Meditation has proven benefits, but the style that works best depends on a person's habits and preferences. In this episode of The Science of Happiness, we explore walking meditation, a powerful practice for feeling more centered and grounded. Dan Harris, host of the award-winning 10% Happier podcast, shares how walking meditation helps him manage the residual stress and anxiety from years of war reporting and high-pressure TV anchoring.

Mindfulness enhances relationships: Research suggests mindfulness training makes couples more satisfied with their relationship, makes each partner feel more optimistic and relaxed, and makes them feel more accepting of and closer to one another.

If you find yourself ruminating about something that happened, tell yourself: “remembering.” You can come up with your own labels, but the point is to simply acknowledge what’s coming up, give it a nod, and then let it go without engaging any further.

And because leaders need to absorb and synthesize a growing flood of information in order to make good decisions, they’re hit particularly hard by this emerging trend.

Mindfulness is good for our bodies: A seminal study found that, after just eight weeks of training, practicing mindfulness meditation boosts our immune system’s ability to fight off illness. Practicing mindfulness may also improve sleep quality.

Meditation does seem to improve mental health—but it’s not necessarily more effective than other steps you can take. Early research suggested that mindfulness meditation had a dramatic impact on our mental health. But as the number of studies has meditative mind grown, so has scientific skepticism about these initial claims. For example, a 2014 meta-analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine

mindfulness skills might work in different ways. Look for future mindfulness research to follow a similar approach and to generate more fine-grained, actionable insights for us to apply to our lives.

A visualization meditation that harnesses the image of a mountain to guide us into awareness of our own steady, still nature beyond the thinking mind.

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Meditation creates the conditions for us to see things more clearly, feel calmer and meditation content, and be kind to ourselves and others pelo matter what’s happening in our lives.

In recent decades, researchers have been gaining healing music insight into the benefits of practicing this ancient tradition. By studying more secular versions of mindfulness meditation, they’ve found that learning to pay attention to our current experiences and accept them without judgment might indeed help us to be happier.

The best posture for meditation is sitting upright, comfortable and alert, with your hips slightly higher than your knees to support a natural spinal curve. This can be done sitting on the edge of a chair or other piece of furniture that’s not too low, or by sitting upon a meditation cushion on the floor.

Initially, you could also practice during one specific activity, such as brushing your teeth before bed or eating the first three bites of your lunch. Walking Meditation