Elle Taylor, Popsugar: Mindfulness is certainly having a moment, but it’s not a contemporary fad — it’s an ancient practice that’s been around for millennia. In simple terms, being mindful involves being in the present. It’s about focusing your awareness on the current moment, while acknowledging your thoughts, sensations, and feelings in a calm manner. It’s about connecting your body and mind and experiencing each moment fully. There are various ways to practice mindfulness, from meditating to working on colouring books, and I’ve tried a lot of them. Here’s how I’m attempting to …
benefits of meditation
How meditation can do wonders for your sex life
Lea Rose Emery, Bustle: When it comes to the link between sex and meditation, it may be something that you’re a little nervous to explore. Even growing up with parents who meditated regularly, I still have a tendency to find it really intimidating. But with all of the health benefits of meditation— from reducing anxiety to improving sleep — it seemed time to get serious about trying it. Plus all of these potential benefits have to translate into the bedroom, right?
So I spoke to Khajak Keledjian, founder and CEO of Inscape, a new meditation center in NYC, about the benefits meditation can have to your sex life. And a lot of it comes down to the mind-body connection. “Stress and anxiety increases cortisol and adrenalin levels,” Keledijian says. “Within a couple days of starting to meditate, adrenaline and cortisol levels drop. This means even if you’re having an insecure moment during sex — like wondering if your partner is distracted… your body will be less likely to automatically trigger the fight or flight response. This helps you to stay in the present moment by responding instead of reacting, and allows for intimacy to last longer and distractions to minimize.”
Considering that feeling panicky or anxious during sex is a problem for a lot of people, it seems like a great solution. But there area few different things actually going on that make it so beneficial. Here’s what you need to know.
A head start with mindfulness
Craig Hassed, Times Higher Education: Don’t dismiss the meditation technique as a fad: its well documented benefits for those in demanding careers make a strong case for teaching it at university, says Craig Hassed.
Mindfulness is a hot topic these days, but its potential importance to higher education has not yet been broadly recognized.
It can be described as a form of meditation and a way of living. It is a mental discipline that involves not only sharpening present-moment attention but also cultivating the attitude with which we pay attention: one of curiosity, acceptance, openness …
How meditation and yoga can alter the expression of our genes
Alice G. Walton, Forbes: For those who are still skeptical about whether mind-body practices like meditation, yoga, and Tai Chi actually work, a new study goes further in laying out how they affect us—right down to the level of our genes. The meta-analysis, published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology, looks back over a number of previous studies on the effects of the different practices on gene expression. It turns out that the practices all seem to have a beneficial effect on the expression of a slew of different genes …
Meditation and neuroscience: new wave of breakthroughs in research on meditative practices
Koyama Tetsuya, Nippon.com: Zen, mindfulness, and meditation in general are believed to promote psychological and physical well-being. But why? An emerging generation of neuroscientists is fast unveiling the hidden workings of meditation.
Legs in tights, extending from leotards and terminating in pointe shoes, briskly cut through the air. Instructions are called out as the dancers, faces aglow, carry their arms in delicate arcs and place their feet in deliberate motions. Leading the ballet class at a dance studio in Tokyo is a 27-year-old woman whom we will call Murano Kozue. The students would …
Here’s how to find a minute of mindfulness anywhere
Elisa Boxer, Fast Company: Everyone’s mind wanders.
Mindfulness is paying attention to what’s happening in the present moment. So if you’re aware that your mind is wandering, you’re halfway to a successful mindfulness practice.
The other half of mindfulness is gently returning your attention back to the here and now. But this doesn’t mean you have to yank your misbehaving mind back to reality. Instead, think of it as a compassionate return to consciousness. Picture a feather on the ground, lifted up by a gust of wind and then floating back down to rest …
Mindfulness in prenatal education can reduce risk of depression
Rick Nauert PhD, Psych Central: A new study shows mindfulness training that addresses fear and pain during childbirth can improve women’s childbirth experiences.
Moreover, researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the University of California, San Francisco discovered the training was associated with a reduction of depression symptoms during pregnancy and the early postpartum period.
“Fear of the unknown affects us all, and perhaps none more so than pregnant women,” says lead author Dr. Larissa Duncan, University of Wisconsin, Madison professor of human development and family studies.
“With mindfulness skills, women in our study…
What’s the difference between mindfulness and meditation?
Erin Cook, Elle Australia: With everyone from Miranda Kerr to Rachael Finch touting mindfulness and meditation as the solution to, well, everything, you can understand why we’re champing at the bit to get on board.
Although, there’s one problem: We’re not 100 per cent sure what mindfulness is. And—while we’re being honest—our understanding of meditation doesn’t extend much further than sitting on the floor, cross-legged and chanting the word ‘om’ until we run out of breath.
According to Kate Kendall, Co-Founder & Director of Yoga at Flow Athletic, mindfulness is a state of …
Just 10 minutes of meditation helps anxious people have better focus
Science Daily: Just 10 minutes of daily mindful mediation can help prevent your mind from wandering and is particularly effective if you tend to have repetitive, anxious thoughts, according to a study from the University of Waterloo.
The study, which assessed the impact of meditation with 82 participants who experience anxiety, found that developing an awareness of the present moment reduced incidents of repetitive, off-task thinking, a hallmark of anxiety.
“Our results indicate that mindfulness training may have protective effects on mind wandering for anxious individuals,” said Mengran Xu, a researcher and PhD candidate at Waterloo. “We also found that meditation …
The hottest new office perk is a quiet room
Amy X. Wang, Quartz: In a corner of Etsy’s new 200,000 sq ft (18,581 sq m) headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, there is a room meant only for breathing.
Save for the lack of furniture, “A-901: Breathing Room” appears as an ordinary conference room. It sits squarely within the rest of the office, which buzzes with the steady meetings and conversations that characterize most corporate buildings. Soft mats, for sitting, are piled to one side of the room. Digital devices are not allowed.
A few times a week, dozens of employees gather in the …