Innovation Mental Fitness
Ambassador Spotlight
Recently, I have begun integrating 30-minutes of mindfulness into my morning routine. Whether that be engaging in guided meditation, practicing breathing exercises or leaving my phone in my room while I go for a walk outside, the first half-hour of my day invariably consists of practicing intentional, non-judgemental awareness of moment-to-moment experience. I find that having a mindfulness routine clears my head in such a way that I can more easily and effectively synthesize my ideas into actionable steps for achievement in my classes, my job, and my extracurricular activities.
You might be thinking you don’t have that kind of time in the morning. Maybe you want to sleep just a little bit longer or cram in another half-hour of studying before your huge midterm. Well, like exercising any muscle, engaging your brain in daily practice and discipline makes it stronger and more innovative. Even spending a mere five minutes of your day tuning in on your body, your mind, and focusing your energy on breathing will set you up to thrive. Numerous studies have shown that with practice, meditation helps to quiet the mind, build resiliency, reduce stress, and enhance attention.
Chade-Meng Tan landed the position as head of personal growth at Google, where he cultivates a practice deemed “fitness for the mind”. He created a class back in 2007 called Search Inside Yourself, a contemplative training program broken up into three sections: attention training, self-knowledge, and creating mental habits. It is designed to provide a differentiating set of skills for helping employees better relate to themselves and others. This class reiterates that meditation as a workout for enhancing emotional intelligence, especially in such an engineer-heavy culture, is a powerful way to help employees build compassion, improve productivity, and think outside the box. But Google is not alone in trending towards creating a corporate culture around mindfulness to open the doors for business success. Companies such as Shell Oil, General Mills, and several others incorporate meditation in order to help the flow of idea generation, cognitive flexibility, and improve the focus of their employees.
As a Vanderbilt student, despite your focus of study, you are constantly being challenged to think differently, explore novel ideas, and learn from your experiences. Engaging in mindfulness will further cultivate your mental malleability, concentration, and motivation to be innovative and make significant contributions in your own discipline.
Alexa Levitt
Student Ambassador