Ommmmmmmm! The proven benefits of meditation

It's official - meditation can physically change the brain in astonishing ways.Several studies suggest that these changes through meditation can make you happier, less stressed -- even nicer to other people. It can help you control your eating habits and even reduce chronic pain, all the while without taking prescription medication.

And if you want evidence that the brain is capable of change, check out a book titles "The brain that changes itself" - fascinating reading.

I learned transcendental meditation in college (a trendy thing at the time).  One of the hardest things to learn then was simply 'to let go'.  Imagine a Type A sitting in the half lotus position, eyes squeezed shut, brow furrowed, hissing "I'm definitely going to let go!" (that was me!) - and you realise that the idea of 'passive volition' is real easy to describe - but much harder to practice.

(I googled 'passive volition' and came across the following description of meditative states which I quite liked (and can identify with):

• phschophysiologic receptivity    (am I prepared to have this experience?)
• (meditation begins)
• boredom (!)
• distracting thoughts
• deep relaxation
• detached observation
• supraconsciousness

I recently visited the Chicago Science Museum and participated in an experiment.  I sat at a table which had a small ball bearing sitting in a groove running the length of the table.  Opposite me sat another volunteer.  We each donned a head band with electordes to measure our brain waves.  The headbands were connected to a computer which measured who was more excited or more relaxed.  The challenge was to relax - the computer would then move the ball away from the more relaxed person toward the other.  When the ball ran the length of the table to one of the opponents, the other was declared the winner.

(You know what's coming?) I simply dropped into my meditation routine and within seconds was declared the winner.  Large flat screens above our heads confirmed that as soon as I started to meditate, the brain activity fell like a stone into a relaxed state.  Q.E.D.?

Just be.

:-)

Find happiness in the job you have now.

I like the following advice:

Many people expect the right job or the right career to dramatically change their level of happiness, but happiness research makes it clear that your level of optimism and the quality of your relationships eclipse the satisfaction you gain from your job.

If you have a positive outlook, you will make the best of any job, and if you have good relationships with people, you won't depend on your job to give your life a greater sense of meaning. You'll find it in your interactions with the people you care about. Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't aspire towards a job that will make you happier; it means you should understand that the capacity of your job to make you happy is quite small in comparison to your outlook on life and your relationships with people.

John Lennon gets it right - again. . .

"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

John Lennon

Taking time to reflect

Did it ever strike you that, with our lives so busy, we never seem to have the time simply "to be"? or to reflect on the day?

I came across these 7 questions that act as a good prompt:

• What NEW THING did I learn today? What action can I take on that learning point?

• Did I do a good job today of LISTENING first? What could I have done to be a better listener?

• What mistake did I make today that could be avoided next time in a similar situation?

• How did I add value today? To whom did I add value? Looking back on the day, what value opportunity did I miss?

• Did I demonstrate love for my family today -- my spouse, my kids. What opportunity to demonstrate love did I miss?

• Did I have an opportunity to give today? What exactly did I give? How did it feel? Looking back on the day, what "gifting" opportunity did I miss?

• Did I discover anything new about myself today? What will I do with that information?

Can you think of any other really good questions to ask?

Is there a split between mind and body, and if so, which is it better to have?

Woody Allen has some good lines - and I like this wry observation questioning the split between mind and body.

In her book "Mindfulness" the Harvard professor of psychology warns about the dangers of 'dualism', the notion that mind and body are separate.  One example she cites is of a patient in a psychiatric hospital who lived on what was affectionately known as the 'hopeless ward'. Renovations forced the patient to be moved to another ward where patients typically did better and returned to the community.The patient got better.  Once the renovations were completed, the patient was returned to the old 'hopeless ward' - and died immediately afterwards from no apparent physical cause.

A fascinating study documents how patients under hypnosis were able to rid themselves of warts through thought alone; to reinforce the power of thinking, a further study demonstrated how the majority of patients instructed under hypnosis to get rid the warts on one side of their body succeeded in doing so!

Langer presents a compelling case to

• exchange unhealthy mindsets for healthy ones ("this cancer will kill me" exchanged with "my resourceful body will draw on my considerable resources of my immune system and good cells will kill the cancerous ones"), and,
• increasing a generally mindful state (a dramatic experiment demonstrates the power of mindfulness.  70+ year olds who participated in an experiment to live as they had 20 years earlier (with the mindset of 50+ year olds) showed significant improvements mentally and physically: after the experiment they were judged (independently) to look 3 years younger, their resting heart rate and blood pressure decreased, their hand strength improved, and their cognitive functions scored higher.  The conclusion: our mindsets can limit us or can liberate us.  The choice is for us to make.

Food for thought.

I'll be happy when . . . . :-(

I came across a good piece this morning on the above:

Having spent many years working with people trying to find happiness (and achieve various forms of success) I’ve discovered that one of the main obstacles to happiness is what I’ve come to call "the tyranny of when": the phenomenon we’ve all experienced at some time or other when we say to ourselves (or to others) that "I’ll be happy when...when I have more money, when I have a bigger house, when I have a better job, when I lose some weight, when I find the love of my life, when [insert pretty much anything you like in here]".

There’s nothing inherently wrong with aspiring to be and to have more, the problem for many people is that (for a variety of reasons) they never get there; and even if they do, they then think of something else that they "need" before they can really feel happy.

In recent years positive psychologists have come to refer to this as the "hedonic treadmill" which is a great metaphor likening the experience to one where we’re constantly running, as though on a treadmill chasing that carrot, and never actually getting anywhere! As a result, we don’t every really get to experience as much joy or satisfaction as we’d like but, even worse than not experiencing positive emotions like happiness, such an approach to life can actually cause us to feel frustrated, disappointed and downright miserable (how else would you feel if you frequently imagined a wonderful reward or prize but never quite got your hands on it?).

(For the theory and evidence behind this approach, check out the American academic, Professor Barbara Fredrickson, for the "broaden and build theory of positive emotions").

Remedy?

Live in the present.

Cherish what we have.

Express gratitude.

. . . after a while the same messages appear again and again.  The trick is to practice them a lttle more every day.

One voice please !

I caught up with a super talk on TED today and decided it just had to be shared:

http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_whitacre_a_virtual_choir_2_000_voices_strong.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2011-07-06&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

How could you not be happy after enjoying this?