How to achieve ‘Peak Zen’?

N. Raghuraman, Management Guru

Imagine a quiet Sunday morning. The sky is cloudy, a light drizzle is knocking on the window and the weather is absolutely pleasant. There is no rush, no pressure to get ready and not go to the office. You are sitting quietly with your spouse – tea in one hand, the morning newspaper in the other. Then a gust of cool air touches your cheek and both of you close your eyes.

Without any planning, you reach a state of complete numbness. It’s as if the world disappears. Your tea is getting cold, but you don’t care. You are completely satisfied. When you finally open your eyes, one of you whispers, “What a perfect Sunday.” The other simply nods in agreement. We spend our entire lives searching for that exact feeling. But why was that moment so perfect?

It was not because your home loan was repaid, or your salary had just arrived in your bank account. It wasn’t even because it was the weekend. The moment was perfect because for a few leisurely minutes your attention was focused on only one thing – your breathing. By slowing down, you took your brain out of its “fight-or-flight” mode and activated your parasympathetic nervous system – the body’s natural “rest-and-digest” response.

You signal your brain that you are safe, causing years of accumulated stress to melt away. It’s called the science of stillness. In those few quiet minutes an amazing biological change took place within your body. Your heart rate had slowed down. The blood pressure had gone down. Cortisol, the major stress hormone, had decreased rapidly. The amygdala, the brain’s emotional fear-center, was silenced.

At the same time, the pre-frontal cortex, which controls rational thinking and emotional balance, became active. Our ancestors used to practice this state daily and called it meditation. Today modern scientists call it “Peak Zen” – the highest state of deep relaxation, mental clarity and emotional balance. After all, what is “Peak Zen” or meditation?

Dr. Bala Subramaniam, a professor of anesthesiology at Harvard Medical School—whose work bridges ancient meditation science and modern medicine—puts it simply: “The goal of meditation is to reach a state where you notice your thoughts coming and going, but are not caught up in them.” Meditation does not mean forcibly emptying the mind.

This means moving from being a participant in your mental turmoil to becoming an impartial witness to it. When you sit in silence, your mind begins to slow down. This begins a process that scientists call “time-dilation,” similar to the “flow-state” that top-level athletes experience. Imagine the world’s best football players in the World Cup.

Just a moment before the ball goes inside the goal post, it seems as if the stadium full of spectators completely disappears for them. The noise ends. As if time seems to spread. He sees a small gap in the defense and takes a shot. Meditation also takes you straight into a similar hyper-focused state of clarity, where the noise of the outside world fades out so you can access your inner intelligence. That’s why consistency is the most effective measure of productivity.

The daily practice of silencing the noise in your mind harnesses the brain’s natural neuroplasticity to completely rewire your neural pathways for happiness. For your mind, it sharpens memory, enhances deep concentration and makes you psychologically stronger to face everyday frustrations. For your body, it reduces chronic inflammation, strengthens the immune system and significantly improves sleep quality.

The bottom line is that Meditation doesn’t actually take up your time. Rather it saves time for you. It quiets the constant chatter in the mind, leaving you more alert, calmer and more present in the present. Every day one gets the Sunday feeling like this.

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