Speaker 1: Stay Calm is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to Stay Calm,
Speaker 1: your daily dose of calmness. I'm Bob Roth, and I've
Speaker 1: been teaching people to meditate for fifty years, helping them
Speaker 1: to stay calm under pressure, reboot and re energize their lives,
Speaker 1: and basically be a happier, healthier version of themselves. And
Speaker 1: now I want to help you do the same. Ready,
Speaker 1: sit comfortably, take a few deep breaths, and let's begin
Speaker 1: today's journey. I want to tell you a story about
Speaker 1: a middle school student, I'll call him Joey, who learned
Speaker 1: to meditate as part of a stress reducing quiet time
Speaker 1: program that we offer for free to students and teachers
Speaker 1: in tough urban schools. Joey came from a broken home
Speaker 1: and had a well established reputation as the school bully.
Speaker 1: But when he heard he could learn transcendental meditation and
Speaker 1: practice it as part of his regular school day, he
Speaker 1: got genuinely intrigued. He said he wanted to give it
Speaker 1: a try. After a week or so of meditating, his
Speaker 1: teacher asked him how the practice was going. Joey thought
Speaker 1: for a moment, smiled just a bit, and said, I
Speaker 1: used to walk down the hall and if someone bumped
Speaker 1: into me, I get so angry. I just hit him. Now,
Speaker 1: since I'm doing the meditation, when I walk down the
Speaker 1: hall and someone bumps into me, I stop and I
Speaker 1: think to myself, do I want to hit him? As
Speaker 1: funny and as perhaps inconsequential as that story may sound,
Speaker 1: it is in fact extremely significant. Why Because no one
Speaker 1: told Joey during his meditation course that hitting someone was
Speaker 1: bad and that he shouldn't do it. No one told
Speaker 1: him how to behave But that pause that Joey experienced,
Speaker 1: that momentary, split second pause between being hit and hitting back,
Speaker 1: can be the difference between a non event that passes
Speaker 1: unnoticed in the course of a school day, or something
Speaker 1: that triggers a violent outburst that can escalate into who
Speaker 1: knows what damage. How many men and women are in
Speaker 1: prison today because they didn't have that split second pause
Speaker 1: before blind rage took over. What caused that pause in
Speaker 1: Joey's behavior, His brain did. Research shows that meditation helped
Speaker 1: to calm his brain helped to heal the trauma. There
Speaker 1: are two key parts of your brain that dictate so
Speaker 1: much of what we experience in the course of a day.
Speaker 1: The first is called the amygdala. This is two small
Speaker 1: almond shaped clusters of brain cells that sit towards the
Speaker 1: base of the brain. They process strong emotions like fear
Speaker 1: and pleasure. When you feel threatened and afraid, the amigdala
Speaker 1: kicks in instantaneously, activating what scientists call the fight or
Speaker 1: flight response. Signals are sent to other parts of your
Speaker 1: brain to release stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline and
Speaker 1: prepare your body literally for battle or else to run
Speaker 1: for your life. The second key player is the prefrontal
Speaker 1: cortex of your brain. This is about the size of
Speaker 1: a clenched fist and is located right behind your forehead.
Speaker 1: This part of the brain runs decision making, planning, judgment,
Speaker 1: ethical thinking, even your sense of self. This is your
Speaker 1: rational filter against impulsive decisions. I like to call this
Speaker 1: the grown up part of your brain that's in use
Speaker 1: when you're not flying off the handle at the slightest
Speaker 1: provocation under ordinary conditions, which means unless you're being chased
Speaker 1: by a lion or under attack in a combat zone,
Speaker 1: the amigala should take a back seat to pretty much
Speaker 1: everything in your life, and the prefrontal cortex should run
Speaker 1: the show, except these days, that's not the case really
Speaker 1: for most of us. Why because stress, the daily, irritating,
Speaker 1: aggravating stresses of life, can take your prefrontal cortex offline.
Speaker 1: Think about it. Does a stressed person make good decisions,
Speaker 1: have good judgment, plan well, have a good sense of self.
Speaker 1: When that kid would bump into Joey in the days
Speaker 1: before he started meditating, Joey's amigla would light up like
Speaker 1: fireworks and activate the fight or flight response. But Joey's
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen minutes of meditation at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the school day had a spillover effect. It kept his
Speaker 1: prefinneal cortex is grown up part of the brain, connected
Speaker 1: and online. He was able to pause, even for a moment,
Speaker 1: to make a rational decision whether or not to hit
Speaker 1: the guy back. So here's my health tip of the day.
Speaker 1: Breathe when things get intense. Doctors say that's the moment
Speaker 1: to remember to breathe in slowly and evenly through your
Speaker 1: nose to fill up your lungs and bring the air
Speaker 1: up into your brain and into your head. Then hold
Speaker 1: it for a second and then let all the air
Speaker 1: out slowly through your lips, and then hold that for
Speaker 1: a second, in and out, in and out, do that
Speaker 1: a few times. When you breathe them through your nose
Speaker 1: rather than anxiously gulping air through your mouth, you are
Speaker 1: bringing oxygen up into your brain and that will help
Speaker 1: calm your amignalant for a moment, and that calm can
Speaker 1: help give your prefrontal cortex the split second it needs
Speaker 1: to take back control of the moment and maybe even
Speaker 1: your life. All right, let's end this time together doing
Speaker 1: something that I think should be a feature of our
Speaker 1: everyday life, and that's appreciation and gratitude. So let's take
Speaker 1: thirty seconds of quiet, thirty seconds to take a break,
Speaker 1: just take a moment. It turns out when we do that,
Speaker 1: it's good for our health as well. I'll be right back,
Speaker 1: all right. Thank you for joining me today. I hope
Speaker 1: you heard something that inspires, that uplifts you and that
Speaker 1: you can incorporate into your own life. This is Bob Roth.
Speaker 1: Stay calm, hey, all of you out there, I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. You can send me your stories,
Speaker 1: your questions, or anything else on your mind. Just connect
Speaker 1: with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at meditation Bob.
Speaker 1: You can also send me an email at meditationbobrothat gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. I look forward to hearing from you, oh,