Week 6 post 1

Week 6, post 1

Mindfulness

Want to Be Happier? Stay in the Moment

We want things like a big house a nice job ect. Is because we think it will bring us happiness

We haven't gotten happier even though the quality of life we have is much better

TrackYourHappiness.org

-650,000 real time reports

-over 15,000 people

-wide variation in age, income, education, and marital status

-every one of 86 occupational categories

-over 80 countries

Humans have this unique ability to let our mind go astray from the present

Maybe, to really be happy, we need to stay completely

immersed and focused on our experience in the moment.

Maybe these people are right. Maybe mind-wandering

is a bad thing.

On the other hand, when our minds wander,

they're unconstrained. We can't change the physical reality

in front of us, but we can go anywhere in our minds.

According to the data people are substantially less happy when they are mind wandering typically versus when they are focused on the task at hand

people are less happy when they're mind-wandering

no matter what they're doing

How?

a big part of the reason, is that when our minds wander,

we often think about unpleasant things, and they are

enormously less happy when they do that,

our worries, our anxieties, our regrets,

and yet even when people are thinking about something

neutral, they're still considerably less happy

than when they're not mind-wandering at all.

47 percent of the time people are thinking, they are thinking of something other than what they are currently doing

^study by Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert

there is a strong relationship between

mind-wandering now and being unhappy a short time later

The study, published in the journal NeuroImage, found that, indeed, during periods of mind-wandering, regions of the brain’s default mode network were activated

Recent behavioral research shows that practicing meditation trains various aspects of attention. Studies show that meditation training not only improves working memory and fluid intelligence, but even standardized test scores.

This might explain how it feels easier to “drop” thoughts as you become more experienced in meditation—and thus better able to focus. Thoughts become less sticky because your brain gets re-wired to be better at recognizing and disengaging from mind-wandering

a wandering mind isn’t all bad. Not only can we leverage it to build focus using FA meditation, but the capacity to project our mental stream out of the present and imagine scenarios that aren’t actually happening is hugely evolutionarily valuable, which may explain why it’s so prominent in our mental lives. These processes allow for creativity, planning, imagination, memory—capacities that are central not only to our survival, but also to the very essence of being human.

^Wendy Hasenkamp, Ph.D

Jon Kabat-Zinn, the pioneer of mindfulness research.

what Jon says about mindfulness is: “Mindfulness is the awareness that arises

by paying attention on purpose in the present moment and non-judgmentally.”

Shauna Shapiro, another leading researcher in the science of mindfulness.

Shauna says, “Mindfulness is the awareness that arises out of intentionally paying attention

in an open, kind, and discerning way.” Now notice again that ‘open,kind, and discerning’

What is Mindfulness?

By Barry Boyce Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.

Mindfulness Definitions

Mindfulness: non-judgmental, moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment.

Meditation: a wide range of practices that simply involve training the mind to achieve a particular state of consciousness, especially for relaxation.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR): learn practices such as the "body scan," in which they focus their attention along each part of the body, trying to be aware and accepting of whatever they sense in these body parts, and the "raisin meditation," where they slowly use all of their senses, one after another, to observe a raisin in great detail, from the way it feels in their hand to the way its taste bursts on the tongue

Attention: the taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what may seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thoughts…It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.

Awareness: the ability to attain insight into one's own attitudes, motives, reactions, strengths and vulnerabilities.

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn - Mindfulness = the presence of the heart

part of cultivating mindfulness is actually gratitude, appreciating things at the moment, and recognizing that-- as we say to our medical patients who come with all sorts of very challenging medical diagnoses-- we say to them, listen, as long as you're breathing, from our point of view, there's more right with you than wrong with you. You can lose everything that you have/know in an instance

We are good at thinking but it drives us crazy because we don't know how to control our thoughts.

Living life moment by moment

Where does mindfulness fit into your life experience, and how do you think increasing it might increase your happiness?

What comes to my mind when I think of mindfulness is the ability to be aware of one's surroundings and in control of ones thoughts. this awareness gives the ability to be in control and calm. It is the ability to be able to live within the moment and set aside the future/past so that you can work on your relationships in the present. I my life it is being able to accept that i have done the most that I could and that is all I can do.

Week 6 happiness practice: Mindful Breathing, Body Scan Meditation, and Loving-Kindness Meditation.

MINDFUL BREATHING

Begin by finding a relaxed, comfortable position. You could be seated on a chair or on the floor on a cushion. Keep your back upright, but not too tight. Hands resting wherever they’re comfortable. Tongue on the roof of your mouth or wherever it’s comfortable.
Notice and relax your body. Try to notice the shape of your body, its weight. Let yourself relax and become curious about your body seated here—the sensations it experiences, the touch, the connection with the floor or the chair. Relax any areas of tightness or tension. Just breathe.
Tune into your breath. Feel the natural flow of breath—in, out. You don’t need to do anything to your breath. Not long, not short, just natural. Notice where you feel your breath in your body. It might be in your abdomen. It may be in your chest or throat or in your nostrils. See if you can feel the sensations of breath, one breath at a time. When one breath ends, the next breath begins.
Now as you do this, you might notice that your mind may start to wander. You may start thinking about other things. If this happens, it is not a problem. It's very natural. Just notice that your mind has wandered. You can say “thinking” or “wandering” in your head softly. And then gently redirect your attention right back to the breathing.
Stay here for five to seven minutes. Notice your breath, in silence. From time to time, you’ll get lost in thought, then return to your breath.
After a few minutes, once again notice your body, your whole body, seated here. Let yourself relax even more deeply and then offer yourself some appreciation for doing this practice today.

BODY SCAN MEDITATION

Begin by bringing your attention into your body. You can close your eyes if that's comfortable for you
Notice your body seated wherever you're seated, feeling the weight of your body on the chair, on the floor, wherever.
Take a few deep breaths; as you take each breath, bring in more oxygen enlivening the body. As you exhale, have a sense of relaxing more deeply.
Notice your feet on the ground, notice the sensations of your feet touching the ground. The weight and pressure, vibration, or heat.
Notice your legs against the chair, or ground--pressure, pulsing, heaviness, lightness.
Notice your back--any sensation of contact with a chair, clothing, or air.

Bring your attention into your stomach area. If your stomach is tense or tight, let it soften. Take a breath.
Notice your hands. Are your hands tense or tight? See if you can allow them to soften.
Notice your arms. Feel any sensation in your arms. Let your shoulders be soft.
Observe your neck and throat. Let them be soft. Relax.
Soften your jaw. Let your face and facial muscles be soft.
Then notice your whole body present. Take one more deep breath.
Be aware of your whole body as best you can. Take a breath. And then when you’re ready, you can open your eyes.

Loving-Kindness Meditation:

Receiving Loving-Kindness: Keeping your eyes closed, think of a person close to you who loves you very much. It could be someone from the past or the present; someone still in life or who has passed; it could be a spiritual teacher or guide. Imagine that person standing on your right side, sending you their love. That person is sending you wishes for your safety, for your well-being and happiness. Now bring to mind the same person or another person who cherishes you deeply. Imagine that person standing on your left side, sending you wishes for your wellness, for your health and happiness. Feel the kindness and warmth coming to you from that person. Now imagine that you are surrounded on all sides by all the people who love you and have loved you. Picture all of your friends and loved ones surrounding you. They are standing sending you wishes for your happiness, well-being and health. Bask in the warm wishes and love coming from all sides. You are filled, and overflowing with warmth and love.
Sending Loving-Kindness to Loved Ones: Now bring your awareness back to that first person you imagined standing on your right side. Begin to send the love that you feel back to that person. You and this person are similar. Just like you, this person wishes to be happy. Send all your love and warm wishes to that person. Repeat the following phrases, silently:
May you live with ease, may you be happy, may you be free from pain.
May you live with ease, may you be happy, may you be free from pain.
May you live with ease, may you be happy, may you be free from pain.
Now focus your awareness on the person standing on your left side. Begin to direct the love within you to that person. Send all your love and warmth to that person. That person and you are alike. Just like you, that person wishes to have a good life. Repeat the following phrases, silently:
Just as I wish to, may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease and happiness.
Just as I wish to, may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease and happiness.
Just as I wish to, may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease and happiness.
Now picture another person that you love, perhaps a relative or a friend. This person, like you, wishes to have a happy life. Send warm wishes to that person. Repeat the following phrases, silently:
May your life be filled with happiness, health, and well-being.
May your life be filled with happiness, health, and well-being.
May your life be filled with happiness, health, and well-being.
Sending Loving-Kindness to Neutral People: Now think of an acquaintance, someone you don’t know very well and toward whom you do not have any particular feeling. You and this person are alike in your wish to have a good life. Send all your wishes for well-being to that person, repeating the following phrases, silently:
Just as I wish to, may you also live with ease and happiness.
Just as I wish to, may you also live with ease and happiness.
Just as I wish to, may you also live with ease and happiness.
Now bring to mind another acquaintance toward whom you feel neutral. It could be a neighbor, or a colleague, or someone else that you see around but do not know very well. Like you, this person wishes to experience joy and well-being in his or her life. Send all your good wishes to that person, repeating the following phrases, silently:
May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free from all pain.
May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free from all pain.
May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free from all pain.
Sending Loving-Kindness to All Living Beings: Now expand your awareness and picture the whole globe in front of you as a little ball. Send warm wishes to all living beings on the globe, who, like you, want to be happy:
Just as I wish to, may you live with ease, happiness, and good health.
Just as I wish to, may you live with ease, happiness, and good health.
Just as I wish to, may you live with ease, happiness, and good health.
Take a deep breath in. And breathe out. And another deep breath in and let it go. Notice the state of your mind and how you feel after this meditation.

When you’re ready you may open your eyes.

For meditation practices: Emma Seppala, Ph.D., Tara Brach, Ph.D.

state of non-judgmental awareness that we call mindfulness

Open hearts build lives- barb fredrickson -67 participants recruited from an IT company, 72 on the wait list - did 7 week loving kindness meditation course versus wait list control group.

What she finds is that

-Participants reported emotions before during and after course

-Meditators showed increase in positive emotions and life satisfaction

Margaret Kemeny and Paul Ekman and others working in San Francisco have done the ambitious

thing of teaching kind of mindfulness practices to school teachers in the San Francisco public

schools. And what they find in their Cultivating Emotional Balance program is that again sort

of a mindfulness process and training which is that in these school teachers, in the course of practicing mindfulness and emotional balance, you see drops in depression, in negative emotions, and kind of this critical self-rumination

When they study the relationships of the teachers, they find drops

in contempt and hostility. And they also find that the teachers become more mindful in a

way of other people.

. The Journal of Consulting in Clinical Psychology has just published a paper, again

a meta-analysis bringing together different studies, finding mindfulness practices don’t

bring about significant changes in satisfaction of life or happiness, but they do boost certain

positive emotions, and in particular, compassion and self-compassion.

mindfulness programs actually lead to reductions in anxiety, reductions in depression, and reduce pain as we’ve talked about. So there’s a sense that maybe it’s enhancing our responses to stress.

Mindfulness and physical being

Jon Kabat-Zinn, who in 1982 looked at how his program, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, would affect patients with chronic pain. So what he did was he had people go into a MBSR treatment condition or a waitlist condition and looked at the differences in how they rated their feelings of pain.

-65 percent of patient suffering from chronic pain showed greater than 33% reduction in their pain ratings

-50% show a reduction in pain

^ how does this happen when people do MBSR? Mindfulness facilitates an uncoupling of the sensory dimension of the pain experience from the affected/emotional/evaluative alarm reaction and reduce the experience of suffering - kabat Zinn, 1982

Jon continued his work looking at another patient population – people who were afflicted with chronic psoriasis – and what he did was offer them the opportunity to listen to mindfulness-based practice tapes and to do this at the same time that they were undergoing treatment as usual

And what he showed was that for the people who listened to the tape in addition to doing the treatment as usual there was a four-fold increase in skin clearing.

Richi davidson and jon-

they did a blood draw on tech workers to try to assess their immune, the strength of their immune system. They did a blood draw before, or in early periods of the mindfulness practice or the waitlist time period, and they did a blood draw after. And in the middle, they administered a flu shot.

-study by Emory University, spearheaded by Charles Raison, that include Thaddeus Pace, Brooke Dodson-Lavelle, and others.

What they do is they developed a mindfulness program that had a focus on compassion

What they found is that participation resulted in reduction of stress markers in blood and saliva such as interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein and it decreased feelings of anxiety and increased feelings of hopelessness

they actually presented people with stressful circumstances and were able to show that people who had done meditation or mindfulness practice, particularly the ones who had done more regular and more frequent mindfulness practice, showed the most dramatic resilience against these stressful situations and were able to recover most quickly.

Blaine Ditto at McGill University published a study in 2006 where they measured heart

rate and cardiac respiratory sinus arrhythmia –which is the way to assess vagal tone – and

blood pressure as people meditated or did a mindfulness practice, or engaged in other

relaxing activities, like just sitting there, or being read to, a really sweet or fun story.

And what they found was that when people were engaged in meditation, they were, they

exhibited or displayed significantly greater increases in vagal tone.

Another interesting place to look about the effects of meditation on the body is to look at aging. So scientists who are interested in aging tend to look at something called telomeres. Telomeres are DNA protein complexes at the end of linear chromosomes and they’re required for the complete replication of DNA and chromosome stability. So, intact telomeres protect chromosomes from nucleus degradation and fusion and cellular senescence – which basically means cellular aging and death. And an aged immune system And when you’re in that situation of having shorter telomeres, your immune system secretes more pro-inflammatory cytokines and it’s predictive of earlier cell mortality and mortality in people in general. So telomere researchers have shown that people who are chronically stressed have shorter telomeres STRESS MAKES U AGE FASTER

Shamatha study:

the mountains of Colorado to a retreat center where they participated in a three

month long residential program. And there was an active group that did the meditation

training all day long and then there was a waitlist control group. And the researchers

measured many, many, many different things from this group – their neurophysiological

signals, their emotional experiences,and included in their set of measures was a blood draw.

And from that blood draw, they measured telomeres through the concentrations of telomerase.

And what they found was that the individuals who participated in the meditation program

had longer telomeres than the individuals who were in the control group after a three-month

experience

HUMANS have a lot of neuroplasticity

certain regions of the brain seem to get more densely interconnected and more responsive after meditation and those ones seem to be areas of the brain that are involved in what we call interoceptive awareness, which is also the same area that’s implicated in empathy so so we get stronger at responses in our in our insula in response to information from the outside world

People who meditated had more grey matter

Tanya singer- meditation leads to greater activation in reward circuitry

Summary of the effects of mindfulness on the mind and brain

Improved attention, less distractible focus on the present moment
More in touch with emotions, aware of feelings, resilient, quicker to recover form stressors
Shifts in habits of thinking, toward being more prosocial, optimistic, and kind

Changing our interior environment through training the mind and heart and body in thesepractices can actually shift our levels of happiness. Even though the brain already has a set level of happiness - Shauna Shapiro

Stalking the Meditating Brain

By Tracy Picha

-“By focusing on wholesome thoughts, for example, and directing our intentions in those ways, we can potentially inﬂuence the plasticity of our brains and shape them in ways that can be beneﬁcial. That leads us to the inevitable conclusion that qualities like warm-heartedness and well-being should best be regarded as skills. They are skills that can be cultivated.”

For many meditators, talking about “the brain” seems materialistic, as if all we were was a lump of electrically charged ﬂesh; similarly, many scientists are uncomfortable talking about something as intangible as mind.

“Basic neuroscience evidence suggests that small, short periods of practice done many times in a way that can actually be sprinkled throughout the day is a really powerful way to promote enduring change in the brain,”

Study done by RICHIE DAVIDSON: Participants for the gene study came into the lab and meditated for eight hours. Blood samples were taken before and after those hours of practice and then Davidson and crew looked for gene-expression changes over the course of that time in the lab. Results from this meditator group were compared to a control group that was not familiar with meditation and that came into the laboratory for “a day of leisure.” That group watched quiet videos, read, and took gentle walks. The ﬁndings? The control-group participants didn’t show the same kind of gene-expression changes, Davidson says. It’s the ﬁrst study that shows “we can actually see gene-expression changes within a very short period of time.”

Will mindfulness disengage me from world problems?

mindful people disengaging from the world—they are incredibly rare. Actually, as we tune into ourselves, we become more able to tune into other people.

In an experimental study led by Paul Condon of Northeastern University, participants assigned to an eight-week mindfulness meditation course were surreptitiously tested afterwards on their tendency to help someone in need. While seated in a waiting room with no empty seats, participants saw a woman (actually a confederate working with the researchers) on crutches and in obvious pain come into the room and lean against a wall.

Researchers wanted to see whether the participants trained in mindfulness would be more likely to get up and offer her their seat, even though two other people seated in the room (also confederates) ignored her. What they found was that participants who’d attended the meditation class got up five times more often than those who hadn’t. In other words, the meditation course made them more likely to take compassionate action.

Will mindfulness make me less productive?

it improves focus—your ability to maintain attention on what’s going on both inside of you and in front of you.

According to Daniel Goleman, these attention skills are important for excelling at work, because focus is useful for sticking with problems, navigating relationships with colleagues, understanding your own motivations, avoiding emotional reactivity, and fostering innovation.

Research bears out the potential benefits of mindfulness in the workplace. In one 2012 study from researchers at the University of Washington, a group of human resource professionals were trained in either mindfulness meditation or relaxation skills over an eight-week period and were tested on how they handled complex multitasking. Participants who received mindfulness training remained more on task, with less task-switching, and reported better moods, than those who underwent relaxation training or were on a wait-list to receive training. This suggests that mindfulness helps us focus more efficiently on a task.

Will mindfulness meditation take up too much of my time?

Even small commitments to practicing mindfulness meditation can make a positive change in your life—you don’t need to completely rearrange your busy schedule for it.- shauna shapiro

In a 2011 study from the University of Wisconsin, non-meditators were trained in mindful attention meditation over a five-week period and tested on brain activity patterns using an EEG. Mindful meditators who practiced on average five to 16 minutes a day saw significant, positive changes in their brain patterns—patterns suggesting a greater orientation toward positive emotions and connections with others—as compared to those on a wait-list for the training.

Is mindfulness only for New Age-types (not me)?

New York Times Style Magazine by Tim Wu, mindfulness practices seem to be going mainstream. Wu writes, “Over the last decade, without much fanfare, the core tenets of Buddhism have migrated from the spiritual fringe to become widely accepted techniques for dealing with the challenges of daily life.”

Search “mindfulness research” under Google Scholar, and you get over 78,000 hits—over 21,000 from just the last four years. Mindfulness has been studied from Harvard to UCLA, from the University of Texas to the University of Wisconsin, to see if it helps with pain, immune response function, over-eating, drug addiction, pregnancy, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder. You name it, mindfulness has been tried, either to augment standard treatments or to replace them.

FIND MEDITATION THAT WORKS FOR YOU

Studies suggest mindfulness correlates with greater relationship satisfaction:

Boosts in individual well being
Increased emotion skillfulness
Enhancements in sexual satisfaction
Increased empathy
Healthier stress

Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and parenting program

Boosts positive emotions
Lowers pregnancy anxiety
Reduces symptom depression
Reduces negative emotions

there is a sense that mindfulness and calm kind of a present focus and kind of being non-judgmentally aware of what you’re doing is critical to what we call social-emotional learning

Implementing mindfulness in teachers and healthcare providers has great benefits because they work much better when they aren't stressed

can this be a tool for some of the two, over two million people who are in prison in the United States, where they’re facing enormous stress and constraints upon their living and really sort of a lack of opportunity, you might imagine, for happiness and well-being? And so there are actually investigators who have once again done the hard work of looking at prisoners who go through an MBSR program of Jon Kabat-Zinn and what you find, as you can see in this graph both pre- and post-MSBR, is reductions in anger and hostility and mood issues, both in female and male prisoners.

Mindful Kids, Peaceful Schools

By Jill Suttie

At Toluca Lake Elementary School in Los Angeles
The teachers lead the children through 45 minutes of exercises focused on breathing, listening, movement, and reflection

Later, seven-year-old Emily sums up her experience. “I like the class because it makes me calm and soft inside. It makes me feel good.”

A 2004 survey of mindfulness programs by the Garrison Institute in New York—an organization that studies and promotes mindfulness and meditation in education—showed that many schools are adopting mindfulness trainings because the techniques are easy to learn and can help children become “more responsive and less reactive, more focused and less distracted, [and] more calm and less stressed.” While mindfulness can produce internal benefits to kids, the Garrison report also found that it can create a more positive learning environment, where kids are primed to pay attention.

Mindfulness at Work

Tara Healey is the program director for Mindfulness-Based Learning at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.

1) Check your lenses

Do we see what is really there, or is what we experience ﬁltered through our own thoughts and preconceptions? Maybe we should check how we’re seeing before we try to change what we’re seeing. First, we need to make sure our lens is clear.

2) Put some space between you and your reactions

Inﬂexible patterns of perceiving inevitably prove too small, too conﬁning, for all that our minds need to encompass and accomplish. Inﬂexible patterns of reacting squeeze the life out of us. Each of us has our own pet scenarios that chafe against our expectations. When they pop up, they threaten to stir up jealousy, anger, defensiveness, mindless striving, and a stew of other possibilities. We may end up saying or doing something hurtful, something we’ll regret later and may have to apologize for. We leapt before we looked. Conversely, when we stop to examine how we typically respond to situations, we create space for more creative and ﬂexible responses. Ultimately, as we build the habit of mindfully examining our responses in the moment, mindful awareness becomes our new default mode.

Becoming aware of the impact the slight has had on you is the ﬁrst step. Separate yourself from yourself just enough to allow you to examine, free from rote reactions, how your body, emotions, and thoughts are combining to gear up for a response.By decoupling what’s happening from your reaction to what’s happening, odds are you will prevent yourself from simply being carried along by the experience and instead will prove yourself capable of getting ahead of it.

3) Pay attention to the small stuff

Consciously, conﬁdently meeting experiences, instead of being carried away by them, is a practice you can apply in all situations. It is helpful not just in emotionally charged events like the one above, but also in situations that may seem insigniﬁcant, but which could become more signiﬁcant if left unexamined.

4) Make a habit of it

For mindfulness to work at work, it helps to have both a formal practice of mindfulness and informal practices that extend mindfulness into everyday life. Formal practice involves learning a basic mindfulness meditation such as following the breath and practicing it on a regular, preferably daily, schedule. Informal practice, no less important, can literally take place any second of the day.

To Pause and Protect

By Maureen O'Hagan

On a Tuesday afternoon this spring, nearly two dozen cops from the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, ambled into foreign territory: a yoga studio. They were here for a unique course in mindfulness, one that proponents say could help transform policing.

Officers would have homework, including readings and daily mindfulness practices, and would eventually engage in a daylong silent retreat.

A few officers, like Sergeant Case, who had already taken an MBSR course from Rogers at Goerling’s suggestion, decided to go through it again. The ﬁrst time around, most of the beneﬁts she noticed were in her personal life—in particular, when trying to get back on a horse after being thrown from the bucking animal.

Goerling hopes that these 24 officers will spread the word, and that, as time goes on, the whole force (121 sworn officers and 41 professional staff) can go through Rogers’ MBSR class.

“You’re reshaping how the mind works, just like you’re reshaping the body.” Every week Rogers takes the class through a 30- to 40-minute body-scan meditation. When you get distracted, he tells them, just notice that, without judgment. Then bring your thoughts back to the body. “Each time you do that, that’s a rep,” he says. At one point in class, he ﬂexes his arm like he’s doing bicep curls. Practicing mindfulness, he says, is like building “muscle memory. It’s like doing reps.

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