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3 Steps to Inner Peace: The Royal Road to the Here and Now

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Mike Bundrant | CATEGORIES: self improvement

Freud called dreams the royal road to the unconscious, suggesting they offer uncanny insight into your life, including inner conflicts, motivation and the deeper sense of what life is all about. Perhaps its time we recognize another royal road, one that brings us fully into the present moment, no matter where we are.

Mundane sounds  – expressway to the present moment.

They are all around us – mundane sounds. The computer hums. The refrigerator runs. Oscillating fans, distant traffic, airplanes cruising by and numerous other sounds create a symphony of white noise that fills the background of our lives. Who would have thought medical research would prove tuning into these sounds is a giant leap toward mental and physical health?

In fact, intentionally directing your awareness outward disengages a major brain region called the Default Mode Network (DMN). The DMN is responsible for autopilot thinking, the slew of mental activity that occurs when we are not consciously engaged. Daydreaming falls into this category. When the DMN is hyperactive, common in today’s world, the mind is continually cluttered with thoughts and the body is tense.

InSciences has reported that the brains of depressed people show increased activity in the DMN. The overactive DMN raises self-consciousness and prevents you from “losing yourself” in the activities of life. Rather than remain free to enjoy the present moment, you are besieged by a continual stream of inner thoughts.

ScienceMag suggests that activity in the DMN may reflect the occurrence of mind wandering, i.e., random thoughts that are unrelated to the present moment that cut you off from the environment or outside or world. With an overactive DMN, you can’t turn your mind off. You can’t control your stress. You can’t fall asleep. Your mind and body are out of control.

Turn off your DMN and chill

Effective stress relief happens automatically when you learn to deactivate your DMN. In the March 2010 edition of Scientific American, Marcus Raichle, M.D., first to discover the DMN, reported that researchers didn’t believe the evidence that the DMN could be switched off:

In 1998 we even had a paper rejected because one editor suggested that the reported decrease in DMN activity was an error in our data. The circuits were actually being switched on at rest and switched off during the [cognitive] task. Other researchers, however, reproduced our results for both the medial parietal cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex. Both areas are now considered major hubs of the DMN.

There you have it, a major brain network being switched on and off at will by participation in specially designed cognitive task. Further research, both scientific and casual, has proven that deactivating the DMN leads to increased pleasure, inner peace, emotional well-being, improved sleep, decreased anxiety and a stress-free way of being.

Three Steps to Inner Peace

Turning into external white noise is a great cognitive task to deactivate the DMN and settle into the present moment. Follow these simple steps and notice the difference.

1. To stack the deck in you favor, take out a paper and pencil and write down any problem that is on your mind. Then, let your pencil fly! Write down every thought and bodily tension that you think and feel related to the problem. Don’t censor yourself. Just get it out.

2. Choose some mundane sound in your immediate environment, such as the hum of your computer. Tune into to it, putting all of your attention on this one sound. Don’t try to do anything else. Just listen in real time. When you feel yourself settle a bit, your DMN is disengaged and you are grounded in the present moment. Enjoy it.

3. Reconsider the problem that was on your mind while maintaining your attention in the here and now. Do you feel more equipped to handle it? To the degree that you are here and now, your problem is more manageable.

This is a handy little tool that you can use anytime your mind is cluttered, your body tense and you just need to settle into the moment.

Mike Bundrant is an NLP trainer who integrates modern Zen practices into his work. For a free personal development mini-course, visit the iNLP Center.

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Related reading:

5 Ways to Stay Positive Everyday

6 Things You Must Do To Stay Sane in an Insane World

  • Kashyap

    peace comes from within, if we try to find it without or outside we would be never satisfied. TO get peace within one has to learn to respond to outer circumstances in a peaceful way. we get disturbed not by external things its our response to the outer world creates the havoc in our life. So first step towards a meaningful & permanent  tranquility is always to watch our own thoughts our own trigger points that causes stress & anger inside us. Then change them with more positive responses.

    some techniques to help watch our thoughts & change our thinking process here.http://24x7meditation.blogspot.com/

  • http://www.2knowmyself.com farouk

    with all these noise out there these days  its extreemly important that we learn how to reach inner peace
    thank you for the article

    • http://twitter.com/selfesteem4u Mike Bundrant

      good point:)

  • http://flawlessconfidence.com Martin K.

    I’ve never heard about DMN – sounds interesting!

    “Tune into to it, putting all of your attention on this one sound. Don’t
    try to do anything else. Just listen in real time. When you feel
    yourself settle a bit, your DMN is disengaged and you are grounded in
    the present moment. Enjoy it” – isn’t it the same as meditation? It’s also about focusing on just one thing, like your breath.

    • http://twitter.com/selfesteem4u Mike Bundrant

      It can feel like being in a meditative state, yes. The good news is that you so many more options to get there – and quickly.

  • http://www.hang-in-there.com/ Vic Lawrence

    Mike,

    It’s funny that you mention mundane sounds.  I actually like the sound of the a.c. in the background or a overt humming of a cpu fan.

     I like it because it helps me to block out the more troubling sounds around me such as someone fidgeting in there chair (i.e. if at the library).

    Your article is a much needed perspective on improving inner peace.

    Thanks!

    • http://twitter.com/selfesteem4u Mike Bundrant

      Thanks, Vic!

  • http://samedayessay.com/thesis custom thesis

    cool.We always seek for some sounds to meditate to, like waves or wind. But those sounds are everywere, just need to find them))))

    • http://twitter.com/selfesteem4u Mike Bundrant

      amen!

  • http://Mazzastick.com Justin

    Hey Mike,
    When I need some white noise when doing “blogging stuff” I listen to a podcast on my computer while doing my work. This causes my brain to relax some what and I am more able to relax and focus on what I am doing.

    • http://twitter.com/selfesteem4u Mike Bundrant

      Nice:)

  • http://www.embellishedminds.com Embellished Minds

    Our physical mind operates with our subconscious mind.  It’s function is to help us get through our days and react to situations from our conditioned thoughts and emotions.  It constantly thinks about the past to try to make sense of the future. 

    It gets in a repetitive pattern, that causes us to lose touch with our consciousness.  It’s not until we learn how to live in the “MOMENT” is when we can turn off the chattering mind to regain back control of our life. 

    • http://twitter.com/selfesteem4u Mike Bundrant

      Another big AMEN:)

  • http://hanofharmony.com The Vizier

    Hi Mike,

    When I began my spiritual journey almost a decade ago, my goal was inner peace.  I thought that inner peace was something I had to find, not something that I had to create within me through self-mastery.  

    I think writing down whatever is troubling us is a great way to clear the mind.  When the thoughts exist solely in our heads, they tend to grow all out of proportion.  But when we write it out, we bring all our fears into the open and we see that they are not as fearsome as we imagined them to be.  Also, by doing so, we clear our minds and inner peace happens naturally.  

    I think it is also important to focus on the solution and take action to resolve the problem.  On the one hand, you channel your energy in a productive manner instead of just brooding.  On the other hand, when you resolve the problem, it will naturally no longer bother you.  If nothing can be done about the problem directly at the moment, take action to prepare the way for a resolution later in the future.  It is how you manage your energy that counts.

    Thank you for sharing this lovely article with us!  :)

    Irving the Vizier

    • http://twitter.com/selfesteem4u Mike Bundrant

      Excellent points! Thanks so much, Irving.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Linda-Smith/100002748613670 Linda Smith

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  • http://www.peppervirtualassistant.com/ Agatha Tefora

    Hi Mike,

    It takes time for me to reach the inner peace. I guess it has to be constant. It’s quite challenging considering the amount of time it would take for me to be settled but those are handy.