Benefits of Mindfulness Training

According to the Huffington Post scientific research has shown the benefit of Mindfulness training in these areas:

• Lowers stress chemicals in the body
• Lets us get to know our true selves--you choose your behaviors your are less reactive
• Can make your grades better—better focus and attention
• Could help our troops—helps PTSD
• Help people with arthritis—helps with pain management
• Changes the brain in a protective way—increases emotion al hormone balance
• Works as the brain’s “volume knob”—one gains psychological perspective
• Makes music sound
• Helps even when we’re not practicing it—a generalized calm when not meditating
• Has four elements that help us in different ways—socially, mind, body, spirit
• Could help your doctor be better at his/her job—he is focused, you are calm
• Makes you a better person—your decisions are better thought out
• Could make going through cancer just a little less stressful
• Could help the elderly feel less lonely
• Could make your health care bill a little lower—strengthens the immune system
• Comes in handy during cold season-- strengthens the immune system
• Lowers depression risk among pregnant women
• Lowers depression risk among teens
• Supports your weight-loss goals
• Helps you sleep better

Mindful meditation takes many forms. Some individuals such as Christian monastics, or Buddhist monks spend years perfecting their meditations. Many of us would like a meditation recipe book---Americans love “how to” recipe books. I have been doing my own brand of meditation for years, which tended to be more like an interior monolog. This monolog became real meditation when I gave up rehashing negative emotions and experiences and chose to listen for insight. Prayer is a form of meditation. Someone once asked Mother Teresa of Calcutta what prayer she said. Mother Teresa responded she no longer said prayers---she listened to hear what God was saying.

I’m not saying we should be able to match Mother Teresa’s meditative abilities. But the choice to develop mindful meditation practice brings with it a lot of mind/body/spirit benefits just through an honest effort. Who doesn’t want the best life you can have?

The book Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, does have many step by step activities and, meditations to help you develop your mindfulness skills. You may not agree with all of the author’s philosophical insights. But the science is real, although the discussion of brain structures was at times tedious. The author has a true desire for you to know and accept that you can change your brain chemistry, emotional outlook, and physical well being for the better.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/mindfulness-meditation-benefits-health_n_3016045.html

http://www.wikihow.com/Do-Mindful-Meditation

http://www.ehow.com/how_2319093_do-mindful-meditation.html

Mind/Body/Spirit Synergy: Mindfulness

I am in the process of developing my mindfulness skills. There are various definitions for the term.  "Mindfulness as a psychological concept is the focusing of attention and awareness, based on the concept of mindfulness in Buddhist meditation." "Mindfulness helps us to stop living by reacting to pressure, freeing us from destructive mental and emotional patterns.  It changes our habitual way of reacting unhelpfully.  We learn and practice staying calm and making sound and creative choices.  To be mindful is to be in each moment and live our lives with understanding."

I finished reading Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, by Rick Hanson (2009). The book editor describes Buddha's Brain ---"a clinical psychologist and a senior neurologist explain how the brain benefits from contemplative practice and show readers how to develop greater happiness, love, and wisdom by drawing from breakthroughs in modern neuroscience."

Buddhism is not my spiritual practice but I do see great benefit from the Buddhist philosophical approach for emotional and physical well-being. Since solid research has demonstrated that mindfulness meditation does change the biochemistry of the brain, I believe we should use this knowledge to improve our emotional health. There are cultural differences between Eastern thinking and Western thinking. But often these differences are exaggerated by our own insecurities.

It is disconcerting to me when meditation practices advocate letting go of your sense of self, be impersonal---etc. As a Westerner, and from the USA, we tend to see Eastern practices as creating an overly compliant, dependent populace. (Yes this a naive, biased, stereotype but it seems to be human nature to be negatively biased about the unknown, which may actually be an evolutionary survival mechanism. Buddha’s Brain, the book, addresses topics like this.) And I am sure many Easterners view our striving for assertiveness as arrogant and aggressive. To me it seems the best place to be is living in the middle and having the ability to choose behavioral responses from either end of the continuum that enhance one’s life and well-being.

Constant aggressiveness creates a body chemistry overloaded with stress hormones, which is damaging to the body. Being overly compliant also creates an over abundance of stress hormones. Both behavior choices displaying “fight or flight” stress reaction. So perhaps we are not on opposite ends of a continuum but we are actually standing side by side—brothers and sisters under the skin.

One then sees that the best place to be is to be impersonal, let go of excessive self-interest. It is not easy; it is a mental discipline. How many of us make ourselves sick worrying over things we cannot change. Possibly we could have a positive effect if we calmed our minds to allow creative insight and intuition.

If the ego self is overly invested in controlling a situation for a specific outcome, we limit our possibilities. I am in a time of transition between being retired from a career that defined my livelihood, and my emotional sense of self-worth and self-competence and I am transitioning to ……? That blank space creates an inner tension and stress. When my ego self takes over and I worry about the future, or crave the economic stability of the past, my thinking becomes stuck, frozen.

Mindfulness meditation has helped me realize that quieting the mind puts me in touch with my own inner knowing and allows room for inspiration from the higher realms of Spirit. At the same time the body responds by cutting back on cortisol the stress hormone and releases happy, calm hormones such as dopamine and oxytocin.

It is my hope you will join me in my mindfulness adventure. I intend to post my insights and thoughts for the day. My spiritual inspiration has opened my eyes---this is part of my new life and I still have much to contribute. Best Wishes!