Calm: Calm the Mind. Change the World.
Michael Acton Smith · 2015
From the co-founder of the Calm app, a warm, illustrated guide that strips meditation of its mystique and proves that calm isn't a retreat from life but a superpower you can build with tiny, everyday habits. It threads simple mindfulness through eight ordinary corners of life so you can change your inner world, and then the world around you.
From the Calm app co-founder, a practical, approachable guide to building calm habits.
Three of the ideas you’ll keep
The Clif summary of Calm pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first three.
- Calm isn't switching off and escaping life; it's waking up to it, so clear, deliberate thinking replaces your habitual reactive patterns. Treat mindfulness as a trainable skill, not a personality trait.
- You don't need a retreat, a guru, or hours of free time. Build calm from micro-habits that piggyback on things you already do: a four-count breath at your desk, a phone-free meal, a slower walk to the train.
- Use nature as a shortcut to serenity. Get barefoot on grass or sand, gaze at clouds with no goal, plant a seed, or just notice the sky; a few minutes outdoors measurably lowers stress and resets perspective.
The other 4 — and the full 9-minute summary — are in the app.
What’s inside: 8 chapters
The whole summary runs about 9 minutes, read or listened to.
- Calm Is a Superpower, Not a Retreat
- Tiny Habits Beat Grand Gestures
- Nature: The Shortcut to Serenity
- Sleep: Calm Is Built at Night
- Travel and Time: Turn Dead Time into Calm Time
- Work: Breathing Room Under Pressure
- Relationships and Compassion: Calm Is Contagious
- Food, Creativity, and Children: Savor, Play, Notice
Finish Calm tonight.
Read or listen to the full summary in about 9 minutes, then keep the ideas with a minute of review a day. Start with the 2-minute quiz — no card required.
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The Miracle of Mindfulness Thich Nhat Hanh A timeless classic teaching simple, practical mindfulness practices for daily activities. -
Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner Once you see that incentives, not intentions, run the world, you can never un-see the hidden machinery behind schoolteachers, sumo… -
The Happiness Project Gretchen Rubin A skeptic's year-long field experiment on herself, arguing that happiness isn't found in a big life change, it's built, month by… -
Unwinding Anxiety Judson Brewer A neuroscientist shows that anxiety is a habit loop you can rewire, not with willpower, but with curiosity.