From the Mindful.org archives: In 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other nonviolent means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and stopping the Vietnam War. Surrendered to Love: Bell hooks explains how Martin Luther King’s vision of life based on a love ethic could heal our world....

A new study published in Developmental Psychology from Pinger and her colleagues demonstrates that children who had taken the Kindness Curriculum scored higher on tests of attention and social competence than children who didn’t receive the curriculm. The curriculum, designed to help both children and teachers in the classroom, is a result of a collaboration between Lisa Flook, whose research interests include prevention and early intervention strategies to promote well-being early in life, and Pinger, who has 30 years’ teaching experience, including teaching mindfulness....

When your mind seems stuck in pinball-machine mode, it’s nearly impossible to force yourself to focus on one task. That’s when you need to gently guide it away from the romper room to a quieter, calmer den. “It’s all about refocusing your attention, calming down your nervous system, and coming back to center so you can move forward in your day,” says Ali Katz, author of One Minute to Zen: Go From Hot Mess to Mindful Mom in One Minute or Less....

How is anyone expected to achieve this? It’s hard enough to live as it is; juggling this issues of daily life, with its endless choices and unexpected twists and turns. And we expect those accustomed to living in violent, angry, depressing conditions where nearly every choice has been stripped away, to do it without fail. No wonder the recidivism rate is so high. I suppose a challenge is how to provide the necessary teachings and exercises and, furthermore, how to encourage them to study and practice....

When we returned, about half past one, no cars were in the lot and the interior seemed very dark. Still, the Open sign was lit, so hesitantly we went in. We looked around the empty room. To our left, demarcated by a short wooden divider, was a raised floor banquet area where several foot-high tables were turned up against the wall. Before us and to our right were ordinary tables and booths, made of varnished pine, not one set for dining....

As a Buddhist practitioner, I had always believed that the transformation of the mind and heart was possible for every human being. It was clear to me that these contemplative practices that I had known personally to be transformative could change health care. But only recently has scientific evidence emerged that validated these beliefs. That’s why in 2008, Stanford launched a dialogue between experts in the contemplative traditions, principally Tibetan Buddhism, and Western scientists from a variety of fields....

Like, where do our tablets, smartphones, desktops, laptops, and game consoles come from? The box? The phone store? Sigh. It’s not good, y’all. For one thing, our tech is made up of different kinds of metals that must be extracted from the earth: iron, aluminum, magnesium, copper, silver, gold, graphite, and lithium, to name just a few. That mining destroys the ecosystem of the mined area and the area around the mining area, not to mention the communities living in those areas....

A 2013 study published in Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience found that mindful attention reduces self-reported cravings in smokers, as well as reduced neural activity in the craving-related region of the brain. On smoking cessation: A study in NeuroImage in 2013 concluded that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy may be an effective treatment for reducing anxiety and mood symptoms in patients with generalized anxiety disorder. On loneliness: In 2012, a study published in Brain, Behavior and Immunity found that an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program helps decrease loneliness in older adults....

Foraging is, at its essence, about searching. Searching for herbs, berries, blossoms, and fruit for decorating or eating. Perhaps it is the search that makes this practice so intriguing in our modern world, forcing us to slow down and notice every nook and cranny as we scour the landscape for ingredients. Searching was exactly what I was doing when I left a settled life in the United States to traipse around Europe with a backpack, working on organic farms for 10 months....

Dr. Seuss has demonstrated time and time again that, when it comes to teaching abstract concepts to children, it’s okay to set the bar high. Tomorrow marks his 108th birthday and his books have informed my work in ways that I doubt he could have possibly imagined. In his unique and playful style, Dr. Seuss translated big ideas, ones that adults often struggle to grasp, into language that even young children can understand....

Rethinking Burnout The World Health Organization (WHO) defines the phenomenon of burnout as being characterized by three things: feelings of exhaustion, reduced productivity at work, and a sense of detachment from one’s job. You probably don’t need me to define burnout for you, though. We know it when we feel it. It’s the overwhelming to-do list, the mental load and physical exhaustion, and the inability to find joy in our daily lives....

A Guided Meditation to Use as a Mindful Writing Prompt read more Stephanie Domet March 21, 2022 Kelly Barron December 24, 2021 Shalini Bahl-Milne March 29, 2022

May I find healing and peace. May you find healing and peace. Let your attention rest gently in these phrases for a time, and then allow the range of your attention and compassion to expand. Sense the countless beings in this world who in this moment have their own measure of anguish, their own longings for peace and healing. Imagine yourself seated in the center of a mandala, surrounded by the innumerable beings who at this moment are hungry, bereft, afraid, or in pain....

If you’re eager to learn more about mindfulness’s growing influence across all facets of society, or are just beginning to discover the transformative power of mindfulness, you won’t want to miss seeing these videos. To register (free) to see the various conference sessions, please visit live.soundstrue.com. For more information about Creating a Mindful Society, read Maintain the momentum, which features essential articles by the conference speakers, as well as articles on the themes discussed at the gathering....

Studying Implicit Bias A tool scientists use to study unconscious biases is the Implicit Association Test (IAT), designed to measure the strength of association between concepts in memory. In this computerized test, participants are asked to categorize two sets of stimuli as fast as possible according to the instructions. To probe racial bias, one must assign Black or white faces into positive or negative categories. The idea is that if someone has an implicit bias against Black people (e....

In this video from TED-Ed, author and professor of psychology W. Keith Campbell explains narcissism is more than just a combination of vanity and selfishness found in pop psychology—it’s a set of classified and researched traits, and those who possess them can often cause real damage. “When their rosy view of themselves is challenged they can become resentful and aggressive,” Campbell says. “It’s like a disease where the sufferers feel pretty good, but the people around them suffer....