The Mindful Kitchen: Try this watermelon recipe Cube or slice up a watermelon, sprinkle it with fresh lime juice, spicy red pepper flakes, and salt, let it marinate in the fridge for at least half an hour, and then toss the melon in the juices left behind. The tingle of the chili and tang of the lime add a little dazzle, while the sweet luscious fruit takes the spotlight. Nutrition Info Both watermelon flesh and seeds are packed with antioxidant benefits and vitamin C....

But how much does witnessing good affect us—and why? A new analysis of decades of research aimed to find out the answers. The results suggest that our acts of kindness and generosity, online or offline, can have meaningful ripple effects in our communities. Pay it forward Researchers synthesized results from 88 experimental studies involving over 25,000 participants to measure how much our own altruism increases after witnessing someone acting “prosocially”—for example, comforting someone who is crying, donating to charity, or acting cooperatively in a competitive game....

1. Take a Play History Drum up those old playful feelings you’ve lost over years of adulthood by taking a moment to reflect on how you played as a kid: Did you play mostly by yourself, or with friends (or furry friends)? What made you feel free, so you’d lose track of time and truly engage in the moment? Maybe you created imaginary worlds or had invisible friends or built sandcastles on the beach....

Call it a happiness or resiliency habit and it’s something that anyone can create. The fact is, we all have thoughts and behaviors in our lives that influence states of unhappiness or happiness. While the brain defaults toward paying attention to negative stimuli to keep us safe, we are active participants in our health and well-being and can nurture a happier and more resilient brain. To help us really get to the root of all the elements necessary to make happiness a practice, I did my research....

Thanks to changes in technology, the world of work now moves at an accelerated pace. We now have the ability to communicate with people across the world in seconds and to work anytime, anywhere. As a result, the line separating work and the rest of life has become increasingly blurred. We now live in a 24/7, “always on,” workplace culture. On top of all of that, most industries and businesses find themselves in a state of near constant change with increasing competitive pressures....

Tune in to the body. Our body often takes on the brunt of our stress, whether that be from clenching our jaw in frustration or pushing ourselves too hard at the gym. A body scan practice helps direct your awareness toward the parts of your body that need the most care, so you can discover relaxation and ease. Explore this brief meditation to reconnect with body and mind. Be in the moment....

Sound familiar? That’s because the brain isn’t wired to multitask, says psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman. In this video from BigThink, Goleman talks about how the brain is unable to work on parallel tasks at once, instead switching rapidly from one thing to the next. As a result, our concentration levels drop each time we attempt to come back to a task. With more distractions at your fingertips than ever before, focused attention has become “an endangered species....

Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse calls the phrase “Just Say No!” “magical thinking.” It appears that dopamine is one of the main chemicals regulating the pleasure center of the brain. At the most basic level, it regulates motivation—it sends signals to receptors in the brain saying, “This feels good!” Whether you’re a heroin addict and you see an association to heroin, you’re a caffeine addict and you see a cup of coffee, you’re a phone addict and you see another person pick up their phone, or you’re hungry and you see some good-looking food, your brain rushes with dopamine and that is now caught on brain-scanning machines....

2-Minute Mindful Movement Practice for Strengthening the Mind and Body You can do this standing movement practice anywhere: Mindful Moment: After your stretch, close your eyes for a moment, you can even take this time to sit for your practice. Notice what it feels like to be right here in your body: Notice your heartbeat Notice your chest and belly lifting a lowering Notice the sounds around you and the sounds inside of you....

Of the unemployed respondents on the survey, almost half reported their life satisfaction score below 7 out of 10. Among employed people, the figure is 20 per cent. Action for Happiness, an organization steered by researchers of well-being, noted in a statement that the statistics reveal unhappiness is pervasive across every region, profession, age, or ethnic group. Approximately 21 to 27 per cent of people scored their life satisfaction as “low” or “very low....

1. Mindfulness Mindfulness is the bedrock of breaking bias. It is the act of noticing or becoming aware of what is happening in the heart, mind, and body at the moment of contact with another person. Toni Morrison famously said, “Race is the least reliable information you can have about someone. It’s real information, but it tells you next to nothing.” Yet, even in 2020, I often get asked, “Where are you from?...

To see the full 30-minute documentary, click here. The Mindful Revolution is a student-run initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, exploring how mindfulness, positive psychology, and character development can transform the education system from the inside out—at the level of the students themselves. Their goal is to raise awareness on the implications of minding one’s internal health—emotionally, socially, and psychologically. For more about mindfulness in education, read posts “On Education” by Mindful....

Researchers at the University of Missouri randomly assigned 70 young adults to play either a violent video game (Call of Duty, Hitman, Killzone, or Grand Theft Auto) or a nonviolent video game (Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, MVP Baseball 2004, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, or Sonic Plus Mega Collection) for 25 minutes. After playing, the researchers showed participants a series of violent photos (e.g. a man holding a gun in another man’s mouth)....

Interested candidates should be prepared for extended periods away from home. MMFT is offered at military installations around the country, and a standard training cycle runs three months. There will be limited opportunities to travel home during this training. For additional criteria and information on how to apply, click here. The creator of the MMFT program, Elizabeth Stanley, was recently a speaker at the Creating a Mindful Society conference in New York....

Doing good is catching on, according to the documentary film Good Virus. Narrated by Pay It Forward author Catherine Ryan Hyde, the film examines how we spread kindness throughout the world and suggests that it may be our default state. The film includes interviews with, among others, Dacher Keltner, director of the Greater Good Science Center at University of California–Berkeley, and James Fowler, author of Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks....

Often, we make gratitude sound like it’s all about you. In the domain of self-help, we hear that gratitude is the single most important ingredient to living a successful and fulfilled life—or that when we are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears. In fact, research does support the idea that gratitude helps people who practice it. They report fewer physical symptoms of illness, more optimism, greater goal attainment, and decreased anxiety and depression, among other health benefits....

McGonigal says when it comes to New Year’s resolutions, it’s not surprising that they are often broken by the second week of January: People come up with resolutions that don’t reflect what matters most to them, and that makes them almost guaranteed to fail. Even if that behavior could be very valuable and helpful—like exercise—if you start from the point of view of thinking about what it is you don’t really want to do, it’s very hard to tap into willpower....

How could it not be true that the way many of us engage with phones while in the car is not responsible for a rising amount of death tolls and injuries? To some extent, it’s important to understand how the brain science may be working in the case of driving with the phone. The routine of checking the phone has become such a habit now that the procedure has been soft wired in our brains after thousands of repetitions....

The fourth webcast in the series features a discussion with Jeremy Hunter, PhD about his experience of teaching mindfulness methods to executives, and highlight why attention-training practices are necessary for today’s knowledge worker environment. The series is created by More Than Sound. More Than Sound publishes on mindfulness practices, leadership, and emotional intelligence. Around 21 minutes into the webinar, Mirabai and Jeremy talks about Jeremy’s article in Mindful‘s premier issue, titled “Is Mindfulness Good for Business?...