Amit Sood > Quotes

“We get so caught up weeding the yard that we completely miss the tulips that nature gives us for a few precious weeks. We postpone joy.”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living

“Forgiveness is a choice that you make to give up anger and resentment, even while acknowledging that misconduct happened. Forgiveness is choosing a higher path. Forgiveness is for you, not for the forgiven. Forgiveness is your gift to others, even those who are undeserving of your kindness.”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living

“While the pursuit of pleasure seems as if it should be good, the mind’s three propensities — addiction to unhealthy behaviors, discounting present success (the negativity bias) and seeking pleasure in a future moment — push joy away.”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living

“As soon as you wake up, before you get out of bed, let your first thought be one of gratitude. Start with a few deep breaths and then think about five people in your life you’re grateful for. While breathing in slowly and deeply, bring the first person’s face in front of your closed eyes. Try to “see” this person as clearly as you can. Then send him or her silent gratitude while breathing out, again slowly and deeply. Repeat this exercise with five people. Avoid rushing through the experience. Relish the few seconds you spend remembering them. This practice will help you focus on what’s most important in your life and provide context to your day. At an opportune time, let your loved ones and friends know about your morning gratitude practice. Won’t it be nice for them to know that even if you are a thousand miles away, your first thought of the day is gratitude for them?”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living

“Sir Edmund Hillary, the celebrated mountaineer, had a very clear vision about mountain climbing: “Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living

“Research shows that the same content in an email and in in-person dialogue sounds less polite in the email.”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living

“Acceptance of others starts with embracing these imperfections. You can either obsess about improving others or savor their presence. Your efforts to improve others won’t work, but an intention to appreciate them will eventually help them improve. Ultimately, you recognize that inherent within acceptance of others is self-acceptance.”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living

“Research shows that the same content in an email and in in-person dialogue sounds less polite in the email. Emails are brief and miss body language, eye contact, emphasis, inflection and pauses — details that often convey greater meaning than the words themselves. The mind often fills in missing information with negative assumptions. Emoticons help, but they only go so far.”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living

“An inability to forget, a rare brain disorder called hyperthymesia, makes people prone to an excessive preoccupation with the past, an obsessive compulsive disposition and a lower quality of life.”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living

“A Default Mode of Brain Function,”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living

“In our effort to improve the present moment, we fail to appreciate how good it already is. In our effort to improve the present moment, we fail to appreciate how good it already is.”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living

“Let’s explore how to pay greater attention to novelty and find the present moment more meaningful. The key steps are to: • Synchronize your attention with your eyes, ears and other senses. • Infuse your attention with kindness and compassion. • Be intentional about your attention. The two attention skills are joyful attention and kind attention.”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living

“We have a phenomenal ability to hurt ourselves with our imaginations and inventions. One part of resilience is not only to recover positive emotions in adversity, but also sustain contentment and joy when everything is going well.”
― Amit Sood MD, Stronger: The Science and Art of Stress Resilience

“Our days have changed from noticing the outside to thinking on the inside. If this change truly protected us, then it would be adaptive. But only in rare situations are our negative thoughts and self-doubt helpful. Mostly, the resulting stress from these thoughts peels away the fragile scab of healing from old hurts, pushes compassion and forgiveness into the attic, and predisposes us to many chronic medical conditions, including diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, inflammatory conditions, chronic infections, addictions, and perhaps even early mortality.720-723 Neuroplasticity, our brain’s ability to change with experience, worsens the toxic effects of unhelpful ruminations.”
― Amit Sood, Mindfulness Redesigned for the Twenty-First Century: Let's Not Cage the Hummingbird: A Mindful Path to Resilience

“A 4-year-old loves her toy puppy’s golden brown fur. Her teenage brother is annoyed by its loud bark. Her mom sees it as a tool to keep the 4-year-old busy. Her baby sister finds the puppy’s big teeth scary. Her dad considers it an overpriced piece of plastic. The same toy evokes different feelings depending on how one looks at it. We see what we seek. When you don’t attend to attention — when you’re inattentive — life may pass you by. The tulips come and go, the seasons change, and the baby climbs out of the crib, off the bunk bed and on to the college dorm. We forget that joy is in the details. As a Jewish prayer says, “Days pass, and the years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles.” Intentional trained attention is directed by your will. This trained attention pulls you away from distractions to savor a more wholesome morsel of life. Trained attention doesn’t deny or repress reality. It gives you temporary freedom from negativity. You stop carrying the entire load of the past and the future in your head. Trained attention is focused, relaxed, compassionate, nonjudgmental, sustained, deep and intentional. This meditative attention is essential to experiencing flow. Its optimal practice helps you forget yourself, immerses you in the world’s novelty, and frees your mind for creativity and joy.”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living

“See Sood A, et al. On mind wandering, attention, brain networks, and meditation. Explore. 2013;9:136.”
― Amit Sood, The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living