International Author, Speaker, Consultant, Thought Leader, Wisdom Keeper
Meditation for beginners. The strange thing is that when I was 15, I meditated quite a bit. I was dealing with some anger issues (mostly anger about being a teenager in a not-challenging-enough school system whose friends had started to act in inexplicable ways) and I’m not sure how I learned about it, but I had a regular practice for almost a year. Fast-forward 18 years, and I have a regular practice going again, but barely engaged in the practice in the interim. Beginning to meditate again was a challenge, and it took almost a year of knowing I should, wanting to, and planning on doing it before I finally started down the path. I’m a believer in the positive effects of meditation, because I remember them from when I was 15; I could go from the throes of an almost-hysterical freak-out to relative calm in less than 15 minutes, using breathing and visualization.
But if you’re like me and have wanted to start, but have found it to be less easy than you expected, here are some thoughts that might help. Also on MNN: The Creative Journal -- Lucia Capacchione -- HealthWorld Online. Calm.com. Meditation Found To Increase Brain Size. People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don't. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.
In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. That's intriguing because those sections of the human cortex, or thinking cap, normally get thinner as we age. "Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and well-being," says Sara Lazar, leader of the study and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. The researchers compared brain scans of 20 experienced meditators with those of 15 nonmeditators. Controlling random thoughts Slowing aging? The Meditation Tip of the Day. Daily Wisdom. MIND & EMOTIONAL HELP/HEALTH. Mindfulness with Jon Kabat-Zinn. Zite.
Blog | D. Trinidad Hunt. D. Trinidad Hunt: Leadership | Communication | IQ EQ SQ. HeartMath: A change of heart changes everything. De-stress, stress survey, well-being, stress solutions, lower stress, stress management tools, Institute of HeartMath.