Someone Asked For ‘Very Comforting Facts,’ And 35 People Delivered

With the hustle and bustle of our daily routines, it can be hard to make time for anything that bring us joy or comfort. Wake up, commute to a stressful job, work for 8 hours, sit in rush hour on the way home, return home to face responsibilities and chores, rinse and repeat. We get so caught up in our obligations that we forget to stop and smell the roses. I urge you to take the next 10 minutes while you read this article to take some deep breaths, play some relaxing music, grab a warm cup of tea or coffee, and fully embrace some comfort. Don’t feel guilty about it. You deserve a moment of rest.

We reached out to Subornion on Reddit to hear her thoughts on this topic. She told Bored Panda that nothing in particular inspired her to start this conversation last week, but she’s very happy with how the post turned out. When asked why we all need to hear some comforting facts every now and then, and she told us, “Honestly, especially with what's happening in the US, sometimes our faith in humanity needs to be restored, and this post allowed hundreds of people to help each other with that.” She is referring to the Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminating millions of Americans' access to safe abortions. That devastating news is certainly a valid reason to seek out some positivity.

We also asked Subornion if any of the responses to her post particularly resonated with her. “The responses that meant the most to me were the ones that talked about how they genuinely appreciated a post like this,” she told us. “And also that one comment that talked about how rats giggle to themselves.” We're thankful Subornion sparked this conversation, because now we all get to receive a little comfort from strangers on the internet too. 

It is amazing how soothing a few words on a screen can be. According to Dr. Andrew Newberg and Dr. Mark Robert Waldman, co-authors of the book Words Can Change Your Brain, “A single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress.” Their book even explains how exercising positive thinking can affect how we perceive reality. “By holding a positive and optimistic [word] in your mind, you stimulate frontal lobe activity. This area includes specific language centers that connect directly to the motor cortex responsible for moving you into action. And as our research has shown, the longer you concentrate on positive words, the more you begin to affect other areas of the brain.”

One great way you can find a little comfort in your daily life is by practicing meditation, so we reached out to Corey Ferreira, co-founder of Declutter the Mind to hear from an expert on the topic. First, we wanted to know how Corey became interested in meditation in the first place. "Many years ago when I was 17, I was on a high school field trip where we as a class, visited different monasteries, churches, and temples to learn about world religions," he told us. "When we visited a Buddhist temple, we were taught by a monk how to meditate. While we were too young and rambunctious to appreciate it and understand it, when I later went home it stuck with me. It certainly made me feel different, especially as a young introvert with a racing mind. For years I thought I 'knew' or understood meditation, but it wasn't until my mid-twenties when I went on my first Vipassana meditation retreat that I began to deepen my practice and carry it over to my daily life."

We also asked Corey to share some of the benefits we can experience from meditation. "The reason meditation is often called a 'practice' is because it's taking time out of your day to practice mindfulness. When you practice this enough with meditation, you can start to live more mindfully and in the present moment in your daily life," he explained. "What this truly means to me is that you stop living life on auto-pilot. You stop getting caught up in the momentum of your life, and living at the whim of your emotions, thoughts, and immediate reactions. Life is a little less of a blur and thus, I'm able to really appreciate things, people, and places instead of being lost in thought or living in my head constantly. This has a lot of side effects. Being a more mindful person and living a more examined life can make you happier, calmer, patient, empathetic, grateful, and just improve overall wellbeing and mental health."

Corey even shared some tips for people who are interested in meditation but just don't know where to start. "Of course, thanks to technology, you don't need to go on a retreat or find a teacher to learn how to meditate or do a simple practice. While that's great for those who can and want to do it, you could start with a simple online 5 minute guided practice. You can either find one on YouTube, or from a podcast, or of course, a guided meditation app like ours, Declutter The Mind, which is free to download and use. I would recommend anyone interested start with a simple 5 minute mindfulness meditation practice and use their breath as an anchor for their attention. And it's really just as simple as watching the breath and body breathe on its own, and whenever the mind wanders, or you catch your mind lost in thought, you gently bring it back to the breath. Repeating this process helps build that mindfulness muscle, that we can then more easily use outside of the practice and in our daily lives."

Lastly, Corey wanted to add that, "Meditation doesn't need to be 'woo-woo' or have any spiritual or religious contexts to be effective. We all know what living in the moment, being present, and entering flowstates feels like. This is simply a way to practice this so we can get there more in our daily lives. Of course, there are levels to it and ways to deepen your practice and learn about some ideas and philosophies around the mind, consciousness, and ego. But start simple and seek out the teachers and practices that offer you something rational and simple."