← Am I Doing It Wrong?
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- [00:00]
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- [01:01]
Sarah Gibson Tuttle
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Me.
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Noah Michelson
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Raj Panjabi Johnson
Hi, I'm Raj Panjabi Johnson, head of identity content at HuffPost.
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Noah Michelson
And I'm Noah Michelson, head of HuffPost Personal.
- [02:23]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Welcome to Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.
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Noah Michelson
Hi, Raj.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Hi.
- [02:31]
Noah Michelson
Question for you. You probably weren't expecting that, but I do have one for you. Have you been meditating wrong?
- [02:38]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Oh, my God. Love that.
- [02:40]
Noah Michelson
Have you been meditating at all?
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
At all?
- [02:42]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I have been meditating on and off. I think this is the first episode where I can confidently say that it's perfectly fine to do this wrong. I'm definitely doing it wrong. I'm not sure if there is a right way, but we're going to find out.
- [02:55]
Noah Michelson
What about you? Yeah, I've started doing it as well. Not as much as I want to be. I fall off. I always feel better when I do it, but I feel like it's this mystical thing that's hard to wrap your arms around. And people think it's one thing, but it might be a different thing. So I would like to learn more. And I think this is going to be one of those ones where we get some permission, like you said, to not do it right or the idea of even doing it right is crazy.
- [03:22]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah.
- [03:23]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Today we're going to wrap our arms all the way around it with Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck. She's a preventative medicine physician with an expertise in public health and meditation.
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Noah Michelson
Let's do it.
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Raj Panjabi Johnson
Okay. Rashmi, thank you so much for being here with us. We're so excited.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
I'm so psyched to be here.
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Raj Panjabi Johnson
Let's start at the very beginning. For those who are not privy. What is meditation exactly? Because it's know we hear this word all the time, but tell us what it really is.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah. And I think, you know, there. I don't know that there's one defined definition, but the way I'll just share how I share when I'm teaching. For example, you know, meditations are these practices that we find across different cultures that are used for a variety of different things, often for contemplation or inquiry, also for rest and connection. But ultimately, there are these practices that help us cultivate that connectedness with our innate way of just being present and aware with life. So that's how I define it.
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Noah Michelson
That's lovely.
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Raj Panjabi Johnson
Feels clear.
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Noah Michelson
Is there a difference in your mind between meditation and mindfulness? I think we also hear that a lot.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah.
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Raj Panjabi Johnson
And we usually use and hear them interchangeably. Yeah.
- [04:33]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
And I think that's a common confusion that people have. And so, you know, when we even just think about the word mindfulness, it's the English word that is translated from something. So the root word that it's translating is sati in Pali. Which was the language that was spoken in the time when Buddha was alive. So sati or smriti in Sanskrit, and those words have to do with remembrance or remembering. So what are we remembering? We're remembering our awareness. So the full term is sati sampa or smriti samprajnatha, which means a remembrance of our awareness that's kind of full of its own light, of wisdom, of caring and knowing. So that's mindfulness. And so formal and informal practices of meditation basically connect us and cultivate that quality of mindfulness as well as those qualities of steadiness and flow that are within our awareness as well.
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Noah Michelson
So meditation is like a tool to connect with mindfulness or to get to mindfulness.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah, it's actually just a way of being in relationship. Right. So even within meditation, there's all these techniques we can use to focus the mind, to open our attention, ultimately just connecting with the kind of way of being present. So, yeah, I think we can. Again, we use these words in all these different ways, but I think at the heart of it, it's really the heart of yoga is like cultivating that relationship with this natural way of being present, being aware.
- [06:03]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah. And before we get into more instructive stuff, I'm interested in just you sharing a little bit about how meditation as a practice has changed over the years from what we know of it in India and, you know, other parts of the Eastern world to now, which is, I'm sure, like, very, very different.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah, that's like, super complex.
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Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah, I know.
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Capital One Bank Announcer
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Noah Michelson
30 seconds.
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Raj Panjabi Johnson
Actually, actually have, like, myself studied a lot about how yoga was brought to the States, so. And it's kind of a lot of crazy. It's very. It's really fascinating. But just, you know, tell us a little bit about what happened back then that is still happening now as far as meditation.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
I mean, ultimately, just what I'm saying, this connectedness with ourselves right here and now, that's not necessarily changing.
- [06:54]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Right.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
But the ways it gets sold to us, perhaps, or the methods or the stories we tell around it, that's shifting and changing. Right. You know, I hear. Heard you just talk about yoga and its movement to the west and the ways things have changed. And even just that. Right. I think when we think of yoga now, we really. First thing that people's minds go through too, is the exercise and the movement part of it. But really a huge part of yoga is meditation. And somehow along the way, this kind of idea of meditation gets divorced from yoga, you know, and. Oh, now meditation is mindfulness or whatever that is, which I think is kind of interesting, the way that things get shifted to be more marketing. Yeah. Playing telephone.
- [07:37]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Of course.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
I think the other. One of the other things that happens that sort of gets lost in translation is meditation then becomes this thing that's purely about the mind then. And sort of got lifted from this vast tradition of yoga, of Ayurveda, the science of health and healing. All these ways that meditation, you know, sat within this ecosystem of things that help nourish us. Right. And so then what happens then? Right. And so it's interesting because, you know, I talked about how we think of yoga as exercise, but actually that relationship with body is so interesting and needed, and that's actually where meditation starts. Right. It's in that relationship with the body, with the breath. Because anyone who's sat down for more than 30 seconds to meditate, you know, you're like, oh, my gosh, what's this pain? Or my body feels restless. You know, you're. You're having to deal with the body. So that relationship is so vital to cultivate.
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Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah. The minute I sit down to do any kind of meditation, I have an itch. I'm like, oh, my shoulder really itches.
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Sarah Gibson Tuttle
And it's like.
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Raj Panjabi Johnson
Not that you can't, but suddenly you become very aware, and you're kind of, like, fighting. Yeah, I like that.
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Noah Michelson
You're also positioning it as part of this ecosystem, and so many things play into it. I think for this episode, we're gonna try and concentrate on meditation, because otherwise we'd be here for 12 hours all over the place. But I think if it naturally goes to these other parts, we should talk about those too, you know, because we shouldn't try and divorce them just to do that. But I would love to hear from you what. What's going on in our mind when we're meditating. Walk us through that.
- [09:14]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah. So meditation itself, I kind of talked about how there's all these different gateways in. Right. Ultimately, what we're doing is we're kind of cultivating this relationship with our capacity to be aware through our attention. So in many ways, we're training our attention, and we're inviting ways of learning how to focus our attention, how to open our attention, how to be with the flow of the way that things are moving. And so in that way, our mind is learning how to shift and engage. And so, you know, there's all these interconnections now that we're learning about the connections of neuroscience with mindfulness and meditation. And that really, I love to get nerdy about it because as a physician, for me it also provided all this justification for why this belongs as part of our lifestyles and the ways that we're taking care of ourselves. So different styles of meditation train the brain in different kinds of ways. So these practices where we might have something in particular to focus on, whether that's the breath or a mantra or a particular sensation in the body, like just feeling our feet on the floor or a hand on the heart, right. So that's kind of focusing the attention and allowing for parts of our brain that have to do with focus, executive functioning, the prefrontal cortex sort of gets strengthened, right. As we open our attention, we're also allowing for integration as well. And so you see more integration also with the default mode network, which is our storytelling parts of our mind, while it might quiet as we're focusing, we're allowed to. It kind of opens our ways of engaging with it more skillfully as we are opening our attention. So there's all these really cool ways that you know, our mind is really getting trained as we're practicing meditation.
- [11:07]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I've also fallen down a hole of really other like body, mind, all kinds of benefits that meditation might have on you. I read a study about focus, like you mentioned, that involved boost, boosting standardized test scores, which is like two like meditation and standardized testing. Like talk about different ends of the emotional spectrum, empathy and compassion and even improving cancer related pain. I mean I love reading these studies because I feel like some people, myself included, I need the science. I want to know because this is clearly a very powerful tool. So can you tell us a couple of surprising things or even delve into one of the things I said about the, the body, the effects, the positive effects on the body that meditation might have.
- [11:49]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
And so again, these are all the wonderful byproducts of practice. Right? We don't necessarily need to go into practice to make these things happen, but these are the cool things that we're uncovering which does help to get by in. So I teach variations of mindfulness based stress reduction and mindfulness based interventions and have done that for different clinical populations, including cancer patients, and usually sharing some of these scientific benefits. You know, these programs are usually six or eight weeks and I'll get people say, you know, the first couple weeks I was like, eh. But then, you know, when you mentioned this, I was like, huh, you know,
- [12:30]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
so it's not ozempic. It does take a little bit of time sometimes.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
And so, you know, there's now what's really neat is now we have decades of research that shows how meditation has the first kind of realm was looking at the body and stress and how it was sort of impacting that. So some of the first research was done by Dr. Herbert Benson out at Harvard, where he's a cardiologist. And so he's now passed. I was able to attend a course with him and it was really lovely the way he tells his story about kind of sneaking in his patients who were maybe would have been labeled as hippies and to be studied at Harvard. But you know, over the years, what they found was that different styles of meditation, different anything that where we're kind of have a focus for our mind to keep coming back to over a period of time, would engage the relaxation response in our body, which is kind of opposite of the stress response. So that unfolded a whole series of looking at the benefits to the physical body. So just that nervous system regulation. Then of course different things like blood pressure regulations and other. American Heart association recommends it as part of a healthy lifestyle. Right. You have all these shifts in inflammation markers in the body, even like really cool studies looking at cellular aging and the way that meditation impacts that. Right. So there's all these ways it impacts the body. There's a ways it impacts the mind that we've been talking about. The cognitive effects, the focus, the learning, the. The creativity. So these different styles of practice help both convergent and divergent thinking patterns, which can nourish creativity, for example, but not only just these mind body, but also the heartfulness. Right. We can't really separate mindfulness from heartfulness. And so a lot of what we see as well is the way that these practices help us relate to ourselves with more kindness, with more compassion. Right. And we even see changes in the brain relating to that as well. So there's. It's a really holistic practice. And not only that, again, you had mentioned the behavioral kind of things as well, which is really neat about the kind of. Newer studies are now looking at which we all kind of intuitively understood those of us who practice anecdotally that it does help us be. Be better people in many ways. But studies now showing that it does promote pro social behav. So there are a whole realm of practices that help work with the heart, like loving kindness practices or compassion practices. Richard Davidson and his colleagues do a lot of research around this. And so you have these studies that show that just a little bit of mindfulness training, compassion training, can help move our behavior patterns towards wanting to Help people more, things like that. You know what the thing I was
- [15:31]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
thinking about a lot, like, you know, we as a society are so stuck to the binary. And so people are like either this holistic lifestyle and no medicine or medicine. And screw yoga and meditation. The truth is, meditation and mindfulness practices can help your medicine work.
- [15:46]
Noah Michelson
Absolutely.
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Raj Panjabi Johnson
That's what so many of the studies are saying, which is the combination of both. And I feel like it's grayer than we think. And that's so beautiful.
- [15:54]
Noah Michelson
We're also suddenly in this whirlpool where we just had Lori Santos from Yale on, and we talked about gratitude and how gratitude, you know, is promotional in terms of, like, inter social. And then we just had Dr. Sarah Mednick, who is a sleep study researcher, and she was talking about how just resting is so good for your body. And like, I would imagine meditation is the same thing. You're slowing down that fight or flight reaction. And we live in a world now where we're all moving all the time. There's so much noise, we have no attention span. So anything that we can do to sort of like, calm ourselves, even for five minutes, I feel like would be good for us.
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Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah. Not only that, like, hyper vigilance, like, if especially you live in a city. I'm just like, with everything that's happening on the news, I'm always like, what, am I gonna get hit by a bike? Like, I don't know what's what. And I feel like it's almost necessary for me now, more so.
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Noah Michelson
Yeah, yeah. So if someone's listening and they've never meditated before in their life, and they're like, okay, but like, what. How do I do it? What does that look like? Can you walk us through a sample meditation session? And I know there's lots of different kinds, but give us kind of like
- [16:59]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
the overview or the one for dummies. Yeah. Or for reluctant meditators.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
You want to do a little meditation right now?
- [17:07]
Noah Michelson
Sure. Yeah.
- [17:09]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah. This is super simple one. This is one, you know, that I actually came up with for myself when I was a medical resident. Just something quick. I just wanted something to help ground me between patients.
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Noah Michelson
Okay.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
And it's something I now share that a lot of people. It's just easy to remember. So it's one heart, two feet, three breaths. So just pause as you are. And for those of you who are listening, if you happen to be walking, keep walking and just. Just pause your attention for a moment and just check in with that space of your heart or whatever feels like the heart of you. If you're somewhere where it feels comfortable, you could even just place a hand on your heart. Just feel that feedback of your hand on your heart. You might notice the heartbeat, that one heart. Just let your attention land into your two feet or your two hands, maybe feeling that connectedness to the earth beneath you. If you're walking or moving, just feeling the movement of your feet, just settle in. Attending to three breaths right here. Breathing in and breathing out. And again one more time. Just checking in with yourself. We just didn't. I don't know how long that was. Maybe 20, 30 seconds, right?
- [18:35]
Noah Michelson
I love that. Although if you're driving, don't. Don't do it while you're driving.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Don't close your eyes. Well, and then there's another myth. People think that you have to be sitting still with your eyes closed. We just did that right now because
- [18:45]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
we have to sit in because we can't. It's a privilege.
- [18:48]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
But eyes open meditation is totally fine, right? So sometimes actually I like, I like doing that. Actually, we're here in New York City. I love people watching, right? Sometimes just sitting on a bench and letting the eye gaze soften open and taking in the view, that can be a kind of meditation, right? So you kind of get this theme that kind of. You're allowing yourself to learn how to focus, right? And so and to guide your attention. And that's ultimately, you know, what yoga is, is helping us learn how to connect with our awareness, which really is this source of our ability to govern ourselves, right? It's a source of understanding what we care for, caring enough to want to know, knowing enough to take action, which could include just resting, right? So having something to focus on can be really helpful. And making it be something that's nurturing. It doesn't have to be something tricky or difficult, Right. Oftentimes people will suggest the breath, but guess what? The breath doesn't work for everyone. Like, you know, even, like you can imagine if you had a cold, for example, or I've had patients with asthma, for example. Just a number of reasons why sometimes working deep breathing is not, is not it for people, right? So it could be anything else. The hand on the heart, feeling your feet on the floor. It could be the repetition of an affirmation or a few words of comfort or a mantra, if that's something. And actually we have our five senses, which are a great way to cue in. So it could be something visual, could be a sound, something you hear, could be that quality of touch. Even the breath is a way of touch, right. Taste and smell are hard to work with, but you know, mindful eating, for example.
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Raj Panjabi Johnson
Oh yeah.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
So you know, you have a focus and you let yourself just be. Play around with. Seeing if I can be there for three breaths is that, you know, start there and then you slowly can build from there. I think we can be really rigid about what we think meditation has to be. And you know, you had asked this interesting question about meditation moving from South Asia to the west and in other indigenous cultures as well. These practices of contemplation are there, right? But they're not. These standalone things are really embedded into life. And so there's all these different ways that you can invite yourself into meditation without needing it to be this formal thing necessary sitting cross legged, although that's beautiful too. But when you're first starting, I think it's these. It's kind of like warming up your juices, right? To getting you interested. So it's dropping in every once in a while and just checking it out and seeing how it is. And before you know it, three breaths becomes a couple minutes and then you're like, oh, I could do this a little bit longer. You might start to feel a little bit more relaxation after a bit and you're like, oh, this feels good, you know, so all those different ways you can kind of meet yourself.
- [21:47]
Noah Michelson
Before we went on the air, we were talking about how I like to do. I start at 100 and I count down to one and I just trace the numbers in my mind and I see the 100, then I see the 99. But you could start with 10, you could start with 20. And that's a great way because you have something to focus on, but it's also giving you some room to sort of just not be so locked in.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
I love what you're talking about because you had a couple of things that you combined there. You know, the visual, the repetition of the numbers and so that, you know, you can layer these different things upon each other and really make a practice your own. So I think that's where it kind of gets fun for me when I'm working with people clinically, it's all about that. It's helping rather than being very prescriptive of how to meditate. It's how do you find something that works for you that, that you're going to want to keep doing for a while? You know, it's kind of creating that rhythm of practice of dropping into yourself.
- [22:44]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
And people have been doing this, like you said, for thousands of years. So like, look into what has worked for people. I've read a lot about in Japan, there's meditative eating. A lot of people sit and eat by themselves. I found that to be so lovely. Do you realize how much more delicious food is when you're focused on it?
- [23:01]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah, like, and Raj, okay, like, we're too thaisy girls here. We all eat with our hands. So we took our first trip to India with our girls who are now teenagers. They've been as kid, smaller kids, but now, you know, now their consciousness is on board, as my team, my older
- [23:21]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
one likes to say.
- [23:24]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
And of course we eat with our hands at home. But then to eat on a banana leaf with all the, you know, and all the smells and all these things. So it becomes, it also awakens us to our senses right when we're focused. And so there's all these ways that meditation also just enriches our experience of life and those little pockets of joy, the moments of gratitude that bubble up from our hearts that we kind of miss when we're, you know, rushing around. So it really helps us to nourish ourselves. Like the food nourishes.
- [23:57]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
There are times where I feel like I'm holding things in a lot, as we all do. We're just holding things. And when I do take time to meditate, whether it's in Shavasana and yoga or whatever, if I take a second, I'll often like get choked up and feel like crying. And is there any science behind why these things are coming up for me?
- [24:15]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Well, I think anytime, and you've mentioned this before, anytime we pause to be aware, suddenly all the things that we've been pushing away, and this is another part of the practice is very much about observing how we meet ourselves. So a lot of times when that's happening, I know for me I'm like, no, no, no, I don't want this right now.
- [24:35]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
You know, trying to not judge or
- [24:37]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
I'm judging myself, like, what's wrong? I suck. Like, that's like. And so a lot of it is just also noticing these patterns and inviting, inviting some of that, you know, you hear that word non judgmentalness, but really it's that quality of ahimsa, of non harming, of meeting yourself like a friend, right? So it's cultivating that space of your mind, heart, where you can keep meeting more and more of yourself. So that's that spaciousness of awareness that they talk about. And that's not an easy endeavor. So we take it slow. So sometimes if we're really not ready to look at that emotion. You know, maybe it's just feeling where that emotion lives in the body and being a little kind to that. So placing a hand wherever we're feeling it, or maybe anchoring into the breath or whatever that anchor is, that helps us to kind of touch and go and meet it as we can or know we can look at it again tomorrow, too, when we're feeling like we have more capacity or whatever that is. So. And I hope your understanding is this ongoing relationship. Right. It's like evolving. Always, always evolving. We are parts of nature. We are always shifting and changing, as will the practice and the ways that we're. How we're. It's also this way of learning about ourselves.
- [25:53]
Noah Michelson
It's really cool when people hear about, like, a mantra. I think a lot of people hear about that. What is that doing for meditation? How do you choose one? Why would you want one or not want one? Talk to us about that.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah, that's a great question.
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Noah Michelson
Yeah.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
So I actually wrote a kid's book about the mantra Om called Finding Om.
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Noah Michelson
Very cool.
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Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
You know, because I think there can also be. Sometimes I've found a lot of people hesitant or nervous about, you know, what is a mantra itself feels scary because it's a different word. Right. So for some people, it's Sanskrit word. The word mantra itself is an instrument for the mind. It's protective for the healthy functioning of the mind. So it's a word or a sound that we can allow for quiet repetition that, again, becomes an anchor for the mind in the meditation practice. So of course, it can be a mantra, Sanskrit mantra, or there's mantras in many different languages. But it can also be an affirmation. It could be, again, just some simple words of comfort that you can just keep anchoring into. Right. So as we're doing that, we're beginning to train that ability to focus or also, you know, these words and sounds have meaning. So we're kind of nurturing that connection to that as well. And so mantra practice over time. Do either of you have a practice where you're maybe using mantra?
- [27:16]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Oh, I do. I've talked about it on another podcast where I'm a bad bitch. I think it's like the times I need it is mostly for my self confidence and reminding myself that I'm enough, more than enough.
- [27:31]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
So just the words itself have power. Right. And so at some point, too, if you have a mantra practice, you'll find that the work of repeating it kind of dissolves away, and you might just Feel into the felt sense of what that means for you. So there's all these different ways to work with a mantra practice, which can be interesting and incorporate all these things we were talking about.
- [27:53]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I feel like a more like whole, complete one is that my yoga teacher has offered May I be blank. May I be blank. May I be blank. So I often work with beads, but it's like you have three adjectives that you want to feel that day. And then you're, may I be strong, may be kind, may I be beautiful. You know, maybe confident, Whatever it is just like the three things. It's kind of tedious when you start doing it if you're like repeating it because you're like, what was it again? But I get it now. Like, I thought. I think I didn't understand, like, the wholeness of the mantra, but it's like, yeah, I get it.
- [28:25]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
And we were talking about loving kindness practices before, and that's basically a form of self kindness, of offering yourself those intentions. And then we can offer those same intentions for people around us as well and really make the practice integrated and whole in other ways. So there's all these ways that each of these small things can evolve to meet us wherever we're at. So. And I love that you use the beads.
- [28:50]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah, it's just like a focusing thing.
- [28:52]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah, that's another thing again, layering. Sometimes layering these different, more concrete focusing tools can be really helpful, especially for those of us with minds that are, you know, going all over the place.
- [29:03]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
So can I offer just a piece of advice from what I've learned?
- [29:06]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah.
- [29:06]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
If you want to start a meditation practice, don't tell anyone about it. Do not tell anyone because it's really hard. It puts a lot of pressure on you. Someone will inquire about it, go somewhere quiet and private, Try it. Try different things because it's actually for you. And there's a weird performative thing that happens with meditation, isn't there, where you're like, I meditate. Oh, you're like floating on a lotus leaf. No, go try. Go try it somewhere and see how it goes. See if you can, you know, which vibe you're going for. But yeah, I have so many times told people, like, I do the beads or whatever, and then I haven't done it for four months and I'm like,
- [29:44]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
I'm a terrible person.
- [29:45]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Like, this isn't about that. Right?
- [29:48]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
This isn't about that.
- [29:49]
Noah Michelson
Talk to me more about the beads, though. So some people, I don't use anything physical. But what is that. What is that offering as part of the package?
- [29:56]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
So kind of like a rosary. Right. And in South Asian traditions you might use a mala, which usually has 108 beads because you might repeat a month around 108 times and it allows you to keep track for counting but then again becomes this sensory tool that you can use to help. So and maybe, you know, you might have some beautiful gemstones on there or something too. You know, Again, it's another an added sensory kind of object that we can help to steady ourselves.
- [30:29]
Noah Michelson
Yeah, my husband Benji bought one of these things. It's like, it's like a sensory toy and it's like you're popping bubble. Bubble wrap.
- [30:37]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yes.
- [30:38]
Noah Michelson
I can feel like you're in the back too.
- [30:40]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah, that's so fun.
- [30:42]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Those are great. Especially for, you know, people who struggle with attention. Kind of having these sensory things can be really important. And then also kind of keep cueing us in to the body, which often easily gets frazzled in those moments.
- [30:59]
Noah Michelson
The thing I love about this though too is like it is choose your own adventure, right. You decide what you want it to be part of. And like I think some people listening maybe are like, I don't want the like self love part of it. Like that's a little bit too woo woo for me. But it's like, no. Well then there's here the other science side of it that what it's doing for you. And so you come to it and bring what you want and you get from it what you need.
- [31:20]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
I think I love that because you know, we may come in through one route.
- [31:24]
Noah Michelson
Yes.
- [31:24]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
And this other things just starts happening implicitly without us realizing. Or maybe we're explicitly connecting with the heart stuff and then oh, now we're like noticing that we're able to be more in a creative flow at this point or whatever it is, you know, so they all interconnect, all the paths interconnected.
- [31:43]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
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- [33:41]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
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- [33:47]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I want to touch on breathing again because this is something my brother, who's a physician, taught me about. And it's because I've had, you know, a different level of anxiety my whole life. And he's like, try this thing for anxiety. And it was. It's science. I mean, I've read a lot of, you know, theory about it. It's the 4, 7, 8 technique. Can you tell us what that is? Because I resisted it. But it really does kind of calm your nervous system for some people.
- [34:13]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah, that 4, 7, 8 technique. I think Dr. Andrew Wild created that one. Right. And so I think for those of you listening, you're breathing in for a kind of four through your nose, pausing and holding the breath for seven, and then you're breathing out through pursed lips for eight, which can be a great way to begin playing around with that. So this kind of a practice is drawn from what are called pranayama practices in the yogic tradition, which are ways of working with the breath to help expand our connection with awareness. And so some of the practices can be relaxing, some are energizing, some are more balancing, I will say, with the focus. The 4, 7 breath can be really helpful for a lot of people. I also equally have a lot of people that have a hard time with the breath retention part.
- [35:02]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
It's hard.
- [35:03]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
And actually when I was taught pranayama in context of Ayurveda and then another teacher that I study with, Indu Arora, repeated this as well and I did a training with her that the breath retention piece of it shouldn't feel forced. So often a really what I like to start people with is just simple, even paced breathing. So breathing in for a count of four, out for a count of four, and you start there and maybe it's five or six, whatever it is, right? What you can do, whatever you can do. If you can extend the exhale a couple counts, even better. Because as we extend the exhale, we engage more of that relaxation, the parasympathetic response. And then at some point over practice, you may kind of just feel like maybe lingering at the top of that inhale or just hanging out for a little bit at the bottom of that exhale. Once that natural kind of desire to linger happens, then you can kind of play around with the retention. But I know a lot of people for whom that practice was more anxiety provoking. So I think it can go either way, you know, so again, that's what I love about these practices is that it is a lot of self discovery. You talked about choose your own adventure. The reason I love teaching in that way is because that's what yoga is. It's helping us learn our capacity for making healthy choices for ourselves. Right. So it really puts the authority back and responsibility back on us to kind of notice what we like to. And again, there's a playfulness. Right. We don't have to be so overly rigid. We can, you know, play around and see what works for us.
- [36:43]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah. And I think for, for a lot of us, the goal is regulating our emotions is what we talk about a lot about that in this podcast. Just maybe not, you know, necessarily running to joy or like stopping the sadness, but like, can I hold my emotions for a second or can they not feel so threatening to me? And I think that's where any kind of meditation practice feels useful.
- [37:05]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah. And I love that. And I think when we're regulating, we're really regulating our body and nervous system so that we can again let the emotion be held, allow the space for it to flow, because our emotions shift and change, as do the sensations in the body that are related to them. Right. So it's not about contorting or fixing an emotion. It's really about creating the space within the body and the mind to kind of let yourself be with it. That's hard.
- [37:36]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I love it.
- [37:37]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Be with that without the judging. I know that's very hard. That's why this is like a lifelong practice. It's not a one and done, you know, so it is. And in that process, we can uncover our own tools too, that help us. Although there's brilliant teachers out there that will share. So, you know, maybe it's offering that mantra to yourself in that moment. Right. Or remembering something, a friend or someone that you're in loving relationship with to remind you that you can be that for yourself, you know? So it's all those ways we can kind of meet those moments.
- [38:14]
Noah Michelson
I will say that's another meditation that I do sometimes is like, I just spend time with people who aren't here anymore. I spend some time with my dad, spend some time with my best friend Jenny. And a lot of times that just looks like memories of them. I'm not interacting with them, but I'm like, oh, remember when we went to Kenya and back in that time and things like that? And that also takes me out of my head and puts me back into something else. I want you to address this idea. I think a lot of people have that, like, when you're meditating, you're not supposed to be thinking of anything. And people get frustrated because they're like, I just keep thinking of things. And then people say, well, let your thoughts be like clouds that pass through. And they're like, what the hell does that mean?
- [38:56]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [38:57]
Noah Michelson
So talk to us about this idea that, like, we're not supposed to be thinking of anything, and if we are, we're doing it wrong.
- [39:02]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
So I want to go back to what you shared before about the inviting, the remembrances. And if you remember, I talked about how that word mindfulness is remembering, Right? It's remembering our awareness. You are kind of naturally tapping into this intuitive way within your awareness of nourishing yourself through memory. Right. Our memory can take us away and get us caught up in all kinds of nonsense, right?
- [39:28]
Noah Michelson
Absolutely.
- [39:29]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
We can also use that power of memory to help nourish us and help us to be here. Because probably remembering hanging out with them for a little while, wherever that was, helps you to open your eyes and be with whatever's right here.
- [39:43]
Noah Michelson
Definitely. Yeah.
- [39:44]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
So. So the word meditation typically is in from the South Asian tradition is trans, the translation of the word Dhyana, which in the Chinese tradition becomes Chan, which in Japan is Zen. So it's right, this meditative way of, contemplative way of being. And within these practices is also these practices called Bhavana. Which is Bhavana is this use of creative contemplation, which also helps us to study, deepens understanding, and helps us to be here. So this idea of there being no thoughts in meditation, I think it's tricky because there is some truth to it in that sometimes when we're practicing and we're really feeling very restful and so still there will be this point in time where maybe our mind is chattering, but we realize we don't have to pay attention to it anymore, right? And so, you know, there's this spaciousness that happens where it feels like our mind feels clear and that there's so much beauty in that too. There's also beauty in then turning the gaze towards your mind and meeting it in that way. And maybe it's not moving that much. Maybe these beautiful memories are arising that are nourishing you in some kind of way. So it's again, building healthy relationship. Our mind is meant to think, think. That's. It's our processing capacity, right? I talked in the beginning about the stuff that's happening in our brain, the self referential processing parts of our brain. Psychologists call it our default mode for a reason, because that's where we like to live. That's where our mind is a lot of times, right? So it's learning how to be in relationship with that. So sometimes my entire meditation practice, like yesterday before I drove to my sisters, my meditation practice was pretty much going through my list of stuff I had to make sure was done before I got in the car.
- [41:34]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
And people don't usually think of action items like that as meditation, but to you it is.
- [41:39]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Well, it was just noticing my mind running through that, so I wasn't doing it on purpose. It was like that was what was happening. And I'm like, okay, no, no, no, let me come back to this. Or whatever, Noticing it coming back, noticing it coming back. And then for like a little while I was like, all right, I got this, you know, whatever. But sometimes, and I've been meditating for. I don't want to reveal how old I am.
- [42:04]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Asian don't race.
- [42:05]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
I'm almost 50. So, you know, it's been a while. It's been a minute, right? So your practice is going to look different all the time. And so it's meaning Being able to. Again, I don't know if I use this term already, but I talk about it as kind of expanding our window of inclusion. Our awareness is so broad, it can hold all of this. Right. So letting ourselves trust into that is part of that. So that includes being able to be with my busy, busy mind sometimes that I know sometimes can be restful, too. And is it happening today? Maybe, maybe not. You know, so it's really, again, such a relationship that you're building.
- [42:45]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
So you mentioned this, you know, many times as a process. Right. But for those of us whose brains operate like mine, what's the goal? How do I know that I'm meditating? Well, how do I know what are signs in my life that I'm using meditation as a tool, you know, strongly or it's helping me?
- [43:04]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
I love this question because, you know, we just. Now you heard me talk about my meditation practice yesterday, which might not have been what you thought meditation was supposed to be like, right? So sometimes the benefits we don't see right in the moment, sometimes we do. Sometimes we're feeling really relaxed or, you know, whatever that is. But sometimes, just like you said, sometimes it's, oh, catching ourselves in a moment where maybe we're giving ourselves a little bit more grace. I teach meditation teacher training for this yoga school called Yoga Medicine. We just finished an online version of our training, and one of the students actually just said she was like, I was playing pickleball. Suddenly, like, I realized how much I was judging myself. And I was like, what am I doing? You know? And so just that act of noticing and catching yourself sometimes in a moment is enough to kind of act like a mirror to help you sort of.
- [43:55]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Okay.
- [43:55]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
You know? And so it's all these small moments where you might notice yourself meeting yourself differently or your partner or your pet or whatever that is. Right. So it's these ways that the practice then moves off your mat. I think that can really cue you in.
- [44:13]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah, I can definitely, yeah.
- [44:15]
Noah Michelson
Yesterday, my husband just had a sinus surgery, so he's recovering. And so I am Nurse Noah. I'm also taking care of our dog, doing all the walks and everything. And I came back from a walk yesterday, and the dog had just been really naughty. And I had had a really long day at work, and I just felt fried. And Benji was just like, are you okay? And I was like, you know what? I need a minute. And I went and took a shower, and I just did some breathing in the shower, and I came back and I was like, I'm better. And like, sometimes I think that's what meditation is too. Like you said, recognizing something, but also just taking 30 seconds or two minutes and just doing a little breathing.
- [44:56]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
And I love this, you know. So one of the interesting questions is, what's the right dose and time?
- [45:03]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
How long should we do that?
- [45:04]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
How long should we be meditating? And I talked about that research group with Dr. Benson and colleagues around relaxation. And I think for them, what they found was for the relaxation impact. So for the physiologic stuff, it was something like around 15 minutes or something. So that's what they would recommend was 15 to 20 minutes of practice. And then for mindfulness based stress reduction, which is this kind of gold standard way of implementing mindfulness practice clinically, John Kabat Zin and colleagues initially would recommend like up to 40 minutes of practice.
- [45:40]
Noah Michelson
Oh my gosh.
- [45:41]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Right. And I remember even when I first took the class, I was like, 40 minutes, you know?
- [45:46]
Noah Michelson
Yeah.
- [45:49]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
And I've heard that in interviews with him, he's like, oh, well, we just said 40 because we figured people might do 10 or 20, you know what I mean? So it's just kind of. So then, and what is the right dose and frequency? And so there's a researcher named Amishi Jha down at the University of Miami who does a lot of work with first responders and the military around. And so some of her work started to look at that and what she found for the mental emotional benefits of practice, it was something around 10 to 12 minutes, four to five times a day. So then there's. There's something interesting then around that 12 to 1512 minutes perhaps might be kind of like a sweet spot a few times a week, right? Four to five times a week. But then what's interesting is it does, you know, there are also these studies too that look at workplace wellness apps and things like that. So there was one that came out a couple of, maybe beginning of last year where there was a workplace wellness app where people would engage with it. And what they found with that one was it was little. As little as five minutes can be impactful. Right. So, and then from a yoga teacher hat, you know, I'm always saying, and you probably heard me already just say this, like starting off with one breath, right? Some of the positive psychology research shows that some of those changes, neuroplastic changes in the brain, all those kind of things take, you know, 30 seconds, which is like just a few rounds of breath. So, you know, there's all these ways it can build upon each other. And I Love working with these kind of micro moments of dropping in. I think that's a great place to start building that relationship with sitting a little bit longer.
- [47:30]
Noah Michelson
Yeah. Because I think there is probably, obviously a lot of benefits for doing it longer. But Even like the one heart, two feet, three breath thing we did, which took 25 seconds, that can help us feel grounded then. And that can be really beneficial. Just having that moment where we maybe don't yell at our partner about something. You know what I mean?
- [47:50]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I do it all the time where I just take one breath and I'm like, okay, okay, okay. I feel better.
- [47:54]
Noah Michelson
You don't send the email that you were about to send because you're so upset. And so I think there are just different ways that we can benefit from this. And some are gonna be more physiological and some are gonna be more in the moment.
- [48:07]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I love what you said about the shower for two reasons. First of all, I feel like hot water, cold water is a reset. And I think lots of people who talk about anxiety talk about that back into your body. Yes. And the other thing, I mean, maybe not all the time, but you're alone in the shower that time. And that brings me to my next question, because a lot of this is very solitary. It's like an us thing. What about group meditations? How do you feel about them? Because sound bath, Hate to see me come in.
- [48:34]
Mom (Verizon Caller)
I love.
- [48:35]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
All of my savings are going towards sound bath season. They feel so good.
- [48:40]
Noah Michelson
Oh, my gosh. I'll just bring a spoon and a bowl and come over. You can pay me. Yeah, you can pay me.
- [48:44]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I have gone to the jankiest of sound baths and like, floated out on a cloud. And I'm like, I am whole again.
- [48:50]
Noah Michelson
All right.
- [48:51]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
I mean, sound is so powerful to work with, which is why I think mantras or sounds or words, affirmations can also be. You know, it really, like, cuts through the noise and. But your question was about group meditations.
- [49:06]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yeah, but feel free to talk about sound as well.
- [49:08]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Group. I think anyone who has meditated or been in any kind of contemplative space in a group, I think you can't deny the effects so powerful. And it's that shared experience. And that's where I think. I hope we. Now we talked about the movement of meditation. I really. And yoga. I hope we really begin to nurture that space of practicing together. Because I think as we talked about the pro. Social impacts and the compassion and all those relational aspects of it, now more than ever, we really need to feel that connection. And interconnectedness with each other. And I think that's what the group practice really does. And not just the practice itself, but then the moments after to kind of talk about it and connect and to know you're not alone in what you're feeling, I mean, that can be just so incredibly powerful. And we talked about solitude in the shower. But even another practice that I love is walking meditation. Oh yeah. Where as you're walking, you just let your attention land into your feet or, you know, more of your body. And that's something you can do anywhere, you know. So even as you, as we leave today, you could walk for a couple blocks there around people being connected and in your body. So there's all these ways that I think being together in a group can be really powerful for practice.
- [50:33]
Noah Michelson
I think the group too, we talked about this in our working out episode. It's like you have buy in. Yeah, there are other people there who are doing it. And so if maybe you were gonn stop at four minutes, you're going to stay for the 12 or the 20 because everyone else is there.
- [50:46]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Everyone else is there. And so it becomes a supportive space.
- [50:49]
Noah Michelson
Absolutely.
- [50:50]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
And it doesn't have to be a big group. It could be at home with your pet or with your partner. You know, that can be really powerful too. And remember again, these practices were also just practices of life and living and our practices of life and living that many people have as part of their cultural life at home, you know. And so it's these practices of connection that can really nurture the ways that we're meeting each other in our houses and workplaces too.
- [51:23]
Noah Michelson
I love the idea of the walking meditation too. I've caught myself recently where I'm walking, I walk a lot and I'll be on my phone like looking at something dumb and I'm like, Noah, you can sit on your couch tonight and look at this dumb thing you're outside, like what is around you and spend a little time focusing on that. And I do, I pull myself back and I do it. But yeah, I love that idea that we can spend some time with ourselves while we're out in the world too.
- [51:49]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah, yeah. Walking meditation, especially for people who don't like to sit still or feeling really fidgety, that's the number one thing I recommend because you know, we're out and about quite often. And so how can you also the kind of habit stacking a little bit there where you can kind of drop into mindfulness. It doesn't have to be for the whole walk Just for a little bit. And like you said, it can be that connection to the sensations of walking in your body. It can be opening your senses up to what's around you. So, again, this becomes this other way of nourishing ourselves. Yeah.
- [52:22]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
And if you're lucky enough to see a tree or, like, be around any kind of nature, I feel like there's so much research around that. Absolutely.
- [52:29]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
I mean, look at forest bathing.
- [52:31]
Noah Michelson
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [52:33]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Such a practice of mindfulness and interconnectedness.
- [52:35]
Noah Michelson
Or you also maybe see a new restaurant you didn't notice, and, like, you're gonna go there with a friend, or like, there's just so many reasons to not be on your phone all the time.
- [52:45]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
You touched on this a little. But any particular, larger myths around meditation that you want to dispel, that you want to be like, this is not true, or practices that you don't want people to fall into, Behaviors you don't want people to fall into on their meditation journey?
- [53:01]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Yeah, I mean, we've hit a lot of them, and I think one of the biggest ones is this idea of giving up because your mind is full of thoughts and you think you're not doing it. Right. Right. So. Well, that's the name of our bible.
- [53:16]
Noah Michelson
Yeah, exactly.
- [53:18]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Have we been given permission to do it wrong?
- [53:21]
Noah Michelson
We have.
- [53:22]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
I love that I will say one of the myths again about it being this solitary practice. I love that we've been touching upon this idea of it being a relational practice. Right. And part of that is, I know we talked about not telling anyone that you're starting your practice, but sharing about your practice. Right. So if you are having stuff that's coming up, you may come across stuff that maybe you can hold or handle, but maybe you need to reach out to someone. Right. Whether that's a friend or a mental health professional or whatever that is, you know, not being afraid to make. To share your practice. Yeah. I think, too, it can be really helpful to have a teacher or a guide or somebody. There's so many apps out there that are so helpful. We talked before about Headspace app, which I love, which is great. A lot of people like the 10% happier app that's out there. So there's so many of them to really explore. But what do you do when you're struggling with something? And again, because the way our minds are wired, immediately we're like, I'm doing it wrong or I am wrong. Right. And so that's where a teacher can be helpful. Because, like we talked about, there's so many ways In I don't think it's helpful to just never having meditated before, sit for 40 minutes. Right, like that. And so, so how can you kind of ease your way in and understand and help you make meaning of what's unfolding? So having a teacher, sharing, reaching out for help and you know, when you need it, I think those are all important aspects of the practice. And we kind of get sold this idea that meditation should always be calming and stress relieving. But as we've been talking about, it brings up the stuff that we need to look at. And so how can we again let this be a tool that nurtures our health rather than another something we have to do, a checkbox or something that might lead us down a path that doesn't feel so healthy.
- [55:23]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I love that you said that it doesn't always need to be calming. Meditation is sometimes to build up heat and energy in your body, like the Kabbalah Bhati breathing, where you're building up heat and energy and you're kind of like, all right, I'm ready to go out in the world. I don't think people know that there's more purpose to meditation than just to bring you down. It can bring you up as well.
- [55:42]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
It can as well.
- [55:43]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Which is cool.
- [55:44]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Which is cool. And it's about again, meeting yourself where you are, what you need and then understanding how to use those tools skillfully for yourself. And so it is a journey and a changing relationship for sure.
- [55:58]
Noah Michelson
I will say the apps too usually have a free trial if you don't want to pay for them. Or you can try YouTube, there's a lot of free ones on there.
- [56:05]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
So much free stuff. Insight Timer is another one I really like an app that I've been recommending. I, I do some work working with medical residents and sharing mindfulness and stuff. And so an app that I've recommended a lot recently is an app called Breather which was, it's B R E a T H R I believe that was put together by Zheng Vo. He's a adolescent medicine physician out in Vancouver and he's also a meditator and part of Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village community. And they created an app, I think it was for one of their studies, but they found that not only were the adolescents using it, but the parents were using it too. So then they kind of expanded it to be for caregivers. And so what I love about it is there's also just short like we've been talking about these drop in practices there's like two minute, three minute practices in combination with longer practices, so that, you know, there's so many out there. Another resource online that I wanted to share was we were talking about these difficulties that can come up with meditation practice. There's a whole research group at Brown that is actually looking at the different kinds of experiences that people have through meditation practice. And they run a support group and have a lot of resources on. Cheetah House is the name of their. So that's, you know, another interesting place to check out. And again, a lot of those things that come up really is, are also things that can help. We can mitigate through the ways that we're meeting ourselves through the practice. But sometimes, again, we do need to reach out to a professional or something.
- [57:45]
Noah Michelson
Absolutely. Raja and I love therapy. We talk about it on here all the time. So this is a great thing to do in concert with your, you know, your therapy partners.
- [57:52]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Absolutely. And you talked about the integration. Right. And that's what's so important. These practices are complementary, they are integrative. And so it's not a all or nothing one or the other. It's, you know, how can we use them together to keep nurturing ourselves?
- [58:12]
Noah Michelson
Amazing. Thank you so much for coming.
- [58:14]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Thank you so much for having me. I feel like I could have chatted even more with you guys for sure. We could have talked about sound. We could have talked about transcendence. Maybe part two.
- [58:24]
Noah Michelson
Yeah, we might do a part two. We'll see.
- [58:26]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Maybe.
- [58:26]
Noah Michelson
Maybe the advanced level. This is the intro.
- [58:30]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Once we've all floated on our own.
- [58:38]
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- [59:08]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
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- [60:09]
Noah Michelson
Okay, it's time for better in five. These are the top five things that we learned in this episode.
- [60:13]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Number one, meditation is good for your brain and your body. It's even been shown in studies to help reduce pain and boost our immune Systems.
- [60:21]
Noah Michelson
Okay. Number two, while studies have shown the advantages of meditating for 30 days to 40 minutes, even just a few minutes can be hugely beneficial.
- [60:29]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
40 minutes is wild.
- [60:30]
Noah Michelson
It's a long time.
- [60:32]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
And number three, breath work is probably the most popular meditation technique. But it isn't right for everyone. And there are many other viable options.
- [60:39]
Noah Michelson
Number four, you can use a mantra. You can use something physical like beads. Both of those are great ways to focus your mind.
- [60:46]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
And number five, if you're just starting out, consider using a guided meditation app to learn the rope. Okay, Noah, have you been doing meditation wrong?
- [60:56]
Noah Michelson
So other than the fact that I don't do it enough, I think the thing we learned today is that you can't really do it wrong again. I love how permissive she was. I love that little meditation she walked us through. Sometimes when we do that stuff on the show, I'm like, are we just burning up airtime? And like, should we do this? No. I thought that was great. I felt it immediately and it was again 20 seconds. I also like that I kind of opened my eyes for a second and I could see everyone had their eyes shut like people were actually doing it. I hope people at home do it. But I love the idea of choose your own adventure. Use a mantra if you want. Do it for 30 seconds in the shower like you can. It doesn't have to be one thing. And I would love to try and get to that 30 minute point. I watch, you know, three hours or not three hours. Oh, my God. Three episodes of House Hunters. That's like an hour.
- [61:43]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I watch three hours of House Hunters. So don't judge.
- [61:45]
Noah Michelson
I'm jealous. But you know, if I watched one less House Hunter, I could do a 20 minute meditation.
- [61:51]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Yes. Similarly, I think I don't really care about wrong or right in this scenario as much as now that I know a little more science behind it. I want to implement more of it in my life because I want to feel good. I know that there's other purposes, but this, for me, it's just like more joy, more stability.
- [62:08]
Noah Michelson
Yeah. And when studies literally show us that if we do it, it actually is really good for us. It's like you have this thing sitting in your internal garage or whatever and you're not using it. Why not just use it? But now we need to go back to Wendy Wood, the habits woman who helped us form habits and like make this an actual habit. And so I guess we need a reward.
- [62:29]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Free life coaching for both of us.
- [62:30]
Noah Michelson
Absolutely. Anyway, until next time. As long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be right here to help you do them better.
- [62:37]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
I love you guys. Am I Doing it Wrong? Is a co production between HuffPost and Acast.
- [62:44]
Noah Michelson
Our producers are Eve Bishop, Carmen Borca Carrillo and Malia Agadello.
- [62:49]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Our executive producers are Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rutter.
- [62:52]
Noah Michelson
Special thanks to HuffPost's head of audience,
- [62:54]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Abby Williams, Head of Video Will Took,
- [62:57]
Noah Michelson
as well as Kate Palmer, Marta Rodriguez and Terry d'. Angelo.
- [63:00]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
And we're your hosts, Raj Panjabi Johnson and Noah Michaelson.
- [63:11]
Capital One Bank Announcer
With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends it's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com Bank Capital One NA Member FDIC
- [63:41]
Kat and Nat
this is Kat and Nat from Kat and Nat Unfiltered and this episode is sponsored by Michaels. Your destination for all things 2026 grad. If you've got a graduation coming up, the party shop at Michael's is your new best friend. It's your one stop shop for everything. Graduation balloons, party decor, tableware, DIY gifting and more. Literally everything you need. All starting at just 1.99. We're all about making life easier and Michaels has made it super simple with ready made balloon bundles, 2026 numbers and even free helium inflation on select styles Plastic you can shop same day delivery or buy online and pick up in store Michaels everything. To celebrate anything, visit Michaels in store or shop online now.
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- [64:57]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Have you looked at your utility bill recently and thought, how is it this high? You're not the only one.
- [65:04]
Raj Panjabi Johnson
Something that we would hear often was I couldn't pay my power bill. I'm no longer turning on my ac.
- [65:12]
Dr. Rashmi S. Bismarck
Rising energy costs can feel inevitable, but voters have more power than they think. Listen to good things from Lemonada Media to hear how communities are fighting back for energy affordability.