Eli Sussman was a fairly experienced meditator when he attended a month-long retreat in 2017 at Plum Village, a Buddhist monastery in southern France.
A doctoral candidate in clinical science at the University of California, Berkeley, he has attended other retreats where participants spent most of their time meditating. So he was surprised to find that Plum Village’s daily retreat schedule included only 30 minutes of formal meditation per day.
Halfway through the retreat, he decided to extend one of his sessions and sat under a tree for three hours. He then met a monk named Brother Treasure and told him about his own training. The monk’s reaction was not what he expected.
“Three hours?” Sussman remembers the Treasure brothers saying with a smile. “How about three breaths? That’s all you need to step into the present moment.”
Those words struck Sussman in the heart. That got him wondering whether a short practice of just a few breaths could make a difference in someone’s life.
Seven years later, he and his colleagues at the Golden Bear Sleep and Mood Research Clinic in Berkeley have evidence that this is possible.earlier this year they Published a paper This paper describes how a simple 20-second self-compassion “micropractice” lowered stress levels and improved mental health in university student volunteers who performed it every day for a month.
“The two biggest barriers people have to developing a meditation habit are finding the time to do it and getting into the habit of doing it regularly,” Sussman says. “Micropactis is like a small training session that builds on the most powerful parts of your therapeutic practice.”
Below, Sussman describes the practices he developed for his research and how anyone can use them to feel better in less than a minute a day.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
How would you describe the 20-second self-compassion micropractice you studied?
The instructions we have given you are to close your eyes, remember something about yourself that is bothering you and making you feel unworthy, unloved, not good enough, and in your body. It was about realizing what was going on.
Next, with the energy of a self-hug, place one hand on your heart and the other on your stomach, sending gentleness and warmth to yourself and becoming aware of what’s going on in your body right now. I got noticed.
Next, we asked them to ask themselves, “How can I be friends with myself in this moment?”
Finally, I told her to open her eyes when she was ready.
Did doing this for 20 seconds a day really make a difference in the lives of study participants?
Yes, but it only worked for those who practiced it regularly. Our study looked at a subset of people who practice daily and the entire sample of people who received instruction.
More frequent practice was associated with greater increases in self-compassion and greater reductions in stress and mental health problems such as symptoms of depression and anxiety compared to a control group.
What are some ways people can extend kindness and warmth to themselves?
The key words we used in our research were: “How can I be friends with myself in this moment?” What I mean by this is, imagine you see a friend in a similar situation, or your younger self, and genuinely care about that friend. What would you tell them to do? How would you like them to do it?
You can also imagine yourself receiving unconditional love from someone, such as a mentor, parent, or close friend. How do they relate to you in this moment of suffering? Is there a way to give yourself the same kind of compassion?
Does it matter where people do this practice?
We haven’t seen it, but it’s a great question.
Why is it beneficial to touch your stomach and chest during exercise?
There has been a lot of research into how touching and receiving touch is beneficial for people, but it is important to note that touch can be a It was not considered as an independent intervention for well-being. I was interested in the synergy between thinking self-compassionate thoughts and embodying self-compassionate touch. It offers him two potential ways to control himself.
I would also like to note that I told participants that they could choose other forms of touch, such as stroking their own cheeks or hugging themselves. Most importantly, touch can help you develop compassion for yourself.
I was surprised to find that the majority of students in the study said they were too busy to do this 20-second practice every day. what is that?
I was joking with a friend about this, and she said that when people are stressed, they can feel like they can’t even take 20 seconds to rest. This may be more a matter of mindset than reality, but there is still work to be done to make people feel like those 20 seconds of girlfriend will make a difference in their lives. We wash our hands for 20 seconds. We brush our teeth for 2 minutes. Wouldn’t it take 20 seconds to do this?
Do you have any advice on how to make this habit a habit?
Helps you choose a queue. You can practice whenever you feel like it, whether it’s in your living room drinking your morning coffee or when you’re feeling stressed. The more specific you are about your triggers and the more you plan, the more likely the practice will become a habit.
Does this study suggest that there is no reason to practice longer?
Most of the participants in our study were novice meditators or had never meditated before. So I don’t know how this will work out for people who are really serious about meditation or have a lot of experience with meditation. Rigorous research is needed to determine whether shorter practices have benefits over longer practices and for whom those benefits are most pronounced.
And just as brushing your teeth is not a substitute for going to the dentist, this micropractice should not be a substitute for therapy or more intensive mental health care.
