Barbeques, baseball and meditation. That’s right.

Congressman Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) meditates for 45 minutes a day and says he thinks meditation needs to become the new American pastime.

He started a serious practice of meditation and mindfulness in November 2008, six years after he was elected to office, and says it’s made a difference in the work he’s been able to do in Congress. He’s less stressed, has more insight, more kindness and is better able to listen to his fellow representatives. Even those whose views he disagrees with.

The congressman is bringing that message to Boulder on April 30 for a talk at Naropa University.

“We have big differences in the country, but I think we can all deal with it without being unkind to the other side,” Ryan says. And while it might help mend the cross-aisle talks, it wasn’t his fellow members of Congress he had in mind when he wrote the book A Mindful Nation. He wrote it for his constituents, whom he says he has been watching suffer during his 12 years in office under the strains of a difficult economy, lack of health care and other issues. Ryan says his belief is that mainstreaming the practice of meditation could “lead to a real renaissance in America.”

Rep. Tim Ryan, with an introduction by Rep. Jared Polis, will speak at 7 p.m. Monday, April 30 at the Nalanda Events Center, Naropa University, 6287 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder. Free and open to the public.