Jon Kabat-Zinn, …, taught mindfulness at a high-stress biotech company; these beginners meditated for 30 minutes a day for eight weeks. [Professor] Davidson’s measures showed that after the eight weeks they had begun to activate that left prefrontal zone more strongly — and were saying that instead of feeling overwhelmed and hassled, they were enjoying their work. So while the Calvinist strain in American culture may look askance at someone sitting quietly in meditation, this kind of “doing nothing” seems to do something remarkable after all.
Of course, there’s no guarantee of greater happiness from meditation, but the East has given us a promising path for its pursuit.
I’m an old man and I’ve known many troubles, most of which never happened.
–Attributed to Mark Twain
Randomness’s Large Role in Life
NYTimes: Psychologist Daniel Gilbert makes the argument that uncertainty – not knowing what misfortune will come – makes people more unhappy than misfortune itself. Do you find that to be true?
Leonard Mlodinow: It does seem to be true of (more…)
“There is quite a bit of evidence now suggesting that the more people you have contact with, in your own home or outside, the better you do” mentally and physically, Dr. Kawas said. “Interacting with people regularly, even strangers, uses easily as much brain power as doing puzzles, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this is what it’s all about.”
And bridge, she added, provides both kinds of stimulation.
“People stop playing,” said Norma Koskoff, another regular [contract bridge] player here, “and very often when they stop playing, they don’t live much longer.”
That meditators are better able to concentrate and have steadier, more positive emotions has long been known. Regulation of emotion and attention occurs principally in the hippocampus, thalamus, and other specific parts of the brain. New research at UCLA has revealed exceptional enlargement of these structures in the brains of meditators. This growth does not come at the expense of other mental abilities as, “There were no regions where controls had significantly larger volumes or more gray matter than meditators. … Research has confirmed the beneficial aspects of meditation. In addition to having better focus and control over their emotions, many people who meditate regularly have reduced levels of stress and bolstered immune systems.” (Science Daily)
These might be the neuronal underpinnings that give meditators’ the outstanding ability to regulate their emotions and allow for well-adjusted responses to whatever life throws their way.
“Soldiers require 7-8 hours of good quality sleep each night to sustain operational readiness,” according to … the U.S. Army Medical Command. … “sheer determination or willpower cannot offset the mounting effects of inadequate sleep”…
Scans of sleep-deprived brains, when compared to scans of alert subjects’ brains, show less activity in the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain associated with high order functions like problem-solving, judgment and moral decision-making, he said. …the people who should sleep the most are unit leaders who make mission-critical decisions. …
[If you can’t change your work schedule, at least adjust your weekend routine.] Sleep can be “banked,” Balkin said. Soldiers forced to sleep for 10 hours, who were then sleep deprived for a week, performed better than soldiers who had only a normal night’s rest on the first night.
I make simple techniques for achieving calm and centering a foundation practice in my executive coaching. You can download instructions from my podcast here, Find Your Center Before You Act.
I recently heard conductor Lorin Maazel tell NPR’s Terry Gross how important centering is to his ability to perform effectively and avoid injury, even at his “advanced age.” You can hear his two minutes of instruction by clicking here. The evident skepticism in Ms. Gross’s voice tells me that she had not yet adopted deep breathing and conscious muscle relaxation as a regular practice. I hope the maestro’s endorsement moved her to try centering. The complete episode of NPR’s Fresh Air is available here.
I was listening to a clever and timely story on NPR this morning about the renewed prevalence of the hackneyed imperative, “Do more with less.” This is widely interpreted as a demand for longer hours to compensate for reduced budget and staff. My executive coaching clients, in contrast, report growth in income and profits while working fewer days and shorter, more flexible hours. Two keys are reducing stress and misdirected energy.
I was very pleased when the NPR reporter revealed the original form of the phrase from Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, “by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity. … as we read in Poor Richard, who adds, drive thy business, let not that drive thee.”
Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments in my life, I’m hurtling across space in between trapeze bars.
Most of the time, I spend my life hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the-moment. It carries me along a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I’m in control of my life. I know most of the right questions and even some of the right answers. But once in a while, as I’m merrily (or not so merrily) swinging along, I look ahead of me into the distance, and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swinging toward me. It’s empty, and I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new trapeze bar has (more…)
I just read Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street. The first two-thirds struck me as a humorous account of an eccentric employee, told from the business owner’s point of view. (I hear many such stories in my work as an executive coach to CEOs.) My impression shifted toward the end, as the narrative darkened into a tale of thwarted compassion for a hopeless innocent. It remains in my awareness as a poignant and contemporary warning of the isolation so casually tolerated in our commercial environments. Though Bartleby’s plight was beyond the ability of the well-meaning narrator to avert, better treatments are available today and most of the people in your office are reachable with as cheap an elixir as a smile, a lunch invitation, or a patient ear. Life ends too soon and suddenly to risk our kind communications going the way of the dead letters Bartleby sent to the flames, though they contained: “pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities.”
Read Bartleby, the Scrivenerhere or download the MP3 here.
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That meditators are better able to concentrate and have steadier, more positive emotions has long been known. Regulation of emotion and attention occurs principally in the hippocampus, thalamus, and other specific parts of the brain. 
I was listening to a 
I just read Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street. The first two-thirds struck me as a humorous account of an eccentric employee, told from the business owner’s point of view. (I hear many such stories in my work as an executive coach to CEOs.) My impression shifted toward the end, as the narrative darkened into a tale of thwarted compassion for a hopeless innocent. It remains in my awareness as a poignant and contemporary warning of the isolation so casually tolerated in our commercial environments. Though Bartleby’s plight was beyond the ability of the well-meaning narrator to avert, 
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