All it takes is 10 mindful minutes

The TED video I have chosen is called “All it takes is 10 mindful minutes”.  The speaker is Andy Puddicombe, who is from Great Britain. He is a former Buddhist monk and mindfulness expert. Puddicombe has also founded a social platform called Headspace that offers guided meditation sessions. The video was published in January 2013 and is nine minutes and 25 seconds long.

Summary:

This video is not about physical health, but mental health. Andy Puddicombe introduces us into the topic of meditation, but in a different way to what we expect. He says it just takes 10 minutes a day to change our view on life. In these 10 minutes you should try to think about nothing; not about the past nor the future, not about happiness nor anxieties. We spend a lot more time than that caring about our look or material possessions. Our mind, however, is the most powerful possession we have, so we should take care of that one too.

We can’t change every little thing that happens to us in life, but we can change the way that we experience it. 

Vocab work:

preventative, also preventive: intended to stop something you do not want to happen from happening, for example an illness

collocations:

preventive measure, preventive  action

to be inundated: to receive so much of something that you cannot easily deal with it all

context/usage in the video:

“You get stressed, you do some meditation. I hadn't really thought that it could be sort of preventative in nature, until I was about 20, when a number of things happened in my life in quite quick succession, really serious things which just flipped my life upside down and all of a sudden I was inundated with thoughts, inundated with difficult emotions that I didn't know how to cope with”.

to be agitated: to be so nervous or upset that you are unable to keep still or think calmly
commonly used:

to be in an agitated state, to grow agitated

context/usage in the video:

You might find a mind that's really restless the whole time. Don't be surprised if you feel a bit agitated in your body when you sit down to do nothing and your mind feels like that. 

Personal reaction:

When Andy Puddicombe first said that we should try to do nothing, to not even think about anything, I was like “Not thinking anything? That’s not even possible!” I have tried to do that several times before but somehow I never succeeded. Maybe I didn’t have the right motivation. I was just curious to see if you can really do something like that. Another point Puddicombe addressed that affected me in a certain way, was that we spend so little time in the present. In the moment we are living right now. We are always thinking about the past, regretting chances we didn’t take and moves we didn’t make. And if we’re – for once – not thinking about the past, we think about the future. I believe that this is totally true. Even now, as I am writing this post, I am thinking about the future. I am thinking of which grade I will receive, if I will pass the upcoming exam, if I will be proud of myself. Or disappointed. All these thoughts take over my mind and make it hard for me to concentrate on the truly important things. Friends, family, love. That is what makes me happy and therefore keeps me mentally healthy. If I ever happen to be in a hopeless situation though, I will remind myself of Andy Puddicombe’s words and sacrifice 10 minutes for mindful thinking.

Presentation technique:

Andy Puddicombe starts his presentation with a statement, followed by a question to the audience. I think this is a very good way to start a presentation because people start listening and thinking about what you say if they are addressed directly. Puddicombe also uses gestures to emphasize his words. He shares his own experiences with the audience to make this topic more interesting. Sometimes he also tells little jokes. Additionally, he gives examples to help the people understand what he wants to say and uses juggling balls to demonstrate his thoughts. It really fascinated me how he can talk and juggle simultaneously. On the whole, I really enjoyed watching his presentation and it inspired me to try out meditation. 

  

Food Diary Amsterdam

Hello everybody :)

As Lena and I have been to Amsterdam from Friday until today we decided to blog about the food we have eaten there. We were really excited to try some traditional Dutch food but unfortunately I didn't find anything vegan except fries. However, you can check out Lena's post to see what she has tried :)
We went by train and left on Thursday evening. On Friday morning we arrived in Amsterdam so I will start with lunch on Friday.


Friday, 27.03.2015

Lena has known from a friend that everyone eats fries all the time in Amsterdam but we weren't prepared to see a fries stall every four meters wherever we went. So of course this was the first thing we tried and they were way better than those at McDonald's ;)

In the evening we went to a little Italian restaurant. I had Spaghetti Puttanesca which are Spaghetti with tomato sauce and olives, artichokes, asparagus, paprika and capers. The dish was really good but the portion was quite small and therefore also priced too high with nearly 12€.

Later that evening we went to the Happy Hour at our youth hostel and decided to try out a typically Dutch shot called Dropshot. This is a shot of liquid liquorice. We didn't know that before however, because if we knew I think we wouldn't have tried it! It didn't taste that bad actually, a little bit like Jägermeister.





Saturday, 28.03.2015

We had breakfast at our hostel and there was a large buffet with quite a wide range of food to eat. I actually had two more slices of bread and a cup of tea after the serving you can see here but forgot to take a photo :D
I ate the slices of bread and the roll with strawberry jam, apricot jam, Zwergenwiese Paprika spread which I had brought from home and the last slice I buttered with margarine and sprinkled with chocolate sprinkles, which was my vegan version of Hachelslag.

For lunch we just bought a snack in a supermarket because we weren't that hungry after the huge breakfast. I had bulgur with chickpeas, radish, leek, raisins and goji berries. And yeeees, this is a spork! :D I was delighted when I found one in that supermarket!

Between the meals I had an apple and raw bite cacao bar while strolling through the streets of Amsterdam.

For dinner we went to a small Dutch cafe but as I said before, they didn't have any traditional dish that was vegan. So I ordered a tomato soup and a potato salad. The soup was delicious and also the bread tasted heavenly good.





Sunday, 29.03.2015

We had breakfast at a youth hostel again, a different one however, as there were no beds available for another night at the first one. I had toast with strawberry jam and raspberry jam, a cup of black tea and a glass of orange juice. I couldn't eat more because we got up really early to get into the Anne Frank museum and I can never eat much when I have to eat before 9 o'clock in the morning.

For lunch I had a big focaccia with tomatoes and spinach and a cup of tea because it was freezing cold. We bought this at a really nice restaurant and shop called la Place.

In the evening we went to an Italian restaurant again. I had ravioli ai funghi con tomato sauce and a chamomile tea. Again the Italian dish was pretty expensive, I think I paid about 10€ for it.






Monday, 30.03.2015

On Monday, our last day in Amsterdam, we had the same breakfast as on Sunday. I forgot to take a photo so I'll just show you that from yesterday. That time I helped myself to two more slices with orange jam as it was already half past nine :P

When we walked through the famous street market I couldn't resist this delicious looking (and tasting!) smoothie. It was a smoothie made of spinach, bananas, apples and oranges.

Later we had a quick lunch at an vegetarian fast food place called maoz. They had fries and falafel sandwiches there. Lena took the fries and I had a small falafel sandwich. These were definitely the best falafel I have ever eaten! I could choose between a white and a whole wheat bread and then there was a big buffet of vegetables and sauces I could put into the bread, without any limits. I ate a whole wheat sandwich with falafel, tomato and onion sauce, lettuce, carrots, cucumber, cauliflower and some unidentifiable violet vegetable.

Soon after that we already had to go to the railway station to catch our train to Düsseldorf. At the train station we had to wait a little bit so I bought some yummy grapes.

On the train I ate a muesli bar while reading Stolen from Lucy Christopher :)










Once we were in Düsseldorf we had to wait two hours until our train to Vienna arrived. We went to McDonald's where Lena had a salad and I ate this focaccia with olives that I brought from la Place in Amsterdam.

After that we had tea at Starbucks. I chose my favourite tea: Earl Grey with soy milk. Yummy :D





So that's everything I ate in those four days in Amsterdam :)
I hope you enjoyed reading and looking at the pictures. 

Have a nice evening,
Larissi ♥

Who am I?

Who am I? That’s a question I have asked myself often in the past years and I always found a different answer. Till I was 14, I was that stereotypical good girl. I didn’t wear make-up, did all my homework and never lied to my mum. But then somehow I changed and I don’t even remember why. I really got into punk and rock music, so that was my style from then on. I tinted my hair pitch-black, wore black t-shirts with band logos and studded necklaces. At the age of 15 I dyed my hair bright red and I loved it (Well, I still love red hair! And I am still mourning for it – four years later). When I was around 16 or 17 I changed my style to “normal” again and now it is still pretty much the same.

Nevertheless, some things never changed during these eventful years, for example my affection for travelling. My lust for discovering the world started when I was 13 and went to London with my dad. I fell in love with this city immediately. Unfortunately, I have only been there once again afterwards but I am planning to go there again any time soon! Another passion that has been staying with me for over seven years now is dancing. I started taking Hip Hop classes when I was 12 years old and also performed afro dance and musical dance back then. With 15 I took up ballroom dance, both International Standard and International Latin. I am still going to these classes once a week. I even danced as a debutante at the Vienna Opera Ball this year! What’s more, I am also attending pole dance (it's not what you're thinking- totally different!) and acro dance groups once a week.

I hope you know me a little bit better now and I am really looking forward to read about you all. You can also check out my 25 facts about me blog post on my own blog, if you want to know some more facts about me :)

Have a nice day,

Larissa