meditationshift

meditationSHIFT: Meditation explained in 60 seconds.

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 12:20:00 +0000

This was the most popular page on the site last month, and we wanted to share it. Keep in mind the blog you are reading this post on is now archived, and you can find new weekly posts on our current blog at the link below. Thank you!

Most popular page last month:

Meditation explained in 60 seconds.

An index of posts for our current blog (the tad blog):

Blog and Social Media

new website and design (the meditationSHIFT course)

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 22:24:00 +0000

We have updated our website (as of November, 2013), and will begin publishing original content on the integrated blog. Come check it out and subscribe to receive blog posts and updates via email.

You can also:

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Meditation Reduces Loneliness and Expression of Inflammatory Genes

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 20:18:00 +0000

Using 40 adults between the ages of 55 and 85, a newly published study from UCLA scientists found that a two-month program of mindfulness-based stress reduction successfully reduced the feelings of loneliness and the expression of inflammatory genes.

Read the entire article here.

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tad now included in the meditationSHIFTcourse!

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 17:48:00 +0000

Visit our new site to learn about the meditationSHIFT course.

The course was designed to help you understand your mind and the challenges it creates, and show you how to deal with them.

Our blog is now hosted on the website, and you can find insightful articles on your mind and the struggles it causes your daily life.

Key links:

meditationSHIFT home page

the tad blog

Meditation explained in 60 seconds

14 Executives Who Swear By Meditation

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 14:02:00 +0000

Business Insider put together a list of 14 Executives who meditate. They include leaders from Salesforce.com, Panda Express, Def Jam, Green Mountain Coffee, Tupperware, and - of course - Oprah!

Read the entire article here.

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Meditation Fights Cancer and Promotes Longevity

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:55:00 +0000

"Calmly meditating produces exciting, beneficial effects on your body. It can protect your DNA against cancer-promoting genetic developments and free you from everyday stresses and distractions. That's why meditation is one of the most powerful, but often neglected, tools for maintaining optimal health."

Read the entire article here.

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noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:11:00 +0000

"The hardest thing is to be here. The mind suddenly sees itself as a prisoner. It struggles, resents, tears loose to do what it has always done, to dream, to fancy, to race aimlessly like a squirrel in a cage, to hold conversations with itself – anything to avoid the reality of here. It becomes devious and cunning; it thinks and pretends to itself that it is not thinking. And suddenly it breaks out into a warm, satisfying fantasy, and the meditation is shattered. And then mind sees itself and realizes that to simply sit and be here is perhaps the hardest thing in the world."

- Howard Fast

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Meditation Strengthens the Brain

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:13:00 +0000

Exciting research from UCLA:

"Eileen Luders, an assistant professor at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, and colleagues, have found that long-term meditators have larger amounts of gyrification ("folding" of the cortex, which may allow the brain to process information faster) than people who do not meditate. Further, a direct correlation was found between the amount of gyrification and the number of meditation years, possibly providing further proof of the brain's neuroplasticity, or ability to adapt to environmental changes."

"The cerebral cortex is the outermost layer of neural tissue. Among other functions, it plays a key role in memory, attention, thought and consciousness. Gyrification or cortical folding is the process by which the surface of the brain undergoes changes to create narrow furrows and folds called sulci and gyri. Their formation may promote and enhance neural processing. Presumably then, the more folding that occurs, the better the brain is at processing information, making decisions, forming memories and so forth."

Read the entire article here.

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Sage advice...

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:38:00 +0000

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Why you need to meditate

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:34:00 +0000

A nice write-up on various benefits; here are a few excerpts:

"Forget what you think you know about meditation: You don’t need to sit cross-legged, you don’t need to light candles and you definitely don’t need to be a Buddhist monk. All you need, according to Jeff Cannon, author of “The Simple Truth,” is a willingness to quiet your brain for a few moments.

“Most people think of meditation as having to sit for half an hour, or going away on a weekend retreat,” he says. “It’s really just a focus of the mind. You can meditate walking. You can meditate standing. Scientists have found that with as little as 15 minutes a day, your brain actually starts remapping itself. To meditate for a couple of minutes gives you stability.”

And it’s not just good for improving your mental health: Your physical wellbeing benefits from meditation, too.

“There are almost endless studies right now on lower blood pressure, ability to control anxiety. They’re using it for people with ADD, cancer patients — they’re using it for pretty much anything that stress can negatively affect. More and more in the medical community are finding that it’s an important part of healing [and] recovery. After a 10-hour brain surgery I was out of the hospital in about three days, and the doctors were stunned because I wasn’t taking any pain medication — I was going back to meditating.”"

Read the entire article here.

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Meditation takes practice but it may be just what you need

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:30:00 +0000

A good article on what meditation is and is not:

"That nagging pain in your neck, the back pain that won't go away, the gritty strain of being under constant stress—each can be a condition for a medical doctor to assess. But what if, thankfully, all appears well, except for your suspicion that those symptoms would go away if you could just change something about your life?

Meditation could be the answer. But it's important to understand what meditation isn't, says Heidi Ash, a St. Joseph-Benton Harbor, Michigan, stress management expert who helps guide people towards more healthy, less stress-filled lives. Meditation isn't dogma nor religion. It isn't psychotherapy. Nor is it feeling blissful all the time; "That's a misconception," Ash says. "It's being conscious of the self on a deeper level, a different way of looking deeper into how you view life and how that can affect your health."

"Meditation is a daily way for people to kind of reset themselves, to stop the kind of forward-driving thinking and activity that lead to daily stress," because daily stress can take a physical toll.""

Read the entire article here.

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Eat, Smoke, Meditate: Why Your Brain Cares How You Cope

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:39:00 +0000

Another article about the research discussed in the previous post.

"Most people do what they have to do to get through the day. Though this may sound dire, let’s face it, it’s the human condition. Given the number of people who are depressed or anxious, it’s not surprising that big pharma is doing as well as it is. But for millennia before we turned to government-approved drugs, humans devised clever ways of coping: Taking a walk, eating psychedelic mushrooms, breathing deeply, snorting things, praying, running, smoking, and meditating are just some of the inventive ways humans have found to deal with the unhappy rovings of their minds.

But which methods actually work?

Most people would agree that a lot of our unhappiness comes from the mind’s annoying chatter, which includes obsessions, worries, drifts from this stress to that stress, and our compulsive and exhausting need to anticipate the future. Not surprisingly, the goal of most adults is to get the mind to shut up, calm down, and chill out. For this reason, we turn to our diverse array of feel-good tools (cigarettes, deep breathing, and what have you). Some are healthier and more effective than others, and researchers are finally understanding why certain methods break the cycle and others exacerbate it.

Last year, a Harvard study confirmed that there’s a clear connection between mind wandering and unhappiness. Not only did the study find that if you’re awake, your mind is wandering almost half the time, it also found that this wandering is linked to a less happy state. (You can actually use the iPhone app used in the study to track your own happiness.) This is not surprising, since when your mind is wandering, it’s not generally to the sweet things in your life: More likely, it’s to thoughts like why your electric bill was so high, why your boss was rude to you today, or why your ex-husband is being so difficult.

Another study found that mind wandering is linked to activation of network of brain cells called the default mode network (DMN), which is active not when we’re doing high-level processing, but when we’re drifting about in “self-referential” thoughts (read: when our brain is flitting from one life-worry to the next).

Meditation is an interesting method for increasing one’s sense of happiness because not only has it stood the test of time, but it’s also been tested quite extensively in the lab. Part of the effect of mindfulness meditation is to quiet the mind by acknowledging non-judgmentally and then relinquishing (rather than obsessing about) unhappy or stress-inducing thoughts.

New research by Judson Brewer, MD, PhD and his group at Yale University has found that experienced meditators not only report less mind wandering during meditation, but actually have markedly decreased activity in their DMN. Earlier research had shown that meditators have less activity in regions governing thoughts about the self, like the medial prefrontal cortex: Brewer says that what’s likely going on in experienced meditators is that these “‘me’ centers of the brain are being deactivated.

They also found that when the brain’s “me” centers were being activated, meditators also co-activated areas important in self-monitoring and cognitive control, which may indicate that they are on the constant lookout for “me” thoughts or mind-wandering – and when their minds do wander, they bring them back to the present moment. Even better, meditators not only did this during meditation, but when not being told to do anything in particular. This suggests that they may have formed a new default mode: one that is more present-centered (and less “me”-centered), no matter what they are doing."

Read the entire article here.

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People who meditate tune out daydreams

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:39:00 +0000

"YALE (US) — People who are experienced meditators seem to switch off areas of the brain associated with daydreaming—and with psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.

Less day dreaming is associated with increased happiness levels, says Judson A. Brewer, assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University, who believes understanding how meditation works may aid investigations into a host of diseases.
“Meditation has been shown to help in variety of health problems, such as helping people quit smoking, cope with cancer, and even prevent psoriasis,” Brewer says.

For the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging scans on both experienced and novice meditators as they practiced three different meditation techniques.

Experienced meditators had decreased activity in areas of the brain called the default mode network, which has been implicated in lapses of attention and disorders such as anxiety, attention deficit, and hyperactivity disorder, and even the buildup of beta amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s disease."

Read the entire article here.

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Defining meditation

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:00:00 +0000

In The MEDITATIONSHIFT Program, and on this blog, we have provided several definitions of meditation, trying to explain it in the simplest terms possible.

A reader submitted this screen shot from a book - The Happiness Hypothesis - that provides a good definition similar to ours. The author discusses the analogy to a pill, and goes into a solid explanation of attachment and meditation's effect on them.

Click here for the entire passage.

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Short-Term Meditation Changes Brain Activity

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 01:31:00 +0000

It apparently does not take years or even months of practicing meditation to fundamentally alter neural activity. Just a few weeks can make a difference — for the better.

The shift in brain activity "was clearly evident even with a small number of subjects," said Christopher Moyer, Ph.D., one of Anderson’s coauthors at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.

"If someone is thinking about trying meditation and they were thinking, ‘It’s too big of a commitment, it’s going to take too much rigorous training before it has an effect on my mind,’ this research suggests that’s not the case." For those people, meditation might be worth a try, he said. "It can’t hurt and it might do you a lot of good."

"I think this implies that meditation is likely to create a shift in outlook toward life," Anderson said. "It has really worked for me."

Read the entire article here.

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How meditation can help your health

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 21:12:00 +0000

"As a study finds that daily meditation cuts heart attack death rates by half, we review other health benefits attributed to the practice."

This is a good article from the Telegraph that provides an overview of some of the more popular benefits, including:

- Alleviating depression
- Improving memory
- Reducing blood pressure and stroke risk
- Relieving pain
- Relaxing
- Reducing anxiety

Read the entire article here.

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Why Meditation Relieves Chronic Pain and Stress

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Mon, 23 May 2011 02:07:00 +0000

A good article on lifehacker:

"The findings suggest that those who suffer chronic pain—including stress—may benefit from meditation because of an increased ability to "turn down the volume on pain signals." If you have chronic pain or stress, mindfulness-based stress reduction or meditation may help you ease that pain."

Read the entire article here.

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noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Thu, 05 May 2011 17:49:00 +0000

A good article on meditation, with a nice mention for The MEDITATIONSHIFT Program:

Just say "om"

A few excerpts:

"Meditating means different things to different people. You can find 100s of different ways to meditate, and 100s of different definitions of what meditating is or is not. To me, the objective of meditating is simple - it allows me to see the craziness that goes on in my mind, and once I am aware of that craziness it helps me focus. It also greatly enables the process of positive thinking (see #2 above) and is proven to have a plethora of health benefits, more of which seem to be discovered every month."

"Do a Google search and you will find a lot of resources. If you don't mind spending a few dollars, I highly recommend MEDITATIONSHIFT - this is the method I use now, and I think it is the easiest to stick with and make work consistently."

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Reality and the mind

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:51:00 +0000

"Reality is constantly changing; as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, you can't step into the same river twice. Success and failure, gain and loss, comfort and discomfort — they all come and go. And you have only limited control over the changes. But you can exert some control over (and ultimately clarify) your chattering, misguided mind, which distorts your perceptions, mightily resists the way things are, and causes you extraordinary stress and suffering in the process."

- Buddhism for Dummies

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Meditate to reduce stress

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:20:00 +0000

Details on an exciting study:

Behavioural neuroscience researcher Dr Maarten Immink says ultimately the project aims to show that meditation reduces stress and that it can have physical as well as mental function benefits for people who live in higher stress situations.

"Previous research has already shown that meditation helps with attention, memory and decision making," he says.

"The general notion of meditation is not to avoid stress but to learn to deal with the stress a little bit differently. So when stress is triggered, as it is in all of us, it’s about how we respond to that, whether it’s about breathing differently or thinking in a different way. We’re hoping to show that meditation can have impacts on physical health and mental function, by evaluating differences in stress biomarkers (cortisol) and in how people handle stressful challenges."

source

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Meditation has the power to make dramatic changes in your physical and psychological health

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 18:12:00 +0000

Here are a few excerpts from a great article on the benefits of meditation:

Many people see meditation as an exotic form of daydreaming, or a quick fix for a stressed-out mind. My advice to them is, try it.

Meditation is difficult, at least to begin with. On my first attempt, instead of concentrating on my breathing and letting go of anything that came to mind, as instructed by my cheery Tibetan teacher, I got distracted by a string of troubled thoughts, then fell asleep. Apparently, this is normal for first-timers. Experienced meditators will assure you that it is worth persisting, however.

A real scientific picture of meditation is now coming together. It suggests meditation can indeed change aspects of your psychology, temperament and physical health in dramatic ways. The studies are even starting to throw light on how meditation works.

It is possible to produce substantial changes in brain function through short-term practice of meditation," says Richard Davidson, director of the Waisman Laboratory. He says data from a new unpublished study by his lab shows "demonstrable changes in brain function" in novice meditators after just two weeks of training for 30 minutes a day. "Even small amounts of practice can make a discernible difference.

source

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Quote from Thich Nhat Hanh:

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:58:00 +0000

"If you generate peacefulness in your breathing, that peacefulness penetrates your body and your state of mind. If you have practiced meditation, you have already discovered this."

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Every day starts a new year!

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:43:00 +0000

This is a great post from "The T.A.D. Principle" blog.

Every day starts a new year!

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Five Rules For Life

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 00:54:00 +0000

A great, motivational blog. They are now on twitter...make sure you follow them:

http://twitter.com/5rulesforlife

Our Five Rules can be found here.

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Why don't you do it?

noreply@blogger.com (JD) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 11:15:00 +0000

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