🔋The 15-Minute Practice to Calm Your Brain (ATP#28)

After years without practicing Yoga, I returned to it in April. Since then, I’ve been attending class once a week. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve made this year because every session leaves me relaxed and refreshed.

We always start with asanas (the postures from Hatha Yoga, and probably the best-known aspect of Yoga). Then we move into meditation, relaxation, and breathwork.

Many Yoga practices, like body scans, focusing on the present moment, or observing thoughts without judgment, also appear in modern mindfulness practices. Neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman has popularized Yoga Nidra, which he calls “non-sleep deep rest.” It’s a practice that helps your body relax and recover without falling asleep.

I love how ancient wisdom helps us in modern times, allowing us to breathe and pause instead of rushing through life, even if only for a few minutes. And thanks to the widespread availability of electronic devices, relaxation practices are now just a click away. No need to attend a course or session with a certified trainer.

The effectiveness of mindfulness practices has been debated in the scientific literature, particularly regarding whether a single mindfulness session can calm non-practitioners and reduce their stress levels.

The short answer is yes. But for the full picture, let’s look at what researchers found in one of the largest studies on this topic.

The study

The study included a large sample of 2,239 participants.

Its central question was: Can a single 15-minute mindfulness session reduce stress in non-practitioners of mindfulness? And the researchers also wanted to know which of four mindfulness meditation techniques would be the most effective.

The four techniques were:

• Body scan

• Mindful walking

• Mindful breathing

• Loving-kindness meditation

Participants used a smartphone app and were randomly assigned to one of these four techniques or the control condition (listening to a 15-minute fictional story). After the mindfulness practice (or after listening to the story), participants filled out a stress questionnaire.

The results

All four mindfulness techniques significantly reduced stress compared to the control condition.

Although all four techniques differed significantly from the control condition, the body scan proved to be the most effective. It involves mentally scanning the different parts of your body, closely resembling Yoga Nidra.

These results are promising: if one 15-minute session can ease stress in non-practitioners, regular practice might amplify those benefits. Another advantage is that you only need a quiet place, 15 minutes, and a device that plays audio to practice it.

Closing remarks

This study shows that simple, free tools can meaningfully lower perceived stress levels. If you want to try any of these four 15-minute meditations, they’re freely available here (the short stories from the control condition are also included on this page).

I just tried the body scan meditation and was truly impressed by how refreshed I felt afterward!

This recent experience and my experiences in Yoga class are probably a sign I should incorporate meditation practices more into my life, perhaps daily.

So if you can, try one of the meditations today. 15 minutes could make a huge difference!

What else I’ve been up to:

I published two new articles on Medium last week! The first one was about Student Evaluations of Teaching and why these evaluations aren’t a good measure of teaching quality (hello biases!!!). I’m linking it here:

Here’s my friend link to read it for free if you’re not a Medium member.

The other article on Medium might sound familiar to you if you read my newsletter from last week:

Friend link included at the beginning of the article so you can read it for free!

That’s it for today!

And now?

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Until next time!

Best wishes,

Patricia (Dr. Schmidt) from creatorschmidt.com.