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Let's learn about via these 29 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the to find the most read stories about any technology. Mindfulness /Learn Repo 1. The Art of Letting Go Have you ever wondered, why nobody uses your SaaS / App, after all this hard work 2. Technology Is Killing Creativity Technology is killing creativity in the sense that it is making it more challenging to be creative. 3. How to Prevent Burnout and Keep Your Organization on Track As a result of significant events against me, I burned out in 2016. Here are the keys to overcoming (and potentially protecting staff/colleagues from) burnout. 4. When I give, I have control: Meet the Writer Baptiste Monnet Baptiste Monnet, on personal development, cooking videos, and the danger that comes with Lithium mines. Read the latest in the "Meet the writer" series. 5. Write A Letter Your Future Self Will Thank You For Four reasons to write a letter to your future self, plus the biggest work-life balance lessons I'll be taking note of for mine. 6. 5 Mental Tricks to Do Your Best Under Pressure We all face situations where we need to perform under pressure. Here are 5 mental tricks that work best in such circumstances. 7. JOMO Will Increase Your Productivity by x97 Jomo is the opposite of FOMO. And FOMO is a pandemic right now. In this article, we will give tips to enjoy JOMO. 8. The Four Cornerstones of Mindful Leadership Mindfulness: Paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgement. 9. 5 Incredibly Simple Yet Useful Tips To Push Your Motivation Flywheel How can I make motivation part of my life to do things that will help me achieve my goals in the long run? For me, motivation was a state of mind. Some days I was all excited and motivated to get to my toughest goals and important tasks that I had avoided in the past. Then there were other times I felt lost, unsure of how to make even tiny progress on things I got to do. 10. The Era of Attention Economy and Its Destructive Impact: Reasoning by Examples Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Gmail, Amazon, Apple, Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram, Medium, Spotfiy. Everyone wants our attention today on every platform possible. 11. The First Step: Just Take it 'Bird by Bird' Sometimes, it is about thriving. Sometimes, it is about surviving. We would be wise to adjust our strategies accordingly. 12. 2 Ways to Effectively Manage Extra Work in a New Startup Below we will discuss how to become more efficient daily. There are always mistakes in a new business, but hopefully, this can alleviate some of them. 13. Is Your Technology Addiction Taking Over Life and Your Mental Wellbeing? In this article, we’ll be diving deeper into the Relevance and Risk of Smartphone and Technology Addiction in the times we live in today — during COVID-19. 14. Social Entrepreneurship Qualities You Should Harness Social entrepreneurship is an excellent way to profit and change the world at the same time, offering a business model that will be pivotal for many years ahead 15. How To Reduce Workplace Stress Work is a big part of our life. Done well, it can be a source of joy. But when managed poorly, it can often lead to stress, anxiety, and dissatisfaction at work 16. Solving Balanced Parentheses Problem Using Regular Expressions 17. Cut Out the Fat of Your Device: Why You Should Adopt Intermittent Phone Fasting Exploring the reasons why fasting from technology (limiting its use to periods of time in the day) can improve your productivity and overall quality of life. 18. How To Train Your Brain To Be More Optimistic When faced with adversity, most people feel indecisive, restless, and anxious about the future. It is what happens afterward that makes a difference. 19. 5 Actions of Protest Against the Monetization of Your Attention Hello, you. You, who are designing, coding, marketing, selling, or simply using the technology that will shape our collective future. To what extent do you realize that everything that you and I do, and every bit of technology you and I envision, create, sell, or simply use — has an impact on our lives? 20. Digital Mindfulness vs the Real Thing During the Pandemic: Digital Age’s Impact How the mindfulness movement changed over the course of the pandemic. 21. Overthinking: Causes, Impact, Strategies for Taking Action I thought I was pretty good and smart at making decisions from routine tasks with little cognitive load like what to eat for lunch, what dress to wear to the office, how to avoid traffic on the way to work to the more mentally demanding activities like putting together a hiring plan, defining org structure and thinking about the future strategy of my organisation. 22. What Is Your Leadership Style Leadership comes in many shapes and forms, sizes, titles or lack thereof, and has a profound impact on whoever and whatever follows. Google defines leadership as "the action of leading a group of people or an organization", and to lead as "organize and direct", "be the principal player of a group", or "set (a process) in motion" among many similar definitions. 23. Why You Should Start a Business or Side Hustle Today If you still dream of leaving your 9-5 job, being your own boss, and finally start pursuing your passion, then keep reading. 24. RAIN: How to Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture Emotions RAIN can create a mental space to by practising awareness of our feelings, thoughts, and behaviours without being caught in their narrative. 25. Interview with The Zensory: Mindfulness for Cybersecurity Yvonne Eskenzi is the owner of a cybersecurity PR agency in London. She and her daughters, Jasmine and Jade, are building a new app called The Zensory. 26. Is Tech Good For Mindfulness? Last year, I drove to a friend’s get-together in a remote French village. The roads were icy and I swerved into a lake. I passed out, and came back to underwater. It was dark. And cold. And I didn’t even know which way was up. This was it, I was going to drown. And then I noticed that when I opened my mouth, the air bubbles floated up, and that’s how I knew which way to swim. 27. Hacking Time — Is There a Way to Gain More for What You Want? We’re all susceptible to miscalculation and misuse of time, so how do we use the tools available to make our time work for us? 28. Man, Know Thyself How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, by Arnold Bennett is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. Chapter VIII: The Reflective Mood 29. Tech Addiction and Smartphone Dependency: Latest Science and Statistics How do we choose to have our new and rapidly evolving tools and capabilities impact our lives as individuals, organizations and as a global society? In order to make a smart choice, it is imperative that we have a good understanding of the impact digital technology already has or can have on our lives. What can we say with a degree of certainty? Thank you for checking out the 29 most read stories about Mindfulness on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

29 Stories To Learn About Mindfulness

In this interview, I talk to Yvonne Eskenzi, owner of the specialist cybersecurity PR agency Eskenzi PR. We’re going to be talking about her new startup she founded with her daughters, an app called . So, with no further ado, into the questions! The Zensory What is your company in a nutshell? We are creating an app which bridges the gap between productivity and wellbeing. Why is now the time for your company to exist? I’ve worked for a cybersecurity PR agency for a long time, over 20 years. In lockdown my daughter and I were very, very aware of the fact that people struggled to focus well. People were overwhelmed, burnt out, stressed and anxious. We started looking at what was out there to help people focus better, be more creative, when working on their own and realised that there wasn’t really anything. So, we took the absurd decision, with no experience whatsoever, to develop an app. What we wanted originally was to create a building where you could go in, and you’d stimulate your senses, which each room dedicated to another sense. Now those things have totally mushroomed, I went to one called on Friday, and immersiveness has become very trendy. Dopamine Experience We spoke to some 20 neuroscientists, and worked through about 200 papers on what helps people get into the right mindset to work better. It all comes down to a very simple concept, trying to calm your , the fight and flight part of your brain. You can’t think when you’re stressed. amygdala What we’re trying to do is calm that down so that you can actually focus by stimulating the front part of your brain using your . prefrontal cortex Certainly in we know that people are under-resourced. They don’t have enough staff. They’re burning out. They’ve got to be constantly on high alert for anomalies the whole time. So within our industry there’s never been a more apt time to look at how we can calm people down. cybersecurity Along with the mental health side, neurodiversity is a major factor in cybersecurity. We have so many people who are neurodivergent, and that’s a great thing as people are talking about it now. And we’ve found that our app helps people get into the right mindset. Weirdly, the other apps out there tend to only concentrate on meditation, while ours aims to stimulate whichever sense you respond to, so it could be music and sound, it could be light, could be smell, could be touch, could be movement which is why it works so well if you are on the spectrum. What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem? I love this team because I started this journey with my oldest daughter, Jasmine. And then my youngest daughter Jade has joined us so it’s a mother and two daughters running this which is phenomenal. And because it’s cross-generational, we see everything from different points of view which has been fantastic. Interestingly, we have had lots of people using the app and reviewing it, telling us they have  ADHD and it’s one of the best things they’d ever used. Then Jasmine started thinking about the symptoms people were talking about and got diagnosed, which shocked us all, and is probably why the app works the way it does as she’s been integral to its design and even wrote the binaural beats and music. I’ve always suffered from SAD as has Jade, and just listening to the binaural beats looking at the naturescapes and touchpads has really helped me feel less anxious and calmer. The whole app comes from a very personal space, where we’ve developed it in the hope it can help others calm down to focus well. There aren’t many people that necessarily put their money where their mouth is, and I’ve decided to do that. If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing? I’m really doing two jobs at the same time, so my daughters are building the startup and I’m advising them and spending a lot of time with them doing it. If I wasn’t doing it, I’d still be running Eskenzi PR. What would I do if I wasn’t doing either of those? I’d still carry on. I love what I do, I wouldn’t give it up for anything. At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your metrics? Well, we have a 4.9 star review on the and 5 on the . And that’s for an MVP still being developed. Then there’s reviews from people writing to us, telling us how it’s changing their life. We were probably one of the busiest stands at a recent conference. App Store Play Store We’re just a tiny team, literally three of us with a few technical people helping, and we’re somehow doing really well so it’s definitely something that people need and want. We have our first paid pilot coming up with __ __which is really exciting. KnowBe4 We’ve been giving it away to charities that we believe in, so there’s police using it with domestic violence survivors and some NHS wellness hubs are using it as well. At the moment, our measure of success is feedback we’re getting from users, which is phenomenally exciting and positive. In a few sentences, what do you offer to whom? So, as short as possible. It’s an app that uses your five senses to help you improve your mood, to focus or relax. What’s most exciting about your traction to date? Definitely the feedback we’re getting, people are absolutely loving it. That’s rewarding to see. Where do you think your growth will be next year? I think cybersecurity is our industry, it’s my industry. I’ve been in over 25 years and I think cybersecurity professionals really, really need this. It’s necessary in the industry. It would be great to have 50 paying clients and our paid pilot successful, and becoming a really big project. I have this model in my head, kind of a Robin Hood model, where corporate customers pay us for the app for their staff, and that subsidises us to give it away to students and kids, the NHS, charities. I’d love to think that so long as we’re self-sufficient, the rest we would use to fund support for charities who can benefit from it. That’s our vision. Tell us about your first paying customer and revenue expectations over the next year. We have our paid pilot with KnowBe4, which is phenomenally exciting. I’m so pleased they had the trust in us to trial it with 100 of their customers, so we’re going to work very, very hard to try it to see how it’s helping them with their training. The idea is if you can get into a good space for your cybersecurity awareness training, you’ll more easily be able to focus and identify anomalies such as phishing attacks. While you’re doing the training you’d spend a couple of minutes doing some breath work, listening to the music, playing with the touchpad visuals, and quietening down your amygdala. Then focus while you’re going through the training. Revenue expectations, I hope we’re self-sufficient and making money with this at this time next year. What’s your biggest threat? I think the meditation apps. Everyone compares us to them, but they’re very one dimensional. They only do meditation, while we do everything from breathing to touch pads, music to movement. We’ve even got our own essential oils. The meditation apps are worth billions of dollars, and have loads of people working for them, so our biggest threat is scaling quickly and dealing with the techies and devs which is a constant demand on us. Our biggest advantage though is developing from the heart and giving it a soul that others can benefit from. Thanks to Yvonne for speaking with me about The Zensory. I work enough in the cybersecurity industry that I’ve seen the strain it places on employees. There’s a lot of pressure to be constantly on which takes a toll and means many of the best and brightest burn out too soon. Anything that helps security professionals to focus and relax in a more deliberate way is only going to benefit the industry. For more on ways to help survive a career in cyber security, follow me on HackerNoon. Comment below if you know of any other great tools to help with your mental health in the field.

Interview with The Zensory: Mindfulness for Cybersecurity

People are very social beings by default. Even the most introverted ones still have people that they like a bit more than the rest of the bunch. We rely on co-operation to survive and thrive. We usually learn from each other quicker than by ourselves. The disconnect that happened between all of us and between us and nature during the pandemic hit us fast and hit us hard. . People had and still do have a lot more time on their hands and minds and it’s even easier to get wrapped up in social media, the fast-moving world, and forget to connect with other humans, nature, and ourselves. Rates of anxiety and depression among U.S. adults were about 4 times higher between April 2020 and August 2021 than they were in 2019 Constant regulations, changes on how to fight the pandemic every day, preventive measures, and other things daily spin in our minds and occupy our thoughts. No wonder a lot of people are turning their heads into this thing mindfulness and are trying to find and learn the best practices. The times when you thought that mindfulness only exists somewhere on a mountain with a bald man all wrapped up in cloth sitting inside a tree are long past. The word itself is pretty straightforward, it means being present in your mind, your body, with all of your senses. Imagine standing in the shower and feeling the drops of the water on you, feeling how you stand, your posture, the breathing in your lungs as you inhale and exhale, and the sound of the running water. That's mindfulness, being there in the present moment without thinking about the past or the future and that’s generally how people that look into this movement want to feel like. Mindfulness is a great way to reduce anxiety, however, just like anything else, it needs practice. The Pandemic and its Impact on Mental Health Anxiety rates have increased during the pandemic and people more often than not turned to yoga, meditation, therapy, and other methods. However, some have seen themselves run into the arms and art of escapism, which is another method, albeit not always looked upon positively. , there is evidence that the fear of isolation that many people experienced during the lockdown measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic is positively related to the consumption of media that elicits nostalgia. People run off to TV shows, movies, books, video games - anything that takes them away from current life and situation, aka they escape into the world of fiction. According to research The recent increase in consumption of media that seems nostalgic is one of the reasons why people started listening to decade-old songs or why TikTok’s dance trends saw a rise with songs that most consider nostalgic. Running away from the trap that becomes your mind is not an easy feat. People who struggle with mental health issues have to find the time in their usually busy schedule to book appointments, go to a yoga class, meditation or a therapy session. However, during the pandemic, most of these activities became unavailable due to numerous restrictions in the communities country-wide. Therefore, those who already struggled started struggling even more, not to mention that others who’d become impacted during lockdown didn’t even have a chance to start exploring mindfulness, as they had fewer options to choose from. All the options accessible before were not available due to restrictions, making people try to come up with other ways to fight mental illness. Another thing to keep in mind is that these options are a good way to improve mental health and dip into the world of mindfulness for those who are not struggling with income, or other criteria. Therapy sessions with a trained psychiatrist can be an expensive solution that somehow needs to fit into your daily life and busy schedule. Yoga classes may be full by those doing it for years and finding a suitable time slot can be challenging as well. Let’s not forget that all of the options may not be available at all depending on where you live. The Rise and Popularity of Mindfulness Apps The pace of everyday living is extremely high and there’s just so much to do, we’re currently on the edge of our seats when it comes to just living our lives. What is more, in the thriving age of technology it’s more and more difficult to disconnect from reality, as you are always available and reachable via social media. The consequences of being constantly interrupted by today’s hyper-connected digital lifestyle are a chronic state of anxiety, stress, busyness, and a general sense of restlessness. “Focus is one of the most important skills of the 21st century but it’s becoming much harder to pay attention because our smartphones are always interrupting us.” Sometimes it feels as if it is difficult to run away and wanting to throw your phone away becomes a constant. But there’s an antidote to this age of digital distraction. That antidote is digital mindfulness, which involves developing smartphone habits that enable you to focus and concentrate for long periods of time by training your attention and minimizing interruptions. The coronavirus pandemic has led to a surge in downloads of mental wellness applications, and specifically, those focused on meditation, dealing with anxiety and helping users fall asleep. According to a from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower, the world’s 10 largest English-language mental wellness apps in April saw a combined 2 million more downloads during the month of April 2020 compared with January, reaching close to 10 million total downloads for the month. new report From what we can see, the mindfulness topic is becoming closely entwined with technology, which I personally find fascinating, therefore deciding to write an article about it. It may seem counterintuitive to solve digital distraught and constant social media notification onslaught with another app but as long as it works, the world is our oyster. The rise of apps like , , and others that offer a variety of breathing exercises, yoga, music for better sleeping, meditation and even psychological advice seems logical. You can now explore being mindful and practice mindfulness without even leaving your apartment or your room. And the biggest advantage and one of the reasons these types of apps see a rise in downloads and installs is that they can be used anywhere at any time. You don’t have to book an appointment with your therapist, you can just sit down during your lunch break and immerse yourself into the calming waters of mindfulness. Headspace Calm Yours App , a recent application to join the mindfulness scene, even offers professional psychologist advice, which sets the tone for future and current applications to amp up their game in addition to current features. Moreover, and let’s be real for a second, things are expensive - lessons, classes, therapy sessions. Applications can provide a lot of various content and cost less than one yoga class. Yours App Mindfulness Apps Vs. the Real Thing Let’s think critically about mindfulness applications and physical therapy sessions, yoga classes, meditation exercises. Applications pros and cons: App content is available at any time during the day or night and at any location; A lot of apps provide customizable features and content, so you get what you’re in need of; Different people require different needs and being social (aka a group yoga class) can improve their mental health; It is easy to get sidetracked when using an application, as you’re the one responsible for attentiveness; Physical activities pros and cons: You can get out of the house and change your surroundings, which is also crucial to your mental health; One on one sessions or activities are accustomed to you, specifically, therefore might be more accurate; Activities can be expensive and not available to everyone (f.e.low income, rural areas, etc.); Activities are scheduled and may be difficult to reschedule when plans change. Summary The pandemic hit us hard not only physically but also emotionally and mentally. Anxiety and mental health issues have seen a rise during Covid, making it more difficult for those already struggling and increasing the number of people who suffer. While there are a number of methods and possibilities available like meditation, yoga, psychotherapy and others, not all of them may be accessible to everyone. The rise of mindfulness applications seems to be making a positive impact on those having issues, not to mention being more available to the majority. It is enthralling to see how technology evolves to fit the specific needs of the users of such applications that focus on mental health. These kinds of adjustments and flexibility are always welcome, as technology becomes more personalized and ready for those who want to immerse themselves into the world of mindfulness.

Digital Mindfulness vs the Real Thing During the Pandemic: Digital Age’s Impact

Last year, I drove to a friend’s get-together in a remote French village. The roads were icy and I swerved into a lake. I passed out, and came back to underwater. It was dark. And cold. And I didn’t even know which way was up. This was it, I was going to drown. And then I noticed that when I opened my mouth, the air bubbles floated up, and that’s how I knew which way to swim. This entirely fabricated story is a good way to introduce this mindfulness-themed article: This is especially true in your 20s, when you feel that if you don’t succeed by 25 someone will literally come kill you, and you’re both terrified and relieved by that thought. This is, of course, in part due to the constant pressure technology puts on our lives, which has led to the creation of a movement aiming at the gradual or intermittent abandonment of our tech. Yet, I wonder, is there necessarily a dichotomy between mindfulness and tech? when you find yourself lost and disoriented and underwater and you don’t know which way is up, it’s important to breathe . What Is Mindfulness? Let’s first get the theory part of this exposé out of the way. People expect too much from mindfulness and its partner in crime, . There is no version of it that will serve as a quick self-actualization tool, despite what that Instagram Self-Help Guru tells you. Sounds hard and convoluted? Well, so is summarising 2,500 years of wisdom in one sentence soooo… meditation Much of Buddhism isn’t about knowing ourselves, it’s about tolerating not knowing, and finding an inner, label-free space where we are who we’ve always been, as the body fades away, hence shedding the delusion that pervades ordinary consciousness, allowing us to see the world with a clarity that doesn’t just liberate us from suffering but transforms our view of, and relationship with, reality itself. What are the Effects of Mindfulness? Despite its innate complexity, can do (small) wonders to the mind, and by extension the body, both at home and at work. It is even possible that the 1-century-old science of psychotherapy from better understanding this 25-century-old art of mindfulness. In fact, there is some empirical evidence suggesting that meditation might help with a variety of inherently human experiences, such as anxiety and pain, and produce measurable changes in the brain. It is however far from a miracle cure, and there’s still a lot of research to be conducted, especially about the kind of casual meditation people may choose to partake to in the course of a busy day, and whether some types of meditation are more effective than others. mindfulness may strongly benefit Indeed, the term “meditation” can be used to describe a breathing exercise, a silent chanting of a mantra, a focus on feelings of love and kindness, a visualization, a positive affirmation, or even a mindful minute paying attention to the taste of a raisin, all of which can be touched upon by technology in a different way. In addition to the , have found that mindfulness exercises can provide stronger focus, help stay calm under stress, improve memory and enhance corporate citizenship. In short, a boon for a manager looking to increase productivity through various digital or physical training. Yet, one should be wary of falling under the fad ’s spell: as the Harvard Business Review rightfully points out, in a professional environment, and as such will not necessarily make you a better, more efficient leader. The real kicker, though? People who are more emotionally intelligent tend to be more stressed, potentially negating many overall rewards reaped within a company. Furthermore, emotionally perceptive people their emotionally unavailable peers. meta-study mentioned above several studies du jour Without Emotional Intelligence, Mindfulness Doesn’t Work are said to be more susceptible to feelings of depression and hopelessness Nevertheless, and though (or even regular exercise), meditation has the draw of being cheap and scale-able, which partly explains why various practices are being implemented in across the western world where it was once thought to be inapplicable, results. The other part of the explanation is the trend effect, upon which app designers, yoga teachers and… rely to make a living, often at our expense. it does not replace therapy with unexpected traders (?) Does Tech have a role to play? You may have recently run across adverts for apps such as Headspace or Calm, haranguing you to do nothing for 15 seconds. That’s inherently stupid. I can do nothing for hours at a time. Meditation isn’t about “doing nothing”, it’s about learning to do one, very, very hard thing deliberately and repeatedly, which requires training, and calm. Let me assure everyone that “enabling notifications” appears nowhere in the Noble 8-Fold Path. Neither does “upgrading for a small fee to unlock more advanced lessons and exercises” (that’s Scientology, not mindfulness). Yet, notifications can be turned off. Gamification is, however, more counter-productive: it exemplifies the app makers’ need to track, incentivise, and transform any and all self-improvement endeavor into a benchmark and/or a competition, whether with others or yourself, in the name of future revenues. Having meditated more than others is nothing to be proud of. Or ashamed of. Or anything for that matter. It should be baffling to all that apps encourage you to share your “achievements” on social media. Pics or it didn’t enlighten! Beyond apps, the corporate world has also hijacked meditation for the sake of productivity. Google, Goldman Sachs, Salesforce, Volvo… all the cool kids are doing it, and it’s a safe bet that a sudden newfound respect for the metaphysics of Buddhism isn’t at the heart of this trend(one can hardly imagine a banker praising the A doctrine). It’s also true that mindfulness meditation, as typically taught by companies to their employees, bears only a small resemblance to the philosophy mindfulness meditation as described by those who perfected the art. natta Yet one’s rebellion against the commodification isn’t a simple, open-and-shut case wherein the benefits of spiritual endeavors are held above those of therapeutic endeavors. In fact, there’s a long, rich debate in meditation traditions about the choice between seclusion from the world or immersion in it — the argument presented being that one who achieves peacefulness in the hustle and bustle of modern life is somehow more worthy, having reached a much harder goal. Some people need to become recluse to tune out the world, while others pursue tranquility from inside life’s chaos. Smartphones and full-time jobs just confront us with the latest version of this choice. Furthermore, the road to mindfulness isn’t strictly binary. As strange as it may sound, you can experience a small percentage of the peacefulness sought by monks simply by pursuing a simple daily meditation routine. Then, as time goes by, maybe a little more, perhaps slowly replacing a mere therapeutic pursuit with a spiritual one. Until then, you may be a little less stressed, a little bit less anxious. The main thing is to make progress over time, inevitable backsliding notwithstanding. And the first step on that path can consist of just calming down a little, even if your initial motivation for calming down is to ace next week’s sales pitch. In those instances, some virtual assistance can, indeed, be beneficial. Breathe in. Breathe out. Join a movement This article was originally made for , an online magazine providing in-depth analyses of today’s technological challenges. . The Pourquoi Pas Click here to access it

Is Tech Good For Mindfulness?

I’ve been on training for mindful coaching recently, and almost a day in, I started wondering on how to apply what I learned to coding. How could a team benefit from combining the two concepts? How could mindful coding help to ease the pains of building software? For those new to the topic, mindfulness is a concept that teaches our mind to be in the present, in whatever we do right at that moment. Not thinking about the future, the laundry we have to do, neither dwelling in past mistakes we did. It’s also about not judging. Not judging others, not judging ourselves. Not feeling controlled by our feelings and learned actions on a subconscious level. Sounds easy? It is not. It is harder than you might think. But it’s worth it. And well research (New? Start ). here Now, let’s explore my thoughts on how to combine that with software development. You are not your code Code reviews can be great. If you are open and willing to learn. On both sides. Reviewer and reviewee. However, they can turn ugly pretty quickly, if you believe someone judging your code is judging you. We are sometimes too close to our own work, that we can not distinguish between critic on our work and critic on us. We take it personally. And when we do, we react in defense and might bark back or do other shit. One thing that mindfulness can teach us in this situation is not to take that personally. We are not our code. The code is something we produced. It might be good, it might be bad. It depends on who’s reading it and their definitions of good/bad. However, one thing is for sure, we are not the code. IF we can overcome that feeling of personal judgment, we might learn much more in those reviews. Besides they might go much more enjoyable. Others are not their code It is essentially the same thing, just the other way around. We are judging now. We judge the code. We judge the dev who wrote it. “That stupid morons can’t code” — ever thought something like that? Don’t do that. Maybe she/he had a bad day, was on a tight deadline or whatever. It’s even worse if you continue to judge devs because you read some shitting code of them ten years ago. If you don’t think your code a year ago was shit, you don’t make progress. Anyways, judging brings just tension to a team and eventually will destroy any team spirit. FLow Working in the flow is great. Fulfilling. And pretty much impossible in a working environment because co-workers don’t respect it. If we would be living mindful in the present, we’d notice what’s around us. We would see if we can ask Bob a question or if he so deep into work and leave him alone. Waiting for a better time. We would notice that our own behavior disturbs our co-workers. Talking loud on the phone and holding meetings at a desk and freaking out the others in the room. Most of the time, people don’t do that on intention. They are not aware that they do that at all. So focussed doing their little task, that they ignore everything around. When we are aware of what is happening in our environment and we interact with it, we can adjust our behavior and be more respectful. You are not a rockstar I am not sure if it is actually part of mindfulness or just happens to be close. Yet, this being in the presence and not judging has much to do with taking our ego out of it. I can not be in the presence, listening to someone and trying not to judge, while being focussed on my ego. It does not work for me. As soon as I start judging, I am not listening anymore. My mind is gone. I am gone and thus not mindful anymore. The further I go down this path, the more I learn that my ego is in my way. Yep, it is everywhere. Yours too. My code is not the best in the world. Or better than the code my teammates wrote. I am not a rockstar coder, guru or whatever. Neither are you. Accepting limitations and reducing our ego, makes us humble. A humble mind is open, willing to learn. Learn from our mistakes and learn from others. It doesn’t judge — not us, not others. It knows its limits. Imagine working in a team using mindful principles. What would it look like? Write it in a comment. Originally published at codeboje.de .

Mindfulness in Software Development

Blockchain is quickly becoming a ubiquitous technology across just about every industry. In real estate, it is being used to compile listings, property records, and even democratized ownership of shares in properties. In healthcare, it is making the lives of medical staff and patients easier through smart contracts that grant patients private key access to signing off on operations as well as many other functions. Another area where blockchain is showing its utility is in the wellness and attention economy. New blockchain-based apps and games are capitalizing on the popularity of mindfulness culture. These applications of blockchain are fusing with the concepts of music streaming services, podcasts, and MOOC communities to reward users with currency for participating in yoga and meditation. Many of the offerings in the wellness-blockchain space use augmented and virtual reality to make an engaging and truly transcendent experience for users. Yoga and meditation on the blockchain offer users as well as content creators the opportunity to monetize knowledge and self-knowledge alike without having to leave the house. The gamification of these practices offers incentives beyond intrinsic, self-focused goals as well as contributing to a community of healthy and mindful users. Learn more about with the infographic below, provided by HighVibe. blockchain and mindfulness

How the Blockchain Will Increase Your Mindfulness

Is your mind feeling scattered as you read this blog? Are you thinking of what to do next, or getting ready to open the next tab on your browser? If so, here’s a simple exercise to bring you back to the task on hand… Close your eyes… Focus on the space below your nostrils. Become aware of your breath. Immerse yourself deeper into that experience… Feel the warmth of your breath, the deep inhalations and deeper exhalations. Do this for two-three minutes. Now get back to your reading and notice the difference. This is just one way to practice mindfulness, a meditation technique that helps you become aware of the ‘here and now’. A practice that allows you to be in the moment, without letting your mind stray into other things, or worry about the past or future. In an era, where every ping of the smart phone is raising our stress levels, and where the pressure to achieve greater numbers and collaborate with diverse geographies is pulling us in different directions, mindfulness can become a useful management tool. Several studies have successfully linked mindfulness with enhanced productivity and better health. Why CEOs should be mindful Leaders especially are facing more pressure than the rest: they have to unite teams and bring together diverse personalities toward a common vision… They have to be trouble shooters and motivators at the same time… And they have to respond to pressures like market uncertainties externally, and increasing attrition internally. All this requires leaders to be agile and alert. The age-old practice of mindfulness can be used effectively. Mindfulness is essentially about becoming aware, being in the moment, and responding to a situation from a place of stillness and calm… This eventually leads you to becoming more receptive and responsive rather becoming reactive. More importantly, mindfulness increases concentration and makes you a keen listener, tuning into the other person, while you keep your own emotions and thoughts at bay. Mindfulness also aids decision-making as it helps you focus on the minor details, heightening your acuity. Companies like Google and Apple already have mindfulness programs in place. In fact, the late Steve Job was known to be a meditator who practiced mindfulness to become more aware of the challenges his company was facing and to enhance his creativity. But how does one practice mindfulness at work? The Buddhist monk and author Thich Nhat Hanh in his book talks about how mindfulness can be used at work: The Miracles of Mindfulness ‘…keep your attention focused on the work, be alert and ready to handle ably and intelligently any situation which may arise — this is mindfulness… During the moment one is consulting, resolving, and dealing with whatever arises, a calm heart and self-control are necessary if one is to obtain good results… Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves.’ Mastery over oneself and restoration from stress are thus the key benefits of mindfulness. Some of the other benefits of mindfulness are: 1. where people are more willing to collaborate and work with each other in harmony. Improved relationships within the organisation, 2. As people work with calm and reduced stress levels, they become more productive, and can focus on personal growth too. A general sense of well-being and happiness in the company… 3. As concentration and stillness increase, the ability to see problems from different angles and find unique solutions also arises. Enhanced creativity leading to greater innovation. 4. As people become more mindful and receptive to another person’s point of view, they become more tolerant and understanding of other team members. Reduces conflict within teams… 5. Every situation is looked at with an open mind and a positive approach is adopted in dealing with the challenge. Makes an organisation more nimble and ready to deal with change… 6. Instead of making greed and profits a priority, organisations that are mindful become more detached, focusing instead on sustainable practices that impact society as a whole. Makes organisations more conscious… A few mindfulness practices for organisations Looking inward, being with yourself, and paying attention to the fleeting thought, for even a few moments a day, can be a transformative practice. Once you begin to experience mindfulness at a personal level, you can spread it to the rest of your organisation too… Here are some ways of doing it: Start meetings with a few moments of silence People come into meeting rooms with traces of what they had just stopped doing, or a task on their mind that still needs to be completed. In order to get them to focus on what you have to say, and to achieve the goals of the meeting, give them some time to collect themselves. Ask them to close their eyes, and focus on their breathing. You could also ask them to chant three ‘oms’… Any chanting, especially when done collectively, has therapeutic benefits. 2. Become a keen listener As a leader, you may want to rush into your agenda and ensure your point of view is heard and implemented. But a leader’s job is to encourage others to think and grow too. For this you require patience and empathy…you need to be open to view points from others and restrain yourself from a counter-view, till such a time as the person has completed his train of thought. When you encourage independent thought, you also encourage autonomy and decision-making, allowing your team to become more confident in their work and plans. 3. Conduct mindfulness programs Mindfulness need not always be about sitting quietly and meditating in a corner, it can be fun as well. You can encourage teams to think of mindfulness games that allow them to stretch their imagination. You could give them hypothetical situations and ask them to come up with different strategies for the same. You could also ask them to create different outcomes for a particular campaign or project you are launching. When people are immersed in a creative activity, mindfulness is the natural outcome. 4. Create spaces for breathing Meditation rooms are still to become an important feature in offices in India and the world. And for people to actually start using them will take even more time, as many feel guilty about meditating at work. But meditative practices and mindfulness are a growing trend. More and more people are practicing (a detox practice), and doing yoga on a regular basis. If a small corner of your office can be devoted for mindfulness, or if you can allow employees to take some time off to practice meditation, you will see happier and more productive employees. kriyas As a CEO, when you practice mindfulness yourself, you will see it permeate to the rest of the organisation too. And when you promote it among employees, you will see new levels of happiness and performance in your organisation. The power of mindfulness is a deeply transformative one, ultimately impacting the industry and society you live in too. So take those few moments to meditate and experience its manifold benefits in your life and in the lives of those around you. This article was first published in Yellow Spark — a unique management consulting firm with an expertise in the people side of business. Thanks for taking the time out to read my post. You add more energy to my pen… If you like my blog, you can… PS: Leave a comment Press the ❤ button and recommend it Share it with your network Follow me for future posts <a href="https://medium.com/media/cba137a338d47bff8649da34aa55718d/href">https://medium.com/media/cba137a338d47bff8649da34aa55718d/href</a>

Let Mindfulness Lead the Way

It’s a necessary evil — every entrepreneur spends a lot of time thinking… It’s how they became entrepreneurs in the first place… They contemplated the world, they contemplated its problems, they contemplated how they could solve those problems, and then they contemplated how those solutions could reach millions of consumers. The mind of an entrepreneur is an overly-taxed one — constantly thinking, brainstorming, problem-solving. But the mind of an entrepreneur is also a dynamic and evolving one. From it emerge many ideas…some great, some not-so-great, some repetitive, and some disruptive. Hence the mind of an entrepreneur needs to be taken care of. And very often the mind of the entrepreneur needs to be emptied, as it gets too full of thoughts and ideas. The mind needs to move away from conflicting, doubting, self-defeating and negative thoughts, and move more toward constructive and positive ones instead. For this, an entrepreneur needs to make conscious attempts to calm the mind, and make it more restful, so that it can eventually gain greater clarity and become more effective. This is possible through mindfulness. I read a book authored by the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh titled . According to Hanh, only meditation provides complete rest. Even when you sleep or lie down, you are not completely at rest; it’s meditation that stills the mind. Hanh says — ‘Mindfulness is the miracle with which we master and restore ourselves.’ The Miracle of Mindfulness Through the book Hanh provides several tools to help you meditate, become more watchful of your thoughts, and concentrate on your breath. My favourite is the half-smile method. Hanh says whenever you meditate and sit in a cross-legged position, give a half smile — this erases any creases on your forehead; it also puts you into a more blissful state of mind. The half smile can be used at any time, not only when you are meditating… You could put it on while exercising in a gym, working at your desk, or walking on the streets. Hanh also suggests that when you conduct any activity, you must get completely immersed in it, and focus only on that — be it ‘washing clothes or dishes, making tea, or eating tangerine’. This will help you get more centered, and will stop your mind from running all over the place. In the case of an entrepreneur, this destroys the myth of multi-tasking completely. No one can achieve much with scattered attention; you need to focus on one problem at a time. And, don’t hurry up with the task, watching the clock continuously. Immerse yourself in the task instead, like it’s the only thing in the world for you to do at that point in time… The task will no longer seem difficult, and the time taken to solve it will reduce too. Hanh, in the book, also talks about labeling your breath…so if you’ve inhaled a short breath, call it that, and if you’ve exhaled with a long breath, mentally say that to yourself. This will help you observe the patterns of your breathing better. Likewise, if you are feeling any emotion — sadness or pain, joy or fear — identify that emotion, and try to ponder upon the reason for its ‘origination’ and the factors that can lead to its ‘dissolution’. Observing the mind and its mental objects is the primary purpose of meditation. Hanh quotes the Pali text written by Nyanasatta that states this well: Satipatthana Sutta Thus he (the monk) lives contemplating mental objects in mental objects internally, or he lives contemplating mental objects in mental objects externally, or he lives contemplating mental objects in mental objects internally and externally. As an entrepreneur, start thinking about your thinking, start thinking about why you’re thinking those thoughts, and if they are negative and too consuming, what you can do to rid yourself of those thoughts. Getting obsessed with any issue is draining for the mind and body. Thus, distance yourself from the situation, by observing the thought - the ‘mental object’ that is disturbing you, internally or externally. Finally the benefits of the practice of mindfulness will be felt not just by you, but by those around you as well… ‘In a family, if there is one person who practices mindfulness, the entire family will be more mindful,’ writes Hanh. For the entrepreneur this essentially means that if you become more mindful and calm, a similar environment will be created in your workplace too, among your co-workers and co-founders, investors and service providers…even your consumers. Each one involved in the enterprise will think more about their thoughts and responses while dealing with a situation. As they think more about their thinking, the end product or service they create will be a better reflection of themselves and their vision. It will reflect cohesiveness, and eventually connect more deeply with the world. To quote Hanh — ‘People normally cut reality into compartments, and so are unable to see the interdependence of all phenomena. To see one in all and all in one is to break through the great barrier which narrows one’s perception of reality.’ Entrepreneurs — Think about your thought; think about how you think of that thought … Become more mindful, more joyful, more peaceful, and be sure to create something truly revolutionary! I would like to thank Thich Nhat Hanh for , a book that makes you calmer just by reading it… And a big thank you to Pratik Patel for gifting it to me, and insisting I read it and write about it… Though I still have to apply all of its practices into my daily life, I can already feel myself becoming more mindful. Heartfelt Gratitude: The Miracle of Mindfulness Thanks for taking the time out to read my post. You add more energy to my pen… If you like my blog, you can… PS: Leave a comment Press the heart button and recommend it Share it with your network Follow me for future posts

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