I have a knee Monday evening back in
1999 I was sitting at home on the couch
I’ve been depressed and I was barely
passing uni my mind was really cloudy
and its really unmotivated my phone rang
and it was my friend will and he asked
if I want to go along to this meditation
class he was heading to and I was like
sure that sounds good and so I went and
the moment they started talking about
how our mind works and how we create our
own stress through mental habits of
reactivity and distracted nurse it just
made perfect sense to me and then when
we did some meditation suddenly just
from moment I was free from all of that
the next day when I woke up I did a
little bit more and over time it became
a bit of a habit and pretty quickly I
started to feel better less cloudy more
motivated and I was also more focused I
remember sitting in a lecture and zoning
out for a second as I used to do but
just catching myself almost immediately
and just bringing my attention back to
what the lecturer was saying and I
started to absorb more of the
information and then I had this funny
experience of being in my final year
psych exams and not just guessing what
the answers were which was kind of good
and and in that moment I knew that
mindfulness was going to become a really
important part of my life and was also
something that we should teach in
schools we did mindfulness more than
ever now the pace of things has
certainly picked up since 99 we’re
bombarded with information you know the
average person today is exposed to more
information in a single day than someone
in the 15th century would have
encountered in their entire life to cope
with this we’re sold this myth that we
need to multitask but have any of you
noticed how that actually just makes
things worse
the human brain processes information
one bit after another not in parallel so
when we think we’re multitasking were
actually attention switching which means
that if you’re sitting there right now
listening to what I’m saying but
also on your phone or think about
something else you’re not actually
catching everything I’m talking about
and every time we switch our attention
from one thing to another the
attentional systems in the brain go
offline for up to half a second and we
miss any information presented to us in
that time we don’t normally notice that
but if you want to know what I’m talking
about try this simple experiment just
say to yourself silently in your head
the letters A to Z as fast as you can
and now the numbers 1 to 26 and now to
switch letters and numbers a 1 B 2 C 3 d
4 after that 26 give it a go as fast as
you can exactly aright anybody noticing
that really obvious slowing down as you
go from the letter to the number and who
lost track after about d4 and didn’t if
you find that difficult even stressful
yeah so here’s the thing when we think
we’re multitasking were actually
attention switching and when we’re doing
that we’re slowing ourselves down losing
track of what we’re doing and creating
unnecessary stress for ourselves I just
have a scene how many times in a typical
day would you switch your attention from
one thing to another and if you multiply
that by half a second let it start to
add up wouldn’t it technology makes
things even worse the average person now
checks their phone a hundred and fifty
times a day and we’re literally becoming
addicted to our devices and this
research has found if you’re in the
middle of doing something complex like
writing an assignment and you stop and
check an email when you get back to the
assignment it takes an average of 64
seconds to get your attention fully back
into what you’re doing and if you do
that every five minutes in a 40 hour
work week you waste eight and a half
hours to hold a hey of lost time and get
this if your phones on silent and
vibrates in your pocket and you don’t
even check it you make 28 percent more
errors on the task you’re engaged in so
all of these distracted nough Sandri
activities making it’s much less
effective learners and doers
and it’s making us less happy a lot of
you probably know that depression is set
to be the biggest health problem in the
world by 2020
that’s in three years time seventy-five
percent of mental health problems begin
between the ages of 15 and 25 but we
even seen them in kids one in seven
primary school kids has a diagnosed
mental health disorder and by the time
they get to high school that’s increased
to one in four and suicide tragically is
the biggest killer of young people so I
don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that
we’re facing a crisis in youth mental
health there is something we can do
about it though everything I’ve just
been talking about we could think of as
an mindfulness when we’re not paying
attention to what we’re doing it’s kind
of like our bodies in one place but our
minds somewhere else mindfulness is the
opposite of that it’s about having our
body and our mind in the same place at
the same time and being fully present
engaged and aware in each moment it’s an
everyday experience one that we all have
looks like a lot of you are having a
mindful moment right now just listening
to what I’m saying if you think about
what your hobbies are your interests
you’ll notice that they’re things that
engage your attention in the senses
whether it’s cooking or sport or reading
or music and that’s why you tend to feel
happy and relaxed when you’re doing
those things or when you’re in the zone
studying or at work just focused on one
thing that’s mindfulness and we tend to
be at our most productive when we’re
doing that it’s also something that we
can practice and here we get into what
some has called mindfulness meditation
now I’m not going to say a whole lot
about this because there’s there are
lots of really great talks available
online already about meditation
but I will say this meditation means
attention training and with mindfulness
we focus our attention on the present
through the senses we notice when the
mind wanders and it will that’s the
nature of the mind to wander some of you
might have heard of that for now famous
Harvard research that’s found that we’re
distracted nearly half our lives and
there’s a report from Microsoft a few
years ago that found that the average
human attention span is now eight second
one second less than a goldfish so the
mind will wander it’s a given and we’re
not trying to stop that
and meditations not about getting rid of
our thoughts it’s about noticing when
the minds wandered so we can bring it
back and if we start to practice that
like anything we practice we get better
at it
so we noticed when the minds wandered
and we learned just to bring it straight
back without any further thinking or
judgment and we start to spend longer in
the present and become more focused and
engaged and then we can apply that to
anything we want like study it also
changes the brain the neuroscience shows
that mindfulness meditation strengthens
the prefrontal cortex and the
hippocampus two key learning areas
associated with attention and memory
meanwhile it dials down the activation
in the amygdala the brains fear center
so that we’re less stress and anxious
and this is why we’re seeing meditation
pop up in classrooms all around the
world which is an amazing thing but
mindfulness needs to be the source not
the side dish we need to integrate it
into each moment in the classroom not
just include it as an add-on we need to
create a mindful education system we’ve
been piloting this at a major university
here in Melbourne Australia we’ve now
got mindfulness embedded in the core
curriculum in 20 different units in
faculties like law medicine IT pharmacy
we even give our students exam questions
on the concepts and the science behind
it we can textual eyes it which means we
make it relevant for them so we teach
our medical students how to focus on
their study so that they can get through
their workload we teach them to reduce
stress just by being present rather than
worrying and obsessing about outcomes
and deadlines we teach them mindful
reflective practice setting aside ideas
of good and bad and right and wrong so
that they can actually learn from their
own experience and we teach the mindful
communication how to actually listen
when their patients are talking to them
in this Harvard study 83% of
radiologists failed
notice what I hope for you is a pretty
obvious anomaly in the top right hand
corner of this CT scan and we’re hoping
our students do a better job we teach
our pharmacy students how to pay
attention when they’re dispensing
medications so that they make less
medication errors we teach our IT
students the same thing to make less
coding errors and we also teach them to
pay attention to their bodies our art
and design students often when they’re
drawing they’re just obsessing about the
outcome or getting it right or doing a
perfect job or worrying about getting
out in front of class and presenting
their work and we teach them instead
just to come back to the pencil in their
hand
the movement the form taking shape on
the page the background and when they do
that they enjoy it a lot more and
they’re much more creative we teach our
MBA students mindful leadership getting
in touch with their values what’s
important communicating that effectively
and listening for feedback to make sure
that that message gets received we teach
them mindful decision-making slowing
down looking at the situation on its
merits and checking in to notice if
there are any emotional reactions
mindsets or cognitive biases that might
be clouding their ability to make good
decisions so what do we see when we
teach mindfulness like this well our
students become less stressed anxious
and depressed their academic performance
improves they engage better with their
studies and they learn to become curious
and interested in what they’re what
they’re studying rather than just
filling their head with information they
also procrastinate less and as I’m sure
some of you know a lot of students use
fear and harsh self-criticism to
motivate themselves to study but mindful
students instead learn to focus their
attention where they want it to be
notice when it wanders off and just
gently bring it back like I learnt it to
all those years ago in that lecture and
when they do that they become kinder to
themselves and more productive at the
same time we see the same kinds of
things in schools this meta-analysis
from 2012 found that students who learn
mindfulness in the classroom have much
better emotional well-being the academic
performance improves their attention
their memory and they have better social
skills this is especially true for
students with learning problems or
attentional difficulties
disadvantaged students mindfulness is
also really good for teachers it helps
them to reduce their levels of stress
and burnout which is a huge problem in
the teaching profession we don’t know
what the return on investment for
mindful education is yet we do know that
in the corporate world for every dollar
spent on well-being programs you see
about $2 seventy worth of increased
productivity and it’s likely to be even
greater for students because if we could
prevent those mental health issues from
happening if we could teach them how to
study and learn effectively we’d create
a totally different trajectory for them
through life but the thing that excites
me most about mindful education is that
it gives young people tools for waking
up and being more aware they develop
metacognition and awareness of their
feelings and their thoughts they get in
touch with their values with what’s
important to them something which is
sadly lacking for a lot of young people
these days they start to notice the
effect of their actions on others and on
the world and they become more socially
responsible
imagine if at the same time as teaching
maths and science and humanities we also
taught mindfulness and as well as
learning to focus and study more
effectively we also helped young people
to be more aware compassionate and
ethical perhaps if we get mindfulness
into education or create a generation of
young people who are better equipped to
solve the problems we’re facing in the
world today thank you
you
1999 I was sitting at home on the couch
I’ve been depressed and I was barely
passing uni my mind was really cloudy
and its really unmotivated my phone rang
and it was my friend will and he asked
if I want to go along to this meditation
class he was heading to and I was like
sure that sounds good and so I went and
the moment they started talking about
how our mind works and how we create our
own stress through mental habits of
reactivity and distracted nurse it just
made perfect sense to me and then when
we did some meditation suddenly just
from moment I was free from all of that
the next day when I woke up I did a
little bit more and over time it became
a bit of a habit and pretty quickly I
started to feel better less cloudy more
motivated and I was also more focused I
remember sitting in a lecture and zoning
out for a second as I used to do but
just catching myself almost immediately
and just bringing my attention back to
what the lecturer was saying and I
started to absorb more of the
information and then I had this funny
experience of being in my final year
psych exams and not just guessing what
the answers were which was kind of good
and and in that moment I knew that
mindfulness was going to become a really
important part of my life and was also
something that we should teach in
schools we did mindfulness more than
ever now the pace of things has
certainly picked up since 99 we’re
bombarded with information you know the
average person today is exposed to more
information in a single day than someone
in the 15th century would have
encountered in their entire life to cope
with this we’re sold this myth that we
need to multitask but have any of you
noticed how that actually just makes
things worse
the human brain processes information
one bit after another not in parallel so
when we think we’re multitasking were
actually attention switching which means
that if you’re sitting there right now
listening to what I’m saying but
also on your phone or think about
something else you’re not actually
catching everything I’m talking about
and every time we switch our attention
from one thing to another the
attentional systems in the brain go
offline for up to half a second and we
miss any information presented to us in
that time we don’t normally notice that
but if you want to know what I’m talking
about try this simple experiment just
say to yourself silently in your head
the letters A to Z as fast as you can
and now the numbers 1 to 26 and now to
switch letters and numbers a 1 B 2 C 3 d
4 after that 26 give it a go as fast as
you can exactly aright anybody noticing
that really obvious slowing down as you
go from the letter to the number and who
lost track after about d4 and didn’t if
you find that difficult even stressful
yeah so here’s the thing when we think
we’re multitasking were actually
attention switching and when we’re doing
that we’re slowing ourselves down losing
track of what we’re doing and creating
unnecessary stress for ourselves I just
have a scene how many times in a typical
day would you switch your attention from
one thing to another and if you multiply
that by half a second let it start to
add up wouldn’t it technology makes
things even worse the average person now
checks their phone a hundred and fifty
times a day and we’re literally becoming
addicted to our devices and this
research has found if you’re in the
middle of doing something complex like
writing an assignment and you stop and
check an email when you get back to the
assignment it takes an average of 64
seconds to get your attention fully back
into what you’re doing and if you do
that every five minutes in a 40 hour
work week you waste eight and a half
hours to hold a hey of lost time and get
this if your phones on silent and
vibrates in your pocket and you don’t
even check it you make 28 percent more
errors on the task you’re engaged in so
all of these distracted nough Sandri
activities making it’s much less
effective learners and doers
and it’s making us less happy a lot of
you probably know that depression is set
to be the biggest health problem in the
world by 2020
that’s in three years time seventy-five
percent of mental health problems begin
between the ages of 15 and 25 but we
even seen them in kids one in seven
primary school kids has a diagnosed
mental health disorder and by the time
they get to high school that’s increased
to one in four and suicide tragically is
the biggest killer of young people so I
don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that
we’re facing a crisis in youth mental
health there is something we can do
about it though everything I’ve just
been talking about we could think of as
an mindfulness when we’re not paying
attention to what we’re doing it’s kind
of like our bodies in one place but our
minds somewhere else mindfulness is the
opposite of that it’s about having our
body and our mind in the same place at
the same time and being fully present
engaged and aware in each moment it’s an
everyday experience one that we all have
looks like a lot of you are having a
mindful moment right now just listening
to what I’m saying if you think about
what your hobbies are your interests
you’ll notice that they’re things that
engage your attention in the senses
whether it’s cooking or sport or reading
or music and that’s why you tend to feel
happy and relaxed when you’re doing
those things or when you’re in the zone
studying or at work just focused on one
thing that’s mindfulness and we tend to
be at our most productive when we’re
doing that it’s also something that we
can practice and here we get into what
some has called mindfulness meditation
now I’m not going to say a whole lot
about this because there’s there are
lots of really great talks available
online already about meditation
but I will say this meditation means
attention training and with mindfulness
we focus our attention on the present
through the senses we notice when the
mind wanders and it will that’s the
nature of the mind to wander some of you
might have heard of that for now famous
Harvard research that’s found that we’re
distracted nearly half our lives and
there’s a report from Microsoft a few
years ago that found that the average
human attention span is now eight second
one second less than a goldfish so the
mind will wander it’s a given and we’re
not trying to stop that
and meditations not about getting rid of
our thoughts it’s about noticing when
the minds wandered so we can bring it
back and if we start to practice that
like anything we practice we get better
at it
so we noticed when the minds wandered
and we learned just to bring it straight
back without any further thinking or
judgment and we start to spend longer in
the present and become more focused and
engaged and then we can apply that to
anything we want like study it also
changes the brain the neuroscience shows
that mindfulness meditation strengthens
the prefrontal cortex and the
hippocampus two key learning areas
associated with attention and memory
meanwhile it dials down the activation
in the amygdala the brains fear center
so that we’re less stress and anxious
and this is why we’re seeing meditation
pop up in classrooms all around the
world which is an amazing thing but
mindfulness needs to be the source not
the side dish we need to integrate it
into each moment in the classroom not
just include it as an add-on we need to
create a mindful education system we’ve
been piloting this at a major university
here in Melbourne Australia we’ve now
got mindfulness embedded in the core
curriculum in 20 different units in
faculties like law medicine IT pharmacy
we even give our students exam questions
on the concepts and the science behind
it we can textual eyes it which means we
make it relevant for them so we teach
our medical students how to focus on
their study so that they can get through
their workload we teach them to reduce
stress just by being present rather than
worrying and obsessing about outcomes
and deadlines we teach them mindful
reflective practice setting aside ideas
of good and bad and right and wrong so
that they can actually learn from their
own experience and we teach the mindful
communication how to actually listen
when their patients are talking to them
in this Harvard study 83% of
radiologists failed
notice what I hope for you is a pretty
obvious anomaly in the top right hand
corner of this CT scan and we’re hoping
our students do a better job we teach
our pharmacy students how to pay
attention when they’re dispensing
medications so that they make less
medication errors we teach our IT
students the same thing to make less
coding errors and we also teach them to
pay attention to their bodies our art
and design students often when they’re
drawing they’re just obsessing about the
outcome or getting it right or doing a
perfect job or worrying about getting
out in front of class and presenting
their work and we teach them instead
just to come back to the pencil in their
hand
the movement the form taking shape on
the page the background and when they do
that they enjoy it a lot more and
they’re much more creative we teach our
MBA students mindful leadership getting
in touch with their values what’s
important communicating that effectively
and listening for feedback to make sure
that that message gets received we teach
them mindful decision-making slowing
down looking at the situation on its
merits and checking in to notice if
there are any emotional reactions
mindsets or cognitive biases that might
be clouding their ability to make good
decisions so what do we see when we
teach mindfulness like this well our
students become less stressed anxious
and depressed their academic performance
improves they engage better with their
studies and they learn to become curious
and interested in what they’re what
they’re studying rather than just
filling their head with information they
also procrastinate less and as I’m sure
some of you know a lot of students use
fear and harsh self-criticism to
motivate themselves to study but mindful
students instead learn to focus their
attention where they want it to be
notice when it wanders off and just
gently bring it back like I learnt it to
all those years ago in that lecture and
when they do that they become kinder to
themselves and more productive at the
same time we see the same kinds of
things in schools this meta-analysis
from 2012 found that students who learn
mindfulness in the classroom have much
better emotional well-being the academic
performance improves their attention
their memory and they have better social
skills this is especially true for
students with learning problems or
attentional difficulties
disadvantaged students mindfulness is
also really good for teachers it helps
them to reduce their levels of stress
and burnout which is a huge problem in
the teaching profession we don’t know
what the return on investment for
mindful education is yet we do know that
in the corporate world for every dollar
spent on well-being programs you see
about $2 seventy worth of increased
productivity and it’s likely to be even
greater for students because if we could
prevent those mental health issues from
happening if we could teach them how to
study and learn effectively we’d create
a totally different trajectory for them
through life but the thing that excites
me most about mindful education is that
it gives young people tools for waking
up and being more aware they develop
metacognition and awareness of their
feelings and their thoughts they get in
touch with their values with what’s
important to them something which is
sadly lacking for a lot of young people
these days they start to notice the
effect of their actions on others and on
the world and they become more socially
responsible
imagine if at the same time as teaching
maths and science and humanities we also
taught mindfulness and as well as
learning to focus and study more
effectively we also helped young people
to be more aware compassionate and
ethical perhaps if we get mindfulness
into education or create a generation of
young people who are better equipped to
solve the problems we’re facing in the
world today thank you
you
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