10 Ways Mindfulness and Meditation Promote Well-Being

Most of us tend to go through our daily routines in a similar manner every day. We are so used to this daily rhythm, to the point where our actions can become automatic – we can go through a whole day in that robotic fashion, following the same fixed orders our brain sends us. But shouldn’t you be the one in control of your mind rather than vice versa?

A good way to regain that control is by practicing mindfulness. This technique originates in Buddhism, and it started gaining popularity in the west by the late 1970s when it was incorporated in medical practices and mental health treatments. Nowadays, mindfulness programs are applied in schools, hospitals and even prisons around the world. 

 Ten Ways Mindfulness and Meditation Promote Well-Being by Bergland

1. Enhance Brain Performance
2. Promote Creative Thinking
3. Alleviate stress
4. Curtail anxiety
5. Increase Compassion
6. Decrease Likelihood of depression
7. Minimize chronic pain
8. Lower Risk of Heart Attack or Stroke
9. Help Cancer Recovery
10. Relieve Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

1. Enhance Brain Performance

A coalition of researchers from Norway and Australia recently found that nondirective meditation activates the default mode network and areas associated with memory retrieval which enhances brain performance.

2. Promote Creative Thinking

A 2014 study from Leiden University in the Netherlands found that certain meditation techniques can promote creative thinking as marked by convergent vs. divergent thinking, even if someone has never meditated before. The findings were published in the journal Mindfulness.

3. Alleviate Stress

A 2012 study from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Boston University (BU) found that participating in an 8-week meditation training program had positive effects on how the amygdala responded to stress—even when someone is not actively meditating. Their findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

4. Curtail Anxiety

A 2014 study from Johns Hopkins Medicine found that 30 minutes of meditation daily could improve symptoms of anxiety, as well as, depression. The findings were published in the online journal JAMA Internal Medicine. 

5. Increase Compassion

A 2013 study from Northeastern University College of Science and Harvard University examined the impact of meditation on interpersonal harmony and compassion. The researchers found that meditation made people more willing to act compassionately and to help another person in need who was suffering—even when doing so went against peer pressure.

6. Decrease Likelihood of Depression

A 2013 study in Belgium schools found that mindfulness had the ability to reduce the likelihood of depression-related symptoms in adolescents. The results showed that mindfulness can lead to a decrease in symptoms associated with depression and may also protect against the future development of depression-like symptoms.

7. Minimize Chronic Pain

A February 2015 study by the American Pain Society found that meditation can be an effective treatment for reducing chronic neck pain. The authors concluded that meditation has unique benefits for producing pain relief and for pain coping.

8. Lower Risk of Heart Attack or Stroke

In 2012 the American Heart Association reported that a group of people who practiced Transcendental Meditation regularly were 48 percent less likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or to die from either of these causes.

Participants who practiced meditation also lowered their blood pressure and reported less anger and stress. The more regularly someone meditated, the greater their outcomes. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Meditation could dramatically reduce the number of people who die from heart attacks and stroke each year. 

9. Help Cancer Recovery

A 2011 study from University of Missouri-Columbia found that breast cancer survivors' health improved after they learned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a type of mindfulness training that incorporates meditation, yoga, and physical awareness. 

A 2014 study from the University of Montreal found that mindfulness-based meditation could lessen some symptoms associated with cancer in teens. The researchers found that teenagers that participated in the mindfulness group were less depressed and that mindfulness was helpful in improving mood and sleep in teenagers with cancer.

10. Relieve Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

A 2013 study by the University of Michigan Health System found that mindfulness exercises that included: meditation, stretching, and acceptance of thoughts and emotions helped veterans with combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) relieve their symptoms.

More specifically, the researchers found that veterans with PTSD who completed an 8-week mindfulness-based group treatment plan showed a significant reduction in symptoms when compared to patients who underwent traditional treatments. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) combines cognitive therapy with a meditative approach of mindfulness that emphasizes an increased awareness of all your thoughts and emotions.

Conclusion: Specific Types of Mindfulness-Meditation Have Specific Benefits

There are an endless variety of ways to meditate and practice mindfulness. This compilation of studies illustrates that specific types of mindfulness-meditation seem to have specific benefits.
Fine-tuning which type of mindfulness or meditation someone uses as a prescriptive to treat a specific need will most likely be the next big advance in the public health revolution of mindfulness and meditation.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     
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Kids become better problem solvers when reminded of their multiple roles

Parents wanting their kids to become good problem solvers and develop flexible thinking, should remind their little ones of the many roles they play - brother, sister, neighbour, daughter!

A new study brings out the fact that children become better problem-solvers if they are reminded of their roles as a son, friend, brother, to name a few.

"This is some of the first research on reminding kids about their multi-faceted selves. Such reminders boost their problem-solving skills and how flexibly they see their social worlds, all from a simple mindset switch," said the lead author.

Once kids are told about their identities, they also show flexible thinking about matters pertaining to race, or even other social groupings.

In a series of experiments, researchers looked at 196 children, ages 6 and 7 who were all native English speakers. In one experiment, the first group of children was reminded they have various identities, such as son, daughter, reader or helper. The second group of children was reminded of their multiple physical attributes (such as a mouth, arms and legs).

In another experiment, one group of children was again reminded they have various identities. A second set of children received similar prompts but about other children's many roles, not their own.

All the children then tackled a series of tasks. Children who were reminded of their various identities demonstrated stronger problem-solving and creative thinking skills.

For instance, when they were shown pictures of a bear gazing at a honey-filled beehive high up in a tree, these children had more creative ideas for how the bear might get the honey, such as flipping over a bowl so that it becomes a stool. In other words, they saw a new use for the bowl.

Children who were reminded of their multiple roles also showed more flexible thinking about social groupings. When asked to categorize different photos of faces, they suggested many ways to do so.

For instance, they identified smiling faces vs. unsmiling ones, and old vs. young faces. The other children, however, primarily grouped people's faces by race and gender.

Because these findings suggest simple ways to promote flexible, inclusive thinking for the young, they could be especially valuable for teachers.

The author said, "When we remind kids that they have various identities, they think beyond our society's default categories, and remember that there are many other groups in addition to race and gender."

"It opens their horizons to be a little more inclusive," the author opined.

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Why Getting Distracted Isn't a Bad Thing

Alexander Graham Bell was never a fan of multitasking. He felt that true creativity comes from a single-minded concentration on the issue under consideration and that any other thoughts would only take you further away from your goal.

 

Psychological research, until recently, seemed to agree with him, showing that we’re more efficient and accurate when we keep our minds firmly on track. However, a couple of eye-catching new studies have called this assumption into question, at least when it comes to the kind of creative tasks that were so close to Bell’s heart. When you’re trying to come up with new ideas, a sharp focus might actually backfire and a distraction of some sort could actually increase your chances of finding a novel solution to your problem.

  This is because our minds often become stuck in a rut, meaning that we spend far too much time concentrating on the first ideas we thought of, rather than coming up with some truly novel solutions. This phenomenon is known as cognitive fixation, and many psychologists now consider it to be the principle barrier to true creativity.

 

To find out whether multitasking can actually help people break out of a rut, a team of researchers used a common laboratory test of creativity. The participants in this study had to think of as many uses as possible for a common object, such as a kitchen bowl, within a fixed amount of time.

The participants then had to find alternative uses for a brick and a toothpick. The only difference was that some were asked to do so in blocks, listing all the uses for a brick first before listing all the uses of a toothpick, while others were asked to alternate between the two.

According to Bell’s opinion that immersed concentration is better for creativity, you’d expect that the first group would have performed better, but this wasn’t the case. While they might have believed that they were on a roll, the reality was that without the breaks afforded by the continual task switching, their progress was limited.

From the sheer number of ideas that they produced to the perceived novelty of their ideas, the multitaskers performed much better.
For more evidence, the team next looked at a test of convergent thinking, in which you’re given three words and you have to think of a common linking word. This test is meant to measure your ability to find the associations between apparently unconnected concepts, and unlike the previous task, you’re looking for a single answer that comes in a single flash of insight.

Once again, some of the participants were asked to consider two problems simultaneously, by switching their attention between the two, while others were asked to look at them in sequence. The end results were even more striking than the team’s first experiment, with 51% of the multi-taskers solving both problems compared to just 14% who looked at them sequentially.  

 

Perhaps the biggest benefits can be found in group brainstorms – something that we’ve all been involved in at one time or another – which often involve a lot of talking and not much innovation.

The problem is that besides facing the cognitive fixation of each individual member, the group as a whole becomes distracted by one person’s idea rather than considering the ideas of others. This means that teams working together often produce fewer ideas that individuals who are working independently. “There are a lot of findings showing that working as a group is not very efficient, and even a tiny improvement would have a big impact,” says another researcher.

By working with colleagues, the researcher has shown that forcing groups of students to multitask (by switching between two problems) can break those dynamics, leading to more creative solutions to questions about the ways to improve the campus, including potential ideas to increase the students’ physical activity or measures to increase access for disabled people. Importantly, the benefits seemed to grow over time, so the longer the brainstorming was, the more advantageous it was to switch between tasks.

It doesn’t need too much thinking to see how you might put these findings to immediate use. If you’re struggling to think of a title for your project or the name of a new product, you might have been tempted to devoting a fixed amount of time to thinking about it. However, this research would suggest that you’d be better off keeping a notepad next to your computer and jotting down new solutions while working on other tasks.

At its simplest, this research might just be another excuse to take a much-needed break. When you’re working on tasks that would benefit from creative thinking, take regular breaks to refresh your approach.

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.                                                                                                                                                                                                        PS- THOSE INTERESTED IN RECIPES ARE FREE TO  VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                                           https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/  

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