Create Quiet and Stillness

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The human nervous system can only take so much stimulation before it starts to break down. This has implications for the mind and even for spirituality. The more stimulated we are, the more stress hormones are produced and the more likely we are to make decisions based on fear, rather than positivity, compassion, which is the end of suffering, or even love. Constant noise or stimulation can become an addiction for some; for others, it is a nagging that erodes happiness, clear thinking and positive relationships.

Healthy Breathing: The First Step to Quiet

There are several steps to creating quiet and stillness. First, if you are highly stressed, use healthy breathing to restore equilibrium of the mind. Healthy breathing uses all parts of the lungs, starting from the bottom, without catches or unevenness; this typically takes training and feedback from a highly trained teacher. It is rare that people today have a fully healthy breath without at least some training; typically, the higher the stress state, such as burnout, the more practice is needed to restore healthy breathing. 

I once taught this to a business owner who was highly stressed out, to help him think more clearly about some of the business and life challenges he was facing. I walked him through the above practices whenever we worked together to help him increase his focus, and he noticed early on that it made him feel better. 

Step 2: Many Micro-Moments of No Stimulation

Once healthy breathing is achieved, the next step in creating quiet for a very busy mind, perhaps even stressed or overwhelmed, is to create micro-moments of quiet, which over time will lead to stillness. This is pretty hard to do this with technology, as you need to tune into your human body to find that inner stillness. 

The easiest way to start is to focus on your breath, or really anything that is still, for about 30 seconds. You could focus on something like a wall, or on a part of your body that feels relaxed if you want variety to begin. 

At first, you might want to use a timer to set times to be quiet; start at 30 seconds if you must, then go on with your day. Do this several times throughout the day.

This is why I like to use healthy breathing to create this state. If you breathe into the lower parts of your lungs and oxygen moves into your body efficiently, you will start to calm stress hormones. More importantly, it gives you something as fundamental as life itself to focus on.

Step 3: Increase the Practice

It is recommended that you do this at least 12 times per day during the working day, or active part of the day, to teach your body and mind to reduce its stimulation and the addiction to stimulation. As you get better at this, if you have a spiritual faith, you can focus on something from your faith, such as a concept that you are working on. 

Once you can do 30 seconds, 12 times per day, increase the amount of time that you are quiet; maybe go for 40 seconds, and then when you can do that, increase at the rate that you feel comfortable with. 

That same business owner I mentioned above actually called me up to ask me to walk through the breathing with him because he was new to it and he had something very challenging to do in his mind and he wanted to be calm. This is a great way to apply this practice. It is recommended that you do learn to breathe consciously to the bottom parts of your lungs and breathe evenly before you proceed with the next steps.

Step 3-B: Loving Kindness Practice Leading to Meditation

In traditional meditation schools, before a student was taught any meditation practices, they were expected to master loving kindness as a practice and sometimes as a meditation as a base to learn to control the mind, and even still the mind. For some people, this is an extremely difficult practice, as there may be many feelings of interiority of the self. I have taught people these practices, and they had to start with very gentle, positive thoughts and work up to expressing kindness. I actually had this when I first started working with loving-kindness as a practice, thinking thoughts of kindness towards both me and others took practice and correction. Over time, it became more and more natural. Eventually, I was able to apply this in meditation techniques that further built the practice. 

Step 4: Building the Practice with Awareness of Your Thoughts

The next step is being able to be aware of what you are thinking. This is a practice that is traditionally taught in meditation, but not always. To slow down thoughts, you need a relaxed body, and that can be part of awareness. 

Several techniques help slow thinking and cultivate inner quiet.

At this time, or perhaps even before, you might become aware of the amount and quality of the noise around you. Is music or noise harmonious or creating tension? Tension is a sign that your brain and nervous system are resisting the negativity or just the stimulation. Learning to give yourself space throughout the day, where you have exterior quiet, will help to develop inner quiet and stillness. You can create stillness in a loud or disharmonious environment, but it takes a lot of ability to stay calm under all circumstances. This can also be learned.

Step 4-B: Further Reducing Time with Technology 

The next step is to take longer breaks from technology in most forms; this includes computers, large monitors, TV or the internet, and smaller devices such as phones or even smartwatches. Research shows these devices influence brain waves and, in turn, the mental states you can achieve in terms of stillness. Most content is highly stimulating, even if it is just scrolling, so taking a break allows the mind to normalize. This also includes stimulating noise. By this time, you should be able to be off devices for about 30 minutes at a time. This would allow you to start a meditation practice, mainly focusing on slowing the brain and thinking down. 

Step 5: Starting Meditation and Practices that Lead to Meditation

What is meditation? Strictly speaking, it is focusing the mind. Traditionally, it is quieting the mind. 

Many practices taught today as meditation aren’t strictly meditation. Affirmations can be called meditation, and they can become meditation if you have enough focus, but they only go so far to slow the mind down; without focus, they aren’t really meditation. Visualizations can also be called meditations, and they really aren’t helpful for creating stillness; however, they can increase your ability to focus. Practices that work and lead to meditation reduce thoughts and repair the effects of overstimulation. 

It is recommended that you learn practices that develop loving-kindness and slow the mind, and do them without outside direction during the practice, other than from a trained teacher. The practices should be simple enough at this stage that you can remember them easily. The most important thing is to apply them and give them time to slow your brain and nervous system down. It varies for everyone how long this takes, but if you are used to being highly stimulated, any slowing down is a big win. 

Step 6: Growing the Practice 

Increasing practice time and learning more advanced practices to handle what arises during meditation can help sustain practice. Working directly with an advanced teacher with a master level practice is very important, as they can guide you when difficulties arise. 

To really develop a quiet mind, at some point, you need to reduce the external stimulation that you are receiving; this can be for a period of a few hours per day. This can be exercise without music, a hobby where you are relaxed and focused on what you are doing, or deep relaxation. It can also be a combination of all these activities.

Remember, our human minds developed when we lived outside in nature and followed natural rhythms, which meant that for most of our human development, when the light was gone, we had quieter times. 

Now, we need to recreate this natural balance for ourselves, and the practices that lead up to stillness do this. The benefit is a mind that can keep up with the stimulation when it needs to, work at faster speeds when it needs to, and be mentally healthy. 

Next Steps

If you would like to learn how to do this, we teach CEOS and C-Suite leaders the skills that they need to quiet their minds, and that eventually leads to meditation, wherever you are starting from, be that high stress or burnout, or just highly stimulated and needing skills to handle high stimulation and be able to shut it down when healthy to do so. Book a call with us to see how you can benefit from learning to quiet your body, mind and emotions.