meditation for anxiety

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A new Swiss study reports that a form of meditation known as mindfulness may help patients with multiple sclerosis.
Patients with MS — a nervous system disease that typically surfaces in early adulthood and can cause muscle weakness, coordination/balance problems and thinking and memory problems, among other symptoms — often suffer from depression and anxiety.

The study compared multiple sclerosis patients who meditated to MS patients who didn’t. Dr. Moses Rodriguez, a professor of neurology and immunology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who’s familiar with the study’s findings, said meditation is safe and cheaper than the drugs that MS patients …

How meditation can help with “choking”

September 30, 2010

A star golfer misses a critical putt; a brilliant student fails to ace a test; a savvy salesperson blows a key presentation. Each of these people has suffered the same bump in mental processing: They have just choked under pressure.

It’s tempting to dismiss such failures as “just nerves.” But to University of Chicago psychologist Sian Beilock, they are preventable results of information logjams in the brain. By studying how the brain works when we are doing our best — and when we choke — Beilock has formulated practical ideas about how to overcome performance lapses at critical moments.

Beilock’s research is the basis of her new book, Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting it Right When You Have To, published Sept. 21 by Simon and Schuster, Free Press.

“Choking is suboptimal performance, not just poor performance. It’s a performance that is inferior to what you can do and have done in the past and occurs when you feel pressure to get everything right,” said Beilock, an associate professor in psychology.

Fear of failure

Some of the most spectacular and memorable moments of choking occur in sports when the whole world is watching. Many remember golfer Greg Norman’s choke at the 1996 U.S. Masters. Norman had played brilliantly for the first three days of the tournament, taking a huge lead. But on the final day, his performance took a dive, and he ended the Masters five shots out of first place.

Choking in such cases happens when the polished programs executed by the brains of extremely accomplished athletes go awry. In Choke, Beilock recounts famous examples of these malfunctions in the context of brain science to tell the story of why people choke and what can be done to alleviate it.

Thinking too much about what you are doing, because you are worried about losing the lead (as in Norman’s case) or worrying about failing in general, can lead to “paralysis by analysis.” In a nutshell, paralysis by analysis occurs when people try to control every aspect of what they are doing in an attempt to ensure success. Unfortunately, this increased control can backfire, disrupting what was once a fluid, flawless performance.

“My research team and I have found that highly skilled golfers are more likely to hole a simple 3-foot putt when we give them the tools to stop analyzing their shot, to stop thinking,” Beilock said. “Highly practiced putts run better when you don’t try to control every aspect of performance.”

Even a simple trick of singing helps prevent portions of the brain that might interfere with performance from taking over, Beilock’s research shows. Whistling can help at work. “If the tasks are automatic and you have done them a thousand times in the past, a mild distraction such as whistling can help them run off more smoothly under pressure.”

Conforming to stereotypes

The brain also can work to sabotage performance in ways other than paralysis by analysis. For instance, pressure-filled situations can deplete a part of the brain’s processing power known as working memory, which is critical to many everyday activities.

Beilock’s work has shown the importance of working memory in helping people perform their best, in academics and in business. Working memory is lodged in the prefrontal cortex and is a sort of mental scratch pad that is temporary storage for information relevant to the task at hand, whether that task is doing a math problem at the board or responding to tough, on-the-spot questions from a client. Talented people often have the most working memory, but when worries creep up, the working memory they normally use to succeed becomes overburdened. People lose the brain power necessary to excel.

One example is the phenomenon of “stereotype threat.” This is when otherwise talented people don’t perform up to their abilities because they are worried about confirming popular cultural myths that contend, for instance, that boys and girls naturally perform differently in math or that a person’s race determines his or her test performance.

In Choke, Beilock describes research demonstrating that high-achieving people underperform when they are worried about confirming a stereotype about the racial group or gender to which they belong. These worries deplete the working memory necessary for success. The perceptions take hold early in schooling and can be either reinforced or abolished by powerful role models.

In one study, researchers gave standardized tests to black and white students, both before and after President Obama was elected. Black test takers performed worse than white test takers before the election. Immediately after Obama’s election, however, blacks’ performance improved so much that their scores were nearly equal with whites. When black students can overcome the worries brought on by stereotypes, because they see someone like President Obama who directly counters myths about racial variation in intelligence, their performance improves.

Beilock and her colleagues also have shown that when first-grade girls believe that boys are better than girls at math, they perform more poorly on math tests. One big source of this belief? The girls’ female teachers. It turns out that elementary school teachers are often highly anxious about their own math abilities, and this anxiety is modeled from teacher to student. When the teachers serve as positive role models in math, their male and female students perform equally well.

Meditation and practice can help

Even when a student is not a member of a stereotyped group, tests can be challenging for the brightest people, who can clutch if anxiety taps out their mental resources. In that instance, relaxation techniques can help.

In tests in her lab, Beilock and her research team gave people with no meditation experience 10 minutes of meditation training before they took a high-stakes test. Students with meditation preparation scored 87, or B+, versus the 82 or B- score of those without meditation training. This difference in performance occurred despite the fact that all students were of equal ability.

Stress can undermine performance in the world of business, where competition for sales, giving high-stakes presentations or even meeting your boss in the elevator are occasions when choking can squander opportunities.

Practice helps people navigate through these tosses on life’s ocean. But, more importantly, practicing under stress — even a moderate amount — helps a person feel comfortable when they find themselves standing in the line of fire, Beilock said. The experience of having dealt with stress makes those situations seem like old hat. The goal is to close the gap between practice and performance.

A person also can overcome anxiety by thinking about what to say, not what not to say, said Beilock, who added that staying positive is always a good idea.

“Think about the journey, not the outcome,” Beilock advised. “Remind yourself that you have the background to succeed and that you are in control of the situation. This can be the confidence boost you need to ace your pitch or to succeed in other ways when facing life’s challenges.”

When meditation seems impossible

September 26, 2010

Mandy Sutter

on practice

My partner goes for a run and comes back looking despondent. ‘I struggled all the way round,’ he says. ‘It was as if I’d never run before.’ He has run several times a week for 3 years now.

‘I know how you feel,’ I say. I’m not thinking about running, though, but meditation. I’ve been meditating for some years now, but when I sit down sometimes it feels impossible. My head itches and the items on my ‘to-do’ list compete for attention. There are odd bodily sensations that could be illnesses in the making. And if all else fails, there’s my good old tinnitus.

Chinese meditation technique boosts brain function

August 19, 2010

A Chinese-influenced meditation technique appears to help the brain regulate behavior after as little as 11 hours of practice, according to a study released Monday.

Researchers at the University of Oregon and Dalian University of Technology charted the effects of integrative body-mind training (IBMT), a technique adapted in the 1990s from traditional Chinese medicine and practiced by thousands in China.

The research to be published in the upcoming issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences involved 45 test subjects, about half of whom received IBMT, while a control group received relaxation training.

Imaging tests showed a greater number of connections in the anterior cingulate — the part of the brain which regulates emotion and behavior — among those who practiced meditation compared to subjects in the control group.

“The importance of our findings relates to the ability to make structural changes in a brain network related to self-regulation,” said The University of Oregon’s Michael Posner, a lead author on the study.

“The pathway that has the largest change due to IBMT is one that previously was shown to relate to individual differences in the person’s ability to regulate conflict,” he said.

Deficits in activation of the anterior cingulate cortex also have been associated with attention deficit disorder, dementia, depression, schizophrenia and many other disorders.

And researchers said the experimental group also showed lower levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue than students in the control group.

“We believe this new finding is of interest to the fields of education, health and neuroscience, as well as for the general public,” said Dalian University’s Yi-Yuan Tang, who led the team of Chinese researchers.

IBMT emphasizes body-mind awareness using breathing techniques and mental imagery to achieve a state of “restful alertness.”

Scientists hypothesized that the changes resulted from a reorganization of white-matter tracts or by an increase of myelin that surrounds the connections.

The researchers said the findings suggest that IBMT can be used as a vehicle for understanding how training influences brain plasticity.

[via AFP]

Meditation for overcoming trauma

May 31, 2010

Award winning mental health blogger Seaneen Molloy sets out on a quest to meet people who have a different take on working with emotional distress. This month, Seaneen meets Valerie Mason-John, a writer and anger management coach who advocates ‘mindfulness’ practice for mental wellbeing.

With my feet firmly in the 21st century, I see Buddhism as something belonging to the past – irrelevant to the modern world, except perhaps to the most laid-back of hippies. As for meditation, I can’t even imagine assuming the lotus position, and humming, “Ommm…” without wanting to guffaw!

Mindfulness is said to encourage a calm awareness of, and connection to, the body and the world around us. Its practice has been used to help people suffering from depression, personality disorders, anxiety and eating disorders. I want to know if the techniques can help me, so I visit the London Buddhist Centre and meet experienced meditation teacher Valerie Mason-John.

She’s nothing like I imagined a Buddhist to be – casually dressed and with an authoritative, yet easy manner. But Valerie’s life wasn’t always so calm. She spent her childhood between an abusive home life and social care. It was a traumatic time and by her twenties she was living in the “fast lane”, clubbing and taking recreational drugs.

I ask Valerie how she made the transformation to ordained Buddhist. She says “I used to laugh at people who went on retreats and meditated. But in my late twenties, I knew I needed a change.”

Valerie recalls, “Transcendental meditation was a profound experience and after a month, I thought the world had changed. But I was changing and becoming more compassionate”.

I reflect that a lot of people with mental health problems often take anger out on themselves. But, I ask Valerie, does it always need to be destructive?

“Anger is an energy, but when we hold on to it it becomes this toxic luggage we carry”, she says, adding “mindfulness of anger allows us to be creative and constructive with it instead. When we become angry we lose mindfulness and the body sends us warnings. We need to be aware of our bodies to read these signs and realise the need to pause. Mindfulness gives us an opportunity to do something different.”

Seeing how peaceful and calm Valerie is, I can’t help but feel a bit jealous. This morning, I ate my breakfast while being beeped at by buses on the Holloway Road. Stress, for me, is a kicker into illness, but even Valerie’s story doesn’t make me want to go on a retreat to learn how to deal with it.

I want to see for myself how effective meditation is, so I ask Valerie to guide me through an exercise in body awareness. She stresses the importance of the sitting position. “You don’t have to sit in the lotus position”, she reassures me. Given that I’m short and relatively unbendy, I content myself with straddling a few cushions.

I’m self-conscious and have trouble sitting properly – I’m too tense. “Think of your body as an elastic band”, she advises. “You don’t want to be too taut, or too loose – you need that energy, and tension”.

I finally manage to get comfortable, and close my eyes. Under her hypnotically gentle instruction, I silently count one, then two, then three, breathing in and out, all the way to ten and back again. This is called mindfulness of the breath and I find it difficult not to respond to her voice. Occasionally she reminds me to, “explore quietness” – this isn’t something I’m used to doing.
I sit for a few minutes in silence, breathing in and out. Finally, Valerie tells me that if I’m ready, I can open my eyes. I do so, and it takes a moment for me to adjust to the room, even with its ambient, unthreatening lighting. I feel as though I’ve been asleep.

On my way out, I pass through the peaceful garden of the Buddhist Centre. I find myself back on the busy main road, feeling, if not transformed, then a little bit lighter. Part of me wants to rush home, to get back to work, but another part of me thinks, “What’s the hurry?”.

So I stop at a cafe, smile at the waitress and drink a cup of tea outside in the drizzle, leaving my laptop languishing in my bag. I feel like, oh dear, a bit of a hippy! The things that normally bother me, the roar of cars and the rain, don’t seem quite so important. I look at some of the leaflets I picked up and realise that I don’t need to be a Buddhist to meditate. It may not be a cure, but I did feel happier, if only for an hour.

About Valerie Mason-John
Valerie (also known as Queenie) won Mind Book of the Year award for her debut novel, The Banana Kid (previously entitled Borrowed Bodies). Besides being an ordained member of the Western Buddhist Order, she’s published a self-help book, Detox Your Heart which consists of meditation guides interspersed with her own personal stories.

Visit Valerie Mason-John’s personal blog explores issues around meditation, anger and identity.

[via BBC “Ouch!”]

Do you stress out about taking downtime?

May 8, 2010

The Germans have always been good at coming up with words for those emotions we all feel but don’t have a name for: schadenfreude, for example, or angst. “Freizeitstresse” is the latest, a term that literally translates as “free-time stress”.

Millions of us, apparently, worry about whether we spend our spare time wisely. A consequence of feeling that we have so little of it is that we agonise over what we do with our precious, unscheduled hours. Do you feel that you have to achieve something even in your leisure time? On holiday, does simply doing nothing make you feel uncomfortable and twitchy? Have you ever spoilt your Saturday afternoon by worrying about whether you should be doing something imaginative with the kids or at a yoga class by yourself while you’re pounding the supermarket aisles? Freizeitstresse could be your problem.

“Figures show that about 75 per cent of people are incapable of relaxing; even on holiday they experience high levels of stress and feel more overburdened than anything else,” says Professor Doctor Henning Allmer, a psychologist and expert in freizeitstresse at the German Sport University Cologne. “One of the reasons for this is because people take too much on. In Germany, at least, the idea of doing nothing has negative connotations. A ‘nichtstuer’ (a do-nothing) is a derogatory term. So there are people who fill their free time with a very busy schedule.”

Some people cannot switch off; they have to be constantly in touch with work because they need to be needed. Others, Professor Allmer says, store up all the things they might like or need to do in their free time for the weekend, “which means there is a massive imbalance between expectations and what is achievable”.

How you deal with free-time stress depends, he says, on your personality. Rather than dividing your life into work and leisure time, you can create a better balance, he says, by dividing your time into two thirds work/achievement, one third recovery. “Those who do not make time to recover build up a recovery debt, if you like — they will need more and more time in the future to recover from work.”

Cary Cooper, the Distinguished Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University, and an expert on stress, says: “The key lies in doing something you want to do in your free time instead of what you are expected to do.”

So what are the signs that you are suffering from freizeitstresse — and what can you do about it?

Whenever you have some time off, you fall ill
Freizeitstresse can manifest itself in psychosomatic form, which is diagnosed as “leisure sickness”. Increasing numbers of us seem to suffer from it. When eventually we get around to taking a few days off, suddenly we develop a choking sore throat or severe cold symptoms. The Dutch psychologists who identified leisure sickness, Ad Vingerhoets and Maaike van Huijgevoort, claim that about 3 per cent of the population suffer from it every weekend.

You don’t like to spend time on your own
There are some people, Professor Allmer says, who feel defined by their work and when they close the door behind them on a Friday evening “fall into a sort of hole where they don’t know what to do with themselves”. They don’t know how to connect with their families and can spend the whole weekend longing for Monday, when they will have something “important” to do again. If this is you, Professor Allmer warns that such a situation ‘implies a state of exhaustion’. Therapy may be your best solution.

Whatever you do on your ‘to do’ list, you feel you should do something else
Come the weekend, there’s such a number of things to do — chores, childcare, seeing friends, catching up with work, keeping fit — that whatever you’re doing, you are likely to feel that you’re doing the wrong thing.

“One of the problems people have is the huge choice of activities,” says Professor Allmer. “People want to try new things, perhaps indiscriminately, if only to tell their friends about it. There is a temptation to say you’ve done a lot on the weekend, there’s a fear of missing out. It is socially unacceptable to say ‘I’m bored’ or ‘I’ve been doing nothing’. The key is to step back and think “what’s important to me?”

You feel anxious if your diary is fully booked for the next two weeks, and if it’s empty
“Everyone needs to feel important,” says Professor Cooper. “And what makes a lot of people feel important is having a packed diary. By the same token, they feel unimportant if it’s empty. But if your diary’s stuffed solid, then you’ve got your priorities wrong.” You need, he says, to work out what in your diary is vital, and what are just “ad-ons to make you feel needed”. He adds: “You have to make spaces in your diary for your family, your friends — but make sure that you’ve left some thinking space in there too.

You think your life would be better if you knew how to make jam
You spend a lot of time reading about the latest crazes — for example, quilting and chutney-making — and you love recipe books by celebrity chefs, but despite good intentions you never get round to making anything yourself. You’re too ambitious about your free time and packing your weekend with self-improving hobbies.

We’re overloaded with opportunities, with things we’d like to do, so we end up not doing anything. Plus, we’re all exhausted. So just pick one thing, Professor Cooper says. “Choose the option that has the most benefit and least costs associated with it [for example, you might need to buy equipment for jam-making]. Then make the space in your week and stick to it.”

You beat yourself up about answering e-mails on holiday
On a weekend away you ban the BlackBerry because you think your free time must be sacred. But you’d feel much better if you just looked at your e-mails once or twice a day. According to Professor Cooper, the UK has the longest working hours in the developed world (we’ve recently overtaken the United States). We are in an age of non-stop electronic communication so it is natural that some people can’t switch off completely.

“If you don’t answer those e-mails, you’re going to worry about them, and although you’ll be there physically by the pool you won’t be ‘present’,” Professor Cooper says. “Make a contract with yourself and then promise that you won’t answer any more. You just have to be flexible.”

Deep down you know that you don’t really like going on holiday
A survey by American Express revealed that 40 per cent of British holidaymakers claimed that a visit to the dentist was less stressful than having a break. “First, you nearly always have to factor in someone else’s wishes — your family’s, your partner’s — so what you do is nearly always a compromise,” Professor Cooper says. “Second, your expectation is that you should go somewhere exotic, even though what you actually need is rest and your trip will involve three airports. It’s only worth putting up with all the hassle — the flights, the delays, the insurance — if you’re going somewhere you want to visit. Why do you want to have a holiday that meets peer group expectations rather than yours? Next year just go to Scotland, if that’s what you want.”

[via Times Online]

Mindfully navigating through overwhelm

April 19, 2010

Sunada Takagi

on practice

I have to confess, I’m a busy-holic. I’m often balancing at the knife-edge of being TOO busy. But everything I do is important to me, and I don’t want to give anything up. Recently, I started taking a different perspective, which is really helping me cut through the crap. Here’s what I’m doing differently.

There’s always something I want to do. I’m not only self-employed, I love my work and I’m eager to keep learning and growing personally and professionally. I’m constantly doing things with and for my Buddhist sangha. And I sing with my a cappella group, the Silk Tones. My calendar is always very full.

I know many of us feel oppressed by all the things we have on our plates … slowing down doesn’t seem like a viable option for many of us.

Yes, I’m happy with everything I do, but the sword cuts two ways. And recently I’ve gotten TOO busy. I knew I was in trouble when I was starting to lose the pleasure in singing. I found myself squeezing in my practice times at night when I was really too tired, and cramming music into my head just to get the damned thing memorized and done with. A lot of things were starting to feel dry and lifeless. I was starting to feel like that hamster on a wheel – churning from one thing on my to-do list to the next.

I bet you can relate. I know many of us feel oppressed at times by all the things we have on our plates. Maybe you don’t see a whole lot of choice. Maybe you need to work full time to earn a living to support your family, and maybe you have aging parents to care for, too. Whatever your circumstances, slowing down doesn’t seem like a viable option for many of us.

Knowing that feeling overwhelmed is a state of mind, I kept going back to that classic verse from the Dhammapada:

Experiences are preceded by mind, led by mind, and produced by mind. If one speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows even as the cartwheel follows the hoof of the ox … If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows like a shadow that never departs.

I knew it was me that had created my own unsatisfactory situation, so what could I do to change it? If I’m not willing to cut back, then how could I take the negativity out of the picture? What might a pure mind look like?

Here’s the key thing I’ve started doing differently. I shifted my perspective. I stopped thinking of time as a scarce resource that there’s never enough of — which kept me trapped in a “never enough” state of mind. Instead, I started seeing it as vehicle for expressing myself in the world. It’s my way of giving the best of myself. How I spend my time tells the world who I am and what I think is valuable. It’s not an easy shift, but it’s starting to bring more spaciousness into my days. And that’s priceless.

Every Monday morning, I now set aside about 30 minutes with a blank sheet of paper, away from my computer and “stuff,” to get a big picture view of what I’d like my week to look like.

In practical terms, this is what I do differently. Every Monday morning, I now set aside about 30 minutes with a blank sheet of paper, away from my computer and “stuff,” to get a big picture view of what I’d like my week to look like. How can I use my time this week to reflect the kind of person I want to be?

My focus isn’t on what needs to get done, but on ME, and what it would feel like to take my stand about what’s important to me this week. That includes taking good care of myself. Thinking this way obviously doesn’t do anything toward getting through my list faster. And that’s probably a good thing. Instead, it forces me to take a hard look at my priorities. If I spend my whole week on “stuff I should do,” I’m telling the world that I’m OK with letting others tell me what to do. Well, that’s not OK by me anymore!

Once I have that perspective in mind, then I go into the explicit list-making and prioritizing of my to-do list. Starting this way helps me to go about it with more clarity and sense of purpose. It keeps me more grounded and present, less likely to fly off into a race to get to the next thing. I’m also finding that I don’t cram as much in. Instead, I feel satisfied with an intuitive sense of what’s “enough” for each day and week, because it’s not about reaching for some elusive time when everything gets done (which of course never happens). It’s really about finding intrinsic satisfaction in everything I do.

Starting this way helps me to go about it with more clarity and sense of purpose. It keeps me more grounded and present, less likely to fly off into a race to get to the next thing.

Don’t get me wrong. We all have things we gotta do that we really don’t want to. I’m not saying we should chuck them out the window. What I mean is that everything we do is ultimately our own choice. I don’t particularly enjoy housecleaning, for example, but it’s still my choice to do it. It’s important to me to live in a clean, clutter-free, aesthetically pleasing home because it helps keep my mind in a similar state. So rather than resenting having to clean and getting through it as fast as possible, I do it while being mindful that I DO feel better when the kitchen counters are spotless. And I stay mindfully present and appreciate that feeling while I clean.

During the week as I work my way through the list, I try not to think in terms of “getting things done.” True, it’s unavoidable to some extent. But I try to stay mindful of why I chose to do each thing, and why it’s important to me. I end up doing things with more enjoyment and care. It takes the harried feeling out of the day. And when those inevitable interruptions and disasters happen, well, I’m still in touch with my larger intentions and can make a thoughtful choice on the spot. It’s like an improvisation. The interruption can become a part of my intentions. Or not, if it doesn’t fit. It’s my choice.

I stopped thinking of time as a scarce resource that there’s never enough of. Instead, I started seeing it as a vehicle for expressing myself in the world.

Sure, there are still times when I end up feeling a bit overwhelmed. After all, I did say I’m a busy-holic with a perpetually full calendar. But at least I recognize more quickly when things are out of balance, and then take time out to rejuggle things. I’ve also noticed that by being more present to what I’m doing (and not in a tight, self-referential, and task-focused state of mind) it leaves room for other unexpected possibilities to open up. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how often a possible solution to an intractable problem suddenly comes out of nowhere. I’ve lost count of how many times a chance meeting with someone points me to exactly what I need, for example.

I’m aware that some of you might be in situations that feel impossibly busy and unsustainable. Maybe following this approach just doesn’t cut it. Even so, I really do think the Buddha was right — we do create our worlds with our thoughts. We really do have a choice. Do you really HAVE TO do all the things you say you do? Do you really want to keep telling the world that everyone else’s demands are more important than your own well-being?

I urge you to take a more thoughtful stand and tell the world who you really are. I think you might be pleasantly surprised by what happens.

Meditation techniques effective for pain relief

March 16, 2010

Meditation has analgesic benefits associated with creating a relaxed state of mind and enhancing the ability to moderate reactions to pain, according to new research published in The Journal of Pain, the peer review publication of the American Pain Society.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina measured pain ratings in students interested in learning meditation who recruited for the study. Subjects were trained in meditation for three consecutive days and were given experimental pain stimuli.

Results of the trial showed that relaxed states promoted by the brief mindfulness meditation sessions reduced the reported pain ratings. Participants had less pain to both low and high pain intensities and showed significant reductions in anxiety after each meditation stimulation. The authors concluded that decreases in anxiety and increases in the ability to sustain personal focus can attenuate the feeling of pain.

In assessing their findings, the authors noted that the analgesic effects of meditation can be realized even after a short period of time learning the technique. Also, the results provide additional validation of the benefits of cognitive techniques for controlling pain. [via The American Pain Society]

The business of meditation

March 14, 2010