Jason Mraz teaches us how to relax in stressful everyday situations.

If pop music had an equivalent of the Dalai Lama, it would be Jason Mraz. When he’s not making guacamole on his avocado farm in California, he travels the world to play his easy listening tunes to the masses, spreading his pleasant, medium-tempo message of love, hope, peace and living in the moment. 

Do you want to be as chilled-out as Jason? We certainly do. 

In order to learn his secrets to inner calm and wellbeing, we gave him seven stressful everyday situations, and asked how he would respond to each one. Read below as Jason teaches us how to live an ‘easy listening’ life, just like he does. 

1. You’re in a packed tube carriage, and someone with horrible breath is breathing right in your face. What do you do?

That’s a tough one. You could hold your breath, but the loss of blood may just induce more stress - the lack of oxygen, that is. I would go into a state of mind of gratitude, where you say ‘Thank you universe for giving me this opportunity to breathe the stinky breath of this individual before me. I’m grateful that I’m on the tube today and my breath doesn’t smell as bad as this person!’

So yeah, you flip it around so you feel good about who you are and where you are.

2. You’ve been waiting patiently for a parking spot, but as the car pulls out and leaves, another vehicle darts in and steals your spot. What do you do?

You know, whenever I want to stick a middle finger up at someone in the car, I cautiously give them a peace sign and it just freaks them out because they are expecting a middle finger. So, yeah… peace, it’s a good feeling, you should do it sometime! 

3. You’re running late for an important meeting, but a friend has called crying about a crisis. What do you do?

This does happen often and in being in integrity, is acting like you have nowhere else to be. But then again if you’re not at that meeting, you’re out of integrity because you said you would be at that meeting.

You know what would be great - but not all phone systems have this - but if you could put your friend who’s crying on hold to some nice easy-listening music.

‘I hear you, I’m going to put you on hold for a little while because I have a meeting to attend to. I want you to listen to this Loggins and Messina album, listen to the words and let the gentle, easy guitar just hold you for a little while, caress you.’

4. It’s your birthday, and your partner has completely forgotten. What do you do?

That’s an easy one! To me, you’re off the hook because the receiving of gifts - or the adoration - sometimes just puts a little bit more pressure on you. If someone forgets your birthday, then you get to glide right through and give them more of a special day, I think.

Cards are nice, words are nice, but if someone were to come in here and give me another mug, I’d think ‘****, now I’ve got two mugs. Now I’ve got to give this away when the other person isn’t looking.’

5. You have a live gig in a few hours, but you’re starting to feel a flu coming on. What do you do?

There are a couple of things you could do. You could stand on your head… You get more clean blood flowing up to your upper regions.

I’m bonkers for potent mint tea… basically I go down the ayurvedic path to do my best to cut off the flu in its tracks.

And if that doesn’t work, you call the nearest rock doctor and you get a shot in your ass, asap.

6. It’s Christmas Eve. You just arrived back home when you realise you forgot all the presents you’ve bought your family. What do you do?

This I have done before as well, and in this case you make a large donation to your favourite charity and then you write cards to your whole family and say ‘As a gift, I’ve made a donation in your name to Free The Children and now this year, many more kids in the world are going to have access to drinking water and school supplies.’

7. You took a cab to the airport, but forgot your wallet and can’t pay. What do you do?

Well usually a cab can’t leave the car unattended at a curb, so you run - you run fast. Through the ‘easy listening’ filter I would say, you do your best to apologise - maybe offer a bit of song, offer an autograph even. If the guy doesn’t know who the hell you are, if that doesn’t work, you keep saying ‘I’m sorry’ as you run as fast as you can to the gate. 

So you can’t be easy listening all the time?

It’s impossible to be easy listening all the time. You can yourself remain mentally at ease, even though the rest of the world around you might be falling apart…

Life is an inside job, so you can choose to always have that music going on inside you at all times.

My Top 15 - Love Is A Four Letter Word

1. I’m Coming Over

2. In Your Hands

3. The World As I See It

4. I Won’t Give Up

5. 93 Million Miles

6. Living In the Moment

7. Everything Is Sound

8. Be Honest

9. The Woman I Love

10. The Freedom Song

12. Frank D. Fixer

13. 5/6

14. Who’s Thinking About You Know

15. Don’t Change

Guys, check out card.jasonmraz.com :)

“Love has been a continual theme through my work probably because of music. Because I love music, I love singing and I know that songs, when they’re really from the heart, they’re born out of this place of love. Just from loving life, loving others, loving your surroundings, loving who you are. So I sing from that place… and it feels so fucking good that I want to share it with others. It’s like, wow! This feeling of love! You gotta experience this too! Because it feels really good when you just really let go. So, that’s been a continual thing. Even though I’ve always felt that I’ve had access to this love within, I also wanted to get to that place where I had it so down, that I could really give it to someone else. Fully. And that’s really what this album was about for me. Getting to that place. Learning how to do that. So, I probably have music to thank for it.”

- Jason Mraz