Take your seat. Whatever you?re sitting on?a chair, a meditation cushion, a park bench?find a spot that gives you a stable, solid seat, not perching or hanging back. Notice what your legs are doing. If on a cushion on the floor, cross your legs comfortably in front of you. (If you already do some kind of seated yoga posture, go ahead.) If on a chair, it?s good if the bottoms of your feet are touching the floor. Straighten?but don?t stiffen? your upper body. The spine has natural curvature. Let it be there. Your head and shoulders can comfortably rest on top of your vertebrae. Situate your upper arms parallel to your upper body. Then let your hands drop onto the tops of your legs. With your upper arms at your sides, your hands will land in the right spot. Too far forward will make you hunch. Too far back will make you stiff. You?re tuning the strings of your body?not too tight and not too loose. Drop your chin a little and let your gaze fall gently downward. You may let your eyelids lower. If you feel the need, you may lower them completely, but it?s not necessary to close your eyes when meditating. You can simply let what appears before your eyes be there without focusing on it. Be there for a few moments. Relax. Bring your attention to your breath or the sensations in your body. Feel your breath?or some say ?follow? it?as it goes out and as it goes in. (Some versions of this practice put more emphasis on the outbreath, and for the inbreath you simply leave a spacious pause.) Either way, draw your attention to the physical sensation of breathing: the air moving through your nose or mouth, the rising and falling of your belly, or your chest. Choose your focal point, and with each breath, you can mentally note ?breathing in? and ?breathing out.? Inevitably, your attention will leave the breath and wander to other places. Don?t worry. There?s no need to block or eliminate thinking. When you get around to noticing your mind wandering?in a few seconds, a minute, five minutes?just gently return your attention to the breath. Practice pausing before making any physical adjustments, such as moving your body or scratching an itch. With intention, shift at a moment you choose, allowing space between what you experience and what you choose to do. You may find your mind wandering constantly?that?s normal, too. Instead of wrestling with or engaging with those thoughts as much, practice observing without needing to react. Just sit and pay attention. As hard as it is to maintain, that?s all there is. Come back over and over again without judgment or expectation. When you?re ready, gently lift your gaze (if your eyes are closed, open them). Take a moment and notice any sounds in the environment. Notice how your body feels right now. Notice your thoughts and emotions. Pausing for a moment, decide how you?d like to continue on with your day. Work-outs: Second one is the workouts which makes us a very self-controlled person. It turns out that our capacity for self-control is surprisingly like a muscle ? like a bicep or tricep. And like any muscle, self-control can vary in its strength, not only from person to person, but from moment to moment. Even well-developed biceps sometimes feel like jelly after too much strain and so too does your self-control muscle. Spend all day dealing with distractions, hassles and stressors at work, and it?s awfully hard to summon up the willpower to resist the allure of the cocktail, the cigarette or the fully-loaded nacho platter. The good news is that depletion is only temporary ? after you rest it a while, you will get your strength back. The great news is that if you want more self-control in general, you can get more. And you get more self-control the same way you get bigger muscles: you?ve got to give it regular workouts. Empathy: our impulse control is less based on an order from our executive command center, or frontal cortex, and more correlated with the empathic part of our brain. In other words, when we exercise self-control, we take on the perspective of our future self and empathize with that self?s perspectives, feelings, and motivations. From the perspective of our future self, we are able to make decisions that line up with our future goals. Instead of simply restraining themselves or telling themselves what to do, the most successful impulse controllers relate to their imagined future selves like a trusted mentor, allowing their future self to positively influence their current decisions. If you continue to fail, just sit, relax and tell, ?That?s OK?. Period. Because this is the only word which can persist our control in us.

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