To illustrate how hard it is for us all to unplug these days, Huffington offered a particularly crazy statistic.
She said that, according to a university study, men, when given a choice between sitting alone for 15 minutes in silence or suffering an immediate electric shock, will choose a shock 67% of the time.
Women, more sane, will still choose the shock 25% of the time.
This is crazy. The fact is, more people should spend 15 minutes per day in silent meditation. It's a proven way to improve your ability to focus and boost creativity.
In a post on Lifehacker, writer Belle Beth Cooper draws from several sources to argue that meditation will also lower your anxiety and stress, increase your compassion, improve your memory, and actually help your brain create "more gray matter," which Cooper says "can lead to more positive emotions, longer-lasting emotional stability, and heightened focus during daily life."