Deconstructing Yourself

By Jan Hoffman for The New York Times Mindfulness meditation, the ancient and flourishing practice that increases awareness of random thoughts and redirects attention to the present moment, has been used to manage stress, depression and even chronic pain. But can it improve test scores? Researchers in the department of psychological and brain sciences at the University [...]

by Claudine Ryan for ABC Health and Wellbeing Feeling less stressed, having better concentration and a greater resilience to life’s challenges are some of the commonly-cited reasons for trying meditation. But this quest for inner calm is not limited to adults sitting in the lotus position; inside classrooms you’ll find children and young people also [...]

From Science Codex Focusing on the present rather than letting the mind drift may help to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, suggests new research from the Shamatha Project at the University of California, Davis. The ability to focus mental resources on immediate experience is an aspect of mindfulness, which can be improved by [...]

From LiveScience If you’ve ever struggled to keep your mind from wandering during an important test or another task that requires laser-like focus, researchers say a little meditation could help you concentrate. Mindfulness training, which teaches how to center one’s thoughts on the present moment, improved both GRE reading-comprehension scores and working memory capacity in [...]

by Michael W. Taft If you cannot focus on one thing at a time, or cannot maintain attention on one thing for as long as you want to, that is distraction. Distraction dilutes brain power, frazzles the nerves, and results in non-optimum outcomes. You end up stressed out and spun around, and don’t even have [...]

Back in October we posted an article about meditation helping students. While introducing mindfulness to students is incredibly important, shouldn’t teachers be learning to meditate too? I was very happy to come across this Science Daily article about just that. In a study of 82 teachers “The findings suggest that increased awareness of mental processes [...]

by Jessica Graham My teacher Shinzen teaches that mindfulness meditation has three parts: concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity, which all together lead to a reduction in suffering. But sometimes people have “freak-outs.” A freak-out is a state in which you lose the ability to concentrate and maintain sensory clarity. As a result, your equanimity falls [...]

Part of the Concentration Series, by Michael W. Taft Have you ever been so involved in doing something that the rest of the world just kind of disappeared? Or time slowed down and even your sense of self disappeared? The great Brazilian soccer star Pele talked about an experience he had in which he felt: [...]

by Michael W. Taft (This post is part 5 of the Concentration Series.) Yesterday I was deep inside a website, working on a project that took my full attention. Just as I was getting really focused, a neighbor busted out his leaf blower and started making a terrible racket. I have pretty good concentration skills, [...]

We’ve been discussing concentration lately on the blog. Here, meditation teacher Shinzen Young shares his views on concentration. Fascinating and helpful. Part one of a three part series.