Someone Asked For ‘Very Comforting Facts,’ And 35 People Delivered

With the hustle and bustle of our daily routines, it can be hard to make time for anything that bring us joy or comfort. Wake up, commute to a stressful job, work for 8 hours, sit in rush hour on the way home, return home to face responsibilities and chores, rinse and repeat. We get so caught up in our obligations that we forget to stop and smell the roses. I urge you to take the next 10 minutes while you read this article to take some deep breaths, play some relaxing music, grab a warm cup of tea or coffee, and fully embrace some comfort. Don’t feel guilty about it. You deserve a moment of rest.

We reached out to Subornion on Reddit to hear her thoughts on this topic. She told Bored Panda that nothing in particular inspired her to start this conversation last week, but she’s very happy with how the post turned out. When asked why we all need to hear some comforting facts every now and then, and she told us, “Honestly, especially with what's happening in the US, sometimes our faith in humanity needs to be restored, and this post allowed hundreds of people to help each other with that.” She is referring to the Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminating millions of Americans' access to safe abortions. That devastating news is certainly a valid reason to seek out some positivity.

We also asked Subornion if any of the responses to her post particularly resonated with her. “The responses that meant the most to me were the ones that talked about how they genuinely appreciated a post like this,” she told us. “And also that one comment that talked about how rats giggle to themselves.” We're thankful Subornion sparked this conversation, because now we all get to receive a little comfort from strangers on the internet too. 

It is amazing how soothing a few words on a screen can be. According to Dr. Andrew Newberg and Dr. Mark Robert Waldman, co-authors of the book Words Can Change Your Brain, “A single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress.” Their book even explains how exercising positive thinking can affect how we perceive reality. “By holding a positive and optimistic [word] in your mind, you stimulate frontal lobe activity. This area includes specific language centers that connect directly to the motor cortex responsible for moving you into action. And as our research has shown, the longer you concentrate on positive words, the more you begin to affect other areas of the brain.”

One great way you can find a little comfort in your daily life is by practicing meditation, so we reached out to Corey Ferreira, co-founder of Declutter the Mind to hear from an expert on the topic. First, we wanted to know how Corey became interested in meditation in the first place. "Many years ago when I was 17, I was on a high school field trip where we as a class, visited different monasteries, churches, and temples to learn about world religions," he told us. "When we visited a Buddhist temple, we were taught by a monk how to meditate. While we were too young and rambunctious to appreciate it and understand it, when I later went home it stuck with me. It certainly made me feel different, especially as a young introvert with a racing mind. For years I thought I 'knew' or understood meditation, but it wasn't until my mid-twenties when I went on my first Vipassana meditation retreat that I began to deepen my practice and carry it over to my daily life."

We also asked Corey to share some of the benefits we can experience from meditation. "The reason meditation is often called a 'practice' is because it's taking time out of your day to practice mindfulness. When you practice this enough with meditation, you can start to live more mindfully and in the present moment in your daily life," he explained. "What this truly means to me is that you stop living life on auto-pilot. You stop getting caught up in the momentum of your life, and living at the whim of your emotions, thoughts, and immediate reactions. Life is a little less of a blur and thus, I'm able to really appreciate things, people, and places instead of being lost in thought or living in my head constantly. This has a lot of side effects. Being a more mindful person and living a more examined life can make you happier, calmer, patient, empathetic, grateful, and just improve overall wellbeing and mental health."

Corey even shared some tips for people who are interested in meditation but just don't know where to start. "Of course, thanks to technology, you don't need to go on a retreat or find a teacher to learn how to meditate or do a simple practice. While that's great for those who can and want to do it, you could start with a simple online 5 minute guided practice. You can either find one on YouTube, or from a podcast, or of course, a guided meditation app like ours, Declutter The Mind, which is free to download and use. I would recommend anyone interested start with a simple 5 minute mindfulness meditation practice and use their breath as an anchor for their attention. And it's really just as simple as watching the breath and body breathe on its own, and whenever the mind wanders, or you catch your mind lost in thought, you gently bring it back to the breath. Repeating this process helps build that mindfulness muscle, that we can then more easily use outside of the practice and in our daily lives."

Lastly, Corey wanted to add that, "Meditation doesn't need to be 'woo-woo' or have any spiritual or religious contexts to be effective. We all know what living in the moment, being present, and entering flowstates feels like. This is simply a way to practice this so we can get there more in our daily lives. Of course, there are levels to it and ways to deepen your practice and learn about some ideas and philosophies around the mind, consciousness, and ego. But start simple and seek out the teachers and practices that offer you something rational and simple."

Corey discussed some of the benefits of meditating already, but let's dive in a bit deeper. According to Healthline, there are plenty of science-backed benefits ranging from reducing stress to helping fight addiction. In one eight-week-long study, regular practice of mindfulness meditation “resulted in [participants having] a significantly smaller post-stress inflammatory response”. Similarly, meditation can help us keep our anxiety under control, as mindfulness meditation has been found to reduce symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder. When we are not dealing with crippling stress and anxiety, we have more energy to explore the hobbies we love and strengthen our relationships with friends and family members. Finding just 15 minutes to practice meditation every day might go a long way.   

Meditation has also been found to promote emotional health and increase our self-awareness. One medical review including trials with over 3,500 participants found that mindfulness meditation can improve symptoms of depression. By increasing positive thoughts and lessening symptoms of depression, individuals are less likely to dwell on negative news and more likely to accept comforting information. Using meditation to increase self-awareness is also a great trick to steer our mindsets into a more positive direction. The better we know ourselves, the easier it is to set boundaries around following negative news cycles and seek out more constructive media or activities instead.    

Do you have trouble focusing for extended periods of time? Meditation might be the answer for that as well. Healthline reported that, “One study found that people who listened to a meditation tape experienced improved attention and accuracy while completing a task, compared with those in a control group.” Focusing our minds is just like any other exercise, practice makes perfect. Meditation can help us work out our memory muscles as well, as another study found that various meditation techniques can help older individuals increase their attention spans, memories and mental sharpness. So if you have noticed that your brain is just not as quick as it used to be, have no fear. The meditation gurus of the internet are here!

If you struggle to find ways to incorporate random acts of kindness into your daily life, meditation might be able to inspire you in that regard as well. There is a specific type of meditation called metta, that focuses on cultivating kindness for all beings. One month-long study of 50 university students found that by practicing metta meditation 3 times a week, they were able to improve their positive emotions, interpersonal interactions and understanding of others. Similarly, people struggling with addiction can even use meditation to help manage their emotions, cravings and stress. By understanding themselves better and exercising more compassion, it is possible for people battling addiction to use meditation to reduce triggers and seek out healthier coping mechanisms. 

So if you are interested in embarking on a meditation journey to find some inner peace and comfort in your daily life, it can be difficult to know where to begin. Thankfully, the internet is full of podcasts and blogs with recorded meditations and tips for how to delve into the world of peace and serenity. Don’t be overwhelmed at first; you can start small with only a few minutes each day. In fact, according to neuroscientist Amishi Jha, there is an exact prescription for the minimum dose of effective meditation. After conducting numerous studies with her team, Amishi found that the exact cocktail to see benefits from your meditation training over the course of a month is 12 minutes per day, 5 days a week.