A new study has found that participating in an eight-week meditation training program can have measurable effects on how the brain functions even when someone is not actively meditating. In their report in the November issue of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, investigators at Harvard Medical School-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston University (BU), and several other research centers also found differences in those effects based on the specific type of meditation practiced.

“The two different types of meditation training our study participants completed yielded some differences in the response of the amygdala — a part of the brain known for decades to be important for emotion — to images with emotional content,” …

When it comes to cancer, stress can be a cause and effect; reducing it is a big part of both the prevention and the treatment of illness.

Mindfulness meditation, the practice of clearing the mind through deep breathing exercises, is becoming an increasingly widespread part of healing and coping with cancer.

Dr. Miroslava Lhotsky, one of the facilitators of Mindfulness Meditation Toronto, is a physician who spent years delivering bad news to women whose mammograms had revealed breast cancer.

“You can imagine the kind of adrenaline that flows in their body …

Read the original article »

Julie Deardorff, Tribune Newspapers: Regular practice shown to decrease symptoms of stress and depression.

A simple form of mindful meditation can help breast cancer survivors stave off the symptoms of depression, new research suggests. But the potential benefits don’t stop there.

Meditation may help wipe out some of those repetitive thoughts about the past or future that can clutter the mind once treatment ends. It may also reduce loneliness and decrease the body’s inflammatory response to stress — which can trigger serious illness — according to a small study published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

“Mindfulness meditation is particularly effective in buffering …

Read the original article »

Lisa Napoli, NPR Morning Edition: A handful of executive MBA programs around the country — from Harvard to Michigan’s Ross School of Business — are teaching students Buddhist meditation techniques. It’s not necessarily about teaching spirituality, but focus. There’s no way to quantify whether learning how to be centered during a stressful business meeting is balancing the bottom lines at companies. But students say slowing down does help them be more effective.

Click on the link below to here the report (3 m 57 sec)

Buddhist Meditation: A Management Skill?

Feeling good often causes us to smile, but can smiling cause us to feel good? New research suggests it might.

Just grin and bear it! At some point, we have all probably heard or thought something like this when facing a tough situation. But is there any truth to this piece of advice? Feeling good usually makes us smile, but does it work the other way around? Can smiling actually make us feel better?

In a study forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychological scientists Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman of the University of Kansas investigate the potential benefits of smiling by looking at how different types …

Anita Bruzzese: All sorts of gizmos and gadgets can help you be more productive at work, and theories abound on how you should structure your days to get more done.

But a new study finds that becoming more focused, productive and less stressed at work may involve nothing more than learning to meditate.

David Levy, a computer scientist and professor with the Information School at the University of Washington, found that those who had meditation training were able to stay on task longer and were less distracted. Levy and his co-authors discovered that meditation also improved test subjects’ memory while easing their stress …

Read the original article »

Need to do some serious multitasking? Some training in meditation beforehand could make the work smoother and less stressful, new research from the University of Washington shows.

Work by UW Information School professors David Levy and Jacob Wobbrock suggests that meditation training can help people working with information stay on tasks longer with fewer distractions and also improves memory and reduces stress.

Their paper was published in the May edition of Proceedings of Graphics Interface.

Levy, a computer scientist, and Wobbrock, a researcher in human-computer interaction, conducted the study together with Information School doctoral candidate Marilyn Ostergren and Alfred Kaszniak, a neuropsychologist at the University of Arizona.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study …

“Rest your weary head.” The traditional saying that’s this week’s practice has been sinking in for me lately. Thoughts have been swirling around like a sandstorm about work, things I’ve been reading, household tasks, finances, concerns about people, a yard that needs mowing, loose ends, projects, etc. etc. The other day I told my wife: “I’m thinking about too many things.” Know the feeling?

By “head” I mean the cognitive aspects of experience such as planning, analyzing, obsessing, considering, worrying, making little speeches inside, going back over situations or conversations, and trying to figure things out. “Weary” means being fatigued due to continued exertion or endurance, sometimes also with a sense …

Steve Vogel: Seeking new ways to treat post-traumatic stress, the Department of Veterans Affairs is studying the use of transcendental meditation to help returning veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Veterans Affairs’ $5.9 billion system for mental-health care is under sharp criticism, particularly after the release of an inspector general’s report last month that found that the department has greatly overstated how quickly it treats veterans seeking mental-health care.

VA has a “huge investment” in mental-health care but is seeking alternatives to conventional psychiatric treatment, said W. Scott Gould, deputy secretary of veterans affairs.

“The reality is, not all individuals we see are treatable by …

Read the original article »

It’s not what you’d expect at a school: students being asked not to think!

“We are calling it a mental recess,” said Greg Graber, the head of middle school at Lausanne Collegiate School. “We really think this is going to help them, to sit and do nothing for 10-15 minutes and try to relax their minds to get distressed and unplugged.”

The Lausanne Collegiate School in East Memphis is trying a different way to get kids focused.

Starting in September, Middle schoolers 10 to 14 years old are going to get the option, of skipping recess to sit and do nothing.

“Have you ever tried meditation?” …

Read the original article »