Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
We all know stress, right?
I'm certainly feeling it.
The World Health Organization
has declared stress the health epidemic of the 21st century.
We all feel some levels of stress,
no matter what age or profession,
and some of us deal with it more than others.
Many of us have experienced a serious burnout, or crash,
like I did about three years ago.
What if technology could help us with stress?
It seems counterintuitive
because technology is so often seen as a source of stress.
We're glued to our computer screens and our smart phones,
and we're constantly distracted and overstimulated
by media and social media.
But what if technology could help us with stress and boost our well-being?
Meditation is highly effective against stress
and at boosting our well-being,
and this has been proven in countless studies.
Meditation can even positively,
physically, measurably alter our brains,
increasing brain mass
in areas of the brain that support our feeling of peace,
our creativity
and our heartfelt connection to ourselves and to others.
"Meditation Rivals Medication,"
states a headline about a peer-reviewed medical study
which proves how meditation works as effectively against depression
[as] anti-depressants.
This information is known.
So why aren't we meditating more often?
I've been obsessing about this for a long time now - over 17 years.
I'm a meditation teacher,
and I'm the founder of a meditation technology company
here in Iceland called Flow.
It amazes me sometimes that I ended up working in technology
because the high-tech part of my job
is sometimes, often times, a steep learning curve.
I grew up in Palo Alto, California, in the days before the dot-com.
This is my mom and my stepdad
around the time that they met at Stanford University,
and that's my dad
holding me on his lap at my fifth birthday party.
My dad was the one who first introduced me to meditation.
He took me with him to meditate, barefoot, in San Francisco Golden Gate Park
with a throng of peace-loving hippies.
He even gave me the book "Siddhartha" to read when I was nine years old.
My parents imparted to me a thirst for spirituality
which led me to read and reread some great books on Eastern religions
when I was a teenager.
But it wasn't until January, 2000,
in Iceland,
in a nine-day meditation retreat
when I first tapped into meditation's life-changing power.
Cradled in Iceland's vast, untouched nature,
and in long hours of a deep inner journey,
I was overwhelmed by the wonders that opened up for me in meditation.
I thought, "Everyone wants this."
Well, today, people are seeking digital solutions for meditation
by the millions.
Literally, there are millions of views of YouTube meditations.
And millions of people are downloading meditation apps.
In fact, well, meditation apps are some of the fastest growing apps
in today's market.
The demand is strong, and it's growing, partly due to our stress epidemic.
When the Flow team and I were in the middle
of the Startup Reykjavik accelerator program last summer,
we were struggling with this question:
Can virtual reality, or VR, help us to go within and meditate?
I was very skeptical.
I had a strong resistance to this idea
because I thought that VR was maybe just a new toy or gadget
that would soon be thrown away.
But then, I had an aha moment
when I climbed to the top of Mount Everest
in virtual reality.
(Laughter)
I was gazing up at the Milky Way above
and out at the incredible views in every direction, in 360.
At the highest peak of our world,
all I wanted to do was to sit right down there and meditate.
And I realized that virtual reality could help many people,
maybe even millions of people,
learn meditation.
Imagine being transported out of chaos and stress
into a world of wonder.
But I don't have VR goggles for each of you who are watching this
to experience what it's like
to be immersed in the beauty of nature at this moment,
so I'm just going to show you a short clip
of some of the scenes we've been filming for FlowVR.
(Video) (Soothing music; chirping birds)
Take a deep breath as you take in your surroundings.
Notice the sun in the sky.
As you inhale,
feel the sensation of your breath filling your lungs
from the belly to the top of the chest.
Make an effort to expand your breath,
creating more space inside of yourself.
I invite us to reimagine our idea of meditation
to include some new tools.
And let's start
by trying some progressive, accessible but powerful techniques
that we can take with us into our lives
and use to meditate at any time, night or day.
I realize not everyone has practiced meditation before.
Many of us have.
But wherever we're at, let's all give this a try together,
right here, right now.
[Breath]
(Music) We start with our breath.
Most of us breathe at about 20% of our lung capacity.
So let's all take a really deep breath,
and as we breathe in, let's breathe in some more.
And breathe in some more.
Because our breath helps us immediately to connect deeper within.
On the exhale, we can relax and let go of some tension from our body.
On our next inhale,
we can increase the scope of our breath from the belly to the top of the chest,
creating more space within
and more space around our hearts.
Relaxing on the exhale, dropping deeper.
Let's take another couple of deep, full breaths.
Opening on the inhale,
releasing the effort on the exhale,
expanding the breath.
And in this very moment, we are already meditating.
Next, we're going to meditate with focus
because focus helps us to deepen the meditation
and gives us a direction of where we want to go.
So as we continue to breathe,
let's place our hands on our chest,
and as we tune into this area of our bodies,
let's think,
What would we like to gain from this meditation?
Choose a word or words.
It might be "calm" or "energy."
Whatever comes to you, trust it.
[Focus]
Could be a mantra, a prayer.
The possibilities are infinite as we're each unique.
As we continue to breathe,
let's just close our eyes for a moment and repeat our words to ourselves.
Breathing deeply, repeating our words.
Now we're meditating with a focus.
(Music ends)
Thank you. You can open your eyes.
And next we're going to add an element of movement.
[Movement] (Music)
We're going to place our hands together in front of our chest,
and as we breathe in,
we're going to reach up as high as we can, and think of our words.
We can imagine we're filling ourselves up with the positive energy of our words.
Deep inhale.
And bringing our hands back down to our chest on the exhale,
relaxing the effort.
Again, let's reach up as high as we can,
high to the sky,
repeating our words to ourselves,
finding more of that quality that we're looking for
and bringing it back down to our heart.
Let's do that one more time.
Opening the breath deeper,
and releasing, letting go of the effort on the exhale.
(Music ends)
Now, we've been meditating
with our breath, focus and movement combined.
And these are very useful meditation techniques
because you can use them at anytime, no matter what you're doing -
when you just breathe,
choose a focus,
and when you move your body, like when you walk or run or workout,
dancing, doing yoga, whatever,
simply by bringing attention to the breath,
tuning into our deeper heart's desire or longing.
The next tool that I'm going to show you is about letting go.
[Let go] (Music)
When we go within to meditate,
we often come across inner blocks or obstacles.
Sometimes we feel stuck.
Sometimes there's worry or irritation or some kind of pain.
Whatever's happening inside,
we have to learn to meet these inner obstacles
with courage and compassion.
We also have to learn to let go.
And this is a new meditation tool.
It's called a scream towel.
So I'm going to demonstrate this once for you with a towel,
and then we're going to do this all together using our inner arm.
Okay. Those of you watching from home can pause the video and go get one.
So if we all had a small hand towel like this,
we'd roll up one end to form a muffler,
and the loose end we'll place gently on our throats to protect our vocal cords.
Okay, it looks like this - take a deep breath from the belly
and (Silent scream).
Wooh. That felt good.
Okay, now we're going to do this all together using our inner arm.
Everyone can stand up.
Okay, now we want to think of something we want to let go of,
maybe some feelings about a situation at work or a relationship.
We take a deep, deep breath from the belly and (Muffled screams).
(Laughter)
Great. Okay. Shall we do it again?
(Audience) Yes.
Awesome. Okay, let's go.
(Muffled screams)
(Laughter)
Wooh.
(Applause)
Thank you. Thank you for being willing to do that.
Okay. So just for a moment, let's just close our eyes again
and just take a couple of deep breaths
and just feel.
How do we feel different?
Do we feel different?
Has something changed?
Just checking in with yourself.
Thank you. You can open your eyes again.
Remember when we were kids?
We let our feelings out.
We cried, we laughed, we screamed with our full expression.
And as grownups we so often keep the feelings bottled up inside.
And they tend to build up,
and sometimes they burst out on others,
or they leak out in ways that don't serve us.
So releasing pent-up feelings in a towel, in a safe way,
it's just a great way to let go -
open that up and create more space inside
for more of what we're seeking in our lives and in our meditation.
You can even do a silent scream like this in the bathroom at work.
I'll show you.
(Laughter)
Let it out.
And once we've meditated with our breath,
with focus, with movement, with letting go,
we can more naturally reach a new depth of calm.
And from this calm, open, receptive state,
we can access our higher intelligence
and all the other infinite benefits of meditation.
[Calm]
One of the most powerful practices I use these days
is during the night-time hours when I go to sleep in a meditative state.
[Rest/Sleep]
I try to have the last thoughts I think before falling asleep
be connected to my deeper heart's desire.
And that way, the whole night can be like a meditation.
On my bedside table, I have a pad of paper, a pencil and water.
If I wake up in the night, I can write something down.
Some of the most powerful ideas I've had have come to me in the night.
And especially for those of us who are sleep challenged, like me,
if we wake up too early, like at three, four, five in the morning,
instead of that being a problem,
we can breathe.
Breathe deeply, focus - maybe focus on gratitude.
That's always a good one.
And maybe do some gentle stretches and let go of tension and find deep calm.
And have appreciation for having precious time to meditate.
The Dalai Lama said,
"If every eight-year-old is taught meditation,
we will eliminate violence from our world within one generation."
Now each one of us have six ways we can meditate at any time.
We can use these tools, and we can pass them on.
Each moment of meditation is a universe of wonder and possibilities.
I encourage us all to cultivate a meditation practice
in the way that our hearts and souls call us to.
Let's allow ourselves to imagine a life mastered through meditation,
and a world transformed,
where people learn to think of solutions instead of going to war,
where we learn to release negative emotions
instead of unleashing them on others
and where we learn to love ourselves, love others and our world
with real care and in the details.
The change starts here, with all of us in this moment.
Thank you.
(Applause)