Deconstructing Yourself

by Michael W. Taft You may think that you are too busy to practice meditation. But there is nobody who doesn’t have a spare minute here or there to be mindful. Even in the midst of a crazy workday, focusing on sensory events now and then is a powerful way to banish stress, anxiety, overwhelm, [...]

by Michael W. Taft “Never eat anything bigger than your head.” — B. Kliban A good friend of mine recently returned to school. As an adult learner, he set a goal for himself to do the best job possible, to ace every class he could. As someone with slight learning disabilities, however, school posed special [...]

by Pam Harrison May 24, 2011 (Washington, DC) — Group sessions during which cancer survivors are taught meditation, mindful yoga, and communication techniques significantly improve psychological symptoms and quality of life (QoL), especially among breast cancer survivors. Ruth Lerman, MD, from William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, and her colleagues conducted a study in [...]

Meditation can help relieve pain and improve memory by regulating a brain wave known as the alpha rhythm, which ‘turns down the volume’ on distractions. Mindfulness meditation has been reported to enhance numerous mental abilities, including rapid memory recall. The discovery that mindfulness meditators more quickly adjusted the brain wave that screens out distraction could [...]

We name Wednesday after Wodin or Odin, the norse God of wisdom (“Wodin’s-day”). He’s the Norse Mercury, which is interesting when you consider the French and Spanish words for Wednesday: mercredi and miércoles respectively, both of which mean “Mercury’s day.” We’re talking the God Mercury here, not the planet, the car, or the singer. In [...]

by Dan Goleman One of the most upbeat people I know is Richard Davidson, a friend since my grad school days, now a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Director of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds. Richie, as everyone calls him, has always been one of those people whose mere presence [...]

by Michael W. Taft You’re having complex feelings about the things that happened with your partner yesterday. You feel upset and confused, there’s so much going on. You meet your friend at a coffee shop, hoping to talk about some of this. But as soon as you start, she digs out her iPhone and starts [...]

by Michael W. Taft The name of this blog is “Deconstructing Yourself,” but what does deconstruction have to do with meditation? In short: everything. Deconstructing your experience—in the sense of analyzing or seeing through—is the essence of the meditative endeavor. Specifically, deconstructing your sensory experience, including the experience of being you, an ego. On first [...]

by Dan Gould Looking after our minds should be as natural as brushing our teeth. The recently launched Action for Happiness movement suggests daily habits – doing good to others, taking exercise and nurturing relationships – can improve our mental health, just as five-a-day fruit and veg portions improve our physical health. The psychiatrist Dr [...]