Amy Blankson is a happiness researcher and consultant. She has worked with Google, NASA, and the U.S. Army and also served as a professor in Oprah’s Happiness course. Amy has been acknowledged by two former U.S. presidents for creating amovement to activatepositive culture change. Increased technology can interfere with our efforts to be mindful and Amy’s recent book entitled, The Future of Happiness [5 Modern Strategies for Balancing Productivity and Well-Being in the Digital Era], addresses this issue head on. Contact Info Website: www.AmyBlankson.com Share Your Story With Amy of How You've Used Mindfulness In Your Life: www.AmyBlankson.com/story Book: The Future of Happiness: 5 Modern Strategies for Balancing Productivity and Well-Being in the Digital Era by Amy Blankson Social Media: FB/Instagram/Twitter: @AmyBlankson Most Influential Person Chandra Moyer, Life Coach Effect on Emotions Mindfulness calms my mind and helps me to be able to deal with deeper emotions in a more measured and thoughtful way through balance and just being able to take a step back and see myself from the outside so that I can choose a different path for myself. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is crucial to my mindfulness. Breathing is something that I tend to stop doing in the moment when I get stressed out. I don't even realize that I am getting more and more anxious and intense. Because I'm an anxious person naturally, breath is the absolute most essential key to helping me to get oxygen into my system so that I can think clearly and straightly. It's amazing and super important. Suggested Resources Book: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport Book: The Future of Happiness: 5 Modern Strategies for Balancing Productivity and Well-Being in the Digital Era by Amy Blankson App: Muse (Requires that you buy the Muse Headband) Buy at a discounted price and get Amy's new book as a bonus. AmyBlankson.com/muse Thoughts on Breathing A couple of weeks ago I was at the Wisdom 2.0 conference in San Francisco, and by far the best speaker that I heard at the conference was Jewel, the singer-songwriter. Jewel talked about how when she was younger; she had a lot of family trauma going on in her world. Alcohol, abuse, parents in and out of her life and it led her to being rough and tough and she wound up, at the age of 16, living out of her car for quite some time till her car was stolen. It was one thing after another of awful things happening to this poor girl who didn't have a lot of support in her life at that point. She stumbled upon mindfulness and meditation at that young age as a way to deal with this world around her. She talked about how she found herself in the dressing room one day where she was trying to steal a dress and she was trying to hide it under her clothes by stuffing this dress that she found in a store window. She loved it. She was stuffing it into her jeans pants and trying to put a big jacket on over her outfit because she just felt this was something she couldn't live without, and it would make her world so much happier. It was a lovely white dress that made her feel clean again. As she was doing that, she looked into the mirror, and she realized who she'd become and how it had recreated this cycle of poverty and this systemic violence and thought pattern that she didn't want to have in her life. She said that she felt like she had gotten to that place in her life through mindfulness. Even at that young age there was so much going on in her world; the ability to step back and see herself from the outside really created a different perspective on her life. She talked about how she was that bully. She was the individual who was trying to protect herself from so many things entering her world and encroaching on her own sense of self-efficacy and self-worth that she reacted and responded. I think that really spoke volumes to me about how she was able to come to that place of awaren