Peak Mind Challenge Guide
+ hover over days for helpful reminders throughout your mindful journey
Day 1
Risa Kerslake RN, BSN
A quiet room, alone, candles lit, my legs crossed on the floor. I’d be very similar to a Buddha, if Buddha had a handprint of chocolate smeared across his shirt and ignored pleas on the other side of the door asking if they could watch Daniel Tiger.
The truth was, as a work-from-home professional writer, mother of two, and wife to one, I didn’t think I had the time, patience, or focus for daily meditation practice. Still, I decided to commit to a daily 12-minute mindfulness meditation practice for 20 days: The Peak Mind Challenge, based on Dr. Amishi Jha’s book “Peak Mind” and developed in partnership between Jha and Point32Health. For the next 4-weeks, 5-days a week, I’d received guided practices from Point32Health’s Living Well team. I had heard great things about "being present" and wanted to see if I could be That Person. Would this be something I really could fit into my life?
Here’s how simple mindfulness can be
With a job and two kids, I never thought I could fit meditation into my life. Then I decided to participate in the 20-day Peak Mind Challenge.
Nobody’s mindfulness journey is truly linear. One day you may feel like you’re at the mountain peak, the next you may feel like you’re in a new valley. But remember: No matter what, you are moving forward. Use this guide for daily reminders as you take the Peak Mind Challenge.
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Here's what I used to think meditation was:
To be honest, it wasn’t easy fitting the challenge into my hectic life and there were plenty of days I would find myself meditating at midnight. However, the Point32Health Living Well Team and Jha partnered on guidance tools for challenge participants to help provide support and tips and the flexibility to do it whenever I could fit it in— bringing Jha’s book, “Peak Mind,” to life through guidance, and even an online community that can offer insight or pointers when you’re taking the challenge.
Just as clearing your mind isn’t the intention, relaxing isn’t the end goal of mindfulness either. “It is a brain workout, intended to strengthen present-moment attention and awareness,” says Jha. But one benefit of mindfulness is that it can be relaxing.
There was one day in week two when my anxiety was high. I pulled up that day’s mindfulness practice. Week two focused on the Body Scan, which helps to heighten awareness of sensations within different areas of the body. By becoming aware of body sensations, we can see how they are connected to our emotional states, Jha explains. If we stay present with body sensations, we can learn that they are giving us information about what we are feeling.
I felt my heart beating too quickly, the tension in my hands and arms, and allowed myself to be aware of these sensations. It helped reduce my anxious feelings. Jha reminds me later that mindfulness can sometimes feel like a mini pause. When we meditate, we realize the mental chatter in our heads can be constant and exhausting. “When we take a break from that to focus on the breath and let the chatter be — without attempting to battle it or push it away — we feel more space, and that can feel relaxing,” she emphasizes.
“Practicing mindfulness can help improve brain power, mood, and performance.
Jha’s Peak Mind techniques have been used by individuals who need to perform at the highest level in high stress, high stakes environments.
But you don’t have to be an elite athlete or first responder to benefit from
developing a peak mind. Practicing mindfulness (with support through Point32Health’s Living Well program) can help you to be at your best in the everyday situations that are
so important to your overall well-being.”
Tara Healey, Mindfulness Program Director, Point32Health Living Well
I realized I needed to think about mindfulness practice as a mental push-up, as Jha describes in her book: focusing my attention; recognizing when it’s wandered; and gently, without irritation at myself, redirecting my mind back.
“River of thought” which is about open awareness meditation is introduced in week three. As the thoughts would come streaming through my head — the lunch I had to remember to make my daughter for camp, the email I forgot to send out — my job was to observe them quietly and let them pass by – like a flowing river. For some people, open awareness meditation is a challenging practice, says Jha. But I liked it. I visualized myself sitting on a boulder on a riverbank. I imagined the river as the contents of my mind, with thoughts and feelings arising and passing by.
Jha says if you're finding yourself “getting lost,” you could always come back to your breath as an anchor. When ready, you can move your attention out again to the river of thought and go back to open monitoring.
When my mind wandered during the first session, I followed my guide’s advice on gently bringing it back again. Week one was about “Finding Your Flashlight,” through using a breath awareness exercise.
Week four of the challenge was focused on Connection Practice or loving-kindness practice. This flashlight — your focus — now moves outward toward others. In her book, Jha explains the point of Connection Practice is to strengthen our ability to connect and offer well-wishes to ourselves and others — and it can be challenging. After offering yourself well-wishes, you move on to someone you see as a caring person in your life — a benefactor who has supported you in some meaningful way, then to someone whom you have no real connection to, and finally to a person in your life who was challenging for you.
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan are part of Point32Health, a nonprofit health and well-being organization.
More
Mental Health, Explored
Turning Points:
Navigating Mental Health
podcast
A commitment to putting mental and emotional well-being first can be a turning point in life. From making meaningful connections in a digital world to mindfulness and meditation, hear the multitude of ways people can put their mental health first — and why each method is effective in its own way.
In U.S. culture, mental and physical health are often siloed and treated separately. But each influences the other in intricate and inextricable ways. In this section, we explore the mind-body connection and share advice for improving mental well-being holistically, from beneficial ways of eating and exercising to working and connecting.
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Day 2
Is your mind feeling “busy” this week during practice? That’s okay! When you notice this occurring, focus on placing your flashlight back where you want it.
Day 3
Today, you will be focusing on breath-related sensations. Whatever distraction arises, know that you can become aware of it, and decide what you will do next.
Day 4
Keep in mind today that this journey isn’t about clearing your mind. The intention of mindfulness is to become aware of what is occurring in this moment, to get better at noticing where your attention is.
Day 5
Did you know: Researchers found those who practice mindfulness meditation can perform better in high-stress situations, and it can strengthen attention for those in high stress professions.
Day 6
In week two, try alternating between Finding Your Flashlight and the Body Scan exercises.
Day 7
Did you know: One study showed mindfulness practices help manage symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Day 8
What did you notice in your body as you practiced the Body Scan? Having a better understanding of your body can mean a better capacity to intervene when something is wrong.
Day 9
Did you know: Research found that a few minutes of mindfulness meditation can help reduce repetitive, anxious thoughts.
Day 10
You’re halfway through the 20-day challenge. Now you can begin to expand your view of what’s happening in your mindfulness journey. You’ll start to take a more broad observational approach instead of focusing on your breath or area of the body.
Day 11
Week three introduces River of Thought. As you shift into this open-monitoring meditation, visualize the contents of your mind as flowing like a river. Let your thoughts arise and pass by, observing them and letting them go.
Day 12
Did you know: One study shows long-term open-monitoring meditation can help you make fewer mistakes and errors.
Day 13
Even if you recognize you’re consumed by thoughts and worries as you practice River of Thought, that’s still a win for you! You are becoming more aware of where your attention is being pulled. In those moments, you can always return back to the breath as an anchor for your attention, and when you are ready, begin again.
Day 14
Did you know: Mindfulness practice isn’t just for adults. One study found it can also aid in children getting better sleep.
Day 15
Reminder: Some days doing your 12-minute practice may feel calm and relaxing, and other days you may feel restless and edgy. You are not trying to achieve any special state in your practice. You are learning to become aware of what is happening in your mind and in your life, moment-by-moment.
Day 16
Over week four of Connection Practice, you might notice slight shifts in how you talk to yourself after sending well-wishes (“May I be happy”). Today, notice if reconnecting with what you wish for yourself leads to more of a self-supportive way of speaking to yourself.
Day 17
Using Connection Practice can help you devote your attention to other people and understand their perspectives.
Day 18
Spending time on Connection Practice might start prompting you to be more supportive of others and more optimistic.
Day 19
Did you know: A study showed routine meditation practice might help prevent cognitive decline as you age.
Day 20
You’ve completed the 20-day Peak Mind Challenge. To continue strengthening your mental core, make meditation a daily practice in your life. Solidify this practice into a habit by picking a time that’s tied to something else in your routine, such as right after your morning coffee. You’ve got this!
FINAL
REVIEW
3 Subsystems of Attention
from "Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day" by Dr. Amishi Jha
The Juggler
Executive Function
The Floodlight
Alerting System
The Flashlight
Orienting System
Jha uses the flashlight as a metaphor for your orienting system, the attention system you use to select information. “You can point that flashlight beam anywhere: outward at your external environment, or inward, to your own thoughts, memories, emotions, body, sensations, and the like.”
The Flashlight
Orienting System
When your alerting system is activated, either externally or by thoughts or emotions,"you are now in a state of vigilance. You’re not sure what you’re looking for, but you know you’re looking for something, and you’re ready to rapidly deploy your attention in any direction as you respond."
The Floodlight
Alerting System
This subsystem’s job is “to direct, oversee, and manage what you’re doing, moment to moment, as well as ensure that your actions are aligned with what we’re aiming to do…” It is the juggler’s job to prioritize goals and tasks at hand, and to determine how you respond to distractions.
The Juggler
Executive Function
In week one, you will learn how to Find Your Flashlight — directing your focus to something specific. You will use this practice throughout the rest of the challenge. Today, let go of the myths you may have heard about mindfulness and know just being present in the moment is the goal.
Attention is often thought of as one mental system that always works the same way, but that isn’t exactly true. Jha teaches that there are actually three distinct subsystems that control how our attention functions. She provides three simple metaphors to help visualize each one.
While it is important to understand how each system works so we can develop strategies to better focus and use them, our brains have the ability to seamlessly transition between them based on the situation. All three work together to allow us to fluidly and successfully function in our complex world.
Peak Mind Challenge Guide
Week
Learning to direct attention
Mindfulness is like a mental push-up
Directing well-wishes to yourself and others
Finishing the challenge helped me plant a habit for daily mindfulness practice. So how do I continue meditation on my own? Keep the bar low in the beginning, says Jha. Start out with two minutes a day for a week, and slowly increase the time before expanding out to 12 minutes a day. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is, but Jha recommended picking a time that is tied to something else I already do, such as right after drinking a morning cup of coffee. Habits can form more easily when you include it as part of your usual daily routine.
Mindfulness, as it turns out, really is a simple practice that can become a habit, but it takes daily focus and intention. When I sit down to start work now, I remind myself to take a few slow breaths before I begin. When I’m feeling a strong emotion, I try to be more mindful of how my body is feeling at that moment. Because more than just doing this challenge, it’s about how mindfulness can show up and help you step up in your life.
What I learned after the Peak Mind Challenge
Learning to focus my attention
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“Repeating these phrases is a way to … benefit from the capacity for attentional stability and the capacity to observe what we’ve cultivated over the prior weeks,” says Jha.
After my history of infertility, traumatic births, and postpartum health issues, I found these words to be soothing, at least when it came to myself. When sending these well-wishes to someone in my life with whom I had a difficult relationship, well, that was harder. With practice, though, Jha promises we can come to realize that all of us — those who care for us, those who challenge us, and even those we don’t know — wish for happiness, health, safety, and ease. Remembering this may shift the way we treat and interact with ourselves and others.
I could choose to repeat some
or all of these four phrases:
• May I be happy.
• May I be healthy.
• May I be safe.
• May I live with ease.
As I moved to others, the phrasing would change slightly:
• May you be happy.
• May you be healthy.
• May you be safe.
• May you live with ease.
Try Point32Health’s Peak Mind Challenge for yourself, or use the below resources that I’ve found helpful to learn more about practicing mindfulness and meditation:
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Hover over days for helpful reminders throughout your mindful journey
3 Subsystems of Attention
from "Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day" by Dr. Amishi Jha
Attention is often thought of as one mental system that always works the same way, but that isn’t exactly true. Jha teaches that there are actually three distinct subsystems that control how our attention functions. She provides three simple metaphors to help visualize each one.
While it is important to understand how each system works so we can develop strategies to better focus and use them, our brains have the ability to seamlessly transition between them based on the situation. All three work together to allow us to fluidly and successfully function in our complex world.
The Juggler
Executive Function
The Floodlight
Alerting System
The Flashlight
Orienting System
Jha uses the flashlight as a metaphor for your orienting system, the attention system you use to select information. “You can point that flashlight beam anywhere: outward at your external environment, or inward, to your own thoughts, memories, emotions, body, sensations, and the like.”
The Flashlight
Orienting System
When your Alerting system is activated, either externally or by thoughts or emotions,"you are now in a state of vigilance. You’re not sure what you’re looking for, but you know you’re looking for something, and you’re ready to rapidly deploy your attention in any direction as you respond."
The Floodlight
Alerting System
This subsystem’s job is “to direct, oversee, and manage what you’re doing, moment to moment, as well as ensure that your actions are aligned with what we’re aiming to do…” It is the juggler’s job to prioritize goals and tasks at hand, and to determine how you respond to distractions.
The Juggler
Executive Function
Amishi Jha, Ph.D is Professor of Psychology and Director of Contemplative Neuroscience at the University of Miami.
• “Peak Mind”: A book by Amishi Jha that focuses on 12-minute daily mediations
• Harvard Pilgrim’s Living Well team offers live virtual guided mindfulness sessions weekly through the Living Well at Home program.
• For additional resources including complimentary on-demand content, visit Harvard Pilgrim’s Mind the Moment program page.
• “Peak Mind”: A book by Amishi Jha that focuses on 12-minute daily mediations
• Point32Health’s Living Well team offers live virtual guided mindfulness sessions weekly through its family of companies. Check out Harvard Pilgrim’s Living Well at Home program and Tufts Health Plan’s Living Well at Home program.
• For additional resources including complimentary on-demand content, visit Harvard Pilgrim’s Mind the Moment program page and Tufts Health Plan’s Mind the Moment program page.
I probably spent half of that session battling thoughts about a deadline I had coming up. Focus, I thought to myself, as I heard my spouse having an animated meeting across the hall. Through my breaths, I pushed myself to narrow my focus, trying (and what seemed like failing) to make these thoughts go away so I could concentrate. Turns out, I was thinking about meditation incorrectly.
“Do not embark on a journey of meditation with the goal of clearing your mind,” says Jha. That’s not the intention of mindfulness practice. The mind can’t be cleared. Thoughts will bubble up, and our mind will wander. That’s its nature.
Mindfulness, Jha explains, is about paying attention to our present moment experience without elaborating on or reacting to that experience. Our ability to pay attention is strengthened, with greater awareness of mind-wandering, so we can bring our focus back to where we would like it to be.
What’s the flashlight?
Jha, a neuroscientist whose work focuses on strengthening attention through mindfulness, explains the flashlight concept. explains the flashlight concept: “One way we use our attention is by narrowing and directing it toward a subset of information from all that is available to us. When we do this, we get crisper, clearer access to that information, and everything else falls into the background. I use the metaphor of a flashlight in a darkened room. Wherever it is that we direct that flashlight, we get privileged access. It’s a very powerful thing to do.
We use the flashlight of our attention to constrain the brain’s information processing resources to privilege whatever we direct our attention toward. Unfortunately, we often don’t know where our flashlight is pointed. But becoming aware of where our attention is directed, in other words ‘finding it,’ gives us the power to make a choice on whether we want it there or somewhere else. It gives us ownership over our attention.”
Tara Healey, Mindfulness Program Director, Point32Health Living Well
“Practicing mindfulness can help improve brain power, mood, and performance.
Jha’s Peak Mind techniques have been used by individuals who need to perform at the highest level in high stress, high stakes environments.
But you don’t have to be an elite athlete
or first responder to benefit from developing a peak mind. Practicing mindfulness (with support through Point32Health’s Living Well program) can help you to be at your best in the everyday situations that are so important to your overall well-being.”
I could choose to repeat some
or all of these four phrases:
• May I be happy.
• May I be healthy.
• May I be safe.
• May I live with ease.
As I moved to others, the phrasing would change slightly:
• May you be happy.
• May you be healthy.
• May you be safe.
• May you live with ease.
Orienting System
The Flashlight
Alerting System
The Floodlight
Executive Function
The Juggler