Thrive, page 5
Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, faced such pressure from investors during Starbucks’ less profitable years. But he did not give in. At age seven, Schultz had watched his father get fired from his job as a driver for a diaper delivery service after slipping on a sheet of ice at work, breaking his hip and ankle. His father was sent home without health care coverage, workers’ compensation, or severance. During Starbucks’ earlier years, Schultz was adamant about expanding health care coverage to include part-timers who worked as little as twenty hours a week, unheard of in the late 1980s. Two decades later, during the company’s toughest financial period, Schultz stood fast, refusing to cut those benefits despite the urging of investors. Schultz sees the benefits plan “not as a generous optional benefit but as a core strategy. Treat people like family, and they will be loyal and give their all.” It’s this principle that led to the creation of BeanStock, the company’s employee stock option plan, which turned Starbucks employees into partners.
Too many companies don’t yet realize the benefits of focusing on wellness. “The lack of attention to employee needs helps explain why the United States spends more on healthcare than other countries but gets worse outcomes,” says Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. “We have no mandatory vacation or sick day requirements, and we do have chronic layoffs, overwork, and stress. Working in many organizations is simply hazardous to your health.… I hope businesses will wake up to the fact that if they don’t do well by their employees, chances are they’re not doing well, period.”
One company that did wake up to the importance of employee health was Safeway. The supermarket chain’s former CEO Steve Burd recounts that in 2005 Safeway’s health care bill hit $1 billion and was going up by $100 million a year. “What we discovered was that 70 percent of health care costs are driven by people’s behaviors,” he says. “Now as a business guy, I thought if we could influence the behavior of our 200,000-person workforce, we could have a material effect on health care costs.”
So Safeway offered incentives for employees to lose weight and control their blood pressure and cholesterol levels. It established a baseline health insurance premium with behavior-based discounts. As Burd explained, “If you are a confirmed non-smoker, we give you a discount. If you have cholesterol under control, a discount. Blood pressure under control, a discount. And so behavior becomes a form of currency for people to accomplish their lifestyle changes.” And it was a huge success. “You allow and encourage your employees to become healthier, they become more productive, your company becomes more competitive,” Burd says. “I can’t think of a single negative in doing this. Making money and doing good in the world are not mutually exclusive.”
Esther Sternberg explains that “healing is a verb; the body is constantly repairing itself. That’s what life is. You know, a rock just sits there and it eventually gets into sand or mud or something as the elements affect it. But a living being is constantly repairing itself against all of these different insults at a very molecular level, at a cellular level, at an emotional level. So disease happens when the repair process is not keeping up with the damage process.”
Right now in the majority of our companies and the majority of our lives, the repair process is not keeping up with the damage process. But there are many different paths to well-being, and in the next few sections we will explore some of them.
Meditation: It’s Not Just for Enlightenment Anymore
One of the best—and most easily available—ways we can become healthier and happier is through mindfulness and meditation. Every element of well-being is enhanced by the practice of meditation and, indeed, studies have shown that mindfulness and meditation have a measurable positive impact on the other three pillars of the Third Metric—wisdom, wonder, and giving.
When I first heard about mindfulness, I was confused. My mind was already full enough, I thought—I needed to empty it, not focus on it. My conception of the mind was sort of like the household junk drawer—just keep cramming things in and hope it doesn’t jam. Then I read Jon Kabat-Zinn’s writings on mindfulness and it all made sense. “In Asian languages,” he wrote, “the word for ‘mind’ and the word for ‘heart’ are the same word. So when we hear the word ‘mindfulness,’ we have to inwardly also hear ‘heartfulness’ in order to grasp it even as a concept, and especially as a way of being.” In other words, mindfulness is not just about our minds but our whole beings. When we are all mind, things can get rigid. When we are all heart, things can get chaotic. Both lead to stress. But when they work together, the heart leading through empathy, the mind guiding us with focus and attention, we become a harmonious human being. Through mindfulness, I found a practice that helped bring me fully present and in the moment, even in the most hectic of circumstances.
What was the very best moment of your day? … Often, it’s a moment when you’re waiting for someone, or you’re driving somewhere, or maybe you’re just walking diagonally across a parking lot and you’re admiring the oil stains and the dribbled tar patterns. One time it was when I was driving past a certain house that was screaming with sunlitness on its white clapboards, and then I plunged through tree shadows that splashed and splayed over the windshield.
—NICHOLSON BAKER
Mark Williams and Danny Penman give a variety of quick and easy ways to practice mindfulness, including what they call “habit breaking.” Each day for a week you choose a habit such as brushing your teeth, drinking your morning coffee, or taking a shower, and simply pay attention to what’s happening while you do it. It’s really not so much habit breaking as habit unmaking—it’s taking something we’ve placed on autopilot and putting it back on the list of things we pay attention to. “The idea,” they write, “is not to make you feel different, but simply to allow a few more moments in the day when you are ‘awake.’ … If you notice your mind wandering while you do this, simply notice where it went, then gently escort it back to the present moment.”
I love the image of gently escorting my mind back to the present moment—without any negative judgment that it wandered. It will, no doubt, be a familiar process for anybody who has parented or babysat a toddler, which is not a bad comparison for our modern multitasking minds. As for meditation, it has long been an important part of my life. My mother had actually taught my younger sister, Agapi, and me how to meditate when I was thirteen years old. But although I’ve known its benefits since my teens, finding time for meditation was always a challenge because I was under the impression that I had to “do” meditation. And I didn’t have time for another burdensome thing to “do.” Fortunately, a friend pointed out one day that we don’t “do” meditation; meditation “does” us. That opened the door for me. The only thing to “do” in meditation is nothing. Even writing that I don’t have to “do” one more thing makes me relax.
You wander from room to room
Hunting for the diamond necklace
That is already around your neck
—RUMI
I’ve found that meditation can actually be done in very short windows of time, even while on the move. We think of ourselves as breathing, but, in reality, we are being breathed. At any time we choose, we can take a moment to bring our attention to the rising and falling of our breath without our conscious interference. I know when I have “connected” because I usually take a spontaneous deep breath, or release a deep sigh. So, in a sense, the engine of mindfulness is always going. To reap the benefits of it, all we have to do is become present and pay attention.
Our breath also has a sacredness about it. Sometimes when I’m giving a talk, I’ll first ask everyone in the room to focus on the rising and falling of their breath for ten seconds. It’s amazing how the room, which moments before hummed with chaotic energy, will suddenly be filled with a stillness, an attentiveness, a sacredness. It’s something quite palpable.
There are many forms of meditation, but whichever form you choose, it’s important to remember that its benefits are only a breath away. And the only price we pay is a few moments of our attention.
My sister, Agapi, has always been a natural on all matters spiritual, and has been my guide throughout our lives, sending books and people my way, nudging my spiritual explorations, calling to wake me up at a hotel in Kalamazoo, Michigan, at five in the morning so I could have time to meditate before another grueling book-tour day began.
When I was growing up, meditation was seen as a cure for just about everything. My mother had convinced us that if we meditated, we would be able to do our homework faster and improve our grades. We knew that meditation made us more peaceful and less upset when things didn’t go our way, but we also realized that it made us happier. And now, science has provided evidence to back this all up. If anything, my mother was underselling the benefits of meditation. Science has caught up to ancient wisdom, and the results are overwhelming and unambiguous.
What study after study shows is that meditation and mindfulness training profoundly affect every aspect of our lives—our bodies, our minds, our physical health, and our emotional and spiritual well-being. It’s not quite the fountain of youth, but it’s pretty close. When you consider all the benefits of meditation—and more are being found every day—it’s not an exaggeration to call meditation a miracle drug.
First, let’s look at physical health. It’s hard to overstate what meditation can do for us here, and the medical uses for it are just beginning to be explored. “Science—the same reductionistic science that is used to evaluate various drugs and medical procedures—has proven that your mind can heal your body,” Herbert Benson and William Proctor write in their book Relaxation Revolution. Indeed, the authors recommend that mind-body science be considered as the third primary treatment option in medicine, right along with surgery and drugs. They write how meditation can impact nausea, diabetes, asthma, skin reactions, ulcers, cough, congestive heart failure, dizziness, postoperative swelling, and anxiety: “Because all health conditions have some stress component.” The authors conclude, “It is no overstatement to say that virtually every single health problem and disease can be improved with a mind-body approach.”
It’s the Swiss army knife of medical tools, for conditions both small and large. A study funded by the National Institutes of Health showed a 23 percent decrease in mortality in people who meditated versus those who did not, a 30 percent decrease in death due to cardiovascular problems, and a significant decrease in cancer mortality. “This effect is equivalent to discovering an entirely new class of drugs (but without the inevitable side effects),” observe Mark Williams and Danny Penman. Another study found that meditation increased levels of antibodies to the flu vaccine, and the practice was also found to decrease the severity and length of colds, while researchers at Wake Forest University found that meditation lowered pain intensity.
How does it do all this? It’s not about just distracting us from pain and stress; it literally changes us at the genetic level. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Harvard Medical School found that the relaxation response—the state of calm produced by meditation, yoga, and breathing exercises—actually switched on genes that are related to augmenting our immune system, reducing inflammation, and fighting a range of conditions from arthritis to high blood pressure to diabetes. So with all these results, it’s no surprise that, according to another study, meditation correlates to reduced yearly medical costs.
It also physically changes our brains. One study found that meditation can actually increase the thickness of the prefrontal cortex region of the brain and slow the thinning that occurs there as we age, impacting cognitive functions such as sensory and emotional processing. Dr. Richard Davidson, professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin and a leading scholar on the impact of contemplative practices on the brain, used magnetic resonance imaging machines (MRIs) to study the brain activity of Tibetan monks. The studies, as Davidson put it, have illuminated for the first time the “further reaches of human plasticity and transformation.” He calls meditation mental training: “What we found is that the trained mind, or brain, is physically different from the untrained one.” And when our brain is changed, so is the way in which we experience the world. “Meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree,” says French Buddhist monk and molecular geneticist Matthieu Ricard. “It completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are.”
And this automatically changes how you respond to what is happening in your life, your level of stress, and your ability to tap into your wisdom when making decisions. “You don’t learn to sail in stormy seas,” Ricard says. “You go to a secluded place, not to avoid the world, but to avoid distractions until you build your strength and you can deal with anything. You don’t box Muhammad Ali on day one.”
And the building of your strength, equanimity, and wisdom is actually very tangible and measurable, which is how Matthieu Ricard earned the moniker “the happiest man in the world.” After placing more than 250 sensors on Ricard’s skull, Richard Davidson found that Ricard exhibited gamma wave levels (high-frequency brain waves) “never before reported in the neuroscience literature,” indicative of an atypically high capacity for happiness and reduced tendency toward negative thoughts and feelings. As Ricard explains, “Pleasure depends very much on circumstances … and also it’s something that basically doesn’t radiate to others.… Happiness is a way of being that gives you the resources to deal with the ups and downs of life, that pervades all the emotional states including sadness.”
People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills … There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind.… So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.
—MARCUS AURELIUS
Meditation can also have profound effects on a host of other psychological conditions. Researchers at UCLA found that mindfulness and meditation helped lower feelings of loneliness among the elderly, while researchers from the University of Michigan documented that military veterans experienced lowered levels of post-traumatic stress disorder after mindfulness training. Meditation has also been found to reduce depression among pregnant women and teens. And it’s not just about reducing negative emotions; it’s also about boosting positive ones. A study led by University of North Carolina professor Barbara L. Fredrickson found that meditation increased “positive emotions, including love, joy, gratitude, contentment, hope, pride, interest, amusement”; it also resulted in “increases in a variety of personal resources, including mindful attention, self-acceptance, positive relations with others, and good physical health.” A study of patients with a history of depression at the University of Cambridge found that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy lowered the risk of depression relapse in participants who had experienced three or more episodes from 78 to 36 percent.
Meditation may be a wonder drug, but it does need to be regularly refilled. To get all these benefits, we need to make it a part of our everyday lives. Happiness and well-being are not just magical traits that some are blessed with and others not. Richard Davidson has come to view “happiness not as a trait but as a skill, like tennis.… If you want to be a good tennis player, you can’t just pick up a racket—you have to practice,” he said. “We can actually practice to enhance our well-being. Every strand of scientific evidence points in that direction. It’s no different than learning to play the violin or play golf. When you practice, you get better at it.” And trust me, it’s much easier than mastering the violin or becoming a golf pro. Davidson found “remarkable results with practitioners who did fifty thousand rounds of meditation, but also with three weeks of twenty minutes a day, which, of course, is more applicable to our modern times.”
While meditation may be a solitary activity that involves a certain inward focus, it also increases our ability to connect with others, actually making us more compassionate. Scientists from Harvard and Northeastern Universities found that meditation “made people willing to act virtuous—to help another who was suffering—even in the face of a norm not to do so.”
And meditation boosts our creativity. “Ideas are like fish,” wrote director and longtime meditator David Lynch in his book Catching the Big Fish. “If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They’re huge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.”
Steve Jobs, a lifelong practitioner of meditation, affirmed the connection between meditation and creativity: “If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things—that’s when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before.”
Meditation can help us not only focus, but also refocus after being distracted—which is an increasingly common peril of our technology-besieged lives. Giuseppe Pagnoni, a neuroscientist at Emory University, found that, after an interruption, the minds of participants who meditated were able to return to what they had been focusing on faster than nonmeditators. “The regular practice of meditation may enhance the capacity to limit the influence of distracting thoughts,” he said. This is especially valuable for those who feel like their days have become a noisy, beeping, blinking obstacle course of distracting thoughts.
