AnnaZumi

Laughter: Good Medicine

2011-08-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

Have a Good Laugh!!With all the news we face these days, it's more important now, than ever!

Exercise - Laughter is a form of mild exercise. It fills the lungs with oxygen similar to aerobic exercise, and it exercises the abdominal muscles.
Stress reduction - When stress and anxiety are reduced, you relax and take life less seriously.
Blood pressure - gets lower.
Moods - Laughter is often used for depression or anger. You can’t feel depressed and happy at the same time.
Relaxation - Your body automatically relaxes when you laugh out loud. Laughing eases muscle tension and reduces psychological stress.
Immune system - Laughter boosts your immune system’s function. It increases your health and well-being.

Laughter therapy and laughter yoga are being used widely to help people who are under great stress--learn to laugh again.

Read more, here: http://www.stressaffect.com/importance-of-laughter.html

Some people have turned Laughter Yoga into Laughter Meditation.

“The reason why they say laughter is the best medicine is because quite honestly it is,” said Yoga instructor Chris Belanger, based in Warwick, R.I. “In no particular order, what happens when we laugh is we are giving ourselves an internal massage, moving around, waking organs up, giving digestion track and immune system a little boost, toning muscles and losing stress.”

Belanger said laughter meditation is a technique he adapted from an established practice created in India in 1995 called “laughter yoga.”

Belanger, who is mainly a Karipalu yoga instructor, said he first tried laughter yoga three years ago.
“I thought that laughter would be a powerful thing to add to my yoga offerings,” Belanger said. “It’s a compassionate approach to yoga, it’s an opening approach to yoga based on some of the being in the moment and meditating. It’s more about working with breath and responding to your experience.”

Belanger said that after he found out about laughter yoga he was invited to give a lesson at a wellness center near his house. However, the room was small and there wasn’t enough room for everyone to have standing space, so he adapted the laughter yoga to a sitting position and dubbed it laughter meditation.

Since then, Belanger has brought laughter meditation to senior centers, wellness expos and women’s events. He says that practitioners are encouraged to focus on the breathing pattern that is inherent in laughter.

“They’ll be laughing, whether it’s real or fake,” Belanger said. “I guide people into laughter. Because laughter is contagious hopefully the laughter becomes genuine. If it doesn’t, the mind knows the difference but the body doesn’t. Even fake laughing the entire time still produces the physical benefits of laughter.

Belanger said that the laughter meditation has produced striking results, with some people feeling that it melted arthritis pain away, while others felt like it eased depression for about five to six hours.

“People with anxiety have it melt away for a period of time,” he said. “You name it, I’ve probably seen it.”
Ethel Fraga, a church member at St. Thomas Episcopal, invited Belanger to hold the workshop.

“We are trying to develop a program series on things like meditation and mindfulness,” said Fraga, who once saw Belanger teach in Rhode Island. “I found him so good. Laughter cuts through a lot of stuff. I urge people to come out with an open mind and have a little bit of fun with it. Just give it a try. There is nothing bad that can happen from laughing.”

Fraga said that “the world could use it now” with a troubled economy, wars and politics, adding that everybody needs “a few chuckles.”

Laughter yoga was founded by Madan Kataria, a doctor in India, who convinced people in 1995 at a park to laugh to feel good, just to see what would happen. While it was difficult to generate authentic laughter over the weeks, he came back to the park with the idea of “intentional laughter,” or just going through the motions of laughter without having to react to a joke or something funny.

Belanger said that there are now over 6,000 laughter yoga clubs over world and that laughter yoga is practiced in at least 65 counties.Read more: http://www.tauntongazette.com/archive/x1852611000/Laughter-is-the-best-medicine#ixzz1UpOKfmtW

Taking Risks

2011-05-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.marylandberg.com/pages/fear.html

If you aren't trying something a little scary, then you probably aren't doing something important because

"Fear means go!"

I found that mantra on twitter by someone who was inspired by Mary Landberg's poem of that name. Read or listen to it, maybe it'll inspire you, too. http://www.marylandberg.com/pages/fear.html.

Fear means taking risks.

Here is an article from Golf Digest that has advice we can apply to other parts of our life, if they exist, besides golf.

10 Rules On Being A Savvy Risk-Taker
By Arnold Palmer With Guy Yocom AP Photo March 2011

This risky shot led to a triple bogey and a playoff loss in the 1963 U.S. Open.

Listen to an exclusive podcast in which Arnie talks about his game, the best players he ever saw, his father, his friendship with President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the things that stir him most emotionally still.golfdigest.com/go/palmerpodcast. free on iTunes.

1. Measure risk against reward.

When I drove the first green at Cherry Hills in the final round of the 1960 U.S. Open, many people thought it was a risky, heroic effort. I didn't see it that way at all. It's a narrow hole with a creek running along the right side, but I figured even if I drove into the water, I still could get up and down for par. The reward--a sure birdie and possibly an eagle--outweighed the risk. The easy birdie I made got me started on my 65 and a career-defining U.S. Open victory.
Always measure worst-case scenarios with the best that can happen, and have a biased eye toward the best.

2. Think twice before reaching deep.
When Jack Nicklaus came on the scene in the early '60s, he could really boom the ball. When I played with him, the urge to keep my drives up with his was irresistible, and the results weren't always the best. Swinging all-out is good; swinging beyond all-out usually leads to disaster.

3. Bold putting isn't risky.
The most important thing in putting is getting the ball to the hole. Or should I say, past the hole. In my prime, if I didn't make a putt, you could bet it was going by the hole. When you continually come up short, you open yourself up to risk because you've stopped moving the putter with authority. Before you know it, this will eat away at your confidence on the greens. You have to give the ball a chance to drop, every time.

4. Don't compound mistakes.
My losing a seven-stroke lead to Billy Casper on the back nine of the 1966 U.S. Open at Olympic resulted largely from Bill shooting a 32 on that nine. But I didn't play well, and if there's one shot I wish I could have over, it would be my second on the par-5 16th hole. After driving into thick rough, I chose to hit a 3-iron instead of playing out to the fairway. The shot went all of 75 yards, and I wound up with a costly bogey and eventually lost the championship to Bill. The lesson: Don't compound mistakes by trying a shot you most likely can't pull off on your recovery.

5. A low ball means a lower risk.
I can still remember my father's directive for playing iron shots: "Hit the ball on a line, at the hole." I always tended to hit my irons fairly low and straight, without much fade or draw. On the whole it's a good way to play for a few reasons. First, low balls are less affected by the wind. Second, the swing that produces a low shot is usually a bit steeper, meaning you can get the club on the ball on less-than-perfect lies. And third, you usually hit it nice and solid.

6. Don't try shots you haven't practiced.
In the 18-hole playoff for the 1963 U.S. Open at The Country Club, on the 11th hole my ball came to rest in a rotted tree stump about two feet tall. I thought long and hard before deciding to play from that stump instead of taking an unplayable lie. What a mistake that was. It took me three swings to get the ball out (see photo at right), and I wound up making a triple bogey and eventually lost to Julius Boros by six strokes. It's one of the shots in my career where I wish I'd had a mulligan. The mistake was trying to hit a type of shot I'd never practiced (not that there are many tree stumps around to practice from). Uncertainty amplifies risk and breeds mistakes.

7. Be true to yourself.
I've been asked many times if Phil Mickelson is too aggressive, and my answer has always been a firm "no." There's an element of risk with many of the shots Phil plays, but he has been rewarded more times than he's been penalized. Moreover, being too cautious could make Phil play defensively, which in turn invites mental lapses and other mistakes. Let your personality determine what constitutes a reasonable risk, and go with your gut.

8. Reduce risk from rough.
At the 1961 British Open at Royal Birkdale, I had the lead with four holes to play. My drive on the par-4 15th sailed into thick rough, and I decided to go for the green. It was a risky shot, but two things helped minimize the danger. First, I chose the most lofted club that would still give me a chance to hit the green: a 6-iron. Second, I used as much old-fashioned strength as I could to hit through the ball, taking a divot a foot long.
I knocked the shot on the green, and the par I made helped me win my first British Open. Today there's a plaque at the spot from where I played that shot [it's now the 16th hole].

9. Know the difference between risks and gambles.
During the first round of the 1961 L.A. Open at Rancho Park, I made a rather famous 12 on the par-5 18th hole. I hit four consecutive 3-woods out-of-bounds, starting with my second shot. There was O.B. both to the left and right of the green, which made the shot risky--but only mildly risky. It didn't constitute a gamble because my lie was good, I was playing well and I knew in my heart I could pull the shot off. Only a gust of wind ruined a pretty good shot. And the next one. On the third try, I overcorrected and hooked it O.B. Then I did the same thing again! But to this day, I don't see that strategy as a gamble.

10. Don't let a partner tempt you.
Galleries liked to see me make bold, risky plays, and sometimes it was hard not to give them what they wanted--even when I knew the odds were against me. For you, the pressure to hit ill-advised shots probably comes from your partner in weekend four-ball matches. Certainly you can take more risks than normal with your partner backing you up, but even in the most tempting situations you should never try a shot you don't have at least a 50-50 chance of pulling off.

Pain: My Restless Legs and Crossed Arms

2011-05-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

http://arturogoicoechea.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html

Night before last I had a bought of restless leg syndrome. It's one of the worst things to experience. If you've ever experienced it I'm sure you know. I'm so happy that I rarely ever have it these days, but I did have it Sunday night.

To deal with it I thought I'd try meditation, i.e. refocusing my attention, so I focused on other parts of my body that felt comfortable. Ugh, that didn't work, my mind kept going back to how awful my legs felt. So I resigned myself, and focused on them, my creepy-crawling-feeling legs. I focused specifically on the feeling in my legs, really feeling how it FELT, (not what I thought about how it felt). My mind would wander and I'd bring my mind back to the 'feeling', and I noticed that the spasms had subsided in frequency and intensity. Finally, I fell asleep.

That next morning, yesterday, I had a class at the Murray Heritage (Senior) Center. (Senior=over 55, can you believe it?) One person came for the second time and I asked him about his first-class experience. He said, "I tried to focus on my left heel, but my mind kept going to my ear because I have a lot of pain there. So, I decided to focus on my ear instead. Amazingly, my ear became very warm, hot, and the pain left. My ear has been pain free since." That was a full week. I was impressed.

I realized that sometimes we try to keep our attention OFF our pain. But maybe sometimes (like in these instances) focusing ON the pain can help alleviate it.

And there is also evidence that crossing your arms helps alleviate pain. I tried it and it worked immediately. Weird.
http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/23/why-crossing-your-arms-helps-kill-pain/

Please let me know if any of this works for you, too, or if you have another trick.
Thanks,
Anna

Here's a link I got this this morning in my Google Alerts: http://www.bradenton.com/2011/05/24/3217878/tips-and-treatments-for-restless.html

Imagination – God – Needs and Wants

2011-05-17T07:58:00.000-07:00

"Is it really necessary to believe in God, or some sort of higher power?,” I ask myself, and answer: If I want to live beyond this life, into the unknown, then I should, indeed, believe in at least a bigger imagination, of a bigger imaginer, than myself. I should, at least, imagine such an imagination larger than my own, and a greater imaginer than myself, of which, I am a part or, at least, an imagining of.

I think, most importantly is that we must discover what we want, to discover what we need. Granted, this is all obvious and before (and after) us but this exercise is the process of making it conscious. So, for me, to realize that I do want to live beyond myself, I realize that I need an imagination larger than my own, of which mine is just part…which makes me a figment of a greater imaginer’s greater imagination. That is me. And the ‘it’ (really, an ‘It’) that is being made conscious? That is the Great Imaginer, I imagine. I choose to imagine. Well, at least it seems so.

I wonder, “What other things do I want, and need? What other things should I imagine?”

Weight Loss

2011-04-01T08:44:00.000-07:00

Image from O Magazine, September 2010

There's a lot of talk about meditation for weight loss- and I've been hearing about it. Is it true? For all the meditation retreats I've been to, it seems everybody is skinny. (And I thought that was a fluke since the one thing these people have in common is 'sitting still' and not exercise.) So now I'm curious, Does meditation really work for weight loss and, if so, how?

Why it Works

1) Meditation is relaxing. When we are stressed our body produces more cortisol and other stress-induced and inducing chemicals. These chemicals not only get us ready for fight-or-flight, but they help in storing fat. When we are relaxed the production of these chemicals stops and they are flushed from our body. When we are relaxed our digestion is more efficient and we process our foods and eliminate waste. Elimination of fat is part of the process of elimination of wastes.

2) Body awareness. Meditations in which you focus on or bring awareness to breathing, your senses, or your body in any way help to reconnect you with your body and strengthen 'body awareness'. When we have more body awareness we are more aware of when we are actually hungry and when we are not. We are less apt to munch at inappropriate times, in inappropriate ways, and on inappropriate 'food'. With awareness comes respect.

3) Meditation increases self-awareness. With more self awareness, you're less likely to succumb to emotional eating. Meditation enables you to pay attention to what you are doing so you become mindful of your actions or their consequences. And you become more mindful to your body's reactions to certain foods and activities. By practicing meditation you'll make better choices, and not just with food.

Here are some suggestions for Meditation for Weight Loss and Weight Control:

Focus & Mindfulness Meditation Techniques
Slow, Relaxed Breathing
Affirmations, Mantras, Phrases & words of suggestion
Visualization
Recognize, Shift, Repeat

Try one or try a combination of any or all of these techniques. The most important thing is to respect and listen to yourself and your innate wisdom. But, if you want some ideas of what meditation using these techniques could look like, here are some examples:

Focus & Mindfulness Meditation Techniques

When you meditate, try concentrating on your breathing while dismissing any distracting thoughts. This takes practice. After about 10 minutes a day of practice, you'll soon be able to get your mind off of food in any stressful situation.

There are typically four steps in a meditation process.

1) Set aside a special place you can go each day. This is your meditation spot where you won't be disturbed. A corner of your bedroom is often a good place to meditate.

2) Sit still in your most comfortable place, either on the floor with your back supported or in a chair. If you like, you can lean against a wall, using a cushion for added support.

3) Focus/Awareness. Initially, concentrate on just breathing, without trying to control or change your normal breathing pattern, or on anything physical. After that you can add visualization, affirmations or focused thinking.

4) Dismiss distractions. If you get distracted by passing thoughts, avoid delving into them. Tell yourself that you'll deal with them later. Then return to concentrating on your meditation. If you find that your thoughts keep racing, keep a pad and pencil nearby. Write down the worries, concerns, or problems that you're afraid will distract you from meditation and promise yourself that you'll deal with them when you're done.

Slow, Relaxed Breathing

Take a few moments to slow down your breathing. To do this simply bring your awareness to your body and how comfortable you are, bring your awareness to your breathing, and extend 2 or 3 exhalations making them a little longer than the inhalations by squeezing out a little more air. This relaxed slow breathing shifts the body to a relaxed state that focuses our energies and nervous system to digestion, elimination, cellular repair, and general health and well-beings.

Affirmations, Mantras, Phrases & Words of Suggestion

Lawrence LeShan, Ph.D., author of " Meditating to Attain a Healthy Body Weight," suggests choosing a word (*...) as a mantra, a word to repeat over and over again during your meditation. Re-repeat the word of your choice. Chant it. Focus on nothing else but the word. Let the sound of the word vibrate through your body. Let the word resonate up from your abdomen and let it go to your hands and your feet. Let your muscles move as you chant the word. (*I decided to omit the words the article says he suggests because I'll bet you'll come up with your own, better, words. The words are to help you focus, so focus on what you want :)

Visualization & Imagery

Using imagery or visualization in your meditations is a great way to cope with distractions. Here are two examples:

1) Close your eyes and concentrate on a soothing, tranquil place where you feel safe and calm. As distractions flutter through your mind, remind yourself that you'll deal with them. When you're finished meditating. A quiet beach is often an ideal mental destination. Picture yourself resting on the sand. Feel the sun on your skin, hear the water lapping the shore, listen for the sounds of seagulls, or see the ships gliding out to sea. You can use the same routine for any beautiful, serene place that calms you or a place where you have some good associations.

2) Visualize a white light entering from the soles of your feet. Imagine now this light traveling up your body slowly and as it moves up it is dissolving fat deposits and reshaping those regions. For areas where you carry excess weight spend more time. Once the light has reached the very top of your head, inhale deeply, hold your breath and visualize your body exactly as you would like it to be. Make sure when you visualize your body shape you are also sending the message of being not just slim and trim, but, also healthy and fit.

Recognize, Shift. Repeat.

For every goal, be wary of 'motivation killers'. In this case, don't just avoid certain foods or behaviors or behavior patterns, also avoid your 'motivation killers'. Well, maybe you can't avoid them, but you can recognize and shift gears. Then repeat.

Recover from discouragement. If you don't see results quickly, you get discouraged. Or maybe you back-slide. Just recover, get over it, and get back on track!
Make Time amidst your busy-ness. Sure, there's not enough "time" in the day. But don't give up. Just make time!
Reset! Have you plateaued? Maybe you saw some results, maybe you did not. For whatever reason, you lost your steam. If urgency, importance and your determination take a back-slide, this is the time your reset your habits and make it count!
Stay determined even when you think you have too big a plan. If you're feeling overwhelmed by your goals, just take it in small chunks and be diligent!
Lead the way rather than succumb to sabotage: If your family and friends are unsupportive, just see that for what it is. Spend more time with people you can be supported and inspired by. The others will catch on, eventually. lead the way!
Keep a journal. You don't have to, but it can be a great thing to do and helps you stay on track.

Sources:

www.holisticonline.com

www.anmolmehta.com

www.meditationsforweightloss.com

Other resources:

www.project-meditation.org

www.oprah.com/spirit/Meditation-Depression-Weight-Loss-Marriage/2

10 Easy Meditations

2011-03-31T06:45:00.000-07:00

This article is from a Brighthub.com article called " 10 Best Ways to Meditate" by Nicky LaMarco. Whether these are the 10 best methods is up to you to decide, but they all are good and worth a try. As Nicky says, "You don't have to use the same method again and again. Try a new form." I think that's great advice, so I re-post her list here:

10: Breathing Meditation

This type of meditation has you focus on your breathing. It is such a natural thing, so we can easily take it for granted. Our bodies and minds force us to breathe in and out without having to think about it all of the time. However, when using the breathing meditation techniques you will focus on your breathing and be conscious of it.
Sit somewhere quiet and comfortable. Place your hand on your stomach. You want to feel your stomach rise and fall as you breathe, not your chest. Breathe in as slow and as far in as possible. Once you cannot possibly breathe in anymore begin to slowly breathe out as slow as possible. Once you cannot possibly breathe out anymore start the process again. Do this for twenty breaths. Focus completely on your breath as you practice this meditation.

9: Walking Meditation

One of the 10 best ways to meditate is walking meditation. Get out and plan a mile or so walk. It should be for at least twenty minutes. While you are walking be aware of your surroundings, what you are feeling, what you are thinking, and everything in nature. Walking meditation is great for nature walks and hiking. Take note of the smells and the sights. It can help you get in touch with yourself and nature.

8: Guided Meditation

Guided meditation is usually done through a CD or MP3 file where someone talks you through the meditation. Guided meditations are one of the 10 best ways because it is great for beginners or those who have a difficult time meditating on their own. You can find guided meditation CDs in stores or download a guided meditation file for your MP3 player or computer.

7: Quiet Mind Meditation

Quiet mind meditation is exactly what it sounds like. It is meant to quiet your mind. There are so many thoughts, worries, concerns, and feelings that can flood our minds in just one day. It can increase stress, anxiety, and make sleeping soundly seem impossible. Quiet mind meditation can help you get that back. Sit in a comfortable and quiet place. Allow your worries to be released from your mind's grip. Your goal is to think of nothing. It's not easy, but simply doing this for 20 minutes a day can help you reduce stress on a long-term basis.

6: Activity Meditation

Many people practice activity meditation on a regular basis and don't even know it. That's why it is one of the 10 best ways to meditate. Examples of activity meditation are gardening, Yoga, journaling, painting, drawing, and more. When you feel "in the zone" this is often a form of meditation. Your mind is free from the world of worries and is able to focus on what you are doing in the moment.

5: Spiritual Meditation

Spiritual meditation includes praying or just listening to God, the universe, or a higher form. This type of meditation can help you seek guidance. Praying is a form of meditation, which is why it helps so many people across the world.

4: In the Moment Meditation

In the moment meditation is exactly what you think it is. All day we might be thinking about what we have to do tomorrow, the next week, etc. We worry about what will happen later. How will we make that next car payment? Eliminate these thoughts and live in the moment. Anytime a worry pops up in your head remind yourself to be in the moment and focus on what you are doing right now.

3: Visualization Meditation

Visualization meditation is one of the 10 best ways to meditate because it can help you achieve just about anything in life. For example, let's say you have a presentation coming up. In visualization meditation you need to visualize yourself driving to the place where you will give the presentation, getting out of your car, walking into the building, etc. Visualize every detail. Many professional athletes and business people use visualization meditation to help them achieve success.

2: Mantra Meditation

A mantra is a phrase or word you repeat to yourself while practicing breathing meditation. Some phrases that could be used are "calm", "I am strong", or "I feel at peace". Choose whatever phrase or word that works best for you.

1: Binaural Beats Meditation

Binaural beats meditation is one of the 10 best ways to meditate. You can buy this type of meditation on CD or as a downloadable file. It usually lasts from 30 to 60 minutes, which is perfect for daily meditation. You will hear a background noise that should be calming. You will then hear binaural beats in 2 different tones. Your brain will try to figure out the difference in the tones, which brings about a meditative state. This is another form that can be great for beginners.

Breathe Easy - Trust Yourself

2011-03-25T07:51:00.000-07:00

How is your breathing?
March 25, 2011. Written by me: Anna Zumwalt

Image from tweakf

A little bit of information goes a long way. And sometimes it can really mess with you, like when it contradicts your own experience.

That has been my experience with Deep Breathing. It seems common knowledge that deep breathing is GOOD for you, that deep breathing helps you relax, and that having more oxygen in your blood is GOOD for you.

I knew something was wrong when I realized that deep breathing was having the opposite effect on me. It was causing me stress, and I thought it was all in my mind. Here's the story: I had been teaching meditation, and like most meditation teachers I thought deep diaphragmatic breathing was the goal. I didn't try to push deep breathing on my students, but I did think that I should at least be a good role model. Well, after a while I started getting symptoms like feeling someone was standing on my chest and I wasn't able to get enough oxygen. It actually felt as though my blood was not able to absorb it. As you know, some of these symptoms are the same as for heart attack, so during one particularly panicked bout, I drove to the doctors, thinking I might really be in some serious danger. The doctors took EKGs, X-rays, blood tests, breathing tests, all kinds of tests and speculated that maybe I had something wrong, but they didn't know what. I saw more doctors, specialists, and had more tests done. My heart-rate seemed a little odd, but that's not abnormal. My blood was well-saturated with oxygen. They didn't know what was wrong with me. So I figured it must all be in my mind. Until now. I've discovered some interesting things recently that, taken together, actually makes everything make sense.

Here are some things I've recently learned and experienced for myself:

What's the best type of breathing? Just relax and breathe naturally. It is the barometer of how your mind and heart are doing. You can learn a lot about yourself just by checking-in and seeing how you're breathing. And, though there are some things you can do to further help relieve your stress and increase your ability to focus, just the act of bringing your easy attention to your breathing can have huge benefits to those ends.

Slow Breathing relaxes. Just by slowing your breathing, not necessarily deepening it, can help you relax and focus.

Your heart rate goes UP with each INHALATION, and goes DOWN with each EXHALATION. You can do the math. Extend a couple exhalations in a row, lower your heart rate, and start feeling more relaxed. And it doesn't have to be a big effort. Just squeeze out a just little more air.

Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide are both breathed, and needed, in our bodies and in our blood. Oxygen is a stimulant. Carbon-Dioxine is a relaxant.

Deep breathing increases oxygen levels but can deplete carbon dioxide levels which, ironically to us, actually impedes the blood's ability to absorb oxygen.
Shallower, slower, breathing helps increase carbon dioxide levels, and can help us relax. Shallow breathing is often equated with chest-breathing, but it is not the same. There is shallow chest-breathing and shallow diaphragmatic breathing.

Diaphragmatic breathing relaxes. Use diaphragmatic breathing, the natural breathing used by babies. Picture the lungs as sponges within a cone, a funnel. The diaphragm is the thin sheet of muscle at the large, bottom, end of the funnel. Using it (let it naturally function) as a pump is the most effective, efficient and the easiest way to breathe.

Sporadic deep sighs are natural relaxers.

"Everything in Moderation." Too much of even a good thing can be bad. And I am not a doctor, just a mad scientist, studying the self.

And, most importantly: It's great to look for and accept advice, but don't take other people's words for anything, even if the advice is from scientists (both real scientists and mad scientists). Study yourself and see what works for you. Trust yourself!

There's more to read on this subject of breathing, if you're interested:
http://www.normalbreathing.com/learn-8-diaphragmatic-breathing.php
http://www.pe2000.com/breathe_easy.htm
http://tweakfit.com/simple-deep-breathing-relaxation-exercises

9 Ways to Add Years to Your Life

2011-03-13T16:44:00.000-07:00

Quick and easy ways to reclaim your youthful side.
from March 2011 spryliving.com

- Photo: iStock

by Gale Malesky, MS, RD

Photo: iStock

1. Meditate
The positive psychological changes associated with regular meditation may slow down aging, researchers at the University of California, Davis, have found. Meditation lowers levels of an enzyme that eats away at telomeres, the endcaps on DNA like the tips on shoelaces, that protect chromosomes from destruction. As telomeres shorten, chromosomes are damaged, causing cells to die.

Photo: iStock

2. Pop a multivitamin
A study by the National Institutes of Health found that women who took a daily multivitamin had, on average, 5.1 percent longer telomeres, the equivalent of almost 10 additional years of life. Multivitamins reduce oxidative damage and inflammation, which may help maintain telomere length in cells.

Photo: iStock

3. Connect with a friend
Good friends may be even more important than family when it comes to living longer. Researchers followed nearly 1,500 older people for 10 years and found that those with the strongest network of close friends lived longest. Friends can exert a healthy influence on risky behaviors like smoking and drinking, plus you can count on them to shore up mood and self-esteem and help you cope in times of trouble.

Photo: Media Bakery

4. Stay active
“All you have to do to increase your longevity and improve your health dramatically is to amble along at a 20-minutes-per-mile pace for a couple miles, at least five times a week. What insurance policy could you buy that would be more effective or cheaper — or more pleasant — than that?” says Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper, founder and chairman of Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas, Texas. Exercise, too, slows the shortening of telomeres.

Photo: iStock

5. Seek marital harmony
Couples who are happily married live on average four years longer than single people. In one survey, nearly all couples who said their marriage is happy also said they share chores equally. “So, guys, being romantic is important, but equally or more important is doing your fair share of housework,” says psychologist Dr. Joshua Coleman, author of The Marriage Makeover.

Photo: iStock

6. Brush and floss
Gum disease can lead to problems such as stroke, diabetes and respiratory disease. Flossing is your best defense, since about 40 percent of your teeth surfaces are unreachable by toothbrush. “What’s more, as gum disease eats away at jaw bone, it creates a sunken look that exaggerates wrinkles and makes you look undeniably old,” says Dr. Donald Clem, a dentist in private practice in Fullerton, Calif.

Photo: iStock

7. Eat this meal
A meal of red wine, fish, fruits and vegetables, almonds, garlic and dark chocolate eaten daily (skip the fish three times a week) is calculated to cut the risk of heart disease by 76 percent and increase life expectancy an average of 6.6 years for men and 5 years for women.

Photo: iStock

8. Sack out early
Skimping on sleep affects hormones and carbohydrate metabolism in a way that mimics aging, and may speed the onset of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and memory loss. People who trade sleep for work or play may get used to it and feel less tired, but they’re still doing bodily damage.

Photo: Media Bakery

9. Cuddle with a cat
Cat owners are 40 percent less likely to die of a heart attack and 30 percent less likely to die of any type of cardiovascular disease, including stroke, heart failure and chronic heart disease, than people who have never had a cat. One rationale: Interacting with cats reduces anxiety and stress. Plus, cats need less time and care than dogs. (But pets in general—even fish—are associated with better health in owners.)

Optimism, optimism, optimism

2011-02-12T10:26:00.000-08:00

from: http://www.educ.uidaho.edu/sportpsych/

What could you learn from Spain’s 2008 European Cup Team and the NHL’s Ottawa Senators?
(an excerpt from "Glass is Half-Full Thinking" Larry Lauer, Ph D)

Start By Being Optimistic, Start with the Glass Half-Full – How should you begin to feel more confident in your performances? Start thinking positive; be optimistic that you will come out and play well in the next game. Every day is a different day and every game is a totally new game! The glass is half full, not half empty! Then fill that glass to the top throughout the day with confidence-building statements such as “I’m ready” and “Go for it!”

Focus on Yourself - Prior to [your day] avoid the drift to comparing your team or your self to your opponent and thinking you will not win or play well. Instead, focus on your self and how you feel strong, fast, powerful, quick, ready, pumped and so forth. Use visualization that incorporates these “feeling” words to set your self up for success.

Bounce Back – After a mistake or a bad bounce become resilient by refocusing on the task at hand and do not allow the recent past to affect the present. Stay focused on the ball, on the action. Little reminders such as “play the ball,” “quick feet,” and “be aggressive” can help you get your mind back on the positive and productive which will help you get out of your funk.

Read the whole article, "Glass is Half-Full Thinking" Larry Lauer, Ph D, CC AASP, Institute for the Study of Youth Sports, Michigan State University http://appliedsportpsych.org/Resource-Center/Athletes/Articles/halffull

During the Day - Cue Statements

2011-02-12T10:16:00.000-08:00

http://varietypsych.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/the-olympics-and-sport-psychology/

(excerpt from the article, "Cue Statements: Staying Focused at Critical Time" by Ryan Hedstrom)

What is a cue statement?
A cue statement is a short statement said to yourself to refocus your concentration. Cue statements help you to stop negative and distracting thoughts that impact your performance. These statements should be:

Personal – You need to find a cue statement that works for you! This could be a single word such as "tough" or "dominate" or a short series of words. One way to develop a personal cue statement is to ask the question, "If I were the best athlete I could be, how would I look and act?" Often times, as athletes are answering this question certain words and images emerge. Take time to think about how you would answer the above question because a statement that is believable and personal to you will be the most effective.
Positive – To be effective in refocusing after mistakes, a cue statement should be positive. Negative self-talk has been linked to performance detriments and anxiety. Focus on what makes you the best you can be; do not spend time criticizing yourself.
Short – The ideal cue statement allows you to quickly refocus but does not interfere with the necessary thoughts during performance. As mentioned earlier, some athletes prefer a single word such as "focus" while others use a short personal statement such as "strong, focused, in the game."

For example, a personal cue statement could become "Calm, Confident, in Control."

How do cue statements work during the day?
Using a cue statement for refocusing during the day is not difficult but does take practice. Using a refocusing cue statement in combination with a deep or centering breath allows you to refocus and decrease muscle tension caused by anxiety. So how does this work? When you find yourself unfocused or unable to refocus after an error, employ the following steps:

Inhale a breath through your nose lasting a count of 4.
Hold the breath for 1-2 seconds.
Exhale the breath through your mouth lasting a count of 4.
While you are exhaling, state your refocusing cue in your mind.
Allow the exhalation and cue statement to help you refocus on the competition.

Practicing cue statements
As mentioned earlier, this technique takes practice. After you have decided on a personal and believable cue statement, practice it often and in varied situations. Just as you work on your layup or serve, you need to practice the refocusing cue statement and centering breath so it will be effective during competition. After practicing this technique, you will find it easier to employ during competition and stressful situations.

Read the whole article, "Cue Statements: Staying Focused at Critical Time" by Ryan Hedstrom Manchester College http://appliedsportpsych.org/Resource-Center/Athletes/Articles/focus

Practice to Find Your Zone

2011-02-12T09:50:00.000-08:00

image source: all-about-psychology.com

Get in Your Zone!
(excerpt from the article, "Find Your Zone" by Dr. Rob Bell)

Meditation, any awareness training, takes practice, dedication, and being kind to yourself.
Here are some tips for your meditation practice from the Association for Applied Sport Psychology:

Eliminate outside distractions such as cell phones or iPods. It is easier to focus on the task at hand without these devices.
Have clear goals that balance our skill level with the challenge. If we set too high a challenge, then we will become anxious, and if we set too low a challenge then boredom will result and we won’t improve.
Eliminate interior distractions. Approach every practice as an opportunity to improve. Avoid self-critiquing yourself with language like” I messed up again”, or “I can’t get this right.” Instead, view every moment as a challenge to improve.

There are instances within all of sports where everything is perfect. These are times when there are no thoughts, movements are effortless, and time is transcended. Csíkszentmihályi (1990) characterized this state as “flow,” although it has become popularized by the more common name of being “in the zone.” It is essentially losing oneself in the moment of our activity.

The beauty of this flow state is that it is not limited to athletic endeavors; painters, musicians, writers, surgeons, and chess masters have described similar feelings. We can even encounter “flow” during everyday life. Whether we are totally immersed in conversation, shaving, or daily chores, a lot of activities present the opportunity to experience “flow.” The key ingredients that provide the best opportunity to experience our zone are to structure our activities accordingly.

To work toward flow state, we must merge our actions and awareness. The universal experience for the zone is that our performance becomes automatic. Everything is so effortless that we do not even recognize our total concentration on the task at hand. However, since lapses in concentration can hinder these states, we must learn to eliminate outside distractions, self-critiquing, and/or thinking about the outcome.

Read the whole article, "Find Your Zone" by Dr. Rob Bell, Ball State University, http://appliedsportpsych.org/Resource-Center/Coaches/Articles/findyourzone

Meditation can improve quality of students’ lives

2011-02-11T14:16:00.000-08:00

Meditation can improve quality of students’ lives

By sana azam · Daily Trojan

Posted February 7, 2011 (4 days ago) at 9:37 pm in Lifestyle

When you hear the word meditation, you might picture a monk living in some sunless mountain cave, secluded from the world. But meditation can be a great form of relaxation for a student who is stressed out about papers and midterms.

Heather Lee | Daily Trojan

Most students have a clear picture of meditation in their minds. “[It’s] just closing your eyes and clearing your mind,” said Omar Merchant, a senior majoring in biology.

Meditation deals with your mind and its processes.
Adam Burke, a research psychologist and assistant professor at San Francisco State University says that “Meditation is the study of attention. Attention is a cognitive phenomenon. Meditation is the capacity of the brain to attend to something over a period of time.”

Some might think meditation is a form of worship or is linked to religion. But the truth is meditation is quite removed from religion or any other set of organized beliefs.Meditation should not be confused with contemplation, which is the act of thinking about concepts and the superficial aspects of life. Instead, meditation aims to go beyond the superficial and to delve into the subconscious.

The term meditation is often used to describe the process of simply forgetting about your worries and escaping reality for a while.

“[I] make time for myself and go to the art museum, my secret place on campus where I can escape,” said Matthew Arkfeld, a freshman majoring in East Asian languages and cultures.

When performed regularly, meditation, in any form, has many benefits.
Meditating helps the different hormones in the brain reach equilibrium. It also increases the levels of serotonin, which influences mood and behavior, thus aiding anger management and giving you a happy feeling.

For USC students, access to programs and classes on meditation is as easy as walking into the Lyon Center. The Lyon Center holds various programs for yoga, meditation and even counseling.
There is also the USC Yoga and Service Club, which holds events for the USC community, as well as for local schools.

Although it might take some time to clear your mind and adopt an attitude that is conducive to reaching emotional and physical stability, it is definitely a beneficial habit.

Meditating calms and focuses the mind, which would otherwise be crowded with millions of to-dos and what-ifs. Many devotees have even experienced a resolution of phobias.

Physically, meditation has proven to be very important in post-operative healing — especially for those with heart problems and chronic illnesses.

Meditation allows people to go beyond their initial perceptions, giving those who meditate deeper opinions and greater wisdom and understanding.

Dr. Jatin Shah, chief of service in urgent care and a USC Emergency Clinic physician said he has been meditating before bed for the past four years and recommends the practice. Meditating before bed has been shown to improve sleeping habits and lead to deeper and more restful sleep.

Alternatively, concentrating on breathing in the morning allows for improved lung usage throughout the day.

Breathing lets the air reach all organs in order to remove toxins from the muscles and blood. This detoxification creates a stronger immune system and a healthier body.

Yet the process of meditation is not a simple one.
“Bear in mind that complete relaxation cannot be achieved in just one attempt,” Shah said. “It takes a while to perfect [the meditative state],” Shah said.

Meditation does not mean instant peace of mind. Rather, it means the beginning of a long process of gaining inner peace.

“It’s just a matter of if you have the time and patience to put into it,” said Namrata Abhyankar, a freshman film and television production major.

Though it might take some time to clear your mind and adopt an attitude that is conducive to reaching emotional and physical stability, you won’t regret the benefits in the end.

Physical education classes can be found in the USC Catalogue, at web-app.usc.edu/soc.
You can also check out the calendar of upcoming events at the Lyon Center and start your journey today.

Mindfulness and Meditation in Schools for Stress Management

2011-02-02T14:45:00.000-08:00

By: Greater Good Magazine

Several recent news pieces, including this New York Times article, have reported on an emerging trend: schools using techniques such as yoga and meditation to help students manage anxiety and stress. To better understand what is going on, we are pleased to bring you this article thanks to our collaboration with Greater Good Magazine.
–Alvaro
—————————————
Mindful Kids, Peaceful Schools
With eyes closed and deep breaths, students are learning a new method to reduce anxiety, conflict, and attention disorders. But don’t call it meditation.
— By Jill Suttie
At Toluca Lake elementary school in Los Angeles, a cyclone fence encloses the asphalt blacktop, which is teeming with kids. It’s recess time and the kids, who are mostly Latino, are playing tag, yelling, throwing balls, and jumping rope. When the bell rings, they reluctantly stop and head back to their classrooms except for Daniel Murphy’s second grade class.

Murphy’s students file into the school auditorium, each carrying a round blue pillow decorated with white stars. They enter giggling and chatting, but soon they are seated in a circle on their cushions, eyes closed, quiet and concentrating. Two teachers give the children instructions on how to pay attention to their breathing, telling them to notice the rise and fall of their bellies and chests, the passage of air in and out of their noses. Though the room is chilly the heating system broke down earlier that day the children appear comfortable, many with Mona Lisa smiles on their faces.

“What did you notice about your breath this morning?” one teacher asks.
“Mine was like a dragon,” says Michael, a child to the teacher’s right. Albert, another child, adds, “Yeah, I could see mine. It was like smoke.”

The teachers lead the children through 45 minutes of exercises focused on breathing, listening, movement, and reflection. At different points, the kids are asked to gauge their feelings calm, neutral, or restless. There are no right or wrong answers, just observation. The session ends with the children lying quietly on their backs, stuffed animals rising and falling on their stomachs, as they contemplate peace within themselves and in their community. 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.”

Toluca Lake is one of a growing number of schools that are using “mindfulness trainings” in an effort to combat increasing levels of anxiety, social conflict, and attention disorder among children. Once a week for 10 to 12 weeks, the students at Toluca take time out from their normal curriculum to learn techniques that draw on the Buddhist meditative practice of mindfulness, which is meant to promote greater awareness of one’s self and one’s environment. According to mindfulness educator Susan Kaiser, bringing this practice into schools is “really about teaching kids how to be in a state of attention, where they can perceive thoughts, physical sensations, and emotions without judgment and with curiosity and an open state of mind.”

That such an unconventional practice with its roots in a religious tradition, no less has made its way into public schools may come as a surprise to many people. But schools have been turning to mindfulness for very practical reasons that don’t concern religion, and their efforts have been supported by a recent wave of scientific results.

Steve Reidman first introduced mindfulness practices to Toluca Lake about six years ago. Reidman, a fourth grade teacher at the school, had been experiencing problems with classroom management first for him, after many years of teaching. Conflicts on the playground were escalating and affecting his students’ ability to settle down and concentrate in class. When he confided his problems to Kaiser, a personal friend, she offered to come to his class to teach mindfulness, a technique she’d taught to kids as a volunteer at a local boys and girls club.
“I noticed a difference right away,” says Reidman. “There was less conflict on the playground, less test anxiety just the way the kids walked into the classroom was different. Our state test scores also went up that year, which I’d like to attribute to my teaching but I think had more to do with the breathing they did right before they took the test.”

News of Reidman’s positive experience spread to other classes at the school and helped launch Kaiser’s career as the founder and director of a new nonprofit organization: InnerKids. Funded through private grants, its mission is to teach mindful awareness practices to students in public and private schools for little or no cost. In the last five years, the organization has served hundreds of schools across the country and has grown to the point where there’s more demand for the program than Kaiser can handle alone. Recently, she retired from her successful law practice to devote herself fully to InnerKids. She’s now busy training new teachers. “Requests come from all over New York, California, the Midwest,” says Kaiser. “It’s really amazing how this has caught on.”

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.

InnerKids is one of several mindfulness education programs that have sprouted up around the country; others include the Impact Foundation in Colorado and the Lineage Project in New York City, which teaches mindfulness to at risk and incarcerated teenagers. Like these programs, Kaiser’s curriculum was inspired by the work of Jon Kabat Zinn, the founder of the Stress Reduction Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat Zinn was among the first scientists to recognize that mindfulness meditation might have healing benefits for adult patients suffering from chronic pain. He developed a secular version of the Buddhist practice, which he called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), and ran studies demonstrating its effectiveness. Now, with over a thousand studies published in peer review journals about it, Kabat Zinn’s MBSR program has been found to reduce not only chronic pain but also high blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Evidence also suggests MBSR can help improve one’s ability to handle stress and alleviate depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress, and eating disorders.

Despite the success of MBSR with adults, there has been little corresponding research on children, though that’s starting to change. At the University of British Columbia in Canada, psychologist Kimberly Schonert Reichl and a graduate student, Molly Stewart Lawlor, recently finished a pilot project on mindfulness in schools, with funding and teacher training provided by the Bright Lights Foundation (now called the Goldie Hawn Institute), an organization founded by actress and children’s advocate Goldie Hawn. Fourth through seventh graders in six Vancouver public schools were instructed in mindful awareness techniques and positive thinking skills, then tested for changes in their behavior, social and emotional competence, moral development, and mood.

The positive response to the program was almost immediate. “In one classroom, the children went from having the most behavioral problems in the school as measured by number of visits to the principal’s office to having zero behavioral problems, after only two to three weeks of instruction,” says Schonert Reichl. Her results also showed that these children were less aggressive, less oppositional toward teachers, and more attentive in class. Those who received the mindfulness training also reported feeling more positive emotion and optimism, and seemed more introspective than children who were on a waitlist for the training. “It’s important to do research like this because kids need something to cope with all the pressures at school,” says Schonert Reichl. “If we don’t find something to help them, there are going to be tremendous health costs for these kids down the road.”

Similar research is getting underway in the United States. Susan Smalley, a geneticist and the director of the new Mindful Awareness Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, has found that a modified version of MBSR can help teenagers with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) by reducing their anxiety and increasing their ability to focus. She is continuing to work with ADHD teens, but her encouraging results have prompted her to wonder if MBSR might help other groups of children particularly preschoolers, who must learn to regulate their emotions and behaviors to be successful throughout school. She contacted Kaiser and together they launched a program with children attending a preschool run by UCLA. They adapted a version of Kaiser’s curriculum to see if it could be taught to such young kids; their results so far indicate that it can. Now they’re embarking on a series of studies over the next year that will compare a control group to the UCLA preschoolers, as well as to second and fourth graders at Toluca Lake.

“We want to find out if mindfulness can help children over their entire lifespan, and if it might help inoculate them against psychological problems later in life,” says Smalley.

Patricia Jennings, a researcher at the Garrison Institute, finds much of this research encouraging but says more work is necessary to prove the effectiveness of mindfulness programs. In particular, she hopes studies will focus on specific components of these programs and control for other factors that might be operating on the kids. This will give researchers and practitioners a better sense of which aspects of the programs have the most positive effects on children. “If we found something, like breath awareness, that is effective at reducing stress and requires very little in terms of teacher training or cost, we would have a lot easier time getting it into school curricula,” she says.

Despite these concerns, teachers have encountered little resistance to introducing mindfulness to their students, and they report generally positive results. Though some expressed initial concern about how parents might react to the programs which, after all, grew out of spiritual traditions practitioners and researchers say they have successfully removed mindfulness from any religious context. I don’t even like to use the word Meditation when I talk about Mindfulness, since it has religious connotations for some, says Smalley. The programs we are studying are about stress reduction and increasing awareness and are totally secular.

Still, there’s likely to be controversy around these programs as they expand, says Goldie Hawn. “There will always be people who see this as scary, or as some kind of Eastern philosophy that they don’t want for their kids,” she says.

But, she adds, most people find research results convincing, and she believes research will eventually show that mindfulness helps kids in much the same way it’s already been shown to help adults. “Mindfulness gives kids a tool for understanding how their brain works, for having more self-control,” says Hawn. “If we know it also has the potential to decrease stress, decrease depression, and increase health and happiness like the research on adults shows wouldn’t it be selfish to withhold it from children?”
At Toluca Lake Elementary School, the students make their own arguments in favor of mindfulness. “Last week, I made a picture of a heart to give to a special friend of mine, but my little brother ripped it up. I was really mad at him,” says Emily, of Daniel Murphy’s second grade class. She pauses a moment before adding, “Breathing helped me to calm my anger. I realized, Hey, I can just do it over again.’ I never would have thought like that if I hadn’t taken the class.”

Jan 29, 2008 — Jill Suttie, Psy.D., is Greater Good’s book review editor and a freelance writer. Copyright Greater Good. Greater Good Magazine, based at UC-Berkeley, is a quarterly magazine that highlights ground breaking scientific research into the roots of compassion and altruism.

Reinvent Yourself

2011-02-01T19:46:00.000-08:00

Another inspiring article from HBR:
(and grabbed from Babak's blog)

Reinvent Your Business Before It’s Too Late

by Paul Nunes and Tim Breene

Artwork: Damián Ortega, Cosmic Thing, 2002, Volkswagen Beetle 1983, stainless steel wire, acrylic, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Installation view, Damián Ortega: Do It Yourself, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, September 18, 2009–January 18, 2010

Sooner or later, all businesses, even the most successful, run out of room to grow. Faced with this unpleasant reality, they are compelled to reinvent themselves periodically. The ability to pull off this difficult feat—to jump from the maturity stage of one business to the growth stage of the next—is what separates high performers from those whose time at the top is all too brief.

The potential consequences are dire for any organization that fails to reinvent itself in time. As Matthew S. Olson and Derek van Bever demonstrate in their book Stall Points, once a company runs up against a major stall in its growth, it has less than a 10% chance of ever fully recovering. Those odds are certainly daunting, and they do much to explain why two-thirds of stalled companies are later acquired, taken private, or forced into bankruptcy.

There’s no shortage of explanations for this stalling—from failure to stick with the core (or sticking with it for too long) to problems with execution, misreading of consumer tastes, or an unhealthy focus on scale for scale’s sake. What those theories have in common is the notion that stalling results from a failure to fix what is clearly broken in a company.

Having spent the better part of a decade researching the nature of high performance in business, we realized that those explanations missed something crucial. Companies fail to reinvent themselves not necessarily because they are bad at fixing what’s broken, but because they wait much too long before repairing the deteriorating bulwarks of the company. That is, they invest most of their energy managing to the contours of their existing operations—the financial S curve in which sales of a successful new offering build slowly, then ascend rapidly, and finally taper off—and not nearly enough energy creating the foundations of successful new businesses. Because of that, they are left scrambling when their core markets begin to stagnate.

About the Research (Located at the end of this article)

In our research, we’ve found that the companies that successfully reinvent themselves have one trait in common. They tend to broaden their focus beyond the financial S curve and manage to three much shorter but vitally important hidden S curves—tracking the basis of competition in their industry, renewing their capabilities, and nurturing a ready supply of talent. In essence, they turn conventional wisdom on its head and learn to focus on fixing what doesn’t yet appear to be broken.

Thrown a Curve

Making a commitment to reinvention before the need is glaringly obvious doesn’t come naturally. Things often look rosiest just before a company heads into decline: Revenues from the current business model are surging, profits are robust, and the company stock commands a hefty premium. But that’s exactly when managers need to take action.

Jumping the S Curve

To position themselves to jump to the next business S curve, they need to focus on the following.

The hidden competition curve.

Long before a successful business hits its revenue peak, the basis of competition on which it was founded expires. Competition in the cell phone industry, for instance, has changed several times—for both manufacturers and service providers—from price to network coverage to the value of services to design, branding, and applications. The first hidden S curve tracks how competition in an industry is shifting. High performers see changes in customer needs and create the next basis of competition in their industry, even as they exploit existing businesses that have not yet peaked.

Netflix, for example, radically altered the basis of competition in DVD rentals by introducing a business model that used delivery by mail. At the same time, it almost immediately set out to reinvent itself by capturing the technology that would replace physical copies of films—digital streaming over the internet. Today Netflix is the largest provider of DVDs by mail and a major player in online streaming. In contrast, Blockbuster rode its successful superstore model all the way to the top, tweaking it along the way (no more late fees) but failing to respond quickly enough to changes in the basis of competition.

The hidden capabilities curve.

In building the offerings that enable them to climb the financial S curve, high performers invariably create distinctive capabilities. Prominent examples include Dell with its direct model of PC sales, Wal-Mart with its unique supply chain capabilities, and Toyota with not just its production method but also its engineering capabilities, which made possible Lexus’s luxury cars and the Prius. But distinctiveness in capabilities—like the basis of competition—is fleeting, so executives must invest in developing new ones in order to jump to the next capabilities S curve. All too often, though, the end of the capabilities curve does not become apparent to executives until time to develop a new one has run out.

Take the music industry. The major players concentrated on refining current operations; it was a PC maker that developed the capabilities needed to deliver digital music to millions of consumers at an acceptable price. High performers are continually looking for ways to reinvent themselves and their market. P&G long ago recognized the untapped customer market for disposable diapers. The company spent five years perfecting the capabilities that would allow diapers to be priced similarly to what customers were then paying services to launder and deliver cloth diapers. Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos notes that it takes five to seven years before the seeds his company plants—things like expanding beyond media products, working with third-party sellers, and going international—grow enough to have a meaningful impact on the economics of the business; this process requires foresight, early commitment, and tenacious faith in the power of R&D.

The hidden talent curve.

Companies often lose focus on developing and retaining enough of what we call serious talent—people with both the capabilities and the will to drive new business growth. This is especially true when the business is successfully humming along but has not yet peaked. In such circumstances, companies feel that operations can be leaner (they’ve moved far down the learning curve by then) and meaner, because they’re under pressures to boost margins. They reduce both head count and investments in talent, which has the perverse effect of driving away the very people they could rely on to help them reinvent the business.

The high performers in our study maintain a steady commitment to talent creation. The oil-field services provider Schlumberger is always searching for and developing serious talent, assigning “ambassadors” to dozens of top engineering schools around the world. These ambassadors include high-level executives who manage large budgets and can approve equipment donations and research funding at those universities. Close ties with the schools help Schlumberger get preference when it is recruiting. Not only does Schlumberger keep its talent pipeline flowing, but it’s a leader in employee development. In fact, it is a net producer of talent for its industry, a hallmark of high performers.

The Hidden S Curves of High Performance

By managing to these hidden curves—as well as keeping focused on the revenue growth S curve, it must be emphasized—the high performers in our study had typically started the reinvention process well before their current businesses had begun to slow. So what are the management practices that prepare high performers for reinvention? Let’s look first at the response to the hidden competition curve.

Edge-Centric Strategy

Traditional strategic-planning methods are useful in stretching the revenue S curve of an existing business, but they can’t help companies detect how the basis for competition in a market will change.

To make reinvention possible, companies must supplement their traditional approaches with a parallel strategy process that brings the edges of the market and the edges of the organization to the center. In this “edge-centric” approach, strategy making becomes a permanent activity without permanent structures or processes.

Moving the edge of the market to the center.

An edge-centric strategy allows companies to continually scan the periphery of the market for untapped customer needs or unsolved problems. Consider how Novo Nordisk gets to the edge of the market to detect changes in the basis of competition as they’re occurring. For example, through one critical initiative the pharma giant came to understand that its future businesses would have to address much more than physical health. The initiative—Diabetes Attitudes, Wishes, and Needs (DAWN)—brings together thousands of primary care physicians, nurses, medical specialists, patients, and delegates from major associations like the World Health Organization to put the individual—rather than the disease—at the center of diabetes care.

Research conducted through DAWN has opened Novo’s eyes to the psychological and sociological needs of patients. For example, the company learned that more than 40% of people with diabetes also have psychological issues, and about 15% suffer from depression. Because of such insights, the company has begun to reinvent itself early; it focuses less on drug development and manufacturing and more on disease prevention and treatment, betting that the future of the company lies in concentrating on the person as well as the disease.

Moving the edge of the organization to the center.

Frontline employees, far-flung research teams, line managers—all these individuals have a vital role to play in detecting important shifts in the market. High performers find ways to bring these voices into the strategy-making process. Best Buy listens to store managers far from corporate headquarters, such as the New York City manager who created a magnet store for Portuguese visitors coming off cruise ships. Reckitt Benckiser got one of its most successful product ideas, Air Wick Freshmatic, from a brand manager in Korea. The idea was initially met with considerable internal skepticism because it would require the company to incorporate electronics for the first time—but CEO Bart Becht is more impressed by passion than by consensus.

If strategy making is to remain on the edge, it cannot be formalized. We found that although low and average performers tend to make strategy according to the calendar, high performers use many methods and keep the timing dynamic to avoid predictability and to prevent the system from being gamed.

As quickly as competition shifts, the distinctiveness of capabilities may evaporate even faster. By the time a business really takes off, imitators have usually had time to plan and begin their attack, and others, attracted to marketplace success, are sure to follow. How, then, do companies build the capabilities necessary to jump to a new financial S curve?

Change at the Top

Some executives excel at running a business—ramping up manufacturing, expanding into different geographies, or extending a product line. Others are entrepreneurial—their strength is in creating new markets. Neither is inherently better; what matters is that the capabilities of the top team match the firm’s organizational needs on the capabilities S curve. Companies run into trouble when their top teams stay in place to manage the financial S curve rather than evolve to build the next set of distinctive capabilities.

Avoiding that trap runs counter to human nature, of course. What member of a top team wants to leave when business is good? High performers recognize that a key to building the capabilities necessary to jump to a new financial S curve is the early injection of new leadership blood and a continual shake-up of the top team.

Early top-team renewal.

Consider how the top team at Intel has evolved. Throughout its history, the semiconductor manufacturer has seen its CEO mantle rest on five executives: Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, Andy Grove, Craig Barrett, and current CEO Paul Otellini. Not once has the company had to look outside to find this talent, and the transitions have typically been orderly and well orchestrated. “We discuss executive changes 10 years out to identify gaps,” explains David Yoffie, who has served on the Intel board since 1989.

Simple continuity is not Intel’s goal in making changes at the top, however; evolving the business is. For instance, when Grove stepped down from the top spot, in 1998, he was still a highly effective leader. If continuity had been Intel’s overwhelming concern, Grove might have stayed for another three years, until he reached the mandatory retirement age of 65. But instead, he handed the baton to Barrett, who then implemented a strategy for growing Intel’s business through product extensions.

Indeed, each of Intel’s CEOs has left his mark in a different way. Grove made the bold decision to move Intel away from memory chips in order to focus on microprocessors, a transition that established the company as a global high-tech leader. Since he took the helm, in 2005, Otellini has focused on the Atom mobile chip, which is being developed for use in just about any device that might need to connect to the web, including cell phones, navigation systems, and even sewing machines (for downloading patterns).

Through structured succession planning, Intel ensures that it chooses the CEO who is right for the challenges the company is facing, not simply the person next in line. And by changing CEOs early, the company gives its new leadership time to produce the reinvention needed, well before deteriorating revenues and dwindling options become a crisis.

Balance short-term and long-term thinking.

Ensuring that the team is balanced with a focus on both the present and the future is another critical step in developing a new capabilities curve. When Adobe bought Macromedia in 2005, then-CEO Bruce Chizen took a hard look at his senior managers to determine which of them had what it took to grow the company to annual revenues of $10 billion. What he found was a number of executives who lacked either the skills or the motivation to do what was necessary. Consequently, Chizen tapped more executives from Macromedia than from Adobe for key roles in the new organization. Those choices were based on Adobe’s future needs, not on which executives were the most capable at the time.

Chizen wasn’t tough-minded just with others. At the relatively young age of 52, and only seven years into his successful tenure, he handed over the reins to Shantanu Narayen, his longtime deputy. The timing might have seemed odd, but it made good sense for Adobe: The company faced a new set of challenges—and the need for new capabilities—as it anticipated going head-to-head against larger competitors like Microsoft.

In other cases, the executive team might need to gather fresh viewpoints from within the organization to balance long-established management thinking. Before Ratan Tata took over at India’s Tata Group, in 1991, executives had comfortably ruled their fiefdoms for ages and rarely retired. But the new chairman began easing out those complacent executives (not surprisingly, some of their departures were acrimonious) and instituted a compulsory retirement age to help prevent the future stagnation of his senior leadership. The dramatic change opened dozens of opportunities for rising in-house talent who have helped Tata become India’s largest private corporate group.

Organize to avoid overload.

Finally, high performers organize their top teams so that responsibilities are more effectively divided and conquered. Three critical tasks of senior leadership are information sharing, consulting on important decisions, and making those decisions. Although many companies have one group that performs all three functions, this can easily become unwieldy.

An alternative approach, which we observed in many high performers, is to split those tasks—in effect, creating teams nested within teams. At the very top are the primary decision makers—a group of perhaps three to seven people. This group then receives advice from other teams, so hundreds of people may be providing important input.

Surplus Talent

Business reinvention requires not just nimble top teams but also large numbers of people ready to take on the considerable challenge of getting new businesses off the ground and making them thrive. High performers take an approach that is, in its way, as difficult as changing out top leadership before the company’s main business has crested: They create much more talent than they need to run the current business effectively—particularly talent of the kind that can start and grow a business, not just manage one. This can be a hard sell in the best of times, which is probably why so many avoid it.

One of the signs that a company has surplus talent is that employees have time to think on the job. Many of our high performers make time to explore a regular component of their employees’ workweek. (Think Google and 3M.) Another is a deep bench—one that allows promising managers to take on developmental assignments and not just get plugged in where there is an urgent need. High performance companies aggressively search out the right type of candidate and then take action to strengthen individuals for the challenges ahead.

Hire for cultural fit.

High performance companies begin with the expectation that they are hiring people for the long term—a perspective that fundamentally alters the nature of their hiring and development practices. They don’t just look for the best people for the current openings; they recognize that cultural fit is what helps ensure that someone will perform exceptionally well over time.

One company that gets this right is the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. It specifically looks for people who will thrive in a business that treats customers like kings—because, quite literally, some guests could be. “I can teach anyone to be a waiter,” says Isadore Sharp, CEO of the luxury hotel chain in his book Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy. “But you can’t change an ingrained poor attitude. We look for people who say, ‘I’d be proud to be a doorman.’”

Reckitt Benckiser also puts cultural fit at the top of its hiring priorities. Before candidates begin the application process, they can complete an online simulation that determines whether they are likely to be a good match with the firm’s exceptionally driven culture. The candidates are presented with business scenarios and asked how they would respond. After reviewing their “fit” score, they can decide for themselves whether they want to continue pursuing employment with the company.

Prepare for challenges ahead.

Making sure that new employees are fit to successfully navigate the tough stretches in a long career requires something we call stressing for strength. At low-performer companies, employees may find themselves wilting when faced with unexpected or harsh terrain. High performers create environments—often challenging ones—in which employees acquire the skills and experience they will need to start the company’s next S curve. The goal is partly to create what our Accenture colleague Bob Thomas, in his book on the topic, calls “crucible” experiences. These are life-changing events, whether on the job or not, whose lessons help transform someone into a leader.

Crucible experiences can—and should—be created intentionally. When Jeff Immelt was still in his early 30s and relatively new in his career at GE, he was tapped by then-CEO Jack Welch and HR chief Bill Conaty to deal with the problem of millions of faulty refrigerator compressors—despite his lack of familiarity with appliances or recalls. Immelt later said he would never have become CEO without that trial-by-fire experience.

Give employees room to grow.

After choosing and testing the right employees, companies must give them a chance to develop. To truly enable them to excel in their work, companies should take a hard look at exactly what people are required to do day by day.

UPS has long known that its truck drivers are crucial to its success. Experienced drivers know the fastest routes, taking into account the time of day, the weather, and various other factors. But the turnover rate for drivers was high, partly because of the hard physical labor required to load packages onto the trucks. So UPS separated out that task and gave it to part-time workers, who were more affordable and easier to find, allowing a valuable group of employees to concentrate on their capabilities and excel at their jobs.

Companies can also use organizational structure to provide employees with ample opportunities to grow. Illinois Tool Works, a global manufacturer of industrial products and equipment, is organized into more than 800 business units. Whenever one of those units becomes too large (the maximum size is around $50 million in sales), ITW splits that business, thus opening up managerial positions for young talent. In fact, it’s not uncommon for ITW managers to start running a business while they’re still in their 20s.

And high performance businesses aren’t afraid to leapfrog talented employees over those with longer tenure. After A.G. Lafley took over at P&G, for example, he needed someone to run the North American baby-care division, which was struggling. Instead of choosing one of the 78 general managers with seniority, he reached lower in the organization and tapped Deborah Henretta. Lafley’s move paid off. Henretta reversed 20 years’ worth of losses in the division and was later promoted to group president of Asia, overseeing a $4 billion-plus operation.

Breaking the mold in one way or another—as leaders have done at UPS, ITW, and P&G—is critical to building surplus talent in the organization. It not only keeps key individuals (or groups, in the case of UPS’s drivers) on board; it also signals to the organization as a whole that no compromises on talent will be made in order to achieve short-sighted cost savings.

Even top organizations are vulnerable to slowdowns. In fact, an economic downturn can exacerbate problems for companies already nearing the end of their financial S curve. (See the sidebar “Why Now?”) Even in the best of times, business crises—whether they are caused by hungry new competitors, transformational technology, or simply the aging of an industry or a company—come with regularity. Companies in other industries may be feeling great, while your business (or industry) faces its own great depression.

Why Now? (Located at the end of this article)

In the face of all these challenges, companies that manage themselves according to the three hidden S curves—the basis of competition, the distinctiveness of their capabilities, and a ready supply of talent—will be in a much better position to reinvent themselves, jumping to the next S curve with relative ease. Those that do not are likely to respond to a stall in growth by creating an urgent and drastic reinvention program—with little likelihood of success.

About the Research

At Accenture, we have been conducting the High Performance Business research program since 2003. Starting from the premise that all performance is relative, we examined sets of peer companies. Previous research on high performance had compared companies head-to-head across industries, but that approach ignored the differences in average profitability, maturity, and risk from one industry to another, making it a contest among industries rather than among companies.

We settled on 31 peer sets for our initial study, encompassing more than 800 companies and representing more than 80% of the market capitalization of the Russell 3000 Index at the time. We analyzed performance in terms of 13 financial metrics to assess growth, profitability, consistency, longevity, and positioning for the future. In most cases, we applied the metrics over a 10-year span.

The businesses that performed extraordinarily well over the long term had all made regular transitions from maturing markets to new, vibrant ones. To find out how these organizations were able to maintain a high level of performance, we conducted years of follow-on investigation, creating special teams from our industry and business-function practice areas. Team members’ expertise and experience was supplemented by contributions from independent researchers and scholars.

Today, the program includes regional and global studies of high performance, to take into account the explosive success of many emerging-market companies.

Jumping the S Curve

High performers are well on their way to new-business success by the time their existing businesses start to stall.

The Hidden S Curves of High Performance

Three aspects of a business mature—and start to decline—much faster than financial performance does. They need to be reinvented before you can grow a new business.

Why Now?

Why do economic slowdowns call for innovation and reinvention? Reduced sales and increased discounting tend to squash companies’ revenue S curves. Worse, the S curves do not stretch back out as conditions improve. Companies lose ground in four key areas:

Intellectual Property

Patent offices don’t put years back on the clock just because a company’s sales tapered off in a bad economy. This can have a devastating effect on, for instance, pharmaceuticals, where generics constantly challenge proprietary drugs as patents expire.

Technology

Economic downturns can slow the introduction of new technologies, but not for long. Witness the fate of some manufacturers of plasma televisions, which have been forced to exit the business under the double whammy of the downturn and steady improvements in LCD and LED sets.

Competition

Companies looking to grow sales in a recession must take market share from competitors. As they press advantage, already weakened companies face possible extinction. In the movie-viewing market, for instance, companies that dominate newer channels have driven bricks-and-mortar retailers into bankruptcy.

Consumer Tastes

Novelty wears off, regardless of

Zen of Football

2011-01-21T17:05:00.000-08:00

Dream it! Do it!

GREEN BAY, Wis. — The hottest quarterback among the Super Bowl XLV tournament's final four teams owes one of the most memorable postseason performances to a vivid imagination.

Lying on his couch last week, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers says he visualized playing arguably the hardest position in sports with a video-gamer's ease.

Dream it, do it.

"In the sixth grade, a coach taught us about the importance of visualization," Rodgers said. "When I'm in a meeting, watching film or laying in bed before I go to sleep, I always visualize making those plays.

"A lot of those plays I made in the game, I had thought about. As I laid on the couch, I visualized making them."

Rodgers was inspired watching video of reigning Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees puncturing the Falcons' aura of home invincibility in the New Orleans Saints' Week 16 win.

"It wasn't like I surprised myself," Rodgers said. "I was surprised by the ability to be as accurate as I was on the run at times. But the plays I made in the pocket where I was able to avoid sacks, I visualized the majority before I made them."

Read the whole article by Jim Corbett, in the January 20, 2011's USA TODAY here: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/packers/2011-01-19-aaron-rodgers-cover_N.htm

Meditation Tips

2011-01-21T09:40:00.000-08:00

Here are some meditation tips to enjoy and share with others.

Just sitting still & quiet for a couple of solid minutes brings you huge health benefits and helps you relax-- don't worry about what's going on in your mind.
Tip: Set a timer and sit quietly for 10, 20, or more minutes.
Pay attention to your physical balance. Think of spinning a top, or balancing a coin on it's edge: Relaxed physical applied intention brings awareness and energy and balance.
Tip: Sit up straight, stand up straight.
Focus on feeling to disengage an over active mind and help sleep at night.
Tip: Think of how comfy your bed is, or what the bottom of your feet feel like. As you focus on physical sensations, you are "in the now" and being present.
Focused, slow breathing can help alleviate chronic pain.
Tip: As you breathe IN count up to 4. As you breathe OUT count up to 4.
Extend your exhalations to lower your heart rate and start to relax. Did you know your heart rate goes UP when you breathe in, and DOWN as you breathe out? Culminatively, as you do this a couple times, your heart rate lowers.
Tip: As you breathe IN count up to 4. As you breathe OUT count up to 5. Do this 3 or 4 times.
Training your mind (your attention span, what you think about, and when you think about it) is one of the huge benefits of sitting meditation. And this benefit has the benefit of lessening physical and emotional pain.*
Tip: Your meditation time is YOUR time. Try focusing on one thing only. It's difficult, but it's great training... and focus on whatever YOU want.
Practice, practice, practice! All the benefits of meditation start as soon as you begin learning to sit still & quiet. But the benefits will last, and really make an impact in your life, when you do it regularly.
Tip: Set aside a special place, and special time of day, to sit quietly-- daily. If it's hard to do at home or at work find a group to join-- or form your own.

Do you have a meditation tip you can share? Please comment here.

Grown-Up Problems Start at Bedtime

2011-01-19T20:26:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal. It's aimed at kids, but I think we all can benefit.

Marcellus Hall

Grown-Up Problems Start at Bedtime

Kids Who Don't Sleep Enough Are at Greater Risk for Depression, Anxiety Later

By ANDREA PETERSEN

Every parent knows that a tired kid is a cranky kid. Now, scientists are discovering that children with chronic sleep problems are at increased risk for developing a mental illness later in life.

Recent studies show that children who have persistent sleep problems, such as difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, or not getting enough night-time shut-eye, are more likely later to suffer from depression and anxiety disorders and to abuse alcohol and drugs than kids without sleep problems. The findings add to previous research that has linked children's sleep problems to a host of issues, including aggressive behavior, learning and memory problems and obesity.

A 2010 study of 392 boys and girls published online in the Journal of Psychiatric Research found that those who had trouble sleeping at 12 to 14 years old were more than two times as likely to have suicidal thoughts at ages 15 to 17 as those who didn't have sleep problems at the younger age. In a study published last year in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, involving 386 participants, children whose mothers reported that they were overtired when 3 to 8 years old were 2.8 times as likely to binge drink when they were 18 to 20 years old. And a study of 1,037 children revealed that 46% of those who were considered to have a persistent sleep difficulty at age 9 had an anxiety disorder at age 21 or 26. By comparison, of the children who didn't have sleep problems at age 9, 33% had an anxiety disorder as young adults, according to the research, which was published in 2005 in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. Scientists caution that some study-sample sizes are small and research is still in its early stages.

Psychiatrists and psychologists say they hope that by addressing sleep problems in childhood, some of the instances of later mental illness can be prevented. There's a lot parents can do to encourage healthy sleep, including setting a regular bedtime and banning TV watching, Facebook posting and texting in the half hour or so before lights out. Clinicians also have developed effective treatments for poor sleep and are experimenting with some new approaches that teach kids how to reduce the frequency and strength of anxious thoughts that can crop up at night. In general, doctors do not recommend using medication to help kids sleep.

"We think that healthy, optimal sleep may be a buffer against developing anxiety and depression in kids," says Ronald E. Dahl, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a leading researcher on pediatric sleep.

A Good Night

Most parents underestimate the amount of sleep children should get a day. They need:

Infants: 14 to 15 hours
Toddlers: 12 to 14 hours
Preschoolers: 11 to 13 hours
School-age kids: 10 to 11 hours
Teenagers: 9 to 10 hours

Source: The American Academy of Sleep Medicine

Anxiety disorders and depression are the most common mental illnesses: 28.8% of the general population will have an anxiety disorder in their lifetime and 20.8% will have a mood disorder, according to a 2005 study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Anxiety disorders emerge early in life: The median age of onset is 11, according to the study. Rates of depression spike in adolescence, too. And those who develop depression young tend to have a more serious disease, with a higher risk of relapse.
Many kids have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep from time to time. Doctors become concerned if the troubles are chronic or often interfere with daytime functioning. "If it [consistently] takes more than 30 minutes to fall asleep, this is insomnia and it is a problem," says Anna Ivanenko, associate professor of clinical psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University.
According to the National Sleep Foundation's 2004 Sleep in America poll, 13% of school-age children have difficulty falling asleep at bedtime and 26% of preschoolers seem sleepy or overtired during the day at least a few days a week. The report surveyed 1,473 adults with children 10 and younger in the home. Teenagers tend to have even more sleep issues. About 45% of adolescents ages 11 to 17 get less than eight hours of sleep a night, even though teenagers need between nine and 10 hours. And more than one-quarter of high-school kids fall asleep in school at least once a week, according to another Sleep in America poll from 2006 that surveyed 1,602 sixth through 12th graders and their parents or caregivers.

Scientists aren't certain as to why poor sleep in childhood increases the risk of anxiety disorders and depression. It could be that sleep problems lead to changes in the brain, which, in turn, contribute to the psychiatric illnesses, they say. Or some underlying issue, partly explained by genetics and early childhood experiences, could be a precursor to both poor sleep and the mental disorders. There is some evidence sleep deprivation weakens the connection between the amygdala (involved in responding to fear) and the prefrontal cortex (which plays a role in executive functioning), "suggesting that sleep deprivation may result in reduced ability to moderate emotional response," said Alice Gregory, senior lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London and the lead author of several studies on the relationship between sleep and psychiatric issues, in an email exchange.

Researchers say that before puberty—between the ages of about 9 and 13—is a key time to tackle poor sleep. That's before the spike in rates of depression and the upheavals of adolescence and while the brain is still very responsive. "The brains of children are far more plastic and amenable to change," says Candice Alfano, assistant professor of psychology and pediatrics at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Sleep changes dramatically after puberty: Circadian rhythms shift so kids naturally stay up later. With schools starting early, kids often don't get enough sleep. Academic and social pressures surge, too.

Strategies to encourage healthy sleep in kids

Set a regular bedtime and wake time, even on weekends.
Make the bedroom a dark and quiet oasis for sleep. No homework in bed.
Create a calming bedtime routine. For younger kids: a bath and story. For older kids: Reading or listening to mellow music.
Limit caffeine consumption, especially after 4 p.m.
Ban technology (TV, Web surfing, texting) in the half hour before bed. The activities are stimulating. The light from a computer can interfere with the production of the sleep-promoting hormone, melatonin.
Don't send kids to bed as punishment or allow them to stay up late as a reward for good behavior. This delivers a negative message about sleep.
Help kids review happy moments from the day. Have them imagine a TV with a 'savoring channel.' Relegate anxious thoughts to 'a worry channel.'

A small study suggested healthy sleep may be able to help protect kids from depression—even those at high-risk because of genetics. (Both anxiety disorders and depression are believed to be partly inherited.) The study, published in 2007 in the journal Development and Psychopathology, found that children who fell asleep quicker and spent more time in the deepest stage of sleep were less likely to develop depression as young adults. A larger body of research shows that improving sleep in kids and adults who already have mental-health problems also leads to a stronger recovery.

There are many relatively simple things parents can do to promote healthy sleep. Make sure kids have a consistent bedtime and wake time, even on weekends. Create a calming bedtime ritual. For young kids, that could mean reading stories, taking a bath and singing songs. For older kids, limit technology during the half hour before bedtime. The light from computers and TVs can actually suppress the body's production of melatonin, a hormone that promotes sleep, says Judith A. Owens, director of sleep medicine at Children's National Medical Center. And video games, television and Web surfing are stimulating to the brain. "I can't tell you how many teenagers wake up at 3 a.m. to make sure they haven't gotten a text message in the last hour," she says.

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine are experimenting with a behavioral treatment called "savoring" to treat anxious kids with sleep problems.

It involves teaching kids to imagine a television with various channels. They then practice developing a "savoring" channel filled with positive thoughts about a fun conversation they had with a friend, for example, or a sleepover they're looking forward to.

At bedtime, the kids are encouraged to switch from the "worry" channel to the savoring channel. By focusing on positive thoughts at night, researchers hope to improve the children's sleep, ease their anxiety symptoms and prevent depression.

Designing a Wellness Program.

2011-01-13T12:55:00.001-08:00

Five reasons to have a wellness program
1   The U.S. spends more dollars on health care than any other nation yet we aren’t the world’s healthiest
• Largely sedentary
• Use of tobacco is still popular
• Stress is at epidemic levels (WHO)
• Alcohol continues to take its toll on Americans

2   Much of the illness in the United States is preventable
• Tobacco and alcohol are leading causes of death
• as much as 70 percent of the cost of healthcare is driven by preventable illness

3   Healthcare costs continue to rise
• Health Care premiums continue to rise and to be passed on to the employee
• Healthcare cost are typically the number one benefit cost to most businesss

4   The worksite is an ideal establishing to address health and well being
• Most American Citizens work
• Poor health habits take a toll on American business
• Companys have a vested interest in health related issues.

5   Research validates that wellness programs can improve health, save money, and even produce a ROI.
• Aldana,S.G. (1998). Financial impact of corporate wellness and methodological quality of the evidence. the Art of Wellness. Vol 2, Number 1.
• Wilson, M.G. (1996). A robust review of the effects of corporate wellness on health related outcomes - an update. the American Journal of wellness. Vol 10, Number 6.
• Wilson, M.G. (1996). A comprehensive review of the effects of corporate wellness on health related outcomes - an update. the American Journal of wellness. Vol 11, Number 2.
• Chapman, L.S. Proof Positive - an analysis of the cost-effectiveness of corporate wellness. 3rd ed. Seattle - Summex Company, 1996.
• Pelletier, K.R. A review of the health and cost-effective outcomes studies of comprehensive wellness and illness avoidance programs at the worksite - 1993-1995 Update. the American Journal of Health and Promotion. Vol. 10, Number 5.

Key Components of a Wellness Program

Physical Wellness - Focuses on the development, maintenance, or improvement of one’s fitness
Sample Physical Wellness Programs / Workshops
• Annual biometric testing
• Regular exercise
• Good safety habits

Emotional Wellness - Focuses on all aspects of mental fitness
Sample Emotional Wellness Programs / Workshops
• Stress management workshops
• Dealing with aging
• Addictive behaviors
• Parenting

Financial Wellness - Focuses on bettering the quality of life of workers by assisting families and individuals in becoming financially stable
Sample Financial Wellness Programs / Workshops
• Financial management
• Savings and Investing
• Credit and Purchasing
• Insurance and Estate Planning

Spiritual Wellness - Focuses on promoting a healthy inner self
Sample Spiritual Wellness Programs / Workshops
• Be certain to encourage daily devotional readings
• Provide regular service opportunities
• Provide a daily/weekly/monthly chapel (meditation) time during work hours

Nutritional Wellness - Will meet the needs of the staff members through group and individual nutritional services
Sample Nutritional Wellness Programs / Seminars
• Individual nutritional Assessment
• Individual and group counseling
• Educational classes
• Weight loss programs

http://online-wellness-programs.com/designing-a-wellness-program/

Meditation for Kids

2011-01-12T14:47:00.000-08:00

More schools are warming up to meditation.
Here's a recent article: "Children need more meditation and less stimulation."

Get Past Your Barriers

2011-01-09T10:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/fishing/2011/01/
researchers-asian-carp-slipping-past-barriers-great-lakes

I just read and am inspired by this article in Havard Business Review, "Managing Yourself: Stop Holding Yourself Back." This article mentions 5 barriers. Here are some excerpts.

Barrier 1: Overemphasizing Personal Goals

True leadership is about making other people better as a result of your presence—and making sure your impact endures in your absence. That doesn’t mean leaders are selfless. They have personal goals—to build status, a professional identity, and a retirement plan, among other things. But the narrow pursuit of those goals can lead to self-protection and self-promotion, neither of which fosters other people’s success. Advice: Get over yourself. Start with a commitment to make another person, or an entire team, better—and then go back for the skills and resources to pull it off.

Barrier 2: Protecting Your Public Image

Another common impediment to leadership is being overly distracted by your image—that ideal self you’ve created in your mind. Sticking to the script that goes along with that image takes a lot of energy, leaving little left over for the real work of leadership. At some point in their leadership trajectory, ambitious people must choose between image and impact, between looking powerful and empowering others. They must choose, in effect, between impersonating a leader and being one. Advice: Choose being a leader, instead of just settling to impersonate one.

Barrier 3: Turning Competitors into Enemies

One particularly toxic behavior is the act of turning those you don’t get along with into two-dimensional enemies. Distorting other people is a common response to conflict, but it carries significant leadership costs. It severs your links to reality, making you reliably incapable of exerting influence. As you turn others into caricatures, you risk becoming a caricature yourself. Advice: Take a hard look at how you interact with people whose agendas seem opposed to your own. Recognize that these colleagues are real people who may even become your allies... if you let them.

Barrier 4: Going It Alone

Most people opt out of leadership for perfectly good reasons. The road, by definition, is unsafe. It leads to change, not comfort. It can be deeply unsettling to try working in a brand-new way. Learn how to cope with your fears: by relying on the advice and support of select friends and family members. We call these people “the team.” Almost all leaders have a strong team that helps provide perspective, grounding, and faith. Your team members can be family, colleagues, friends, mentors, spouses, partners. Does the leader in you regularly show up in their presence? Advice: Find the people who believe in your desire and ability to lead. Fall in love with them. Or at least meet them for drinks on a regular basis.

Barrier 5: Waiting for Permission

Like risk aversion, patience can be a valuable evolutionary gift. It’s a main ingredient in discipline and hope. It helps us uncover the root cause of problems. It keeps us from hurting someone at the DMV. But patience can be a curse for emerging leaders. It can undermine our potential by persuading us to keep our heads down and soldier on, waiting for someone to recognize our efforts and give us the proverbial tap on the shoulder—a better title and formal authority. But more often than not, influence leads to power, not the other way around. Advice: You must simply begin.

Enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed these tips from this article. For meditation students practicing "Trust, Shifting Perspective & Leading from the Future," I offer these suggestions: Spend time shifting to the perspective of the group you lead, and having their goals. Collectively. But with your meditative birds-eye-view perspective. Practice meditations that help with Shifting Perspectives, and shifting to the personal identities of the individuals in your group. Practice Leading from the Future, visualizing and feeling people at their very (complex) best.

Meditation and Happiness

2010-11-12T06:01:00.000-08:00

Report: Daydreaming can lead to unhappiness
or
Mind Is a Frequent, but Not Happy, Wanderer: People Spend Nearly Half Their Waking Hours Thinking About What Isn’t Going on Around Them

ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2010) — People spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they're doing, and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy. So says a study that used an iPhone web app to gather 250,000 data points on subjects' thoughts, feelings, and actions as they went about their lives.

The research, by psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University, is described in the journal Science.

"A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind," Killingsworth and Gilbert write. "The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost."

Unlike other animals, humans spend a lot of time thinking about what isn't going on around them: contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or may never happen at all. Indeed, mind-wandering appears to be the human brain's default mode of operation.
To track this behavior, Killingsworth developed an iPhone web app that contacted 2,250 volunteers at random intervals to ask how happy they were, what they were currently doing, and whether they were thinking about their current activity or about something else that was pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.
Subjects could choose from 22 general activities, such as walking, eating, shopping, and watching television. On average, respondents reported that their minds were wandering 46.9 percent of time, and no less than 30 percent of the time during every activity except making love.

"Mind-wandering appears ubiquitous across all activities," says Killingsworth, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard. "This study shows that our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the non-present."

Killingsworth and Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, found that people were happiest when making love, exercising, or engaging in conversation. They were least happy when resting, working, or using a home computer.

"Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people's happiness," Killingsworth says. "In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged."

The researchers estimated that only 4.6 percent of a person's happiness in a given moment was attributable to the specific activity he or she was doing, whereas a person's mind-wandering status accounted for about 10.8 percent of his or her happiness.

Time-lag analyses conducted by the researchers suggested that their subjects' mind-wandering was generally the cause, not the consequence, of their unhappiness.

"Many philosophical and religious traditions teach that happiness is to be found by living in the moment, and practitioners are trained to resist mind wandering and to 'be here now,'" Killingsworth and Gilbert note in Science. "These traditions suggest that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind."
This new research, the authors say, suggests that these traditions are right.

Killingsworth and Gilbert's 2,250 subjects in this study ranged in age from 18 to 88, representing a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and occupations. Seventy-four percent of study participants were American.

More than 5,000 people are now using the iPhone web app the researchers have developed to study happiness, which can be found at www.trackyourhappiness.org.
Editor's Note: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Harvard University. The original article was written by Steve Bradt, Harvard Staff Writer.

Journal Reference:

Matthew A. Killingsworth, Daniel T. Gilbert. A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind. Science, 2010; 330 (6006): 932 DOI: 10.1126/science.1192439

Cellular Health and Meditation

2010-11-07T06:58:00.000-08:00

UC Davis News and Info came out with a study on meditation, with fascinating results:

Positive psychological changes from meditation training linked to cellular health

November 3, 2010

Positive psychological changes that occur during meditation training are associated with greater telomerase activity, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, San Francisco. The study is the first to link positive well-being to higher telomerase, an enzyme important for the long-term health of cells in the body.
The effect appears to be attributable to psychological changes that increase a person’s ability to cope with stress and maintain feelings of well-being.
"We have found that meditation promotes positive psychological changes, and that meditators showing the greatest improvement on various psychological measures had the highest levels of telomerase," said Clifford Saron, associate research scientist at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain.
"The take-home message from this work is not that meditation directly increases telomerase activity and therefore a person’s health and longevity," Saron said. "Rather, meditation may improve a person’s psychological well-being and in turn these changes are related to telomerase activity in immune cells, which has the potential to promote longevity in those cells. Activities that increase a person’s sense of well-being may have a profound effect on the most fundamental aspects of their physiology."
The study, with UC Davis postdoctoral scholar Tonya Jacobs as lead author, was published online Oct. 29 in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology and will soon appear in print. It is a product of the UC Davis-based Shamatha Project, led by Saron, one of the first long-term, detailed, matched control-group studies of the effects of intensive meditation training on mind and body.
“This work is among the first to show a relation between positive psychological change and telomerase activity. Because the finding is new, it should serve to inspire future studies to replicate and extend what we found,” Jacobs said.
Elizabeth Blackburn, professor of biology and physiology at UCSF, is a co-author of the paper. Blackburn shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for discovering telomeres and telomerase. Other co-authors include UCSF colleagues Elissa Epel, associate professor of psychiatry; assistant research biochemist Jue Lin; and Owen Wolkowitz, professor of psychiatry.
Telomeres are sequences of DNA at the end of chromosomes that tend to get shorter every time a cell divides. When telomeres drop below a critical length, the cell can no longer divide properly and eventually dies.
Telomerase is an enzyme that can rebuild and lengthen telomeres. Other studies suggest that telomerase activity may be a link between psychological stress and physical health.
The research team measured telomerase activity in participants in the Shamatha Project at the end of a three-month intensive meditation retreat.
Telomerase activity was about one-third higher in the white blood cells of participants who had completed the retreat than in a matched group of controls.
The retreat participants also showed increases in such beneficial psychological qualities as perceived control (over one's life and surroundings), mindfulness (being able to observe one's experience in a nonreactive manner) and purpose in life (viewing one's life as meaningful, worthwhile and aligned with long-term goals and values). In addition, they experienced decreased neuroticism, or negative emotionality.
Using statistical modeling techniques, the researchers concluded that high telomerase activity was due to the beneficial effects of meditation on perceived control and neuroticism, which in turn were due to changes in mindfulness and sense of purpose.
The Shamatha Project is the most comprehensive longitudinal study of intensive meditation yet undertaken.
The intensive meditation retreat took place at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colo. The study included 30 participants each in the retreat and control groups. Participants received ongoing instruction in meditation techniques from Buddhist scholar, author and teacher B. Alan Wallace of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. They attended group meditation sessions twice a day and engaged in individual practice for about six hours a day.
A control group of 30 people matched for age, sex, education, ethnicity and meditation experience was assessed at the same time and in the same place, but did not otherwise attend meditation training at that time.
The Shamatha Project has drawn the attention of scientists and Buddhist scholars alike, including the Dalai Lama, who has endorsed the project.
Saron and his colleagues are now analyzing and publishing other findings from the project. In a paper published this summer in Psychological Science, Katherine MacLean, a recent UC Davis Ph.D. graduate now at Johns Hopkins University, reported that meditators were better at making fine visual distinctions and sustaining attention over a long period.
The group’s next research article, currently in press in the journal Emotion, will describe a meditation-related reduction in impulsive reactions, which was linked in turn to enhancement in positive psychological functioning. UC Davis postdoctoral researcher Baljinder Sahdra is the lead author on that paper.
Additional co-authors on the current paper are: UC Davis graduate students Stephen Aichele, Anthony Zanesco and Brandon King; Sahdra, Associate Professor Emilio Ferrer and Distinguished Professor Phillip Shaver from the UC Davis Department of Psychology; consulting scientist Erika Rosenberg from the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain; and from UC Irvine, graduate student David Bridwell of the Department of Cognitive Science.
Major support for the Shamatha Project comes from the Fetzer Institute and the Hershey Family Foundation. Additional support comes from numerous private foundations including the Baumann Foundation; the Tan Teo Charitable Foundation; the Yoga Research and Education Foundation; and individual donors. Individual researchers also received fellowship and other support from the National Science Foundation; the Social Sciences, Humanities Research Council of Canada; and the Barney and Barbro Fund.

About UC Davis

For more than 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has more than 32,000 students, more than 2,500 faculty and more than 21,000 staff, an annual research budget that exceeds $679 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science. It also houses six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.

Additional information:

Center for Mind and Brain

Media contact(s):

Clifford Saron, Center for Mind and Brain, (415) 307-9757, cdsaron@ucdavis.edu
Andy Fell, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-4533, ahfell@ucdavis.edu

Go to the article's page here

BREATHE™ Meditation Technique

2010-11-07T06:48:00.000-08:00

How to use the BREATHE™ technique
BREATHE™™ is an acronym that represents a relaxation technique that will help heal your heart. For best results follow the simple stepwise template that follows. Remember that conscious breathing is what connects the heart and brain and allows us into the conversation between the two organs. Each of the letters in the word BREATHE™ has special significance and represents one of the 7 steps that make up the technique. Follow each step closely and apply them to the exercises that follow.

B-R-E-A-T-H-E
B in B-R-E-A-T-H-E is for the beginning.
Every book, song, poem, and exercise has a beginning. Begin your exercise daily at the most ideal time and in the most ideal place that fits best with your schedule. A truck driver, for example, may choose the time while sitting quietly on the loading dock just before checking his inventory and planning his daily delivery route; a surgeon might use the scrub sink just prior to surgery and if you work in an office setting try taking a short walk at lunch to a quiet place, away from the frenzied workplace to practice.
Some will choose a quiet place in their home and practice after waking which helps them focus and achieve their daily goals, and some use the BREATHE™ technique just before climbing into bed which helps relieve racing thoughts and helps you achieve more quality sleep. Wherever or whenever you decide to BREATHE™ be sure to practice the same each time. Try to develop a rhythm and routine to your practice.
When you begin, pick a quiet and cozy place—somewhere you won’t be interrupted for 15 minutes, which is the amount of time needed to gain mastery and optimize results of the BREATHE™ technique. Begin your BREATHE™ exercise with a positive attitude knowing that this 15 minutes is a well-deserved gift to yourself.

R in B-R-E-A-T-H-E is for relaxation.
This might seem counterintuitive but relaxation actually requires concentration and focus. It’s not like just diving into your beanbag chair, flipping on the TV and ripping open a bag of chips. Instead, to elicit the relaxation response (opposite of the stress response) it requires focused and conscious breathing. Try to clear all thoughts when you start and think only of breathing. Concentrate only on your breath. Recall that focused, controlled and conscious breathing is what allows us into the conversation between the heart and brain. A helpful imagery tool is the Path to Relaxation and Flow. Imagine a beautiful hiking path that is very familiar to you. Each step you take allows you to become more and more relaxed. The end of the familiar path of relaxation and flow is always the same—a peaceful and serene place at the foot of the majestic flowing river.

Conscious Breathing

Sit in a comfortable chair with arm rests and let the gravity of your body sink right in. Your body should be as relaxed as possible so feel the weight of your arms and legs supported by the chair. Feel your feet comfortably in contact with the ground.
Pay attention to your breathing. To help focus on your breathing, place one hand on the part of your chest or abdomen and watch your hand rise and fall with each breath.
BREATHE™ through your nose if possible. If you are unable to BREATHE™ through your nose, breathing in through your mouth will suffice.
Inhale deeply and slowly through your nose and feel it into your abdomen. You’ll see and feel your abdomen rise with each inhalation and your chest should move only slightly.
Exhale through your mouth, keeping your mouth, tongue, and jaw relaxed. Extend your exhalation. If you can, extend to a count of 7 like the number of letters in the word BREATHE™.
Relax and focus on the sound and feeling of long, slow, deep breaths.
Listen to the conversation between your heart and brain. As you take a deep breath in, notice your pulse slightly increasing and as you exhale, your heart rate decreasing.

Repeat a series of 7 breaths and you will notice feeling deeply relaxed. You’ll know it’s time to go on to the next step in BREATHE™ when you feel all your muscles relax and your entire weight supported by your chair. The more you practice the easier conscious breathing becomes. After a few practices this technique will become routine and you can spend more of your focused energy on the heart-healing guided imagery—the second component of the BREATHE™ technique.

E in B-R-E-A-T-H-E is for envision.
Visualizing the end or desired goal is common practice in sports, business and academics. The most innovative and successful companies today rely heavily on dreaming, imagining and thinking outside the box. Without imagination we would never progress. Wireless technology, the internet and all scientific breakthroughs are born out of an active imagination. Like in business and sports, an imagination has important applications in maintaining health and wellness. When you practice your BREATHE™ exercise imagine your heart parts as healthy and strong. Studies show that patients with a thorough understanding of their medical condition and who use visualization have better overall health. Envision how all of the healing metaphors in the heart exercises soothe and calm your body and allow your heart to rest and idle. Visualize your heart as strong and powerful with all the parts working synergistically and efficiently. Remember that the special imagery exercises lower your heart rate, lower your blood pressure and strengthen your immune system. Each time you perform these exercises visualize your heart and imagine all four parts—the arteries, muscle, valves and electrical system. Analyze what they look like and how they work together in unison to provide the constant, unimpeded flow of blood to nourish your entire body.
Relaxation training using guided imagery has been shown to reduce cortisol output.

Research has shown that guided imagery may:

Reduce stress and anxiety
Decrease pain
Decrease side effects
Decrease blood pressure
Decrease blood glucose levels (Diabetes)
Decrease allergy and respiratory symptoms
Decrease the severity of headaches
Decrease hospital costs
Enhance bone and wound healing
Enhance sleep
Enhance self-confidence
Assist in losses (job, divorces, death)
Enhance quality of life

A in B-R-E-A-T-H-E is for apply.
When reading through the guided imagery exercises and observing the accompanying art, imagine how the heart-healing images and metaphors can be applied and relate to your healthy heart. Stay focused concentrating on the significance of the images because it is easy to get distracted.
If you lose focus you will probably feel a little anxious or frustrated. Do not worry because it’s easy to get right back on track. Use this as a reminder of the conversation. Apply the principles of this technique and recall that conscious breathing is the way back into the conversation and helps you refocus. The bodily feelings that stress creates are reminders of the conversation and an invitation to stop stress in its tracks.
The apply step in BREATHE™ has two applications. The first is applying the meaning of the metaphors to an efficiently working heart. The second involves applying this technique in times of heavy stress and using it as an effective coping mechanism. By practicing regularly each heart-healing metaphor will be filed away in your memory bank. These memories are retrievable and accessible and very helpful in breaking the cycle of stress.

T in B-R-E-A-T-H-E is for treatment.
The BREATHE™ technique is a pleasurable and therapeutic exercise. You are deserving of this enjoyable and gratifying exercise. These 15 minutes will make you feel revitalized and energized. This exercise is not like a chore, duty or errand to check off on your “to-do” list, it is an extremely pleasant and comforting experience that you will begin to look forward to. Practicing regularly, like exercising in the gym, will foster feelings of elation and happiness and, when really relaxed, feelings of bliss. The BREATHE™ technique is a treatment--like a pleasurable experience at a spa. Your entire body will feel deeply relaxed and invigorated.

H in B- R-E-A-T-H-E is for Heal.
The BREATHE™ technique is healing. By practicing 15 minutes daily you will entrain neural networks that connect your heart and brain. You will consistently elicit the relaxation response which has a number of healing physiologic responses which include increased heart rate variability, decreased blood pressure, enhanced immune response, and lower pulse rate. BREATHE™ combines two proven relaxation techniques and can be used anytime and virtually anywhere. It is accessible to anyone and simple to learn. Relaxation therapy has been shown to decrease arrhythmias, improve focus, improve sleep and improve our blood sugar handling and cholesterol levels. BREATHE™ has a number of healing properties. Recalling the healing properties of this pleasurable exercise will help you remain positive and focused.

E in B-R-E-A-T-H-E is for End.
Every effective exercise has a formal beginning and ending. When you have successfully completed your exercise and carefully and mindfully focused on all of the heart-healing metaphors you will notice feeling deeply relaxed. However, you will also feel energized and revitalized—ready to start your day. This is because you have actively concentrated on the rhythm and rate of your breathing which increases oxygen to your tissues. You have also concentrated on improved flow of oxygenated blood to your tissues and an efficiently working healthy heart.
Before you end make a mental checklist of the healing metaphors you studied in your exercise and begin to notice your surroundings. Imagine how you might use this work throughout your day to help defuse a difficult situation. Think of how the ending of your exercise is really the beginning of your day and how this cycle is like the cycle of breathing and the cycle of your heart.
Remember that the combined guided imagery & breath work exercises in each chapter were carefully crafted and are filled with heart-healing metaphors that relate to the properly functioning heart parts. Similar to the concept of Qi in Chinese medicine, the BREATHE™ exercises emphasize how flow relates to an efficient, healthy and smoothly running cardiovascular system. BREATHE™ helps “unblock” heart parts and promotes flow in the electrical, valvular, muscular and arterial systems.
This simple, cost-effective technique has withstood the test of time and modern research shows many positive health benefits of its use. Guided imagery and breath work have been used successfully for reducing anxiety, improving coping skills, lowering blood pressure, and for decreasing post operative pain. They have also been shown to have potent immune bolstering effects. Studies have shown that patients using similar techniques have increased levels of natural killer cells which are potent immune cells that help ward off infection. Relaxation therapies such as BREATHE™ have also been shown to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol which in large amounts (like those seen with chronic stress) can weaken our body’s ability to fight infection and slow tissue repair.
Remember, in order to reap all of the many health benefits of the BREATHE™ technique, stay positive, relax, and flow with it.

http://www.johnmkennedymd.com/breathe-technique.htm

Sitting While Pregnant

2010-10-13T12:33:00.000-07:00

I was told of a woman who was thinking about taking a sitting meditation class but had concerns about sitting for long periods of time while 17 weeks pregnant. I have no experience in this, but I knew friends who have, so I asked them:

While pregnant, what was your experience of doing sitting meditation like?

Would you recommend it? or recommend against it?

Here is what they told me:

In my experience i would totally recommend it. I kept sitting up until a month before i gave birth. The bigger my belly, the more uncomfortable it became granted. However, in the earlier stages i loved the quiet time when i could really connect with this little being growing inside of me. I loved placing my hands on my belly while i sat. I stopped sitting at the centre because the form felt too rigid, i needed to stretch sometimes or get up to pee and didn't want to disturb others. Robes were a no no as you can imagine. As long as i felt free to be more relaxed (which was at home) i really enjoyed it.
--S.J.

I don't think sitting still ever hurt anybody that I know of.
--D.H.

I can't recall any problems sitting... Of course, my memory is fallible ;). Most people sit on chairs a lot, including pregnant women, and zafus (meditation cushions) are softer than chairs! There could be issues with blood circulation in the legs, later on in the pregnancy, so that could become an issue (I luckily did not suffer from such problems so I can't comment on this from personal experience). But she could always switch to a chair if necessary (or those big bouncy balls would be great to sit on, too).
    In any case, I don't foresee huge problems unless she has circulation issues like varicose veins... But, I am not an MD and mine is not an expert opinion.
--I.D.

The general "rule of thumb" for pregnancy is that you don't need to give up things that you have already been doing (I continued to practice yoga and meditation all the way through both of my pregnancies, including during birth). I did a 7-day sit while 6 months pregnant on a single zafu and didn't have any problems at all - but I had about 10 years of meditation experience prior to that sit to prepare me.   That pregnancy was also my 2nd, which makes a difference. I knew how my body responded to pregnancy and what to expect.
   If she has never meditated before, it would be important to ease into it and be gentle/aware of the needs of her body. If she has practiced meditation before, then she will already have some awareness of what is "normal" pain for her body and when it's time to made some adjustments. My overall suggestions for her would be to ease into it if this is her first experience with meditation and maintain an awareness of how her body (and her baby) is doing.
She's in for a WONDERFUL journey!
--L.F.

If she feels good while sitting she can surely sit while pregnant. Her body will talk to her if it should get difficult. I couldn't sit on a cushion for most of my pregnancy, I nearly fainted every time I sat down. It is different for everyone, she will find out for herself.
--D.S. (a doctor)

7 Steps to Instant Calm - Health.com

2010-10-01T12:43:00.000-07:00

Enjoy this article I found on ways to beat stress. The Shift Your Focus tip, below, is a basic meditation you can do anywhere.

7 Steps to Instant Calm - Health.com

Serenity now

By Leslie Barrie
Between your busy work schedule, taking care of the kids, running errands, and, oh, the hundred other things you have to do in a day, it's easy to forget the amount of stress you're actually under.

But your body is well aware. All that tension could start a chain reaction of health problems. "When you repeatedly get stressed, your nervous system stays keyed up, so even small amounts of stress can make you feel overwhelmed," says Henry Emmons, MD, author of The Chemistry of Calm.

That's why it's so important to build in a relaxation routine for those times when life goes haywire. Learn how to cultivate calm with these simple suggestions.

Look for the signs

The best way to manage your stress is to keep it from building up in the first place. But it can be hard to tell when you're headed toward the danger zone, because your body's signals can be subtle. "People often aren't aware that stress affects quality of sleep—you may get eight hours, but still not get much deep sleep, so you feel worn out," Dr. Emmons says.

To keep your stress level in check, take a few minutes each day to think over any unusual changes in your habits or physical health that may be spurred by anxiety.

Shift your focus

When you're feeling tense, you may get the (unproductive) urge to mentally replay what went wrong over and over in your mind.

Dr. Emmons recommends shifting your focus to your body instead. Find a quiet place to sit down, and concentrate on feeling the seat beneath you. Then take long, deep breaths from your diaphragm; try inhaling through your nose for a count of four, holding for two, and exhaling through your mouth for seven. Exhaling longer than you inhale deepens your breathing, which helps calm your nervous system. "You can even practice your breathing when you're not stressed, so you know exactly what deep-breathing counts soothe you," Dr. Emmons says.

Get a move on

It's easy to use stress as an excuse to skip exercise—you've got way too many other things on your mind, right? But working out actually helps balance stress hormones, Dr. Emmons says.

So take a break, and walk up and down a few flights of stairs, or sign up for that kickboxing class you've been dying to try. Then cool down from your routine with some mellow music: Make a special "soothing" playlist for your iPod, recommends Beth Hamilton, MD, co-author of So Stressed: The Ultimate Stress-Relief Plan for Women. Research suggests that your brain waves will sync up with the slow rhythm, putting you in a meditative state.

Snack right

During stressful times, it's human nature to want to treat yourself to a piece of cake. But it's more important than ever to stick to your healthy eating habits, says Elizabeth Somer, RD, author of Eat Your Way to Happiness.

Sugary munchies spike your blood-glucose level, making you feel even more jittery. For a healthy yet stress-busting treat, dip fresh strawberries in dark chocolate sauce, Somer suggests. The fruit's vitamin C decreases stress-induced free radicals, while dark chocolate helps reduce stress hormones (such as cortisol) in the body. Another option: Snack on carrots or celery sticks. Chomping on crunchy (but healthy!) snacks helps you release pent-up frustration, Somer says.

Phone a friend

Spending time with pals helps our bodies pump out the feel-good hormone oxytocin. So meet up with a friend at the end of a crazy-busy day, or call during your lunch break.

Even better: Make time to hang out regularly—you'll get a continuous boost to your well-being. Just don't turn your talks into bitchfests; ranting will get you worked up again, Dr. Emmons says.

Get out!

Holing up at your desk can make you get stuck in "I'm overwhelmed!" mode. Simply breathing some fresh air can improve your outlook, helping you deal with tough situations more calmly. Step outside and enjoy the head-clearing moment rather than thinking of all the things you have to get done. If there's a garden nearby, stop and smell the flowers. Research shows that inhaling certain scents (like lavender) can help reset a stressed immune system to normal levels.

Prep for bed

You know how it goes: Just when you lie down for a good night's sleep, all your worries come rushing back. And the lack of sleep only makes you feel more anxious. To combat this vicious cycle, reach for a pad and pen, and jot down any negative thoughts or to-dos that pop into your head, says Sue Patton Thoele, author of The Mindful Woman. It's counterintuitive, but getting your thoughts on paper actually helps you put them aside.
Next slideshow: Job Killing You? 8 Types of Work-Related Stress

The Zen Uniform

2010-08-02T10:03:00.000-07:00

The Uniform or dress code for meditation changes place-to-place and sometimes person to person. Here is a little guide on what to expect and how to be better prepared – for most situations.

Clothing in the Zendo

For less-formal meditation in a Zen meditation hall (zendo) we wear a certain uniform: dark, simple, comfortable, respectful – with some sort of sleeves and covered legs.

For formal occasions, such as ceremonies or during a formal meditation retreat, people who have robes will wear them. Robes have been used for millenia for meditation because they are comfortable (and sometimes the dress code). There are different kinds of robes used in Zen meditation settings. The “Lay robe” is a basic black robe used by people who are committed to their sitting practice but who are not ordained. The “Monks robes” are also black but with a white or colored kimono worn under. These are used by ordained Zen practitioners.

Why all the black?
Well, the easiest reason of why black clothing is preferred is that in a meditative atmosphere– especially when everybody else is also wearing it– black is less distractive, and so more conducive to meditation than any other color.

Also, look at how color effects us psychologically. During meditation everybody is having their own unique experience. To respect that, we try to have as little impact on others as possible. After all, we don’t want others psychologically barging in on our personal experience or practice, and we don’t want to do that to others, either.

We don’t just see color. We feel color. Warm colors can also inspire conversation and upbeat attitudes. Reds stimulate, invigorate, and heat us up. Yellows and golden colors unleash creative activity. Cool colors pacify and restore. Beiges, grays, whites and taupes do not activate or pacify– but being brighter than the surrounding dark greys and black, they draw our attention, especially when there is movement.

Also, for this reason, and out of respect for tradition, bare arms and legs are discouraged.

Socks are okay, but less formal than bare feet usually.

Shoes are left outside of the zendo, usually in a special area for shoes. Leaving the shoes outside gives us more comfort during meditation, keeps the zendo cleaner, and lessens noise during walking meditation.

Why so frumpy?
Tight clothing usually makes it uncomfortable to sit still for a long period of time, as there tends to be a little binding and pinching here and there. Accessories such as big jewelry, scarves, and other loose and dangling items can have a mind of their own, get caught, jangle or jingle unexpectedly, and be more of a nuisance to the wearer than anyone else.

When meditating in a zendo, most of us wear basic sweats, tees, or yoga gear, and bring a change of clothes for the rest of our day’s activities.

Clothing for an informal Meditation Group

Each meditation group might have it’s own dress code, so it can be helpful to call in advance or do some research on the group you plan to sit with.

For our Friday morning sitting group (http://annazumi.com/groups.html) you are welcomed to come as you are in your regular clothes. Most of us sit in chairs, though meditation cushions (zafus) are available.

7 Ways Being “Bad” is Good for You

2010-08-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

Summer brings plenty of memorable moments, like beach getaways and neighborhood softball games. But if you're like us, juggling the work that goes into making a fun happen can leave you spent and quick to snap when little irritants arise. The good news: Having an emotional flare-up or meltdown can be beneficial, says Maya Tamir, Ph.D., director of the Emotion and Self-Regulation Laboratory at Boston College. That's because emotions and behaviors that are perceived as negative actually worked to buffer stress. Read on for the unexpected upside of your worst behavior.

Anchor boosts confidence

Aargh! Instead of helping with the cook-out, your honey disappeared into the backyard with a beer. Go ahead and let your blood boil, says Tamir. Feeling fiery will help you argue your case more effectively. “Anger is an ‘approach emotion,’” she explains. “That means it readies you mentally and physically by energizing you, making you less averse to risk and boosting your creativity.” To keep your wrath in check, remind yourself in the heat of the moment what you aim to get– an apology? A rain check? This will help you regulate your intensity. Bonus: communication can spell healthier marriage and longer life. A University of Michigan study found that couples who vent their irritation outlive those who conceal it.

Sadness makes you mentally sharper

When you can't seem to shake a blue mood, turn your attention to detail oriented project or problem-solving task. Sadness seems to facilitate a more careful and effective thinking, says Paul Andrews, Ph.D., an evolutionary psychologist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. He explains, “It encourages rumination, and analytical process that allows you to take a complex issue and break it down into manageable components.”

Jealousy strengthens drive

Your flower beds of all but shriveled up, so you can't help but bristle at Sally's perfectly pruned lawn. The upside: “Envy can inspire positive action," says Debbie Mandel, author of Addicted to Stress. “Say to your friend, ‘I so admire your yard. Will you give me some pointers?’ By approaching her as a mentor rather than an opponent, you conquer the toxic ‘I'm not good enough emotion’ and affirm that you are capable of success."

Idle gossip solidifies bonds

You're catching up with neighbors when chitchat turns to the Smith’s messy divorce. While your conscience may balk, exchanging jute choice tidbits parentheses (so long as the scoop isn’t false or damaging) can boost your mood. “Gossip reinforces your role in a social network," explains Frank T. McAndrew, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. “And that feeling of connectedness delivers an instant reward– a spurt of happiness."

Cursing resets stress

The worst part of your day? Your commute. When you miss your exit because a reckless driver cuts you off, the curse words slips out of your mouth. The upside: This outburst may leave you more cool headed for the rest of your root. “You get some catharsis from swearing," says Timothy Jay, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the Massachusetts College of Liberal arts in North Adams. “It has a way of diverting your attention away from what's frustrating, cleansing you of it." And unlike other verbiage, curse words are psychologically arousing. So when you let one fly, your heart rate increases, the settles back to normal. "And the greater the discrepancy between the peak and valley, the better the release– physically and mentally," explains Jay. (This is why a polite word isn't as effective.) Another boom: Research in the journal NeuroReport found that subjects who swore while submerging their hands in cold water experience less pain than those who invoked a neutral word.

Zoning out preps used for a breakthrough

During a PTA meeting, you find yourself gazing out the window instead of troubleshooting with the group. But you can harness the power of that zone-out to come up with a creative solution. Research shows that "psychological distance" revs the brain for resourcefulness. "Daydreams are internal research and development vehicle," says Amy Fries, author of Daydreams at Work. "There’s a discovery process taking place in which you can access parts of your brain that you can't reach when focused."

Dillydallying paves the way for productivity

Oops! You swore you'd get a head start on this report, but there you are, scrambling to finish it at the last minute– again. That frenzied dash may help you deliver superior results, says Robert Biswas-Deiner, Ph.D., co-author of The Strengths Book. For many women, procrastinating serves as a period of reflection that can help them perform more if it effectively and efficiently when they do sit down to work. "A lot of subconscious for processing is happening while you're listening to podcasts or enjoying the outdoors," Biswas-Deiner explains. "This allows concepts to jell."

(from First for Women magazine 1/26/10)

7 Ways Stress Can Actually Be Good for You

2010-07-11T07:53:00.000-07:00

See a few reasons why worry, anxiousness and pressure is actually not bad in this article by Sarah Jio Posted March 11, 2010 from WomansDay.com

Everyone dreads the S-word—and for good reason: Too much stress can have negative health consequences, like weight gain and depression. But, we’re often so focused on battling stress at work, in our relationships and everywhere else that it can be surprising to hear that some of that anxiety may actually be natural and normal. Even more, it might even be there to help you be healthier, happier and your ultimate best self. Strange? We thought so too, until we talked to health experts and found out about the many ways that stress can actually help you. From boosting your immune system to helping you get fit, read on to learn about the benefits of having a little stress in your life.

1. It can help you be more creative. Ask any writer or artist about the creative process and she’ll tell you that her best work often comes as a result of a lot of head-pounding frustration and borderline agony. There’s a reason for that, says Larina Kase, PhD, a Pennsylvania-based psychologist and the author of The Confident Leader: How the Most Successful People Go from Effective to Exceptional. “Stress often precedes or accompanies creative breakthroughs,” she says. “If our minds are totally calm and relaxed, they don’t need a reason to see things differently. We’re likely to feel an increase in stress when we hit on a new path because change is typically associated with new stress. Your creative output feels intimidating because it’s different for you and you don’t know how others will react [to it].”

2. It may be good for your immune system. Research has shown that the immune system may benefit from short bursts of stress that elicit our “fight or flight mechanism.” (Think of the stress you’d endure while taking a timed exam, running a race or playing a game with a timer.) “Stress in short bursts can be helpful to the immune system,” says Mark Goulston, MD, a clinical psychiatrist and author of Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior, who explains that when cortisol (a.k.a. the “stress hormone”) is released, it increases immunity in the body. But, he says, it’s a delicate balance. While these so-called bursts of stress may keep your body strong, vibrant and maybe even healthy, Dr. Goulston warns that too much stress can lead to cortisol overload, which can contribute to abdominal obesity. “This type of central obesity is linked to developing cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus and cerebrovascular disease,” he says.

3. It may help you get fit. Lifting weights, running or spending 45 sweaty minutes on the exercise bike are all forms of stress on your body. But it’s good stress, says Jessica Matthews, MS, continuing education coordinator for the American Council on Exercise (ACE) and ACE-certified personal trainer and group fitness instructor. “The stress that moderate exercise provides is quite healthy and provides many positive effects,” says Matthews. “From a physiological perspective, the demands being placed on the body during exercise help it to become more efficient in completing everyday activities. Regular exercise has also been shown to reduce the level of stress hormones in the body, such as cortisol, while simultaneously increasing the level of endorphins in the body, resulting in that ‘feel good’ sensation. In fact, research has even shown that exercise itself may make us more resilient to stress overall.”

4. It may help with problem solving. Are you experiencing stress from a dilemma in your life or from having to make a big decision? This type of worrying may actually be beneficial. Here’s why, says Dr. Kase. “Stress illuminates our values,” she says. “If we didn’t care about something, we wouldn’t worry about it.” So, listen to what your stress is trying to tell you. “Research shows that we tend to be happiest when we go with our gut,” she says. But excessive worrying can sometimes backfire. “It’s hard to hear your intuition when you’re in a cycle of worry and stress, so give yourself a break—take a long walk, get a good night’s sleep or go out for a bite to eat.”

5. It may keep your kids safe. According to some experts, mothers who feel more stress may keep their kids out of harm’s way (after all, if you’re more concerned about kidnappers, you’re more likely to keep a watchful eye on your toddler at the playground, right?). In fact, research from Johns Hopkins University has suggested that children of mothers who showed elevated levels of cortisol during pregnancy were developmentally advanced compared to children of mothers who exhibited little stress. Of course, everyone knows that a mom who is too stressed out is never a good thing, but a little stress in motherhood is natural and normal, say experts. “If stress can increase your alertness, that's good,” says Dr. Goulston, but be wary of hyper-alertness or hyper-vigilance, which can cause people to become “brittle and rigid, which can lead to impulsive behavior.”

6. It may get you a raise. Putting in long hours at the office? Feeling jumpy every time your boss walks into your cubicle? Sure, serious job stress can be unhealthy—even debilitating—but the kind of stress that keeps you on your toes in your professional environment may be good for your career, say experts. “An optimal level of stress and anxiety keeps you energized, focused and motivated,” says Dr. Kase. “Without enough stress, you’re unlikely to give your full effort and you may also be prone to making mistakes. If you’re too comfortable, that can be a sign that you aren’t pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and taking the risks necessary to advance your career, such as marketing yourself or asking for a promotion.” But, she adds, be careful how you control your on-the-job stress. “Successfully handling stress is the number-one way to build your confidence in your work and in any other area of your life,” she says. “Too much stress saps your ability to see innovative solutions and takes a toll on your energy and efficiency.” Dr. Kase also says a few warnings signs that indicate your job stress is too high include avoiding important work activities because you find them too stressful, or feeling like you are not valuable in the workplace.

7. It could keep you healthier after a surgical or medical treatment. Recent research has shown a link between short-term stress before a surgical or medical procedure and a more successful recovery experience. And it appears that a fighting spirit can also help in the battle against breast cancer. Some research indicates that stress may suppress the production of estrogen, a major player in the development of breast cancer. Whether this holds true across the board is questionable, but experts say it’s another important example of how stress isn’t entirely bad. “Our stress response is our being alerted to a challenge, a danger or even an opportunity,” explains Dr. Goulston. “Stress also triggers adrenaline release, and a surge of adrenaline can help you focus and think more clearly.”

All photos by Shutterstock.
Sarah Jio is the health and fitness blogger for Glamour.com. Visit her blog, Vitamin G
http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Health/Mental-Health/7-Ways-Stress-Can-Actually-Be-Good-for-You.html

Focusing In Meditation: Can It Calm an Over-Active Mind?

2010-05-06T13:23:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how exhausting it is to not focus? How many times have you heard about someone happy to be back from vacation, so they can relax?
This article got me really thinking, focusing on the value of focus.

"Depression tied to over-active brain network"
Posted By Futurity- Jenny Leonard On March 6, 2009 (3:04 pm) In Health & Medicine

Images of the brain from various angles show the default mode network (in blue). All of the other colors within that default network show brain regions that are overactive in people with depression.

WASHINGTON-ST. LOUIS (US)—People with depression may not be able to “lose themselves” in work, music, exercises, or other activities that enable most healthy people to get “outside” of themselves.

A study by neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis demonstrates that brain regions, collectively known as the default mode network, behave differently in depressed people. The default network typically is active when the mind wanders. It shuts down when an individual focuses on the job at hand. But the researchers found the network stays active in people who are depressed, even when they are concentrating on specific tasks.

“When healthy people engage in a very focused activity, they in a sense, lose themselves,” says senior investigator Marcus E. Raichle, whose research group in 2001 first identified the default mode network. “If you really are engaged in something, you kind of forget yourself, and that loss of self corresponds to the deactivation we observe in brain scans of the default network. But that doesn’t seem to happen in the brains of people with depression.”
Raichle, a professor of radiology, neurology, neurobiology, psychology and biomedical engineering, says one characteristic of the default network is that it tends to involve self-referential functions. For example, it may involve memories, not just memories of facts or information but about our own experiences and how they relate to that information—the difference between remembering that hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11 and remembering where you were when you watched or heard about the attack.

Brain regions in the default network assess what is going on inside of us, to survey the effects of the environment around us and to make judgments about whether or not we approve. Scientists have linked the network to inward-looking activities, a kind of internal narrative of our life stories.

The research team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of 20 people with major depression as well as 21 individuals who were not depressed. None of the people in the study were being treated with antidepressant drugs at the time of their brain scans.

Once in the scanner, subjects were shown pictures designed to evoke emotion, from snarling dogs and violent scenes to pictures of flowers and smiling faces. Sometimes, study subjects simply reacted to the picture as they saw it. At other times, they were coached to regulate their responses. That is, if they saw a frightening picture of a snarling dog, they might remind themselves it was an imaginary scene or think to themselves that the dog was behind a fence and unable to hurt them.

Whether subjects simply reacted to the pictures or regulated their responses, brain regions in the default network became inactive as healthy participants looked at and responded to the pictures (i.e. focused). Not so for those with depression.

“Some parts of the default network, such as the brain’s amygdala, are related to emotion,” says Yvette I. Sheline, professor of psychiatry and the study’s first author. “And emotional pictures made those regions more active in depressed people. Meanwhile, other structures that normally deactivate did not deactivate as much. They weren’t able to shut down in the same way as a normal person’s brain.”

Sheline says the depressed people in the study seemed to be more affected by the pictures than the healthy, control subjects. It was harder for them to detach the way people without depression could.

As she continues this research, Sheline now is looking at the brains of depressed people following treatment with antidepressant drugs. Preliminary results suggest that their default networks function more normally. She’s also planning to test cognitive behavior therapy to see whether it might help “reset” the brain’s default network in people with depression.

“People with depression often suffer from cognitive distortions,” Sheline says. “This is the thinking that leads from the idea that ‘I made a mistake’ to the notion that ‘I am a bad person.’ Cognitive behavior therapy gives people tools to fight against that kind of thinking and reorient themselves in ways that make them less vulnerable to depressive thoughts.”

The hope, she says, would be that treatment—either with medication or cognitive behavior therapy or both—might help deactivate overactive brain regions that keep depressed people embroiled in depressive thoughts and, in fact, reset the brain to function more normally.

“It’s as if the depressed brain has a cold,” Sheline explains. “We can take medication to treat cold symptoms, but we still have the cold until we get better. Drugs and therapy can improve the symptoms of depression, and this discovery may help us learn whether those therapies merely treat symptoms or whether they also improve the underlying disorder.”

University of Washington in St. Louis news: http://news-info.wustl.edu/

Article taken from Futurity.org - http://futurity.org
URL to article: http://futurity.org/health-medicine/depression-tied-to-over-active-brain-network/

Meditation At Work: It’s Easy

2010-04-29T11:41:00.000-07:00

If the idea of meditation at work is new to you, read this brief article on Tips for Meditation at Work by Veronica Smith, which I copied for you, here:

Meditation is one of the most effective ways in relieving stress and anxieties. If it is your first time to meditate, take some time and accept that you need to start somewhere. Your house, a secluded place dedicated for meditation, and your bathroom are not just the only places where you can have some meditation exercises. You could also meditate right at your very desk. Check out some of the several meditation techniques that you could do while you are at work.

Relaxed State
You need to reach a very relaxed state before starting meditation. When you are not relaxed your whole meditation process could not be successful.

Close Your Eyes
After you reached the relaxed state, you then need to close your eyes. Closing your eyes aids mental focus in meditation. When your eyes are open, persons or things could distract and disturb your meditation.

Slow Breathing
Be aware of each breath that you take. Make sure to take a long, slow deep breath in and then exhale slowly. You could also count every breath for a few seconds. When you consciously breathe you will be amazed how soon you become relaxed.

Focus On One Thing
While you are at your working chair beside your desk, eyes closed and breathing slowly, you then try to focus only on one thing. It could be the noises that your co-workers make, the sounds of the music playing on your computer, or the laughter from your boss' office. It is perfectly normal if your focus drift but when you become aware of the drift, immediately try to bring the focus back.

No-worry
When meditating, try not to worry about your deadlines, problems, health issues, and other troubles that stress you out. You could even try not to think at all. This technique is similar to petit mal seizure where your mind goes blank but only for a short period of time. You will be surprised how you will feel light after just a few minutes of thinking about nothing.

Be happy and stay stress-free by exercising some meditation techniques while you are at work. Do these techniques ten minutes a day may it be during your lunch break or coffee break and see some results.

Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Career-Tips---Meditation-Techniques-While-At-Work&id=898130

Meditation At Work: How to Sneak In a Few OMs

2010-04-29T11:28:00.000-07:00

How do you meditate at work, or anywhere, without calling attention to yourself?

Please share your tips for Sneaking in a meditation or two during the day in COMMENTS, below

Introducing Kids to Meditation

2010-04-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

There are good reasons to introduce kids to meditation practices. If you are wondering where to begin, I hope this post helps you. Here are some techniques I find very helpful:

1) Encourage it, by not discouraging it. If you see your kids relaxing, sitting still and quiet, it may be that your kids are natural meditators. When you notice being quiet and contemplative, don't assume something is “wrong, and needs to be fixed.”

2) Show by example. If there aren’t natural meditators in your home, you can encourage it, through example। Let your kids see you sitting quietly and silently. Show them that it is okay, by doing it yourself. One of the most profound lessons I learned teaching a Kids Meditation Class (which was really day-care), was that when everyone else there was running around, I could just sit down and sit quietly. This would have a strong effect on the energy of the group and a profound effect. Maybe it didn’t stop the chaos that day but each time thereafter, more kids would opt to sit quietly when “needing a break” from the activity.

3) Tell them some tips on how to relax. If you have a child or grandchild who is feeling pretty stressed out, and asking for help, (or even if they’re not asking) tell them about simple meditation techniques – or whatever relaxation techniques you use. Kids are really open to it, and they really appreciate your candor and caring. For some tips go here

4) Guided meditations. A fun technique that young kids love is guided meditations. It’s something they really enjoy. (Actually, kids of all ages – and adults! – love guided meditation.) You can have them picture themselves in a “favorite place” and guide them on a magical journey. I like to have them follow a magical bubble that offers advice to their problems and gives them a magical gift. But use your imagination and let them use theirs and have a lot of fun when you do it. And when you do it, make sure to allow for plenty of time for the kids to give you descriptions of what they saw during their meditation, even if they make it up as they go along.

5) Turn whatever activity, whatever movement, into a meditation. Your meditation session could be kind of like a “Simon Says” game with the goal of being even more relaxed and happy. It could be walking, trotting, running, and then sitting.

6) Take turns. Kids meditation classes are most fun when we take turns leading the meditation. If it’s sitting meditation I pass the meditation bell around to each kid. Then each kid can be in charge and determine the length of the meditation. It’s also fun to have the kids take turns deciding which meditation to do, or even making one up.

7) Play a game. There are some games that lend themselves well to teaching kids that its okay to sit still and quiet and just practice awareness. This tactic is especially useful for kids with very short attention spans. The pace the kids set may be frenetic, but yours can be slow and relaxing. Here are some suggestions:

Duck, duck, goose: sit in a circle facing in। One person is the goose and walks around the perimeter gentle patting each sitter on the head, naming them a duck or a goose. Usually, most are named duck, as when the goose is named they have to jump up and chase the old goose who runs fast to grab the empty seat before being caught. Then the new goose circle the group naming duck, duck,…
Musical chairs: Kids sit in chairs until the music starts। They walk around the chairs slowly. A chair is removed. The music stops and the kids rush to a seat. The kid left standing is out.
Hide and seek: One person is “it” and counts (up to 20, perhaps) while the kids hide। The person who is “it” searches for the kids while they, meanwhile, try to run to the safe-place. The kid who is cught in their hiding place is the next “it.” If the person who’s “it” can’t find all the kids, they yell “All yee all yee oxen free!” and they have to be “it” again.
Maybe you’ll come up with another game. If you do, I’d love to know about it.

Meditation with a group
If you do these meditations with a group of kids, it has the extra benefit of letting them learn how to relax around each other.

The downside of kid group meditation is that the kids might be more interested in getting to meet new friends. If this is the case, I suggest just do what you can without being too much of a party-pooper. :)

Here's a link to an article on meditation in schools:
http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2008/01/29/mindfulness-and-meditation-in-schools-for-stress-and-anxiety-management/
Here's what's going on in the Netherlands, with meditation in schools: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=www.mindfulkids.nl&sl=auto&tl=en

Kids have Stress

2010-04-21T10:21:00.001-07:00

Ask your kids and teens how they are doing.
Ask if they are stressed.

Kids have Stress
When I first started teaching Zen Meditation classes for kids I was shocked to find that many of the kids 6 – 8 years old chose the class for themselves to help learn how to deal with stress! The national KidsPoll surveyed 875 9- to 13-year-olds asking them what things cause them the most stress. They found that 36% of the stress came from school, 32% from family; and 21% from peers. Those numbers are completely accurate with what I found when I asked my meditation students. My students told me they had stress about school-work and social conflicts in school and with siblings.

The KidsPoll went on to say that about 25% of the kids surveyed said that when they are upset, they take it out on themselves, by hurting themselves. (biting or hitting themselves, banging their head against something, or hurting themselves in other ways). And unfortunately these kids were also likely to have other unhealthy coping strategies. But an interesting thing about the self-hurting stress-reduction strategies is that they work in a way similarly to many meditation techniques: By shifting our attention from our thoughts to our feelings. The difference between the self-hurting strategies and meditation is that meditation is not self destructive. Meditation is actually healthy.

Meditation helps us relax, focus, and develop confidence and self-esteem. So, how can we introduce our kid/s to the healthy practice of meditation? A great first step is just by asking them how they are doing and if they are stressed. If they answer “Yes,” not only do you now have their interest, but they know they have yours. And then you can show them, or tell them, about some meditation techniques they can use and share with their friends.

Zen and Integrated-Oppositional Thinking

2010-04-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

What’s your idea of Zen?
Relaxation, at peace, tranquil.
Zen can be all of that.
Zen is being OK with your life - being intimate with your life.
Zen is the practice of being present
Being “one-with”
Zen is also to ability to embrace opposition!

Zen through Japan and China has had a traditional method of teaching students oppositional thinking and how to embrace paradox, and that is called “Koan Practice.”

Koan means case. A case is when someone seeks a remedy. For example, a medical case…. legal case…. A Koan is a story of a case that illustrates, and may initiate, a profound shift of perspective. In Zen tradition, a student seeks the remedy for a stuck perspective by studying Koan practice with a teacher.
A famous example is the koan, "What is the sound of one hand?"

The ability to embrace paradox, and engage in oppositional or integrative thinking, is especially valuable today. Matter of fact, there are studies that show this ability is the edge successful leaders have. Roger Martin posed this question, “How do successful leaders think?” for his Harvard Business Review magazine article. He studied several successful leaders and came to the same conclusion as F. Scott Fitzgerald: Successful Leaders have the ability to hold two opposing viewpoints at the same time, without going crazy. Successful leaders are the people who seem to know what to do in any situation.

And you can practice this. Sit as, i.e. identify with, your usual viewpoint. See everything from your angle, the angle you're used to. This part of the meditation is about you owning the fact that this is 'your' perspective. And, yes, your perspective is limited. After you've done that for a while, then stretch your imagination (it's a great tool!) and practice occupying the perspective of the opposite viewpoint. The viewpoint opposing your regular perspective could manifest as your competition, your enemies, whoever you’re having an issue with at the time, anyone (maybe even an aspect of yourself). From this second perspective see how the whole playing field looks. And how different it looks from your first perspective. From this perspective you will probably see elements, connections, and relationships, that you had no idea even existed before. Perhaps. After you have gone over the terrain from the second, oppositional, perspective, you will now shift to a third. Finally, sit and explore this third perspective that both embraces and includes, and yet transcends the previous two. In this last perspective, you can see even more objectively, and even more clearly, the positives and negatives of both preceding perspectives. You can see their strengths and weaknesses from a much wider angle. And you will probably see more connections, more elements of the whole situation, too.

I invite you to try this exercise before a meeting, after a confrontation, or while you are exploring new possibilities. It will give you a fresh perspective, and maybe a fresh approach.

I hope you find time to meditate daily. Especially when you are stressed, confused and now in opposition, too.

Using Your Obstacles: Use your stress in meditation

2010-04-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

You can use any, and every, thing in your life as your meditation practice. But let’s start with stress. In starting your daily meditation practice, What did you find as your biggest obstacles? They probably come from what most people are hoping meditation will relieve them from – STRESS. The most common stressors that people find keeping them from “the cushion” are: scheduling constraints, environmental obligations, lack of support and other difficulties. These all add to our stress.

Stress is often a hindrance to meditation practice in that your stressors keep you from committing to your time to meditate. Stress is what keeps us from scheduling even five minutes daily for ourselves. There is also the social stress of worrying (consciously or unconsciously) what our family and friends think of us sitting still, and quiet, even for 5 minutes. And not having the support of family and friends can cause us a lot of stress. This can keep us from maintaining a meditation practice.

Meditation Techniques: Non-thinking or Thinking
We can employ Non-thinking meditation techniques, as in "just sitting" and accepting our situation. We can employ Thinking meditation techniques, as in acknowledging the situation and delving into it. We can even learn to embrace the problem.

Stress comes from the perception and experience of identifying as opposites, even unconsciously, without embracing those opposites. Stress is what happens when you are caught in between - between shoulds or between shouldn'ts, for example. But when we can embrace our situation we alleviate our stress, because we alleviate ourselves of trying to maintain 2 separate identities. So, let's look at 2 opposites to embrace: The positive and the negative.

Ironically, it may be easier to embrace the negative because we already know it will be difficult, if not impossible. So we enter the situation more or less prepared for battle. But to embrace the positive sometimes is even more difficult, especially the bigger and closer to home it is for us. For example, for many people it's hard to take a compliment. It's hard to embrace the fact that we can (and do) manifest our highest ideal, our higher purpose. The point is, both are difficult: It's hard to embrace the positive as well as the negative.

2 types of stress: Signaling stress and Chronic stress
Signaling stress is what happens when we are excited, or afraid, about something coming up. We can turn this stress into energy and use it to help us get clear on what we need to do, motivate us to do our best, give our all, to the task. It gives us the energy to get through it, to accomplish our goals.
Chronic stress accumulates in us, in our minds, in our bodies. It's the worries, the fears, the anxieties we are afraid to acknowledge so we carry them around with us. We ignore chronic stress and become used to it. It becomes the norm. But its damaging to our emotional, mental, and physical health, and can even be debilitating.

How to Meditate with Stress
With Mindfulness training, meditating for clarity, watching the breath, feeling your energy, you can detect where and how you experience stress. By checking-in with yourself to notice stress regularly, you can incorporate your stress into your meditation practice. It does take practice. All meditation masters get stressed out and practice checking-in. And that is the mastery: mastering yourself, reminding yourself to practice, practice, practice. But check-in not only to find stress. Practice checking-in to find how relaxed you are, too. When you find you are stressed, bring your feeling of stress into your relaxation by bringing it into your meditation. If you notice that you are experiencing Signaling Stress, remind yourself that what you are experiencing is energy - energy to help you be your best. If you notice you are experience a symptom of chronic stress, just notice it. Breath, and watch your breath for a few minutes. This technique will calm you quickly, as will the techniques of just feeling, feeling your energy. Or feel your thoughts, as you watch them float by. You can employ the non-thinking meditation technique of just sitting, or just watching or feeling. Or you can employ the thinking technique and give a voice to your situation analyzing it as objectively as you can- turning it over to see all angles.

As an exercise, try this: Identify yourself as the 'Stressed-out self' (or 'Stress'). Really feel it, from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, and throughout your cells and molecules. Really feel it, and talk about what you are feeling, to yourself - What it's like to be you. Do this for as long as you can, until you have thoroughly explored this identity, given voice to all aspects. When you have exhausted it, move to the 'Voice', the identity, of No-Stress. Again, really feel it. Really explore it for a while. In this identity you may not have much to say, so just feel it. Allow yourself to really enjoy it.

Use Your Stress
Check-in with yourself during the day. Make it a habit. Ask, "How am I doing?" or "How am I feeling?"
Make it a habit to identify and notice your signs of stress. Then use these signs as triggers, reminders, to notice your breath, focus on your breathing, or feeling. In your feeling or breathing stress will dissipate. Making it a habit to use your stress as a reminder to meditate, to breath, relax and feel, will make your stress work for you - and help you relax.

AnnaZumi

Laughter: Good Medicine

Taking Risks

"Fear means go!"

10 Rules On Being A Savvy Risk-TakerBy Arnold Palmer With Guy Yocom AP Photo March 2011

Pain: My Restless Legs and Crossed Arms

Imagination – God – Needs and Wants

Weight Loss

10 Easy Meditations

10: Breathing Meditation

9: Walking Meditation

8: Guided Meditation

7: Quiet Mind Meditation

6: Activity Meditation

5: Spiritual Meditation

4: In the Moment Meditation

3: Visualization Meditation

2: Mantra Meditation

1: Binaural Beats Meditation

Breathe Easy - Trust Yourself

9 Ways to Add Years to Your Life

Quick and easy ways to reclaim your youthful side.from March 2011 spryliving.com

Optimism, optimism, optimism

Read the whole article, "Glass is Half-Full Thinking" Larry Lauer, Ph D, CC AASP, Institute for the Study of Youth Sports, Michigan State University http://appliedsportpsych.org/Resource-Center/Athletes/Articles/halffull

During the Day - Cue Statements

Practice to Find Your Zone

Meditation can improve quality of students’ lives

Mindfulness and Meditation in Schools for Stress Management

Reinvent Yourself

Another inspiring article from HBR: (and grabbed from Babak's blog)

Reinvent Your Business Before It’s Too Late

Thrown a Curve

The hidden competition curve.

The hidden capabilities curve.

The hidden talent curve.

Edge-Centric Strategy

Moving the edge of the market to the center.

Moving the edge of the organization to the center.

Change at the Top

Early top-team renewal.

Balance short-term and long-term thinking.

Organize to avoid overload.

Surplus Talent

Hire for cultural fit.

Prepare for challenges ahead.

Give employees room to grow.

About the Research

Jumping the S Curve

The Hidden S Curves of High Performance

Why Now?

Intellectual Property

Technology

Competition

Consumer Tastes

Zen of Football

Meditation Tips

Here are some meditation tips to enjoy and share with others.

Grown-Up Problems Start at Bedtime

Here's an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal. It's aimed at kids, but I think we all can benefit.

Grown-Up Problems Start at Bedtime

Kids Who Don't Sleep Enough Are at Greater Risk for Depression, Anxiety Later

By ANDREA PETERSEN

A Good Night

Strategies to encourage healthy sleep in kids

Related Videos: On Sleep

Designing a Wellness Program.

Meditation for Kids

Get Past Your Barriers

Barrier 1: Overemphasizing Personal Goals

Barrier 2: Protecting Your Public Image

Barrier 3: Turning Competitors into Enemies

Barrier 4: Going It Alone

Barrier 5: Waiting for Permission

Meditation and Happiness

Cellular Health and Meditation

Positive psychological changes from meditation training linked to cellular health

About UC Davis

Additional information:

Media contact(s):

BREATHE™ Meditation Technique

10 Rules On Being A Savvy Risk-Taker
By Arnold Palmer With Guy Yocom AP Photo March 2011

Quick and easy ways to reclaim your youthful side.
from March 2011 spryliving.com

Another inspiring article from HBR:
(and grabbed from Babak's blog)