In our professional lives, we often need to find ways to decompress and change our mindset to best serve ourselves and others. As Marcus Aurelius said, "You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."

I have found meditation to be a great tool to shift my paradigm, gain better perspective, and get much-needed decompression that helps me deal better with personal and work life. Today, there are many ways to meditate that support different aspects of the mind, and there have been many scientific studies that show how our minds work and how meditation can be effective.

I never really considered trying meditation until my early 30s. To be honest, it seemed like something silly, and none of my family members or friends practiced it. However, during the height of the pandemic, while adjusting to working from home and dealing with isolation, the world felt uncomfortable and uncertain. I hit my limit when my grandparent passed away, and I started searching for anything that could help me stop my mind from spiraling into continuous thought.

Sometime in 2021, I started meditating, and I never looked back. To this day, I continue to meditate, though not as consistently as I’d like, and I adjust the frequency depending on how I feel. I tried different types of meditation, including one where you sit and focus on your body; people call this a body scan, among many others. The one I connected with the most and still practice today is the Wim Hof Method. This method involves a series of breathing exercises that help shift you into a different mental state. For me, it was the most effective introduction to meditation because the breathing exercises naturally guided me into a meditative state. Instead of focusing on my thoughts, I learned to pay attention to how my body feels in the present moment.

The goal is to disrupt mental noise and bring yourself into a state of self-awareness. By "self-awareness," I don’t mean deep philosophical reflection, but simply being present, feeling any tingling sensations or minor discomforts in your body and embracing them rather than blocking them out. Instead of dwelling on work, family, or external stressors, the focus is on the immediate experience of the self.

In the beginning, the Wim Hof Method breathing was the only way I could maintain a long meditative state. After practicing it consistently, I eventually became able to meditate in other ways. For example, when I go to bed, I am able to block out lingering thoughts and be in the moment, focusing on my senses.

Now, you might be asking yourself: What happens after? Or what’s the point?

For me, the point is to shift my paradigm. There are days when I don’t feel like myself. Perhaps I didn’t get enough sleep or had a series of interactions that unsettled me. Meditation acts as a reset. It helps me decompress, making it exponentially easier to compartmentalize my emotions and avoid carrying the weight of work into my home life and vice versa. Whenever I feel off, I might meditate that night or during the day to clear my mind. I think of it as a "cheat code" to reset myself and make better decisions.

There are many benefits to meditation, with each type having its own studies and associated health benefits. In particular, guided meditations help decrease mood disturbances, anxiety, and fatigue. They also enhance attention, working memory, and recognition memory. Additionally, meditation has been shown to reduce the behavioral anxiety response to acute psychosocial stress.

That said, everyone is different, and like many things in this world, there are different types of meditation. The two main categories are interoception and exteroception.

Interoception refers to an inward focus, being attuned to how your body feels, such as skin temperature or internal sensations. Exteroception, on the other hand, involves external focus, directing attention to the outside world. Understanding these two branches of meditation is essential because what brings peace of mind to one person may cause anxiety for another.

Interoception and exteroception should be seen as levels of awareness that vary from person to person. For example, individuals with heightened interoceptive awareness may find it counterproductive to meditate by focusing on their inner sensations, as it might trigger anxiety. Conversely, some people are less in touch with their internal state and may benefit greatly from meditation.

For those who are hypersensitive to their inner world, meditation that shifts attention outward, such as focusing on external stimuli, can be more effective. I know many architects who use drawing as a form of meditation. I do the same, and when I focus solely on the act of drawing, it clears my mind and relieves stress. Taking time to fully concentrate on observing and drawing an object—its color, rhythm, texture, and even the way light moves across it—can be incredibly grounding. This kind of detailed sensory focus is even used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). To this day, my two main forms of meditation are drawing and breathing exercises, each engaging different parts of the brain and helping me reset in their own way.

The most profound lesson I’ve learned from meditation is the importance of being in the moment. It has allowed me to find happiness and truly enjoy the task at hand.

There is a well-known study titled “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind” that examined how frequently people's minds wandered. The researchers found three key insights:

1. People’s minds wander frequently, regardless of what they are doing. Mind-wandering occurred in 46.9% of samples, and in at least 30% of samples for every activity except making love. Surprisingly, the nature of an activity had little effect on how often people’s minds wandered or how pleasant their wandering thoughts were.
2. People were less happy when their minds wandered, regardless of whether they were engaged in an enjoyable activity or not.
3. What people were thinking about was a better predictor of their happiness than what they were actually doing.

The study concluded: “A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”

A wandering mind can be tamed through meditation, which strengthens the ability to focus on the present moment.

In our daily lives, finding ways to reset and perhaps shift our paradigm is essential. Meditation, in many ways, is a powerful tool for creating balance. Whether through breathing exercises like the Wim Hof Method, creative outlets such as drawing or hiking, meditation can help calm the mind amid the jitter of life and allow you to make clearer decisions.

The paramount conclusion is that meditation is not a one-size-fits-all practice. Some people find peace in turning inward, while others benefit from focusing on the external world. I would encourage people to try both, see what works for them, and meet their mental tendencies in ways that help them be present. By training ourselves to focus on the now, we not only reduce stress but also enhance our ability to interact with people in our daily lives and strengthen personal relationships.