The study found that black people and Hispanic people were twice as likely as white people to have performed heroic deeds. Zimbardo says they want to do follow-up research on the reasons for the racial/ethnic differences, which he speculates could be attributed to “greater opportunities to respond” or “being discriminated against makes them have more compassion to others in need.” During the study, participants were asked, “Have you ever done something that other people—not necessarily you yourself—considered a heroic act or deed?...

evolve… hosts a wide range of services, including day-long introductory classes to eight-week Mindfulness-based stress reduction programs. If the regular fare doesn’t jibe with your needs, there is also an option to custom design trainings and programs. To contact evolve… organizers and sign up for their mailing list, click here. 07/18/12 [photo © flickr.com/Dell’s Official Flickr Page]

I’ve seen over and over again how doing the work to clarify what you want, and then orienting toward that vision increases your odds of achieving your goals, whatever they might be. But purpose, as a tool, is actually not a destination but a spectrum. On one side of that spectrum, purpose can be a future end to which you subordinate the present, and on the other, a present to which you subordinate the future....

So the question is: Do we actually even see the person behind our conceptions of who they are? Most of the time the answer is a resounding no. Mother Teresa said, “The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis but rather the feeling of not belonging.” We live on auto-pilot in our everyday relationships and our ability to automatically interpret the world can lead to disconnection, dis-ease, and unhappiness in life....

And the same might be true of happy people, too. According to a new study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, happy people are less influenced by social comparison—comparisons between themselves and others—when deciding who to spend time with. Like good leaders, they aren’t deterred from being around people who might seem smarter than them, and they reap the benefits of good company. In a series of studies, researchers invited Korean undergraduates to imagine they got a mediocre score on a test....

These words aren’t just the slogan of an organization—for Jasmine Marie, founder of Black Girls Breathing, they are an invitation to a community she is committed to serving. “Black women needed a space to heal the trauma that’s trapped in their body; Trauma is held,” Marie says. “That can be scary when you really learn more about how trauma impacts our daily lives. But the good thing is that we can undo that....

You know the type of non-conversation I am talking about: the really uncomfortable one, where you know what you need to say is going to be awkward and might disappoint another person. Think about it—have you ever edited a response because you felt uncomfortable revealing your thoughts concerning a certain topic? This might look like: Not sharing that you don’t agree that the redesign plan is the best choice. Going along with the excitement around a new initiative even though you have serious doubts about its viability....

One of the most common forms of sadness that all of us will experience is grief, arising from the loss of someone close to us. It’s well known by all who counsel the grieving that accommodating and healing feelings of loss is a process that can’t be rushed. It has its own clock, and the longer we were close to someone, the longer that time is likely to be. Meditation can be helpful because when we get used to spending time with our own minds and not trying to rush things, we become more patient....

So, assuming many of us agree that forgiving ourselves and learning from past mistakes is important for our health and well-being, the next question is how do we actually go about forgiving ourselves? Know that you are not the first or the last One of the first things to do is understand that you are not the first person who has made this mistake; it has likely been made thousands if not millions of times before you by other people....

These mini-disasters create quite a startle in your nervous system—a rush of adrenaline that helps ready your body for “fight or flight,” our natural defense against perceived danger. But if your body is hit with adrenaline for every little thing that goes wrong in life, it can tax your capacity to cope, making recovery from future setbacks like these even more difficult. Luckily, it’s possible to strengthen your own body-based somatic intelligence to quickly respond to and recover from any sense of threat to your safety or well-being....

Vacations and Meditation Change How Our Bodies Function Researchers from Harvard Medical School, the University of California, San Francisco, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai wanted to measure the biological effects of a good old fashioned vacation compared to a meditation retreat. They conducted a study about the short and long-term effects of taking a 6-day resort vacation (“vacation effect”) vs. attending a 6-day retreat with meditation, yoga and self-reflection exercises (“meditation effect”)....

Like mindfulness itself, kindness is a natural human quality that requires intentional action to realize it’s potential. And like mindfulness, research shows that kindness is good for our physical and our emotional well-being. Studies show that thinking about, observing or practicing a kind act stimulates that vagus nerve, which literally warms up the heart and may be closely connected to the brain’s receptor networks for oxytocin, the soothing hormone involved in maternal bonding....

One way to find a wise response is through understanding that difficult emotions like anger, fear, shame, and grief almost always involve a mix of conceptual and somatic (bodily felt) elements. The conceptual part involves the particulars of the situation that is giving rise to the emotions: its “storyline.” The somatic element is the way in which we experience the emotion in our bodies. If we are angry with someone, for example, there is the storyline of what they said or did that triggered our anger—That was unfair / What they said is wrong / They should know better!...

If you work in an open office, you may need to be creative to find a quiet place to practice. Many people have told me that they’re best able to do this practice by leaving their office and finding an empty conference room, or even leaving the building to sit in their car during part of their lunch break. The “desk chair” part need not be taken literally. This meditation can be done anywhere you are able to sit quietly and practice—be it the staff room, a park bench, or even an airplane seat....

Here at Mindful, we’ve been chronicling Richard Davidson’s research on the neuroscience of meditation. If you want to get a sense of the scope of Davidson’s research and the breadth of meditation’s benefits, you might want to check out our infographic: “This Neuroscientist Proves How Well-Being Can Actually Change the Brain.” (Editor’s note: We had a lot of fun turning Davidson’s 87-page curriculum vitae into an at-a-glance view of his research areas....

For the new study, Grant and Rainville exposed 13 Zen masters and 13 comparable non-practitioners to equal degrees of painful heat while measuring their brain activity in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. The meditators reported feeling less pain than the control group. In fact, the meditating group reported feelings of pain at levels below what their neurological output from the fMRI indicated. In other words, their brains were receiving pain signals, but they weren’t translating them into actual feelings of pain....

1) A 7-minute mindfulness practice to shift out of “doing” mode Noticing self-perpetuating thought patterns is a core mindfulness skill. Take a moment to examine how it feels to disengage from a busy mind and shift into “being” mode with this practice from Zindel Segal, co-founder of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). 2) A 15-minute guided mindfulness meditation: Investigating difficulty Sometimes our experience is painful and difficult. And there may be little or nothing we can do about the arising of the pain or difficulty....

Speaking with Mindful back in June 2013, Ryan admitted that attaching his reputation to mindfulness might have a downside, but how seeing the science and support from other major organizations put things into perspective for him: “I probably should worry,” he admits, but adds that he has the backing of “the Marines, science, Google, and Phil Jackson—the coach who won the most NBA championships.” The congressman senses an “openness now that wasn’t there five years ago, because everybody feels overwhelming stress in their lives and they don’t know what to do about it....