In response to requests for information and programs on mindfulness and meditation, the Cares Committee is presenting a three-part Newsletter series on getting started in meditation. Part 1, books on meditation, begins in this issue. In April and May smartphone apps and classes and training will be covered. We will follow up with a workshop in the fall.

Beginning meditation and mindfulness part one

The most accessible avenue for beginning meditation is books, and there are many available. Below is a review of a recent best-seller that offers a good introduction to the practice of meditation.

Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics by Dan Harris and Jeff Warren with Carlye Adler
Review by Earl Nolting

Dan Harris, co-anchor of the weekend edition of ABC’s Good Morning America, experienced a full-blown panic attack while on air in 2004. Afterward, as he tried to understand the experience and prevent a recurrence, he became interested in meditation. He found the practice so helpful that he wrote his first book on meditation and created an app, “10 % Happier.”

In talking with people, Harris observed that many were uncertain about meditation and had trouble starting or maintaining a meditation practice despite the practice’s many well-documented benefits.

Harris found an experienced meditation teacher, Jeff Warren, and they came up with the idea of a “10 % Happier bus tour.” They recruited journalist Carlye Adler and together set off on an 11-day, 18-state tour to “…find interesting and diverse groups of people who wanted to practice [meditation] but weren’t actually doing it.” Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics is a result of that trip.

The book is a breezy and irreverent introduction to meditation practice in the mindfulness tradition. The authors mix anecdotes about people’s reservations about meditation (e.g., lack of time, religious associations, can’t focus) with specific meditation techniques that address these reservations and form the foundation for a regular practice. The exercises range from less than a minute to up to two hours and include ways of applying mindfulness to everyday life situations.

If you’re a “fidgety skeptic,” the book is a good way to try some mindfulness practices with a minimal investment of time and money.

Four good reasons retirees should “try on” mindfulness practices

Mindfulness practices help us:

1. manage the emotional stress of aches and pains (temporary or chronic) without the side effects of medications or alcohol.

2. come to terms with regrets and diminished physical capacity.

3. cope with age-related sensory changes. Those of us with a hearing disability know how easy it is to “tune out” conversations, lectures, and TV programs. This type of mindful attentiveness is work; the exercises in Harris’s book ease the work considerably.

4. with memory issues by making it easier to turn off our “auto pilot” and be more present with our daily activities. Being more present helps us remember them better.

In short, mindfulness techniques help us to age more skillfully.

— Ron Matross, Cares Committee member