Our mission

Start with attention, because attention is what we act with. Left untrained, the mind drifts: we spend almost half of our waking hours, about 47%, thinking about something other than what we are doing. (Killingsworth and Gilbert, 2010) Meditation is simply practice at noticing that drift and returning. It works: in a randomized trial, two weeks of it improved focus, working memory, and even GRE scores while reducing mind-wandering. (Mrazek et al., 2013) A mind that wanders less and notices more is a mind that performs better, at work, in study, in sport, in whatever aim you set.

The same attention that sharpens you also settles you. As you grow more aware of your thoughts, you are less ruled by them, which is why the mental-health research runs in parallel: a meta-analysis in JAMA Internal Medicine found that meditation programs produce small-to-moderate reductions in anxiety, depression, and stress, (Goyal et al., 2014) and researchers describe the result as equanimity, an even-minded steadiness toward whatever arises. (Desbordes et al., 2015) It even reaches the body: in one trial, mindfulness lowered loneliness and pro-inflammatory gene activity, a pathway tied to physical disease. (Creswell et al., 2012) Better mental health is not a separate goal here. It is what a steadier, better-trained mind feels like from the inside.

All of this depends on one thing: actually doing it, often enough and long enough for it to take. That is where good intentions quietly fade, and where other people change the odds. In studies of effortful tasks, people persisted about 24% longer alongside a partner than alone, (Feltz et al., 2011) and connection runs deeper than motivation: across 148 studies and more than 300,000 people, strong social ties raised the odds of survival by roughly half, comparable to not smoking. (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010) A practice you share is both more likely to last and, in itself, good for you.

One barrier remains, and it sits at the very start. Stigma keeps many people from ever trying, treating meditation as something private, or only for those who are struggling. (Clement et al., 2015) But if a sharper, steadier mind is for anyone with an aim, then meditation should be as ordinary to share as a run or a workout. When we talk about it openly and cheer each other on, that barrier falls, and far more people get to begin.