On Meditation

Book Review – AntiCancer: A new way of life by David Servan-Schreiber MD Ph.D

Meditation is the new Yoga

Remember when yoga became popular, and then it was everywhere? I feel like meditation is like that now. And, I kind of love it. I love that this practice is becoming main stream. I only wish I had known about it sooner. I could have been so much farther ahead.

With that said, I would like to share some cool science behind meditating. Like we need another reason to take a break from the crazy.

In his book, Anticancer, David Servan Schreiber, MD, Ph.D gives us some scientific reasons to practice meditation on the daily.

From the book:

“In his laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, Richard Davidson, Ph.D, studies changes in activity within the brains of people who have practiced meditation for years. Several Tibetan monks have participated in the experiment, among them, Matthieu Ricard, Ph.D, a former cell biologist turned Buhdist monk and philosopher who helped set up the experiment. During meditation, their cerebral rhythms register a larger amplitude of oscillations than in non-meditative states. In addition, activity measured within the different brain regions begins to oscillate in harmony. The regions are said to synchronize. On the scale of the brain, it’s a phenomenon comparable to establishing coherence in the bodies biological processes. Still better, Davidson and his collaborators have discovered that this synchronization lasts even beyond meditation sessions.

Fortunately, the health benefits of such states can accrue even in beginners. The same laboratory ran an experiment with executives from a large bio-technology firm as the test subjects. Two groups were studied. Members of the first group didn’t change anything in their habits, while those in the second group were trained in mindfulness meditation, as it is taught in the hospital program established by Jon Kabat Zinn. After a scant 8 weeks among those who had made a short period of meditation part of their everyday habits significant changes had taken place in the electrical activity of their brains as measured by EEG. Regions associated with positive mood and optimism, the left, frontal regions, were distinctly more active compared to their earlier state or to that of the control group. And this effect reached further than the brain or the subject’s mood. Their immune systems reacted to the flu vaccine more forcefully than those of the members of the control group. All these changes occurred with only two months of practice.”

Sounds pretty good right? If you are new to meditation and would like to give it a try, I would recommend listening to one of Deepak Chopra’s many guided meditations, or one of Emily Fletcher’s guided meditations.

Enjoy!

On Meditation

Productive Vs. Busy – On Journaling and Meditation

“I’m too busy” is a story we tell ourselves. We will make time for what is important to us.

Busyness is a choice. I used to say, “I don’t have time for that.” And I believed it. I really felt like I didn’t have time. I was always in motion, but motion doesn’t equal progress, and while, “busy people have many goals, productive people have priorities.”

“People who are always busy may appear to be accomplishing a lot, but are they actually being productive?”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m am “busier” now than I have ever been. I’m raising 2 amazing teenagers. I own 2 brick and mortar businesses. I write, meditate, and journal every day, I work out 5 days a week, read, listen to podcasts, cook for my family, and enjoy friendships and family. And I feel like I am moving slower and in a calmer manner than ever before.

A few years ago, I couldn’t have imagined journaling or meditating.

But as I listen to business leaders discussing their habits, most of them talk about journaling, and meditating. And, I’m coming to embrace the law of least effort , and focusing on the fact that I CAN do less and accomplish more. Gone are the days when I feel like I “just don’t have time”. Because the truth is you can do anything you want, just not everything you want. This is about focus and priorities.

Chase Jarvis says to replace, “I don’t have time,” with “that’s not a priority for me right now.” I found this to be pretty powerful.

Tim Ferriss says, “If you say you don’t have time to meditate for 5 minutes, you need to meditate for 10. If you say you don’t have time to meditate for an hour, you need to meditate for 3”.

I used to tell myself, “I don’t have time for this I don’t have time for that”. I was a stay-at-home mom with real commitments, but I said yes to too many commitments, and if I go ahead and tell the truth, I would steal a lot of time to do the things I wanted to do, like sneak in a nap, or sit on the couch and read for a few hours, or train for races. I don’t think any of those things are bad. I wish I could do more of that now. That is my ideal life, but I still FELT too busy. I didn’t have (make) time to call my parents, or have friends over for dinner, or talk on the phone to my sister. And I certainly told my husband, “I don’t have time for that.”

The changes I have implemented are great, and I hope to continue down this path. By the way, these days, I chat with my parents every week.

30 Day Detox, On Meditation

30 day cleanse, Week 3: On Meditation

Week 3 of Dr. Brogan’s cleanse “introduces a daily meditation practice that stimulates the body’s natural relaxation response and paves the way for lasting transformation.” She asks her patients to start with a 3 minute, daily meditation practice.

A few years ago I started hearing more and more about meditation, and was fully on the “I don’t have time for that, train.” But I’ve changed my mind. I listen to the Tim Ferriss podcast. Tim’s schtick is interviewing people who are the best of the best in their respective fields. He, “teases out their tips, tricks, and habits” for his audience to use. He is a great interviewer, one of my favorites, although I’ll give a warning here that his podcast has a fair bit of adult language.

One of the common threads among the leaders Ferriss interviews is that roughly 80% have a daily mindfulness practice. For this reason, I decided to give meditation a try and love the practice now. I think I started with 5 minutes. Now, I usually commit at least 15 minutes every morning, and can’t remember the last time I missed. I look forward to it so much. I have a life goal to be relaxed, focused, and productive, instead of “busy”. And I feel that meditation helps with this.

Here’s an exciting bit of science to support meditation:

In her book, Dr. Brogan writes, “Among the first studies to emerge on the effects of meditation came out in 2005 when researchers at Harvard Massachusetts General Hospital published an imaging study; particular areas of the cerebral cortex were shown to be thicker in people who meditate on a regular basis. Since then numerous studies have documented that “thick-brained” people tend to be smarter and have stronger memories. These cortical areas are involved with attention and sensory processing and are used for planning complicated cognitive behaviors. It appears that meditation is truly an exercise for the brain, as if it helps grow stronger muscles in the areas used.”

Mediation gives us bigger brains!

Meditation is simply sitting in stillness, breathing deeply and trying, without self-judgement, to clear your mind of all thoughts. Focus on your breathing. For me it has become a nice alone-time and a beautiful way to start my day. I invite my kids to join me if I meditate in the evening. They usually decline the invitation.

My favorite guided meditations are by Deepak Chopra. This is my current favorite.Or I will listen to white noise on youtube.

Dr. Brogan shares a 20 minute meditation in her book a mind of your own. I’ve found it to be powerful when I’m facing a problem that is overwhelming me, or taking more of my time and energy than I want it to:

Drink the breath in in a single long breath through a rounded mouth then close the mouth and exhale through the nose slowly and completely. Continue for seven minutes.
Inhale and hold the breath comfortably. As you inhale meditate on zero. Think to yourself, all is zero. I am zero, each thought is zero. My pain is zero, that problem is zero. That illness is zero. Meditate on all negative or emotional, mental, and physical conditions and situations, and as each comes to mind, bring it to zero, a single point of light. A small, insignificant, non-existence. Exhale and repeat for 7 minutes Breathing in a comfortable rhythm.
Think of the quality or condition you most desire for your complete happiness and growth. Summarize it in a single word, such as health, wealth, relationship, guidance, knowledge, luck. Lock onto the single word and visualize the various facets of it. Experience how it feels to have this quality and condition in your life now. Inhale and suspend the breath as you beam the thought in a continuous stream. Lock onto it, relax the breath as needed. Shake out your limbs to end and namaste.

You can also use scripture study as your meditation time. I know people who say they get the same benefits from daily scripture study and contemplation, that is, a calmer mind, a calmer day, and the ability to “handle the unexpected with calm and ease” (that is a line from another favorite Deepak Chopra guided meditation).

If you’re up for it, I highly recommend giving meditation a try.