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In this TED radio hour podcast, Amishi Jha, a neuroscientist whose research focuses on attention, working memory, and mindfulness, says multitasking can harm people’s ability to focus. “Deciding to pick up your phone to see who just texted you, or looking at that website just because you wanted to see if you want to buy those new pair of shoes, whatever it is, it’s pulling your attention away, and now you have to expend even more capacity to get it back on track,” Jha explains....
The project is one of the first long-term, detailed, matched control-group studies of the effects of intensive meditation training on mind and body. The research team measured telomerase activity in participants at the end of a three-month intensive meditation retreat. Telomerase activity was about one-third higher in the white blood cells of participants who had completed the retreat than in a matched group of controls. The enzyme can rebuild and lengthen telomeres, sequences of DNA at the end of chromosomes that tend to get shorter every time a cell divides....
Read More Christine Carter November 17, 2014 Daniel Goleman August 24, 2017
Barry Boyce: The main mission of the Centre for Mindfulness Studies could be summed up as mindfulness for mental health. Would that be fair to say? Patricia Rockman: Absolutely, that would be fair to say. Barry Boyce: Mindfulness means a lot of things to a lot of people these days, since it’s become so popular. Why is mindfulness for mental health particularly important in your view? Patricia Rockman: Well, I think for a few reasons....
That’s because one size does not fit all when it comes to our response to conflict, betrayal, and other relationship challenges. Our upbringing, life experiences, and our natural disposition all shape the way we respond to difficult situations. In this video from The School of Life, author and philosopher Alain de Botton explores the three common signs of emotional immaturity, and how we can learn to see our more immature reactions for what they are—unexplored areas of necessary emotional development....
The study was published this month in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Arizona, Boston University, the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies and Emory University studied participants in an eight-week meditation training program. Three weeks after completing the program, participants brains were scanned. Researchers found changes to the amygdala brain region—the same effects on emotional processing uncovered by past studies, the difference in this new study being that participants were not meditating at the time of the brain scan....
Two new studies from Yale and Harvard Universities and MIT shed some light on the question, finding that mindfulness may reduce emotional reactivity in the brain as well as improving mental health and academic success for middle-school students. Mindfulness Boosts Emotional Well-Being in Teens In the first study of its kind, MIT researchers showed that mindfulness training may alter brain functioning linked to emotional processing in sixth-grade students. Published in Behavioral Neuroscience, the study included a subset of about 40 middle schoolers who participated in a trial comparing the effects of eight weeks of either daily mindfulness training or “coding” instruction....
“So what’s it like, being in the waiting room, while he’s in here with me?” The question caught me off guard. I had logged a lot of hours in waiting rooms by this time, on a quest to help my young child manage his anxiety. No doctor had ever asked me such a thing, or even how I was doing. I stammered through a pat answer: I felt fine. He was in good hands....
Easing Teen Angst Scientists from Germany and the UK recently found that 3 to 6 months of daily mindfulness-based training may buffer against long-term physiological and psychological stress. They randomly assigned 277 healthy adults with no meditation experience to either a 3-ora 9-month mindfulness group, or a control group. Both mindfulness groups were then divided into smaller training subgroups. Participants in the 3-month group received 13 weeks of exercises focusing on compassion, loving-kindness, and gratitude....
I suppose the seeds of my decision to give up money – not just cash but any form of monetary credit – were sown seven years ago, in my final semester of a business and economics degree in Ireland, when I stumbled upon a DVD about Gandhi. He said we should “be the change we want to see in the world”. Trouble was, I hadn’t the faintest idea what change I wanted to be back then....
My trick with parsnips is to use them as a flavor enhancer, not as a sole ingredient. They’re deceptively sweet and flavorful, so a little bit can go a long way. Add one or two to a stew to infuse it with a bite of the unexpected; spread a few throughout a pan of roasted potatoes, turnips, and carrots for a hint of sweet in the savory. For my parsnip and carrot soup recipe, I use equal parts of the two vegetables, along with a balance of other sweet and savory ingredients like orange and apple, and onion and garlic....
Present-moment awareness involves monitoring and attending to current experience rather than predicting future events or dwelling on the past. Studies show that an individual’s disposition toward remaining in the present moment is linked to numerous health benefits including lower levels of perceived stress, anxiety and depression, improved mood, and a sense of improved well-being. How we cope with stressors can also determine their impact. Strategies like ignoring or denying them (what experts call avoidance coping), or distracting ourselves, which may be effective short-term, can also undermine our health and happiness in the long run....
The last decade has seen a huge spike in secular applications of mindfulness, the practice of focusing our attention on our thoughts, feelings, and environment in the present moment. While the first wave of mindfulness-based programs were for adults, more recent efforts have targeted the well-being of children and adolescents; as a result, mindfulness programs in schools are becoming more and more widespread. But until recently, “enthusiasm for promoting such practices [outweighed] the current evidence supporting them,” to quote a 2012 review of the research on mindfulness practices with children and youth....
Has your outlook on life changed in the last couple of years? “Sometimes I think about change as it relates to habit. Experiencing change keeps me present and awake. Habit is like a lullaby that puts me to sleep. Practicing mindfulness helps me to stay present and experience whatever change is happening in the moment, without the urge to push it away or hold on too tight.”—@debbienutleyauthor “Definitely. Small joys mean so much more....
