By now you have begun the hard work of making healthy habits a part of every day! I’m so proud of you. But as usual I’m going to pose another challenge by asking you to try a new healthy habit for our weekly bonus challenge. We are going to experiment with some meditation techniques. This simple, cost-free strategy can lift stress and anxiety and often help with weight loss as well. Much of the information I’m sharing this week is from Doron Libshtein, the founder of Mentors Channel.

What is meditation?

Meditation is a daily practice that involves clearing your mind in order to return to a place of straightforward thinking and calm emotions. Some people practice for only five minutes a day, but most meditation experts suggest working up to 20 minutes daily.

Meditation doesn’t have to be difficult. If you're just starting out you might want to try taking five minutes as soon as you wake up to clear your mind before you face your busy day. Simply close your eyes and focus on the pattern of your breathing without trying to change it. Focus only on your breathing. If your mind wanders — and it probably will at first — simply guide it back to your breathing without judgment.

Libshtein suggests practicing for 10 minutes daily (five minutes in the morning and five at night) but also shares that "the amount of time is not as important as simply doing it regularly." Feel free to sit or lie down, whatever feels most comfortable for you.

What’s the connection between meditation and weight loss?

"Meditation can be an effective tool to help people lose weight," Libshtein tells us, “It aligns the conscious and unconscious mind.” Those changes can include controlling the cravings for unhealthy food and altering eating habits. It's important to get your unconscious mind involved because that's where harmful, weight-gaining behaviors such as emotional eating are ingrained. Meditation can help you be more aware of these and, with practice, override them and even replace them with slimming habits.

But there's a more immediate payoff to meditating. "Meditation can directly reduce the levels of stress hormones," Libshtein explains. Stress hormones such as cortisol signal to our bodies to store calories as fat. If you have a ton of cortisol pumping through your system, it's going to be hard to lose weight even if you're making healthy choices. We know that sounds hard; we're all stressed, and it seems impossible to shake. A recent study at Carnegie Mellon University showed 25 minutes of meditation three days in a row to significantly reduce stress. In fact, participants in a 2016 study showed "increased attention, relaxation, calmness, body-mind awareness, and brain activity" after just a couple of short sessions. Your self-control can also increase with daily practice, the study suggests. Researchers found that the parts of the brain most affected by meditation were those that help us control ourselves. That means a couple minutes of meditation on a daily basis could make it easier to pass on that second cookie or avoid the ice cream when you're feeling down.

How can meditation help when diet and exercise don’t seem to be working?

"In many cases, stress is a primary trigger for excessive weight gain or the inability to effectively lose weight," Libshtein explains. So, if you've been dieting and exercising but are constantly stressed, you might not be addressing the problem that’s keeping the weight on. Again, stress releases hormones that store extra fat — exactly what we don’t want! This can even fuel a cycle of stress: You can't lose weight because you're stressed, which makes you stressed about not being able to lose weight. It's an easy pattern to get stuck in, but you can break it — and meditation can help.

How can you make sure meditation works for you?

 1. Use a mantra that helps you lose weight.A mantra is a word or phrase that you repeat to yourself to focus your practice and bring you back to center when your mind wanders. As Libshtein explains, "a mantra can give you something to focus on while you meditate." Libshtein suggests repeating it to yourself as you inhale and again as you exhale. Common choices include "I am loved," "I am at peace," and "Om." But if choosing a mantra is stressful rather than calming just focus on your breathing.

2. Follow your breath to reduce stress."Try using four counts on your inhale and eight counts on your exhale," Libshtein suggests. But meditation is all about reducing stress, so if these counts feel strained or unnatural, it's OK to deviate from them. Try to increase your counts every time you meditate. "Don't be concerned if it takes you some time to work up to eight counts," Libshtein says. "Just know that lengthening the exhale will significantly help calm you down."

3. Try a guided meditation for weight loss.Feeling a little lost on your own? No problem! There are plenty of recordings, podcasts, websites, and phone apps that connect you with experts who can guide you through meditation exercises until you feel comfortable going it alone. Calm is one of the more popular ones and one of my favorites is Stin at mythoughtcoach.com (some of her guided meditations are free) 

What should you expect from doing guided meditation for weight loss?

If you want to use meditation specifically to lose weight you can look for guided meditations that focus on that as their subject. The expert in the video or audio recording will likely ask you to imagine several things: what you might look and feel like after you've lost the weight, an inspiring person who has already managed to lose weight and what they might think and feel, what they probably do to successfully lose weight and keep it off, and how you can incorporate these habits into your own daily life.

Are there limitations to using meditation techniques for weight loss?

Meditation should be seen as just one tool in the entire weight-loss toolkit. Diet and exercise are important parts of the equation too, and you're always going to see the best results when you combine all three of them into a lifestyle that you can continue long-term. The key with meditation, like diet and exercise, is dedication. You need to stick with the practice to see lasting changes. Research shows that meditation directly changes the brain's structure after practicing for an extended period of time, such as 21 days. 

So your weekly bonus challenge is to meditate for 10 minutes a day.I realize that many of you are incredibly busy so if needed you can count these 10 minutes as part of your 60 minutes a day of exercise. And although this bonus challenge only lasts for a week I would love it if you adopt this as one to continue for a life time.