Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) consists of multiple forms of mindfulness practice, including formal and informal meditation practice, as well as hatha yoga.
Although there is no explicit instruction in changing the nature of thinking, or emotional reactivity, MBSR has been shown to:
diminish the habitual tendency to emotionally react to and
ruminate about transitory thoughts and physical sensations;
reduce stress, depression, and anxiety symptoms;
modify distorted patterns of self-view;
amplify immune functioning;
enhance behavioral self-regulation; and
improve volitional orienting of attention.
Recent functional neuroimaging studies of MBSR have provided evidence of reduced narrative and conceptual and increased experiential and sensory self-focus at post-MBSR and decreased conceptual–linguistic self-referential processing from pre- to post-MBSR.
The formal practice consists of:
breath-focused attention,
body scan-based attention to the transient nature of sensory experience, (more…)
…integrating thinking and feeling is a desirable mental state, but many people have a hard time reasoning clearly when they’re upset, or bringing emotion into conceptual activities like planning.
Researchers have recently found that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is very involved with weaving thought and feeling together. They’ve also shown that the conscious control of attention is centered in the ACC, which is measurably strengthened by activities that train attention such as meditation. In another example, studies have shown that tuning into the emotional states of others–a central component of empathy–depends on the activity of the insula. The insula also handles interoception, the sensing of the internal state of the body, so mental activities such as sensory awareness activate and eventually thicken the insula, and thereby increase empathy.
In effect, investigators have found that a method used for one purpose (meditation, or sensory awareness) can stimulate and strengthen brain regions that are also involved with another purpose (integrating thinking and feeling, or empathy).
—Rick Hanson, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, author, and teacher with
a great interest in the intersection of psychology, neurology, and Buddhism.
He has written and taught extensively about the essential inner skills of personal well-being,psychological growth, and contemplative practice–as well as about relationships,family life, and raising children. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA,Rick did management consulting before earning his Ph.D.
Lab rats can teach us a lot about the rat race at the office.
I had the great privilege of talking with eminent psychoneuroimmunologist Dr. Lydia Temoshok last night in Reston, at a Chez Nous event. Dr. Temoshok has been a pioneer in the scientific study of stress on our immune systems and its impact on the progress of diseases, especially HIV/AIDS.
She reviewed for us the classic result published in Science in 1983. Three groups of rats were studied. One group was subjected to shocks administered from the floor of their cage but they also had a lever that, when pressed by a rat, would stop the shock. A separate group felt exactly the same shocks as the first group but had no relief lever to press. The third group of rats had no shocks. The rats subjected to uncontrollable shocks suffered suppressed immune systems. The rats subjected to shocks with some control over their environmental stress, group one, not only did better than the rats without control but–by at least one measure–had a better immune response than the control group of rats with no shocks at all. The conclusions of the study have been repeated and extended by many other experiments, including some that showed this change in immune system response affected the speed at which cancer tumors grew.
I asked Dr. Temoshok if it was sensible to compare these conclusions with the famous Whitehall Studies of British civil servants. These long-term studies (more…)
From the moment I could talk,
I was told that I should listen.
–Cat Stevens Father and Son
I assume that you already know and do not need to be convinced that:
Your most profitable sales and easiest growth come from existing clients.1
Unhappy customers are 5-20 times more likely to tell others about their bad experience than satisfied customers are to spread good news.2
A simple, high-return method of learning from your happy and unhappy customers, of knowing your customers better while making them more loyal to you is to listen to them. Customers are people and people love being listened to.
If you listen closely enough, your customers will explain your business to you.
Mesmerizing and provocative meditation to modern music from “The Sakyong, Jamgön Mipham Rinpoche, one of Tibet’s highest and most respected incarnate lamas.”
Sakyong Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche, Jampal Trinley Dradul (born Osel Rangdrol Mukpo in 1962) is the head of the Shambhala Buddhist lineage and Shambhala International, a worldwide network of urban Buddhist meditation centers, retreat centers, monasteries, a university, and other enterprises.
A merchant owed a large sum of money to a lender. The old, ugly moneylender fancied the merchant’s beautiful daughter. He proposed that he would forget the debt if he could marry the merchant’s daughter. The merchant and his daughter were horrified.
The moneylender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty bag. The girl would pick a pebble from the bag. If she picked the black pebble she would have to marry the moneylender and the debt would be forgotten. If she picked the white pebble, she need not marry him and the debt would be forgotten. If she refused to pick a pebble the merchant would have to go to jail.
The moneylender bent over and picked up two pebbles. The sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. The girl immediately agreed to the contest despite her father’s protests.
Why did she agree?
On first impression it would seem there were only three possibilities:
She refuses to take a pebble, sending her father to debtors prison.
She shows that there were two black pebbles exposing the cheating moneylender but leaving the her father in debt.
She picks a black pebble and sacrifices herself for her father’s freedom.
Before you read the answer, below, try to solve this problem yourself.
I use Twitter to share brief messages, not more than two per day. You can have them delivered to your cell phone by text message (SMS) or view them when you visit your free Twitter web page. Create a Twitter account and “follow” TonyMayo.
Here are my recent tweets (messages):
If you have had a good time playing the game, you are a winner even if you lose. –Malcolm Forbes
Our dalliances and detours define us. There are no maps to guide our most important searches. –Dr. Gordon Livingston
The unexamined life is not worth living. –Socrates Apology 38a
This executive coach can lead your examination.
Remove unwelcome emotion–sadness, fear, regret–by relaxing into it. Resistance is futile.
The best time to worry is when you are winning. –Tony Mayo
All models are wrong, but some are useful. –Statistician George E. P. Box
Leadership is the ability to get others to do what they do not want to do and like it. –Harry Truman
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) consists of multiple forms of mindfulness practice, including formal and informal meditation practice, as well as hatha yoga.
I assume that you already know and do not need to be convinced that:
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