Tag Archives: meditation

Behavioral Science, Culture, Health

Zen meditation good for clearing the mind

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The seemingly nonsensical Zen practice of “thinking about not thinking” could help free the mind of distractions, new brain scans reveal.

This suggests that Zen meditation could help treat attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (so-called ADD or ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety disorder, major depression, and other disorders marked by distracting thoughts.

In the last decade, there has been a resurgence of scientific research into meditation, due in part to the full availability and increasing sophistication of brain-scanning techniques. For instance, scientists recently found that months of intense training in meditation can sharpen a person’s brain enough to help them notice details they might otherwise miss.

Behavioral Science, Culture, mental health

Zen meditation helps to cope with depression and anxiety

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Zen meditation is a ancient Buddhist tradition that dates back to your Tang Dynasty in 7th century People’s Republic of China. From the Chinese root it extended to Korea, Japan as well as other Asian countries where it continues to thrive. The Japanese expression “Zen” is actually a derivative of the Chinese term Ch’an, itself a interlingual rendition regarding the Indian term dhyana, which implies focus or meditation.

Zen meditation is a ancient Buddhist discipline which could be practiced by new and experienced meditators alike. One of the many benefits of Zen meditation is the fact that it provides insight into the way the mind works. Just like other forms of Buddhistic meditation, Zen exercise could benefit individuals in countless ways, including providing resources to simply help cope one’s depression and anxiety problems. The greatest function is spiritual, because the practice of Zen meditation reveals the inherent understanding as well as workability of the mind. In Zen, having to deal with this authentic nature of mind is experiencing awareness.

For Zen Buddhists, meditation requires monitoring and letting go all the thoughts and feelings that arise within the mindstream, as well as building insight into the nature of body and mind. Unlike numerous popular forms of meditation which focus on relaxation and stress reduction, Zen meditation delves much deeper. Zen tackles deep-seated issues and basic life concerns that often appear to lack responses, also it does so dependent on practice and pure intuition instead than study and logic. Zen/Ch’an was famously characterized because of the great Buddhistic professional Bodhidharma as “A unique transmission beyond your instruction; not founded on words and letters; directly pointing to your human heartmind; seeing nature and becoming a Buddha.

All schools of Zen practice the sitting meditation called zazen where one sits upright and follows the breath, especially the movement associated with breath inside the belly. Some schools of Zen also practice with koans, a kind of spiritual riddle this is certainly presented by a Zen meditation master to your student, to assist them to overcome their rational limitations to be able to glimpse the facts beyond rationality. A famous koan is “What could be the sound of 1 hand clapping?” Traditionally, this practice requires a supportive connection between a genuine Zen master and a genuinely dedicated student.

As opposed to offering temporary solutions to life’s problems, Zen and other kinds of Buddhist meditation look to address core issues. The practice points into the true reason for the unhappiness and dissatisfaction we’ve all experienced and shifts our focus in a way that brings about true understanding.

The real key to happiness and well-being is not wealth or fame – it lies within us. As with any other genuine spiritual paths, Buddhism teaches that the more you give to others, the more you will get. In addition encourages awareness of interconnectedness and appreciation of all of the little gifts that life offers us, all contained through this present moment. As our concern and compassion for others expands, our personal fulfillment gradually increases in sync. As a Zen master might say, if you seek inner peace you won’t have the ability to think it is, however the act of giving within the concept of such a reward in itself – and focusing instead on others’ happiness – creates the alternative for lasting peace. That is truly the spiritual dimension of Zen.

On the everyday level, Zen trains your head to accomplish calmness. Meditators can also reflect with better focus and more creativity. Improved physical health is yet another benefit: individuals who practice zazen report lower blood pressure, reduced anxiety and stress, better immune systems, more restorative sleep, and other improvements.

Behavioral Science, Culture, disease, Health

Meditation may protect your brain from aging

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As we grow older we forget our keys or usually do not remember people’s names, or solve math problems less readily once we approach middle age. This is often described as age-related cognitive decline. Years ago, scientists thought that this decline was inevitable, but extraordinary research in past times two decades has shown that the adult brain changes with experience and training throughout the lifespan-a phenomenon referred to as neuroplasticity.

Epidemiological research finds that how a brain ages relies on a number of factors including diet, physical activity, lifestyle choices, and education. The healthier and more active one’s lifestyle, a lot more likely she or he will maintain cognitive performance with time. Meditation can be a vital ingredient for ensuring mind health and maintaining good mental overall performance. Recent study suggests about how mindfulness meditation practice might help keep aging brains fit and functional.

To keep up mental acuity, it is important to keep what researchers call your neural reserve in great working order. This “reserve” refers to your brain’s mental efficiency, capacity, or perhaps flexibility. Emerging evidence implies that the consistent mental teaching that develops in mindfulness yoga can help keep that “reserve” intact. As an example, one report about the evidence linked regular meditation with positive improvements in human brain function such as heightened attention, awareness, working memory, and greater mental efficiency.

Studies are showing that daily meditation impacts both brain “states” and brain “ networks. ” Brain state schooling involves activating large-scale systems inside the brain that affect an easy number of emotional and mental processes. Experienced meditators have higher concentrations of tissue in brain regions most depleted simply by ageing, suggesting that deep breathing practice may help to attenuate mind age and drive back age-related decline.

Meditation may provide another added benefit-increased mental versatility. For some, age come with a rigidity of thoughts, feelings and opinions, together with inability to flow aided by the challenges and obstacles which can be the main tide of life. Which can be a source of stress, and potentially even illness. Since most meditation practices emphasize developing a comprehension of thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations without creating a narrative or judgment concerning the experience, mindfulness mediation can help to lessen a person’s attachment to fixed outcomes, increase mental flexibility, and add to one’s neural reserve.

Although encouraging, it is imperative that you observe that this research is with its infancy and results are mixed. For example , numerous studies have stated that older meditators outperform age-matched non-meditators, or function comparably to younger participants on a number of interest tasks. Others have shown little or no change in cognitive function following a mindfulness intervention designed for old adults, or report that improvements are not maintained as time passes.

That which we can say for certain is that long-term engagement in mindfulness meditation may enhance intellectual performance on older adults, and therefore with persistent practice, these benefits might be sustained. That’s great news to obtain the scores of aging adults trying to combat the side effects of maturing on the mental faculties.

Culture, Fitness, Health

How  to stop being frustrated by life!

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Do you get easily frustrated? At times, does that feeling quickly escalate to anger? You are not alone. You shouldn’t live with it.

Beyond improvements to your mood that is general and, taming your anger can have crucial advantages to your wellbeing. Constant anxiety and aggravation is linked to a range of problems including overeating, sleeplessness and despair, and furious outbursts increase the danger of cardiac arrest and strokes.

Despite how common it is for all people to become annoyed and aggravated — from road rage to air rage and work frustrations to parenting — One will find few solutions that are easy. Possibly we have simply accepted irritation that is outsize a part of life, or possibly easy answers are antithetical to a problem that may be ingrained.

Effortlessly getting bent out of form, also angry, appears to be one’s problem, too. It absolutely was occurring more that one could employ in moments of annoyance than one wanted and was cumulatively stressing me out, which is why, a couple of years ago, a person set a goal to come up with an easy system, based on sound psychology.

Anger “is just like a blazing flame that burns up our self-control,” the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh published.

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We all have a ‘fight or trip’ trigger. It appears to be adaptive. Some people have a more delicate one than others. Nevertheless, the good news is that people are able to almost ‘reprogram’ this by techniques like respiration and especially mindfulness meditation.” For me personally, that reprogamming had been best attained by gaining perspective.

disease, Fitness, Health

Meditation banish back pain, could this be the key for relieving pain?

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It might appear too good to be true that rest from that unpleasant back discomfort might be found in meditation and yoga. But new research suggests this process could be just like successful as cognitive behavioral treatment, a typical technique concerning meditation and education. And both might be more effective than popping an over-the-counter pain reliever.

Researchers contrasted the two techniques in 229 adults between ages 20 and 70 with long-term low back pain. They allocated about 50 % to get eight weekly periods of mindfulness-based stress reduction, regarding meditation and yoga, in addition the other half to receive eight classes of cognitive behavioral therapy, which is targeted on helping men and women change the way they think about pain. Another 113 adults continued their usual care, which regularly involved ibuprofen and other pain medications.

The experts discovered that by the end regarding the eight-week course, 47% of people into the mindfulness group said their back pain was less crippling, predicated on factors such as for instance trouble hiking and undertaking everyday activities. A equivalent amount of people, 52%, on the cognitive behavioral therapy group documented less debilitating discomfort. Each groups fared much better than the team that did not alter therapy, of whom only 35% had encountered enhancements.

The American College of Physicians and American Pain Society guidelines suggest that doctors think about the therapy, as well as other non-drug options such as acupuncture, therapeutic massage and exercise therapy, for patients with chronic low back pain.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released recommendations last week suggesting primary care physicians to prescribe therapies, such as cognitive behavioral therapy and physical therapy, and medications such as for example Tylenol before opioids for patients with chronic pain.

The key (of CBT) is wanting to help men and women reframe the way in which they believe about pain to be a thing that is terrible and certainly will destroy their life to something that can be handled with resources such as physical exercise, breathing practices and planning tasks that do not worsen the discomfort.

There has been a lot of research recommending good results for cognitive behavioral therapy in enhancing impairment and state of mind in people who have various kinds of persistent discomfort, including back, neck and shoulder discomfort, arthritis and fibromyalgia. However up until recently, there is not a lot of exploration on whether mindfulness techniques could also assist men and women with chronic pain ailments.

Even though CBT and mindfulness are extremely overlapping, mindfulness is just a slight lower about altering your personality and more about acknowledging it.

With mindfulness-based tension decrease, the key highlight is on improving understanding of emotional feeling and physical emotions such as pain, but altering the way in which someone respond and understand. On the other hand of inhaling and exhaling and preparing, the mindfulness group practice various kinds of meditation and yoga.