a mission consistent with Evans’ life work.
