This time, I want to share a video that delves into what people are saying about their progress of evolving by meditations – it ought probably give us a sense that meditation is a system, sure; beneficial too, yes; but also that meditating is very personally experienced.
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Meditation and the Power of the Mind – YouTube Published on May 2, 2012 A documentary that explores the practice of meditation and it’s effect on the mind and body.
So, I want to recall the most important contribution that I think I found about the truth. Meditation promotes well-being by reducing stress, depression, anxiety, blood pressure, addiction, by boosting immune systems and by improving our memory.
Forty years ago,Matthieu Ricard, a French genetic scientist left an intellectual life, moved to India and took up a study of Buddhism. He is now a western scholar of religion and he was recently claimed by brain research scientists to be the happiest man on the planet.
His daily routine of meditation made possible amazing brain scans demonstrate that if he is meditating on compassion, Ricard’s brain produces a level of gamma waves never before reported within neuroscience literature.
While his is the pinnacle of measures, you to may change your brain. You have the capacity to heal including all of your emotional confusions. If you set out to accomplish this, you can gradually increase your awareness and your inner peace by mindfulness. You can transform your brain, create new neural circuits and change the way your brain neurons more efficiently will communicate with each other.
Bloggers, readers, meditation and mindful practice is AMAZING! Astounding!
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According to Ricard …
“In the Western world, meditation means sitting under a mango tree in a blissed out state. The prevailing idea is that you have to sit down and empty your mind. It’s not that at all. You have to clean up a bit. We have so many wandering and intrusive thoughts. So you have to be in control of your own mind. Meditation means inner freedom. Inner freedom doesn’t mean following every chain of thought. It’s like a sailor who takes the helm and decides where to sail instead of drifting with the current. If you want to generate particular state of mind, you do what it takes.”
“There was a lot of activity in his left prefrontal cortex which indicates a huge capacity for happiness; this man is very unlikely to be making negative choices about his experiences,” says Neuroscientist Richard Davidson
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“Meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree but it completely changes your brain.”
The French genetic scientist left an intellectual life 40 years ago and moved to India to study Buddhism. He is now a western scholar of religion.
His daily routine of meditation made possible amazing brain scans that demonstrate that if he is meditating on compassion, Ricard’s brain produces a level of gamma waves never before reported within neuroscience literature.
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NOW, here begins the really amazing part Gamma brain wave production is associated with consciousness, attention, learning and memory. We want to train our brains to increase peace and serenity and this changes the brain — It’s like we come into unifying Loving Light… after time… the brain changes (maintenance required).
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FINDINGSHis skull was wired up with 256 sensors at the University of Wisconsin and its all been recorded — he’s got a happy and joyous mind — no doubt. Scans found excess activity in his brain’s left prefrontal cortex compared to its right counterpart, giving Ricard an abnormally large capacity for happiness.
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FINDINGSA larger volume of a specific brain structure generally increases the abilities to carry out specific functions associated with that structure. This is widely accepted based on the assumption that greater numbers of neurons will produce larger outputs and therefore may be more influential than smaller numbers of neurons.
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FINDINGS Researchers in neuroscience demonstrate that the prefrontal cortex plays a responsible role in forming of expectations based on actions and social control, predicting of outcomes, future consequences of activities, working toward goals, development of abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, abilities to determine same and different and better and best. Abilities to suppress urges that may lead to socially unacceptable outcomes are developed by this area of the brain. Meditation boosts learning ability, improves brain functioning, and reduces stress!
Even people meditating for the first time will register a decrease in beta waves, a sign that the cortex is not processing information as actively as usual. After 20 minutes there is a huge decrease in beta activity — these brains are learning to be highly focused.
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Matthieu Ricard: “Compassion is not just some high-minded flaky concept that Buddhist monks and New Age hippies bandy about, it’s a very practical way to operate in a world that is incredibly stressful for just about everyone.”
FINDINGSMindfulness meditation, one type of meditation technique, has been shown to enhance emotional awareness and psychological flexibility as well as induce well-being and emotional balance. Scientists have also begun to examine how meditation may influence brain functions. This talk will examine the effect of mindfulness meditation practice on the brain systems in which psychological functions such as attention, emotional re-activity, emotion regulation, and self-view are instantiated. We will also discuss how different forms of meditation practices are being studied using neuroscientific technologies and are being integrated into clinical practice to address symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress..
Share this one around… its time to change this world, one brain at a time… each to their own.
Let’s rid the world of social anxiety:
NOTE: Social anxiety is linked to anxiety, panic attacks, depression, psychosis (not otherwise specified), drug use, alcohol use, spontaneous violence, outbursts, character flaws, behavior problems, anger and rage; to name just a few dis-eases.
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Let’s work on it together… mindfulness is a tool for awakening mental health.
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FINDINGS Related to anxiety… this is empirical evidence… about Meditation benefits. These are FACTS: .
Personally, I am sure that practicing mindfulness meditation with some expert therapeutic guidance can speed healing of PTSD and possibly DID; maybe even NPD, BPD, and possibly even schizophrenia.
Meditation can speed recovery from grief.
It will probably heal some Anxiety NOS and episodic Depression.
Mindfulness can greatly decrease panic episodes… maybe cure it.
It can reduce Bipolar and Uni-polar disorder symptoms.
In the Western world, meditation means sitting under a mango tree in a blissed out state. The prevailing idea is that you have to sit down and empty you mind. It’s not that at all. You have to clean up a bit. We have so many wandering and intrusive thoughts. So you have to be in control of your own mind. Inner freedom doesn’t mean following every chain of thought. It’s like a sailor who takes the helm and decides where to sail instead of drifting with the current. If you want to generate particular state of mind, you do what it takes.
“Meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree but it completely changes your brain.” The French genetic scientist left an intellectual life 40 years ago and moved to India to study Buddhism. His daily routine of meditation made possible amazing brain scans that demonstrate that if he’s meditating on compassion, Ricard’s brain produces a level of gamma waves never before ever reported within neuroscience literature. NOTE: gamma brain wave production is associated with consciousness, attention, learning and memory.
His skull was wired up with 256 sensors at the University of Wisconsin and its all been recorded — he’s got a happy and joyous mind — no doubt. Scans found excess activity in his brain’s left prefrontal cortex compared to its right counterpart, giving Ricard an abnormally large capacity for happiness.
.
.
A larger volume of a specific brain structure generally increases the abilities to carry out specific functions associated with that structure. This is widely accepted based on the assumption that greater numbers of neurons will produce larger outputs and therefore may be more influential than smaller numbers of neurons.
Researchers in neuroscience demonstrate that the prefrontal cortex plays a responsible role in forming of expectations based on actions and social control, predicting of outcomes, future consequences of activities, working toward goals, development of abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, abilities to determine same and different and better and best. Abilities to suppress urges that may lead to socially unacceptable outcomes are developed by this area of the brain.
What happens in our brains if we’d consistently pray or meditate? What happens if we’d consistently meditate or pray to maintain gratitude and to seek enlightenment and for healing for ourselves and for others?
Words, such as God, have different connotations or meanings for each individual. So, first off, this post is about spiritual experiences and not necessarily about divinity. However, I am using in this post a video that focuses on prayer and its benefits. Since large numbers of people are spiritual but not theistic, I want to use a comprehensive definition of spirituality that separates spirituality from religious reference to God or to the divine. I close the article with tips on meditation that is reported to be as effective as the prayers noted in the first video. I’ve also include a pain relief technique that makes use of meditations.
Spiritual experiences are associated with a decreased focus on the self. I’ll use this as a definition for a spiritual state of mind: a non-tangible state of mind that brings profound meaning into one’s life as one transcends oneself. Use something else if you like — we can’t say spiritual is universally anything religious though. Spiritual is as much a secular term as it is a religious term.
So, if looking for profound meaning — who isn’t — we may seek a spiritual experience. BUT — how is the important question — not why. The why is obvious for most adults; we need purposeful direction so that we can find and continue in happiness.
On how we typically find that for an ongoing spiritual life of happiness, we’ll have to go a step further than following the rules of living — we’ll find that getting into the practice of finding a spiritual state of mind, we can choose to continuously recharge spiritual awareness.
Some that teach meditation call this mindfulness. Prayer or meditations are the usual method. In either case, the brain changes over time if we practice the skills.
I’ll use the power of video as an aid. In this first video presentation, CNN’s Campbell Brown and an expert panel look at the science behind prayer (substitute mindfulness).
So, now, I want to point out that there are other techniques that may cause the same beneficial brain changes. Beneficial? Certainly, the changes beneficially energize the brain as Dr. Newburg and Professor Cadge point out for Ms. Brown in the video.
I’ll demonstrate here, we can even eliminate the terms “pray” and “spirituality” for you — let’s use mindfulness (as defined later).
I found that a similar benefit is proclaimed for meditation practices. For example, a federal report demonstrates that mindfulness meditation can change your brain too. In fact, during a review of practices, a government panel reviewed 34 meditation trials with 3,000 participants. That study finds that meditation can reduce chronic and acute pain (see: Meditation Wins Government Approval For Pain Reduction).
Maybe you aren’t in pain. I suppose though that you probably know that pain is something that can consume the day. So, let’s have a look, if you will, at what mindfulness is all about. Even if you don’t suffer, this will be worth your while. This meditation practice will be applicable in all areas of your life similarly to what Dr. Newburg pointed out about prayer; and this is easy.
It turns out that attaining the skill that’s necessary to reduce pain amounts to very little training. The following video is longer. If you don’t have time just now, you can come back. I promise you that THIS IS WELL WORTH YOUR TIME.
Do you have a couple of hours to learn how to totally invigorate your body? I think so. I hope so. This is powerful. If not, take a few minutes to read over the rest of this — you can come back too. I’ll be here.
Some of you may prefer to read about the practice of mindfulness.
So did I. I found a good match too.
Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the world’s leading teachers of mindfulness and meditation. His practice of meditation is simple and isn’t at all religious. His most recent book, You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment, is a comprehensive teaching on mindfulness. You can read that. However, you can also read up on the essentials at Mindful.org.
I’ll summarize his teaching here too. Thich Nhat Hanh claims that life is available only in the here and the now, and it is our true home. He presents mindfulness (here and the now) living as a practice of five steps.
1) Mindful Breathing,
2) Concentration,
3) Awareness of Your Body,
4) Releasing Tension, and
5) Walking Meditation
His method is designed to bring your mindfulness home, into your body, to become ever more fully alive, and to perform the miracle of mindfulness — always. In my Christian training, I learned that life flows (in the moment) while I am in prayer. There are additional benefits to prayer, as we’ve seen. However, I totally respect that some of you don’t want to pray. The mindfulness meditation is a simple way to relax and re-energize. It brings more blood into the brain and it facilitates a deeply relaxed peacefulness.
Eric
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