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Vancouver Sun: The practice of transcendental meditation may help children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder manage their symptoms, research suggests.

In a pilot study, researchers found that lessons in transcendental meditation, or TM, appeared to calm the anxiety of children with ADHD, and improve their behavior and ability to think and concentrate. Read more here.

Web MD: Changing bad sleep habits and clearing the mind with meditation may offer drug-free alternatives to traditional insomnia treatments. Two new studies suggest that cognitive behavioral therapy to change people’s attitudes and actions about sleep and using meditation to encourage relaxation can help insomniacs get a better night’s sleep without pills. Read more here.

USA Today: Challenges are landing fast and furious on Capitol Hill. So Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, feels he has to arrive at the top of his game every day. And Ryan says he has found a way to do that: He meditates for at least 45 minutes before leaving home. Read more here.

National Public Radio: “More than half of adult Americans report they have had a spiritual experience that changed their lives. Now, scientists from universities like Harvard, Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins are using new technologies to analyze the brains of people who claim they have touched the spiritual — from Christians who speak in tongues to Buddhist monks to people who claim to have had near-death experiences. Hear what they have discovered in this controversial field, as the science of spirituality … Click to read more »

Gloria Chadwick, author of the book and website, Zen Coffee, has written a very complimentary review of Bodhipaksa’s latest audiobook, “Still the Mind: Simple Breathing Practices for Inner Peace,” published by Sounds True.

Here’s a brief extract:

I totally loved Still the Mind. I felt as if I was listening to a very kind, gentle teacher who was speaking with me, a teacher who truly wanted to share the peace … Click to read more »

Peter Clothier, a regular columnist on the well-known news and opinion site, The Huffington Post, has reviewed Bodhipaksa’s latest audiobook, “Still the Mind: Simple Breathing Practices for Inner Peace,” published by Sounds True.

Peter writes:

Those who have taken any interest in Buddhist teachings will already know that there are many different approaches to the dharma. For those who also enjoy the listening experience there is a pleasure in store in … Click to read more »

ScienceDaily — Push-ups, crunches, gyms, personal trainers — people have many strategies for building bigger muscles and stronger bones. But what can one do to build a bigger brain? Meditate.

That’s the finding from a group of researchers at UCLA who used high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of people who meditate. In a study published in the journal NeuroImage and currently available online (by subscription), the researchers report that certain regions in the brains of long-term meditators … Click to read more »

A Buddhist prison inmate in Texas has won a lawsuit over rules for religious practice.

The prison system requires religious services to be performed by a chaplain or approved religious volunteers. Muslims were allowed to hold religious meetings, but chaplains had declined to lead Buddhist services because of lack of knowledge or because it conflicts with their own beliefs, according to Kelly Shackleford, chief counsel of Liberty Legal Institute.

A federal appeals court stands by the Buddhist inmate.

“Basically what the … Click to read more »

The Nation: “In a mid-size manufacturing company, the productivity and profitability rose steadily as the number of employees practising a particular form of meditation over the same period rose to 80 per cent of the workforce. During this period, productivity increased by 52 per cent, annual sales grew by 88 per cent and absenteeism declined by 89 per cent.” – The Academy of Management Journal. Read more here.

NaturalNews: There’s a reason “adult diapers” like Depends and costly prescription medications such as Ditropan and Detrol are multi-million dollar industries. According to the National Association for Continence (NAFC), bladder control problems afflict about 25 million Americans — and the uncontrollable leaking of urine can be such a miserable, embarrassing problem that it drives people to try not only side effect-laden drugs but even surgery. But now a new Loyola University Health System (LUHS) study shows therapy based on natural … Click to read more »

New Scientist: If you’re going to challenge the Dalai Lama to a memory game, don’t do it just after he’s meditated. New research finds that meditation boosts visual memory, but only in the short term. The findings counter the claims of some monks who say that years of practicing a meditation technique that centres on creating an elaborate mental picture of deities can offer long-lasting improvements in visual memory and processing. Read more here.

Times of India: People with severe and recurrent depression could benefit from a new form of therapy that combines ancient forms of meditation with modern cognitive behaviour therapy, early-stage research by Oxford University psychologists suggests. Read more here.

Did you know that the most popular section of our site is the Mantra Meditations? In fact, four out of the ten most-visited pages on Wildmind are on mantras?

Just a few months ago we added an extensive article on the Medicine Buddha, and today we added an article on the Bodhisattva or purification, Vajrasattva, and his 100-syllable mantra.

Vajrasattva’s name means “diamond being” and he represents the innate purity of the mind. As … Click to read more »

KSFY.com: Nearly 80 percent of people will suffer from a tension headache at some point in their life… according to the National Headache Foundation. We looked into how you can relieve the pain. Meditation and yoga…. not only are they good for your health but they help relieve regular tension headaches.

Dr. Noshir Mehta is director of the Craniofacial Pain Center at Tufts University.

He treats a lot of patients with tension headaches. “If you get stressed, the muscles tighten up. … Click to read more »

Daily Record: Rachel DeMasi was eight months pregnant and had no desire to use any medication during the birthing process. A few weeks before going into labor, DeMasi, 35, of South Amboy was introduced to the Calm Birth program by her obstetrician, Alissa Kaye, a physician at Overlook Hospital who took the classes during her own pregnancy last August. Read more here.

Yahoo News: The surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, performed together Saturday to raise money to help kids learn a meditation technique the 1960s icons practiced at the height of their fame. Read more here.

Huffington Post: Today, I had the absolute pleasure to join David Lynch, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Donovan, Mike Love and many others in joining in the visionary work of the David Lynch Foundation who are hard at work chasing the dream of bringing meditation to a million students worldwide. Read more here.

Ode: With the pressures of bills, the job or the job hunt, the practices we most need to combat stress are the most neglected. We don’t have time to exercise, to connect with friends or to meditate. But when you consider the risks of running yourself ragged – sickness, reduced energy and reduced resilience in the face of new challenges – we don’t have time to neglect personal maintenance. And although research on meditation is still scattered (studies tend to … Click to read more »

NPR: Dr. Michael Grodin discusses his experiences treating Tibetan monks who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. Many of the monks were imprisoned or tortured because of their resistance to the Chinese presence in Tibet, and now some of them experience “flashbacks” while meditating. Read more and listen here.

Scientific American: Many years ago a curious boy looked through a telescope and, on seeing the shadows in the craters of the moon, realized that he had to make a choice. His religion taught him to respect the moon as a generator of light, but science taught him that the moon reflected the sun’s rays. The subtle clarification offered by science ultimately trumped the Buddhist interpretation for Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama. Today when this political and religious leader … Click to read more »