Have you tried to establish a regular meditation practice, but found it difficult to sustain over time? Join the club! Or better yet, join a group! Support systems, from classes to a workout partner, have long been a strategy to help people stick with an exercise routine and ultimately begin a new habit. Incorporating meditation into your daily life isn't any different. New habits take practice, dedication and establishing a pattern, and encouragement in varying degrees helps get you there. In both scenarios, one thing that may be getting in your way is a lack of social support. Although you can read about all the great things meditation can do for your health, energy and emotional equilibrium, and even experience benefits when you try it, if the people around you are totally uninterested in meditation, it's easy to get discouraged and begin thinking it's not worth the effort. Most Buddhists belong to religious communities called sanghas. Like any other religious community, the sangha…

Sometimes the sensation creeps up on your or comes on suddenly: You have no energy to do anything. Work feels like a slog. You put off household chores like washing dishes or taking out the trash. In between, you settle for takeout because it requires minimal effort. Day after day, the sensation persists, and rather than attribute it to lifestyle habits, you conclude that you have a lack of willpower. According to psychologist Caterina Lino, "Overall, self-control appears to be a better predictor of academic achievement than intelligence. It is also a stronger determinant of effective leadership than charisma, and more important for marital satisfaction than empathy." Willpower and Your Brain Do you believe you lack willpower? The reality is, you probably have more than you know. The truth is, everyone has two parts in their brain that are often in conflict. There is an older, "primitive brain" governed by the pleasure principle; it wants what it wants right now. Another part…