The challenge begins

I downloaded a new app on my new iPad... The 21 day meditation challenge by Deepok Chopra. Today was day one.

Day 1: whew that was hard, like really hard. My mind wandered to random thoughts, some positive and some not so positive. The music made my heart jump and nerves race, a little panicky actually. Should I do this in the morning or before bed? Pay attention to breathing. Is this done yet? How much longer? My leg hurts. Can I scratch my nose? Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be paying attention to my breathing.

The concept - it takes 21 days to create a habit and sticking with this plan will solidify this meditation practice as a habit.

Have you seen the new studies in genetics out there? Our life experiences can actually change our gene expression. I just read about a recent study in which a groups of kids were followed for 5 years and those kids that had some sort of trauma were more likely have shortened telomeres, which are those protective ends on our DNA that shorten when we age and eventually lead to cell death. So now a study has shown that nurture can effect the physiology of our cell. The group of kids with trauma had shortened telomeres. Well guess what, you can slow down the damage, and with guess what... Meditation. Meditation, yoga, veggies, all the stuff in life that we know about and for some reason avoid... I'm ready to slow down my telomere shortening... I'll keep you posted.