We live in a world with many things that consume our time, and the constant need of always doing something. And if we don’t do it, we are left behind while the world moves on.

To stay alive and be competitive today means always checking whats new on Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, podcasts or any other social media platforms. Or learning every JS framework out there, understanding every programming concept, and so forth. It seems that the only option is doing a dozen things.

In the end, it all leads to a chaotic mind, and we cannot think straight anymore. We just live through each day while tasks stack up. And after a while it reduces the quality of the content we produce, such as code or other things in our day to day work.

The focus of this article is to find effective ways to deal with a chaotic mind in order to produce high quality content. I’ll talk about few well-known concepts, and why they are important, but won’t cover the details.

Let’s understand how the brain works!

The brain is one of the largest and most complex organs in the human body. It’s made up of more than 100 billion nerves that communicate in trillions of connections called synapses.

Here’s what we’ll address

• What leads to a chaotic mind
• Accept that it exists
• It starts within you
• Focus on your breathing
• Mindfulness
• Reward yourself

If you want to become a better web developer, start your own business, teach others, or simply improve your development skills, I’ll be posting high-quality weekly tips and tricks on the latest web-languages out in the market.

What leads to a chaotic mind?

A chaotic mind is simply another word for stress. If you have many things to do, and cannot prioritize the ones that are really important, you are left with an equal focus on everything, which leads to stress. There is nothing wrong with having a bit of stress, as it prepares you for challenges, and things that matter.

However, the issue is when it takes over your mind, the things you produce, and alters the way behave. It’s not something you can get rid of, but learning how to deal with a chaotic mind helps you to make better decisions, and live in the present.

A chaotic mind

Here are few definitions of how we end up with a chaotic mind

1. Pressure or tension exerted on a material object.

2. A state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances.

It’s not your fault that the world we live in is full of “do this, not that, but wait, you must do this!” in other words, lots of things that drain our energy.

If you try to sit down for a second, clear your thoughts and get some work done on the computer, you’ll most probably get distracted by something on the web. And before you know it, you’ve spend a couple of minutes or maybe hours on everything except the work that matters.

Next day, you do the same, and the day after. It seems that it’s impossible to do work without losing focus these days.

One thing that you need to understand is that the world is built upon getting your attention, because more attention equals more money. That is a part of the business model, and how everything else works in the business world. Social media, mobile apps, TV-commercials, you name it, they are all constructed to get the most out of your time. Some do it for the better, while others don’t.

Let’s face it, there will always be distractions, and something that takes your attention. That is why it’s important to manage a chaotic mind, otherwise you’ll just float in the middle of nowhere.

So what exactly leads to a chaotic mind?

• Limited time: Too many things that must be done within a specific deadline
• Financial budget: Not able to buy the stuff you need to live a decent life
• Friends/family: Not satisfied with what you do, too many expectations
• Self-image: Not able to fulfill your desired goals

These are few reasons out of many. It depends on the person, and their environment. It’s interesting that the majority of people fall under same categories that cause stress.

Accept that it exists

First of all, you just need to accept it. Secondly, understand that it exists, and don’t try to fight it. Thirdly, analyze how your body and mind react. It’s not easy to detect a chaotic mind. And if you are not aware of it, few things can help.

One way to detect a chaotic mind is when the thoughts just burst around and it’s difficult to pinpoint something. If you forget things often, that may also be sign of a chaotic mind.

Once you realize it exists, and how you react to it, you can gradually find ways to reduce it. Just to be clear, stress is normal, but it doesn’t mean it cannot be maintained for the better.

For instance, if you drive somewhere, you might get an image where you turn the steering wheel too quickly to the left, and maybe hit someone. It does not define you, but is simply a thought out of dozens that randomly enters your mind. What defines you is the action you actually take. And thoughts like these are not unusual.

Here are a couple of ways to reduce a chaotic mind!

It starts within you

It’s common for people to say that in order to reduce a chaotic mind, you need to exercise, be healthy, join a boot camp, talk to someone, be with someone, listen to podcasts and so forth. It may work. But if you think about it, these are things that point to external activities.

Don’t get me wrong, exercising and eating healthy food is good for the mind and the body. But it’s important to realize the problem lies within you, and it’s you who must deal with the problem.

For instance if my car needs an oil change, I don’t go and fill up more gasoline, or continue to drive. The source of the problem is that I need to change the oil, that's it, otherwise the car will be damaged.

Here’s the thing, always doing something doesn’t make us happier, it just takes our attention away from what we are struggling with. We need to be able to deal with emotions, deal with things that are not fun. Mike Tyson was asked once, what is the most difficult thing about training. He said, the mind.

You can meditate all day, eat healthy food and exercise 3 times a week, but if you can’t deal with a chaotic mind, you are simply increasing the severity of the damage. Learn to deal with your emotions by accepting that they exist, and don’t avoid them!

Focus on your breathing

Breathing is an essential activity which supplies our body and its various organs with oxygen, which is vital for staying alive. We can live without food and water for a couple of days or maybe weeks, but if we stop breathing we die within a few minutes. There is a strong link between breathing and our mind. This is not something we really think of because most of the process happens automatically. Knowing how to breathe helps us to control our emotions, fears and keep a clear mind.

For instance, if a programming task is too difficult to solve, your breathing becomes quick and shallow. Breathing deeply and slowly will instantly calm you down mentally as well as physically.

So how can you know if you are breathing correctly? If you are sitting on a chair, put your hand on your stomach, and the other one on your chest, then check if your chest or stomach is moving when you inhale. If your chest is moving, then that’s not a good sign. The reason why is because the chest has limited space, which prevents maximum breathing (short cycles). On the other hand, if you do sports activities, then chest breathing is normal because you need oxygen quickly. But for non sport activities, the breathing should happen through your stomach.

Mindfulness

It’s about bringing awareness to what you’re directly experiencing, being aware of where you are and what you are doing, not overly reactive or overwhelmed by whats happening around you. It sounds easy to sit down for a couple of minutes and live in the present, but trust me, it’s not! We are so caught up with living in the past and the future that we simply forget to live in the present.

Mindfulness is not something new. It’s been used for a long time, and even religions use it. Praying to god is a form of relaxation, for example, and bringing thoughts to the present. I’ve used this technique of mindfulness to clear my thoughts, and often I’ve found solutions to problems just by doing it. It’s a bit funny how we are able to find answers when we are not sitting at a desk.

Reward yourself

If we want an animal to do a certain thing, we give it a treat every-time it does it, and after a while, it learns and knows that in order to get the treat it must perform the action. But if we don’t want it to perform it, we either shout or spray water on the animal (not recommended). These are things that humans have used to teach animals to do certain things, for instance dolphins to do back flips, dogs to roll and even lions to jump through fire (in a circus).

We humans are not that different from animals. It’s important that we rewards ourselves when we do good things, as this rewires the neurological pattern of the brain to keep performing the action. Buy yourself something you like, for instance a chocolate bar, energy drink or ice cream when you do something good, and you’ll continue to do it. It can also be watching a movie, your favorite series on Netflix, and so forth. Find what works for you.

Conclusion

A chaot mind is not something we want, and as mentioned, it leads to producing poor quality content. It first starts within you, so you need to understand how you think and react to certain things, and not try to avoid it by doing external activities all the time. Deal with your thoughts and emotions through mindfulness, breathing, and make sure you reward yourself when doing something good.

If you understand how your mind works, you’ll be able to improve lots of things in your business as well as personal life.

Please share if you have any good techniques on dealing with a chaotic mind.

Here are a few articles I’ve written about the web-ecosystem along with personal programming tips and tricks.

• A comparison between Angular and React
• Developers that constantly want to learn new things
• A practical guide to ES6 modules
• Learn these core Web Concepts
• Boost your skills with these important JavaScript methods
• Program faster by creating custom bash commands

You can find me on Medium where I try to publish on a weekly basis. Or you can follow me on Twitter, where I post relevant web development tips and tricks along with personal life tips.

You might be surprised.

_[source](https://unsplash.com/photos/hOj3-0lTK8E" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

At first sight, there are a few fields as distant as programming and yoga. One requires sitting or standing behind a desk, deep focus, and highly developed logical skills. The other is all about mindfulness, flexibility, and deep breathing.

I had been doing yoga for a couple of years already before joining a coding boot camp in Lisbon. I was so delighted to see that Le Wagon included a yoga session in a weekly schedule that I could almost feel my neck muscles relaxing when I read it. Being a multipotentialite, I love unexpected combos — and the intersection between web development and yoga is one of them. And I’ll tell you a secret: I’m not alone.

So there were things I expected to get out of doing yoga during the bootcamp:

1. Increased flexibility after sitting still for hours.
2. Better mobility — since I’ve had issues with sciatica for years now, I knew I just couldn’t afford not to do some form of exercises, and so it happened that yoga met my needs best.
3. Relax. Since a coding bootcamp = very busy schedule, setting aside an hour or two to only focus on yourself is a great way to unwind.

_[source](https://unsplash.com/photos/aEtl64kP8mk" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

Working as a programmer, you are constantly exposed to shifting feelings. One day you feel like you’re on top of the world as that little JavaScript element finally started doing what you wanted it to, the next day you spend hours chasing a bug that turns out to be something as trivial as a typo (refreshing your browser and not understanding why your changes are not being applied, only to discover you’ve been staring at production, not development, anyone?). This job can be a lot of fun, but you also need ways to handle the frustrations, self-doubt, and short deadlines.

You might carry in your mind the idea that yoga is a stretching activity mainly for women who don’t understand real physical activity, as public opinion is often telling you. If so, I encourage you to try it at least once.

Just try to choose a good, experienced teacher rather than one of those slack training-center classes where the main focus is on looking good and not sweating too much. Perhaps, just perhaps, you might change your mind.

During my time at Le Wagon I discovered some unexpected benefits of yoga and was surprised by how regular practice was influencing my progress in learning programming. I happily continue to take advantage of all these discoveries till today.

Here’s just a handful of things I’ve learned that yoga can offer:

1. Focus improvement. Yoga can help with concentration through calming your mind and removing the distracting thoughts.
   A peaceful environment where yoga classes are usually held can also play a role here, letting you detach from all the office noises.
2. Problem-solving. A short yoga session during the day can be a particularly good idea when you feel stuck.
   Working too long with one problem tends to diminish our ability to spot crucial details while keeping the bigger picture in mind. Freeing your mind by focusing on something else works wonders here and even the biggest challenges tend to appear clearer when you come back to your computer.
3. Mood boost. Deep breathing and movement mean two things: better oxygen flow and endorphins, and with these, in action, it’s nearly impossible to not get in a better mood.
4. Productivity lift. Although the idea of taking a break in the middle of your day or, even worse, getting up from your computer while you are in the middle of things, might sound irrational and time-consuming, you’ll be positively surprised how much more efficient you get after just a short yoga session.
5. Stress Buster. If you truly let yourself forget about your task and indulge in a yoga session, it’s almost impossible not to reduce your stress level. Yoga naturally calms you down and leaves you centered.
6. Energy refill. You probably know the Latin saying, “mens sana in corpore sano”, which translates as a healthy mind in a healthy body.
   Any kind of workout can provide you with mental benefits but yoga is particularly good in this. Being stressed and emotionally drained can affect the way we feel physically. Yoga, by helping you relieve tension, boosts your energy levels too.
7. Character exercise. Yoga, often thought of as not serious or even ‘not real exercise’, can in fact be really challenging — both physically and mentally. But it also involves techniques which help you progress and move past your weaknesses, focusing on the bigger picture. When working on a coding problem, not letting your shortcomings get in the way and discourage you is vital but often not easy. Getting more practice, outside of your technical challenges, can do wonders.
8. Discipline. Regular yoga practice demands discipline.
   So does learning to code and working as a programmer.

_[source](https://unsplash.com/photos/RqPJhqwp4b4" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

Programmers need to consciously work to take care of and strengthen their bodies due to the sedentary nature of their work. Remember that there are plenty of styles and schools of yoga, so you can surely find something that fits you best, depending on your physical condition, personality, and current mood. Practices vary in duration, difficulty, and energy level.

My personal favorite is ashtanga, a rather dynamic and highly structured yoga class which requires a certain dose of flexibility and strength. It really lets you sweat out all your programming worries and frustrations (which might be surprising to some people, who associate yoga with slow moves and lots of stillness).

I like to alternate ashtanga classes with yin yoga. It’s a very slow-paced and passive practice. You are expected to hold a posture for at least 3–5 minutes. It might look very easy looking from the side but don’t get mislead. Yin works on the deep connective tissues of the body and is a great way to refocus and give meditation a go.

_[source](https://unsplash.com/photos/gI7zgb80QWY" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

Any form of workout will improve your physical condition, and therefore your mental and emotional well-being. Remember though that yoga encompasses much more than just stretching, even if you don’t incorporate any kind of spiritual or religious component to your practice.

In addition to physical postures (asanas), it’s the control over your breath (pranayama) and meditation that are key to the health perks hidden in yoga.

I hope all these benefits will give you an extra push to explore a little — forgetting about your stereotypes and preconceptions — and find your own personal favorites.

I have a confession to make. I have been an impostor throughout my entire adult life.

When I was studying physics at Ireland’s leading university, graduating near the top of my class, I was no good at any of it. It was a complete fluke, an accident.

First published on CodingMindfully.com.

When I excelled at my master’s degree in High Performance Computing at the same institution, I was faking it.

When I was offered a consulting dream-job at the School of Physics at another prestigious university, it was obvious that everyone around me was smarter. They were sure to find out that I was incompetent sooner or later, and there was no doubt they would get rid of me. It was just a matter of time.

When I changed industries and became a consultant to a household name investment bank, it was incredible that they didn’t fire me within days. I was surrounded by people who were just so much smarter than I was, who were doing better jobs.

When I joined a hugely successful web startup, leading my own team of crack software developers with a budget of millions, I was absolutely winging it. For three years, I did the job of an incompetent. I had no idea what I was doing.

When I became head of software development at a startup in the Australian property market, with free reign to hire my own team and set the technical direction of the company… I was actually mostly fine. The sense of being an impostor, a fake and terrible at my job had almost disappeared.

So what changed?

Download my Impostor Flashcard here — it’s a quick way to remind yourself that you’re actually pretty OK, even if you feel less than average.

Feelings versus reality

Let’s start by rewriting the story I just told you.

The facts stay the same, but this time, let’s re-frame it in terms of my thoughts and feelings. Here goes!

I have a confession to make. I have felt like an impostor throughout my entire adult life.

When I was studying physics at Ireland’s leading university, graduating near the top of my class, my mind kept telling me I was no good at any of it. It felt like was a complete fluke, an accident.

When I excelled at my master’s degree in High Performance Computing at the same institution, I constantly told myself I was faking it, despite the evidence to the contrary.

When I was offered a consulting dream-job at the School of Physics at another prestigious university, it seemed to me that everyone around me was smarter. They were sure to find out that I felt I was incompetent sooner or later, and there was no doubt in my mind they would get rid of me. The voice in my head kept on telling me it was just a matter of time.

When I changed industries and became a consultant to a household name investment bank, I thought that it was incredible that they didn’t fire me within days. I was surrounded by people who were just appeared to be so much smarter than I was, who I perceived were doing better jobs.

When I joined a hugely successful web startup, leading my own team of crack software developers with a budget of millions, I managed to convince myself was absolutely winging it. For three years, my imagination was full of stories that I did the job of an incompetent, even though we were universally praised. It seemed to me that I had no idea what I was doing.

Ways through impostor syndrome

Hands up if the above sounds familiar? The experience of living life with a certain degree of success, yet feeling as if it’s all somehow an accident?

Looked at objectively, it’s clear there was a huge disconnect between the realities of my life and my achievements, and how I thought and felt about them.

This is the essence of impostor syndrome — the feeling that, despite evidence of your basic success in life, you think, perceive and feel that your success has nothing to do with your personal qualities or the hard work you’ve put in — that it’s all some kind of accident, and you’re really a fraud.

Here’s the biggest lesson — our minds are lenses, producing a view of the world that, often, is slightly distorted from reality. These distortions in perception give rise to distorted thoughts and feelings. We start telling ourselves stories in our minds — like we’re just not good enough, everyone is better and so on.

Objectively, there is usually way less truth in these stories than our minds would have us believe — but it’s hard to be objective from the point of view of subjective consciousness.

Impostor syndrome sucks. It affects people who work in science and technology careers in particular for three main reasons.

• First, because we have deep knowledge in particular areas, getting things done is easier, so it’s very simple to dismiss our achievements as trivial. This means we build up a flawed picture of our abilities and what we are capable of over time. We undervalue ourselves terribly.
• Second, because of the psychological evolution of a typical geek, we tend to wrap up our sense of self-worth in what we know or what we can do, meaning we put ourselves under constant, subtle pressure to know everything — and since this is impossible, we feel bad when we constantly fall short — as we must in a career where we cannot possibly know everything.
• Third, the environments in which we find ourselves don’t help much. External pressures to be competitive turn the screw on our tendency to go hard on ourselves. Being surrounded by other smart people, many of whom are in the same psychological situation, and who are projecting out their own air of invulnerability (even though they are often feeling the same way on the inside), amplifies our feelings about our own so-called limitations.

There were a couple of huge things that helped me shift my perspective a number of important ways — I’m thrilled to have the chance to share them with you:

1. Understanding the roots of the problem
2. Debugging my own mind by practicing mindfulness
3. Reinforcing the opposite belief
4. Playing catch-up — within limits

Understanding the roots of the problem

Impostor syndrome is a pattern of thinking and feeling. It’s a habit of the mind — a bad habit, but one that can be managed and, with time, broken.

The mind is a funny thing. Humans are born pretty dumb, with a brain that’s far from fully formed. Infant minds are, in some ways, blank slates: although we’re born with temperaments and dispositions and inclinations, the amount of knowledge we need to survive in the world far exceeds the capacity of our DNA to encode it, so we enter the world with the capacity to learn.

We learn lots through a lifetime — useful skills like how to program a computer, or how to analyse big data for example.

We also learn how to respond to various stimuli and situations. Our cognitive (thinking) and emotional (feeling) responses are shaped by our life experiences.

We build up models of how the world works — psychologists call these models “schema” (much like a schema describes the structure and functionality of a database).

Schema are generalised models of sets of similar experiences. They dictate how we respond to similar situations in the future, in terms of thoughts, behaviour and feelings.

For example, we’ll build up schema about simple objects, like balls, or cars, or furniture. We know that a ball is round, and that when thrown, it’ll fly through the air, and we can catch it.

That’s a pretty simple example. We’ll also build up more complex schema around our emotional responses. Similar situations evoke similar emotional responses. These responses can be adaptive (useful) or maladaptive (not so useful).

It’s like our brain is programmable hardware. Except it can take a little bit of effort to undo the original programming.

Here’s an example from my own life. As I kid, I often felt there was something wrong with me because I was rejected by other kids socially. Over time, I built up what’s known as a defectiveness schema — a deep seated belief and set of feelings that there was something inherently broken within me.

Nobody wants to feel bad all the time, so we learn ways of dealing with uncomfortable emotions. Sometimes they take over, and we live our lives as if we ARE defective or whatever. Sometimes we ignore or suppress emotions (which is a disaster waiting to happen, but that’s another story).

Sometimes, we find a way to make ourselves feel good by doing something unrelated. We fight back against the feelings.

I found out that I could feel good about myself by working hard and being smart.

The simple act of knowing more than other people gave me the praise and validation that I wasn’t getting in other areas of my life.

This works well, for a while. Feeling like we know more than most people is very soothing when we feel a bit broken on the inside!

Leaving high-school for university made that a bit more difficult — I was surrounded by smart people and it was hard — if not impossible — to be the smartest all the time.

This is when I first had strong feelings of being an impostor. My inherent feelings of defectiveness had a tendency to take over, and my typical “knowing awesome things” band-aid didn’t work as well any more. That feeling of being a fraud was a frequent companion.

(As an aside, I found other ways to compensate, such as working on my social skills and partying ability — not very sustainable, but the sense of popularity also helped with the feelings of defectiveness — but that’s a whole other story, too!)

Every change in life circumstances — new social groups, and particularly new jobs — activated this schema. I find that my feelings of imposterhood are at their worst when I’m trying something new (for example, writing a lengthy article on impostor syndrome!).

The origins of impostor syndrome will be subtly different for everyone. The particular circumstances of your life, the experiences that you’ve had that trained your brain to feel defective in some way — this will be unique to you.

Most of them will have happened during the formative years of childhood and adolescence. But I guarantee that somehow, somewhere, you’ll be following a pattern of covering up for feelings of worthlessness by trying to continuously overachieve.

Simply knowing that you’re a victim of the natural evolution of your psychological make-up is soothing in itself, as it gives you a platform to work from, to take action to counter these feelings — to rewrite the story in the manner I did above.

Next, I talk about the most powerful tool that I have found that helps me do exactly this — mindfulness.

Debugging my own mind by practicing mindfulness

Geeks are are generally rationalists. We place a lot of faith in our ability to think clearly.

Read my Ultimate Guide to Meditation for Programmers here and begin your mindfulness training journey.

Rational thought is incredibly powerful. We use it to build bridges, keep airplanes and satellites from plunging to the ground, design surgical implements and techniques that save many lives, reason about the best moral courses of action and penetrate the mysteries of the universe. The twin disciplines of logic and the scientific method have given so much to humanity when considered in aggregate.

Reason gives us a framework for making sense of the world. Many people are entirely comfortable to assert “I think, therefore I am”, in the words of Descartes. It’s pretty normal for intelligent people to place a LOT of value in the activities of their thinking mind.

Indeed, as we discussed above, the desire for the ability to out-think other people — to be as smart as, or smarter than others — is often at the core of impostor syndrome.

The voice in our head is insistent and loud. Every thought demands that we pay it attention. Every thought insists its own value, its absolute truth.

This would be fine, except for the fact that thoughts are often distorted — sometimes just a bit off, other times patently untrue. Not every thought we experience will be correct!

Often the source of the error is maladaptive learning. Other times, it’s in-built psychological biases. Either way, as rationalists, it can be challenging to our self-belief to realise that we have a mind that produces thoughts that are, at least some of the time, completely wrong!

Impostor syndrome can be considered as a case of distorted thinking. We think that we’re inadequate or defective, and that bad things are going to happen as a result, when the facts and experience of our lives objectively indicate that this is not the case (or less the case than we believe).

We believe that we’re going to be found out, when in actual fact our contributions are valued. Even in cases where there may be a genuine problem with how we are perceived by others, we amplify the magnitude of the problem.

Mindfulness gives us an excellent way out. Learning to be mindful means learning where to accurately direct your attention. Mindfulness practices train us to take a step back from what we are thinking, simply observing it rather than completely buying into it.

With a bit of practice, we get into a habit of choosing when to believe or give value to the contents of our mind. When we’re dealing with distorted thinking, this is incredibly useful!

Now, because we’re smart people and our thinking is really useful to us, it’s often a huge part of our identity. What are we, if we are not our thoughts? When I first considered this possibility, I was terrified.

My ability to think was so central to my sense of identity that I found it really hard to consider it might have flaws! Hands up if you feel this way right now?

It’s really easy to completely identify with our thoughts — we become “fused” with them. Psychologists call the process of stepping back from our thoughts and feelings “cognitive defusion” — we de-fuse from thoughts and feelings.

This can be difficult, particularly when you’re used to giving primary value to the contents of your mind. But there are A TON of techniques available that help you to do this. And you’ll learn many of them in a short course in mindfulness meditation.

Check out the Ultimate Guide to Meditation for Programmers (free download) that I wrote if yow want to get started right away.

Mindfulness is about engaging what’s happening in your world right now. It’s about deliberately paying attention to an aspect or your present moment experience. It also has the advantage of some pretty significant scientific support as a way of dealing with a variety of problems, including stress and anxiety (something often associated with impostor syndrome).

Here’s an experiment: if you sit for a few minutes and write down thoughts as they come into your head, you’ll begin to notice a pattern. In general, our thoughts are pre-occupied with the PAST or the FUTURE (i.e. “they are going to find out”, or “I should never have taken this job”).

The primary purpose of our mind is to keep us alive. It’s a survival device. It’s constantly doing two things (1) projecting into the future about what MIGHT happen, so that we can be prepared (2) reflecting on what went wrong in the past, so we can avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

This is great, and useful as there are genuine situations when the mind actually keeps us alive. But they are pretty rare. Dealing with a mind full of distorted thinking gets draining fast.

Mindfulness acts as an antidote because it forces us out of this past/future preoccupation. By choosing to focus on what’s happening right now, we break the worry loop, even if it’s just for a few seconds.

The present moment is awesome. Generally, it’s a pretty safe place (don’t believe this? You’ve made it through every single moment today without dying! Unless you’re reading this from beyond the grave — in which case, well done). And it’s full of things we can focus on — they are often called “anchors”, as they anchor us in the present and stop us being dragged into the future or the past.

Learning to be mindful is a matter of practicing connecting with any or all of these anchors. These practices include meditation, but there are also a number of other exercises.

When I first learned about mindfulness, it was a revelation. The simple concept that I was not my thoughts was challenging but revolutionised how I related to my own mind. I started out by learning mindfulness of breathing through breath meditations.

I knew it was working when I started to notice myself “catching myself” caught up in worry loops (the impostor loop for example) and, instead of continuing to freak out, choosing to concentrate on my breath instead. An altogether more pleasant experience than the anxiety that I would typically feel on those occasions!

Mindfulness is becoming more and more accepted as an approach for dealing with a wide range of problems. Here are just a few links. I like it so much that I became a meditation teacher — you can read that full story here.

Re-inforcing the opposite belief

Download my Impostor Flashcard here — it’s a quick way to remind yourself that you’re actually pretty OK, even if you feel less than average.

As I mentioned, you can thing of your mind as a programmable device.

Humans have known for millennia that it’s possible to catalogue, dissect, challenge and alter the patterns of thinking and feeling that exist in your mental space.

To change your habits of thinking requires awareness, evidence-based challenge and repetition

• Awareness means building awareness of the fact that you are engaged in a thought pattern (e.g. I’m a worthless impostor) as described above
• Evidence-based challenge means remembering that your unhelpful thought pattern is most likely distorted in some way. You start to think of incidences in your past that DO NOT support the content of your distorted thinking (e.g. — you remember the times you had success as a programmer — that app you actually wrote despite its imperfections, that satisfied customer… and so on)
• Repetition — you repeat this process as many times as you detect yourself falling into the troublesome loop. Eventually, thinking and feeling a more desirable way becomes a habit.

Playing Catch-up — within limits

Of course, there are times where it’s possible to deal with feeling like an impostor by simply learning more.

Be warned though — there are limits to what a human can learn. And the list of situations in which you might find yourself knowing absolutely nothing about the subject matter is huge.

But if you feel like you could brush up on your CS/Programming basics, you could do worse than investing in The Impostor’s Handbook by Rob Connery (not affiliated).

Your mindful way through impostor syndrome

I’ll be honest with you — from time to time, I still feel like an impostor.

But the knowledge that it’s a deep rooted pattern, plus the ability to take a mental step back, and rewrite the story in terms of thoughts and feelings — neither of which are the full truth of the situation — make it a LOT easier for me to deal with it as it arises.

I believe in the power of mindfulness to help with problems like impostor syndrome so much that I retrained as a mindfulness meditation teacher (you can read the full story here).

Like what you just read? If you visit my site, and sign up for my list, I’ll send you these three things completely free:

1. The Ultimate Guide to Meditation for Programmers
2. The Coding Burnout Checklist
3. Three guided audio meditations

What is Meditation?

Meditation can be many things depending on whom you ask. In this article, it refers to the idea of intentionally sitting and focusing on the present. Although it’s most often associated with Eastern religions, it’s not a religious practice. It doesn’t matter if you’re Christian, Muslim, Mormon, Jewish or any other faith. It’s a way to train the mind, which will change your perspective on life.

When I mention the word “meditation” in the article, I’m referring to “a practice to develop conscious awareness of the present moment.” But, I will additionally use the word “mindfulness.” They are terms often mentioned together or used as synonyms.

Meditation is the formal practice of sitting down, or walking, standing, or lying down. Whereas mindfulness is about being aware, and it applies to everything.

To give an example, when I wake up in the morning, I sit on a small cushion and observe my breath for 15 minutes. This is an example of meditation. While pouring a glass of water, I spill water on the ground and notice my feelings of anger rise up inside me. This noticing of anger rising but smiling in spite of it is mindfulness. I’m mindful of my emotions which allows me to stay in control.

Meditation and Programming

In the world of programming, we often need focused attention when building programs and writing code without repetitions. Think of it as being “in the zone” or as some know it, in the “flow” state. This is when you submerge yourself in your text editor and forget about everything else. Your mind is only thinking of that present moment. Being in this mode, you fully experience that “coding high” of writing functions that make or do things to achieve a bigger goal.

As mentioned before, meditation is a practice to develop your level of attention on the present moment. Now, if we practice meditation on a regular basis, we can train our mind in to live with more awareness. This can be applied to any area of life.

And that includes programming as well — because of the amount of focus needed while developing software. As programmers, we need to meditate and spend time observing our breath and nothing else. We will be able to translate that practice while coding, and be able to focus more deeply on our programs.

My Personal Experience

I began meditating four years ago when I heard about the benefits from a TED talk I watched called The Happy Secret to Better Work by Shawn Anchor. The idea of a regular meditation practice and the ability to live fully in the present interested me. I remember buying a book on Zen Buddhism and then started meditating. I had no idea what I was doing.

This initial meditation phase started when I was studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina during college in 2013. After watching the video, I went to a bookstore and looked in the Eastern Philosophy section hoping I’d find something on meditation. Luckily for me, I found one titled Los tres pilares del Zen or in English, The Three Pillars of Zen. “Genial! I’ll learn to meditate and practice my Spanish at the same time”, so I thought to myself.

Although it seemed like a great idea at first, it proved to be tougher than I anticipated. My Spanish language skills were good. But the technical language used to describe the meditation practices troubled me in the beginning. Luckily there were photos in the book, and I used my dictionary when I didn’t understand something.

I started meditation with a simple practice. I observed my breath. One inhale and one exhale = breath. I counted to ten. This was a great starting point for a beginner. I kept a small journal and did it a few times per week but couldn’t keep it consistent. It was tough because I only did it when I found time instead of adding it to my routine.

Fast-forward to 2014 and 2015 — I continued meditating on and off a few times per week. Yet, I still had trouble maintaining a daily practice. I tried doing it before bed, but I wasn’t consistent because the nights on the weekends were unpredictable.

In August 2016, I decided to make it a part of my nightly routine. Each night, I followed the same steps:

• Set alarm for the next morning
• Sit down and observe the breath for a few minutes
• Brush teeth

This routine made my practice 5x more effective. I added meditation to my life and made it a habit. As a result of this, it became easier and easier to find time for meditation. I didn’t have to think because it was part of my routine.

More recently in July, I switched my evening practice to a morning practice after a friend convinced me to switch. He suggested meditating in the morning because it provided you with a wonderful way to start the day. It also gave you a “blank slate” to begin your day.

Like before, I created an “automated” routine and added in meditation to make it easier for my brain to remember. The routine is as follows —

Wake up

• Wash face
• Meditate for 15 minutes
• Smile and begin day with a clear mind

Besides switching to a morning practice, my friend suggested I use a free app to track my meditation progress called Insight Timer. I love it because it has a meditation timer, guided meditations, and a minimal social network so you see when your friends meditate. You could hold yourself accountable this way. I also suggest trying Yoga Nidra for helping you sleep.

I’ve been using the app to track my meditation progress and recently achieved 100 days in a row as of November 5th. My goal is to hit 365 days in a row.

The Benefits

The purpose of writing this article was to explain how meditation can benefit all in the tech industry. It can be of help especially in a field like programming, where we constantly struggle or feel frustration when things don’t work out.

Here are some ways you, as a programmer and human being, may benefit from meditation —

Focus on one block of code at a time

Taking on new projects as a developer can be daunting. The most difficult part of a new project is figuring out where to start. We immediately think about all the things that need to be accomplished.

Similar to focusing only on the breath, we should dedicate our efforts on one piece at a time.

Mindfulness will help us become aware of the stress and all the working parts of our project. Programmers must let go that feeling of overextension and begin with the first task. We stay mindful of the task at hand. This will prevent “thought-overload” when developing more advanced software. It can even be helpful with agile software development like Scrum, where you’re adapting often.

The more you meditate, the stronger your minds becomes (Mrazek).

Enhance your cognitive abilities

Programming has many difficult concepts we must wrap our heads around to solve complex problems. To do that, we need the cognitive ability to process theory and visualize how all the moving pieces work together in one single system.

In a recent article published in the Harvard Business Review, Goleman states that mindfulness practice can help us with both “strategic work” and problem-solving. Through meditation, you’ll be able to further enhance these cognitive abilities. This in turn will benefit your study of programming no matter your skill level.

Live in the present

In order to maintain a healthy balance between working as a programmer and life, we should embrace the present moment . This applies to coding and also other areas of life.

The beautiful part about meditation is “singular focus” — by that I mean, doing one thing and only that thing. When you sit to meditate, you have one goal — be there in that moment. It’s easier said than done but the principle is what’s important. If we apply that principle in our lives, it can serve us in many areas. When you’re with your family or friends, be there in the conversation and moment. When you’re coding, write code and focus on building. Meditation facilitates building this skill of living in the present.

Handling the ups and downs of coding

As programmers, we often feel stressed when we can’t solve a problem or when we’re behind on a deadline. It can also happen when we’ve been tasked with something we don’t know how to do. I have had this issue happen to me many of times. Sometimes while experiencing much frustration, I contemplate smashing my computer onto the ground.

With regular meditation practice, we can learn to use our breath as a way to handle negative situations in a stress-free way (Corliss). Using this method, we can apply it to those situations in which you run into an issue or a bug that you cannot fix.

Later, you realize it’s because you were missing a semicolon, or because you forgot to account for something in your function. Those small moments can have a large impact on the rest of your coding session. Using our breath we can stop, let the negative feelings come in, experience them for that moment and then let them go. This will allow you to bounce back quicker when you’re struggling with a project.

Increase your level of happiness

The most significant benefit of any type of meditation is an increase in your level of happiness. When you meditate, you learn to focus on the simplest activity we do every day — breathing. By learning to observe the breath, you train your mind to take joy in the little things. You wake up to life and start to live every moment in the present instead of living in the past or future as most of us tend to do.

After you start meditating, you’ll notice how much satisfaction you feel after accomplishing even the littlest of things. Such as when you write your first function or when you figure out how to horizontally center that div. All those “small wins” that you once took for granted or didn’t fully enjoy will feel bigger, because you pay more attention to them — just like your breath (Fredrickson).

Here’s how to get started

Here’s a list of steps you can take today to get started —

1. Figure out how much time you can spend meditating. My suggestion would be between 2–10 minutes. Anything more and you may feel overwhelmed. It’s better to start soft and gently.
2. Decide where you’re going to do it — usually a quiet room works best. It can be done sitting on the ground or in a chair.
3. Set a timer for however long you decide to meditate. This way, you won’t have to worry about checking the time every 15 seconds.
4. Sit, take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Smile.
5. Breathe slowly and observe the air coming in through your nose and going out your mouth. One inhale and one exhale count for each breath. Count ten breaths then start over.
6. When your mind wanders, stop, acknowledge it, smile, then return to your breath. This is *the most important step. It’s inevitable that your mind will wander but you must not punish yourself for this. It’s normal behavior but we must remind the mind that we acknowledged it and then return to the breath. I wish someone would have told me this when I began meditating. I didn’t learn this until this year — almost 4 years later.
7. After your timer goes off, thank yourself for making time to meditate and smile.

If that felt good, see if you can do it two times next week. Then, add another day the week after. You can also experiment with increasing the amount of time you meditate. I decided to start at the beginning again with 2 minutes in July and then slowly worked my way up to 18 minutes.

I learned this technique from an awesome book called The Motivation Hackerby Nick Winter. He calls it the “success spiral.” You start off with a small number that seems too trivial to track (like 2 minutes a day) and then slowly increment it until you reach your goal.

I do want to stress this — that the number isn’t important. What’s most important is that if you’re serious about it, you dedicate time to it every day. Like #100DaysOfCode, the best thing you can do is make it part of your daily routine until it becomes a habit. You’ll get more out of it.

Recommended Resources

Just like coding, there are a plethora of free resources out there! I highly recommend doing your own research and seeing what you find. Here are some suggestions to get started —

If you like books and want to read about meditation

• Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das . This book changed my entire perspective on life. I loved it. It was one of the first books I read on meditation and Buddhism.
• Why is the Dalai Lama Always Smiling? by Lama Tsomo . Tsomo uses a more casual approach so everyone can easily relate to her. But she also includes scientific evidence to back-up her claims. I really enjoyed it. She also includes different Tibetan meditation practices.
• Real World Mindfulness for Beginners by Brenda Salgado . A dear friend recommended it because it includes practices and exercises good for beginners. I hope to use it with my co-workers in the office.
• The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa . This book is a little more advanced. I’m reading it now to bring my meditation practice to the next level.

If you like e-courses

Try this Free 8-week e-course on meditation for beginners by Namchak. I did this in August 2016 and have since been using the meditation technique during my everyday practice.

If you like apps

• Insight Timer — It’s free, has a timer with bells and guided meditation. You can also add friends and see their progress (great for accountability!)
• Headspace — This one is paid, but I’ve heard great things from friends who use it.

Regardless of who you are, meditation is a powerful practice that will change your life. I lead a meditation group that meets twice a month via Google Hangout. If you start meditating and would like a community with whom you can study and practice, you can send me a DM on Twitter for more details.

I hope you found this article useful. Please let me know by clapping, sharing it on social media or leaving a comment below. And if you’re an experienced meditator, please share any additional resources in a comment below for the community!

Sources

• Corliss, Julie. “Mindfulness Meditation May Ease Anxiety, Mental Stress.” Harvard Health Blog,Harvard Health Publishing, 3 Oct. 2017, www.health.harvard.edu/blog/mindfulness-meditation-may-ease-anxiety-mental-stress-201401086967.
• Fredrickson, Barbara L. et al. “Open Hearts Build Lives: Positive Emotions, Induced Through Loving-Kindness Meditation, Build Consequential Personal Resources.” Journal of personality and social psychology 95.5 (2008): 1045–1062. PMC. Web. 12 Nov. 2017.
• Goleman, Daniel. “Mindfulness Isn’t the Answer to Everything. Here’s When It Helps.” Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business Publishing, 28 Sept. 2017, hbr.org/2017/09/heres-what-mindfulness-is-and-isnt-good-for.
• Mrazek, Michael D., et al. “Mindfulness Training Improves Working Memory Capacity and GRE Performance While Reducing Mind Wandering.” Psychological Science, vol. 24, no. 5, 2013, pp. 776–781., doi:10.1177/0956797612459659.

15 years ago, I made two major choices before I went to school in the mornings. I picked what cereal I would have (how good were Ricicles?), then sifted through my CD collection before popping one into my Discman for the day.

_Thanks for the image, [Reddit](http://reddit.com" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=")

Sure, there were some other micro-decisions in there. But with these two major choices out of the way, I could get ready for school and pop down the road to the bus stop, cranking my CD of choice. It was probably ska punk. (And I’m not embarrassed by that in the slightest).

I’d arrive at the bus stop and hang out, waiting for the bus to come. Listening to my music. I’d get on the bus, stare out the window and keep listening. The album would probably be repeating by the time I got to school, disconnected, and went into the music rooms to play guitar.

This is a completely unremarkable story. My mornings were not exciting.

Then vs. now

However, try being a kid going to school today. Most adolescents own at least one device. According to Pew Research Centre, 73% of teens had access to smartphones a couple years ago.

Think of that same journey I took 15 years ago. Today, it’s not so simple. Armed with a smartphone and a Spotify subscription, the music choice grows from around 50 CD’s to over 30 million songs. Even when you manage to choose an album, what are the chances you’ll keep listening until the end?

Never mind the overwhelming choice of songs. There’s the notifications you’ll encounter along the way. Vibrate. Facebook memory. Vibrate. Someone mentioned you on Twitter. Vibrate. Someone viewed your LinkedIn profile.

_Thanks [Meme Generator](http://meme generator.net" rel="noopener" target="blank" title=") for this one

Gone are the days of staring out the window. On my tram rides these days, all I see are people staring down, engaged in screen time. Whether they’re playing games, checking on social media, or engaging in notifications, suddenly listening to music isn’t the primary activity. It’s the supplement, the background music to our own little smartphone worlds.

This matters.

I care about this — but not because I think we should all be paying attention every second and talking to every stranger who sits beside us on the bus. 15 years ago I didn’t engage socially at all. But I got to start my day by mindfully listening to music.

Hugh Van Cuylenburg (check him out) talks all about this as part of “The Resilience Project.”

According to Hugh’s research, approximately one in seven primary school kids suffers from mental health issues. Primary school kids. Around 30 years ago, this figure was closer to one in 50.

Is this really surprising? Given that the amount of information we receive in a week equals the amount of information we used to receive in a year, I would argue not (Hugh’s data here, dating back to 2014).

More crazy data stats?

A piece written in 2013 by Science Daily suggests that 90% of the world’s data was generated between 2011 and 2013.

While I’m not a psychologist, I can interpret what the experts tell us. It’s not a stretch to say that information overload is having a very real impact on our lives. Especially on those of us who are privileged enough to have access to smartphones and all those other devices.

Examples of unnecessary attention drain

On Netflix, what happens when you end an episode? The next one is lined up. Read a news article on your website of choice — in Australia, mine is The Age — and an auto-play video greets you. When you watch a Facebook video, they’ll scroll you onto the next one when you’re done.

In fact, what are you going to encounter at the bottom of this article? Why, I imagine some links to “related content.”

Yes, algorithms are getting better all the time and related content is getting more relevant. What does that mean? More wasted time on Facebook. That “quick look at a notification” turns into five minutes watching the “greatest premier league goals from the 1990’s.”

Fun? Yes. Life-improving? Not so much.

We encounter so many notifications. And we touch our phones 2,617 times a day — how crazy is that? So the last thing we need is stuff like this:

This battle for our attention has only increased over the past few years as technology advances and we get smarter with data. Technologies like AI make it easier to provide more relevant content which sucks us in more than ever before. Phones are like slot machines in our pockets, and we are being trained to check for variable rewards.

Our days are filled with useless notifications. And worst of all, they pop up on even more devices than ever. Our time between screens is pretty much sleep. That’s it.

This can’t be good. We can talk up all the technological advancements we’ve made, and some are great. But when are we going to stop and think about the psychological consequences of what we are doing?

Do we stop building things?

No. I’m not promoting not making stuff. I’m not against companies making money — I wouldn’t have a job if there wasn’t a business aspect to what we do.

I’m promoting questioning why we create what we create. We need to educate the people who use our products. Those who aren’t designers or psychologists in our companies might not understand just how big an impact our products can have.

As a product designer, I believe that it’s important to engage and delight customers. This keeps them coming back and spending money on the products I create. But I also think that this engagement needs to have a human foundation.

Being “user-centric” doesn’t simply mean you use personas as part of your design process. It means you genuinely empathize with the people who buy your products. They should come back to a product because you’ve made their lives better or they need to do something. Not because you’ve hooked them in to wanting to complete some kind of streak.

So what do we do?

Hugh (from The Resilience Project) argues for the importance of three basic pillars: empathy, mindfulness and gratitude. And I couldn’t agree more. So how do we practice them?

Everyday things you can do

1. Create time in your daily routine for actively practicing gratitude. It could be keeping a gratitude diary, going for a walk, or creating time to call some important people.
2. Try meditation. It’s not for everyone, but with apps like Headspace and Calm, and great free options as well, its definitely worth giving it a whirl. There’s certainly enough credible research out there to suggest that this technique can have physiological benefits (ie. it quite literally changes your brain).
3. Practice empathy by making sure you are engaging in things like active listening. Are you guilty of texting when talking to your partner? Are you guilty of saying “at least…” when someone really just wants you to say “that sucks”?

Making your products better

1. How ‘bout this: let’s think before using things like autoplay. Apple’s latest version of Safari for Mac OS X actually disables it by default — that’s a nice start!
2. Do we need to play a video when loading a news article? Probably not. Maybe lining up the next episode on Netflix isn’t so bad – but we should question the impact of these decisions, not blindly proceed.
3. Question things. Hold people accountable. We can’t make people change their minds, but let’s make sure they know exactly what they are doing. Note our concerns and concede defeat when we have to, but make sure we leverage our skills while seeking answers.
4. Use liminal thinking to make sure we are empathizing with our customers. Encourage it in our leaders. Show, don’t tell. Use stories to communicate our customers’ problems and needs to stakeholders.
5. Know to whom you are speaking, and serve content in a digestible way. Empathising is not just for users, but for internal stakeholders as well. View the world their way.

Keen to learn more? Read and watch the following from people much smarter than I:

Conquering Digital Distraction
_Sinan Koçaslan/iStockphoto Digital overload may be the defining problem of today's workplace. All day and night, on…_hbr.orgHome - The Resilience Project
_"The feedback on this session has been overwhelming....we have to roll this out all over the state" Kerryn, Statewide…_theresilienceproject.com.au

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