Instructing somebody to meditate -- to release or dis-identify with his or her thoughts -- is like trying to instruct somebody to instantly sneeze, or like telling someone just not to think, when the mind but built to do little else but that.

By turning everyday activities into meditation moments, you can bring more mindfulness, clarity, and peace into your day while energizing yourself and reducing stress. Here are five opportunities to add meditation to your day without taking time out of your hectic schedule.

This little instruction can be enormously helpful in bringing to light how to gain freedom from thinking.

If you've been dieting -- or trying to get yourself not to eat this and that -- for the past however many years, it's going to be very normal for you to experience extreme mental states around food or exercise, and weight loss.

Mindfulness, something once practiced only in more closeted meditation circles, has recently become a greater mainstream interest. Perhaps for this reason, research on mindfulness meditation has increased considerably over the last decade.

If mindfulness is a state of active, open attention to the present, what is more mindful than laughter? Something strikes you as funny and you laugh. For that moment, the laughter and the joy of being in the moment are all you are about.

Silence, retreat, and meditation are the main ingredients many are discovering to find and live in the heart of awareness. Silence naturally washes the noise within us. We find inner stillness that is at the center of our heart.

Each of us has clutter in our lives that holds us back from becoming who we want to be and achieving what we desire. What is holding you back? What can you start doing today to begin living simply, mindfully, and passionately?

What is balance? It is defined as finding equilibrium for the body or mind. I've been on a mission to find both.

Moving through your day, try considering your contributions as offerings -- particularly the little things that are easy to overlook, such as the laundry, courteous driving, or saying thanks. When you relate to everyday actions as offerings, you feel an intimacy with the world.

Summer silence stops many who never stop. The silence this time of year is just too powerful. Even those who think this is no time to slow down do find time to go slower. The silence, afternoon clouds, and evening sunset are just too spectacular for almost everyone to ignore.

The key here is to bring awareness and intentionality to the moments of our lives. Be aware when the brain is automatically judging a situation or a person, and we can pause and get some perspective.

When we meditate, we try to connect to that inner peace and serenity that transcends thought. For me, it's a type of stillness that feels like I am completely connected to timelessness, and that there is no beginning or end, it just "is." But why does that feeling have to be so temporary or elusive?

Is something bothering you? Put it down, give it a break, walk away and forget about it -- for now. Trust your higher consciousness to keep working on a solution.

Research in mindfulness has exploded exponentially over the last decade, suggesting improvements in both physical and mental health.

Our self-defeating emotional habits distort reality. Mindful discernment helps us distinguish between how things seem -- the 'horse' -- and how they are -- the moose.

Besides taking a lot of blood, sweat and tears, relying on self-control to change our habits may not work so well because, well, we run out of blood, sweat and tears. When our tank is empty, that habit comes rushing back with a vengeance.

You think if you stress would loosen its chokehold on you, then you could relax. But you have it backwards: If you learned to relax, then stress would recede. That's because relaxing is a practice, and like a muscle, and you need to use it -- or lose it.

My call to you, please think about encouraging mindfulness or simple techniques of awareness in your town, in your schools, in your community.

We are not at the mercy of extraneous factors. We can empower ourselves with the tools for a healthy way of living. The old Darwinian adage "survival of the fittest" comes to mind. However, who are the fittest in a war whereby our perception is under attack by our very own lizard brain?

Meditation can be the doorway through which we enter into a deeper connection with the world within and around us. At the beginning of his five-day retreat at Kripalu, The Wise and Loving Heart, Jack Kornfield reflects on the benefits and blessings of meditation.

A hometown tragedy is at once a painfully personal and strangely depersonalizing experience. The images on television aren't just places, they're my places. That's my street with the barricades. That's my library in the background.

In the context of mindful living, slowing down does not imply taking a vacation every other month. It is what we must do every day. It means taking the time to do whatever we're doing. It means single-tasking rather than switching between a multitude of tasks and focusing on none of them.