Mindfulness

Meditation
 What is Mindful Meditation?
• One pointedness
• Being in the here-and-now

“Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration

on our usual everyday routine.”
Shunryu Suzuki
“Knowing what you are doing while you are doing it is
the essence of mindfulness training”
Jon Kabat-Zinn
 What is Mindful Meditation?
• One pointedness
• Being in the here-and-now
“In this training of the mind, we learn to let go of the
thoughts and feelings that pull us out of the present
moment, and to steady our awareness on our
immediate experience.”
Tara Bennett Goleman

• A psychological need
• The gift of the present
• Mental hygiene
Lama Oser Paul Ekman
 Lama Oser
• Left-to-right ratio in prefrontal cortex
 Lama Oser
• Left-to-right ratio in prefrontal cortex
• Recognizing emotions in others
• The startle response
 Lama Oser
• Left-to-right ratio in prefrontal cortex
• Recognizing emotions in others
• The startle response

“Given that the larger someone’s startle, the more

intensely that person tends to experience upsetting
emotions, Oser’s performance had tantalizing
implications, suggesting a remarkable level of emotional
equanimity.”
Daniel Goleman
 Lama Oser
• Left-to-right ratio in prefrontal cortex
• Recognizing emotions in others
• Control over the startle response
• Social contagion

“I couldn’t be confrontational. I was always met with

reason and smiles; it’s overwhelming. I felt something—
like a shadow or an aura—and I couldn’t be aggressive.”
 Growing Tip Statistic
“The process itself has some extraordinary qualities, but
not necessarily the subject. The important idea is that
this process is within the reach of anyone who applies
himself or herself with enough determination.”
Lama Oser
“From the perspective of neuroscience, the point of all
this research has nothing to do with demonstrating that
Oser or any other extraordinary person may be
remarkable in him-or herself, but rather to stretch the
field’s assumptions about human possibility. Some of
these key assumptions have already begun to expand, in
part due to a revolution in neuroscience’s supposition
about the malleability of the brain itself.”
Daniel Goleman
Meditation for the Masses (Kabat-Zinn)
• Decrease in anxiety
• Mood change
• Pre-frontal cortex activation
• Immune response
Self-Esteem

(Sepah, 2004)
Self-Esteem
Meditation in the Work Place
 Intelligence
• Creativity
• Cognitive flexibility
• Memory
• Reaction time
• IQ
 Being Mindful: Let Me Count the Ways
• Breathing
“If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one
tip, it would be simply to learn how to breathe correctly.”
Andrew Weil
 Being Mindful: Let Me Count the Ways
• Breathing
• Mantra
• Music and dance

“It happens that music and rhythm and dancing are

excellent ways of moving toward the discovering of
identity. We are built in such a fashion that this kind of
trigger, this kind of stimulation, tends to do all kinds of
things to our autonomic nervous systems, endocrine
glands, to our feelings, and to our emotions. It just
does.”
Abraham Maslow
 Being Mindful: Let Me Count the Ways
• Breathing
• Mantra
• Music and dance
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)
• The five senses
• Flow
• Yoga
 Benefits of Yoga
• Reduces stress and depression (Taylor, 2002; Berger & Owen, 1992)
• Increases self-acceptance and self-esteem (Valente & Marrota, 2005; Harrison et al., 2004)
• Helps overcome ADHD and asthma (Jensen & Kenny, 2004; Jain and Valecha, 1991)
• Reinforces attitudes through persistent behavior (“Body feedback hypothesis”)
• A caveat
“The riches banquet, the most exotic travel, the most
interesting, attractive lover, the finest home—all of these
experiences can seem somehow unrewarding and
empty if we don’t really attend to them fully—if our
minds are elsewhere, preoccupied with disturbing
thoughts. By the same token, the simplest of life’s
pleasures—eating a piece of fresh-baked bread, seeing
a work of art, spending moments with a loved one—can
be amply rich if we bring a full attention to them. The
remedy to dissatisfaction is inside us, in our minds, not
in groping for new and different outer sources of
satisfaction.”
Tara Bennett Goleman
 Bibliography and Recommendations
• Bennett-Goleman, T. (2002). Emotional Alchemy. Three
Rivers Press.
• Benson, H. The Relaxation Response. HarperTorch.
• Carrington, P. et al. (1980). The Use of Meditation: Relaxation
Techniques for the Management of Stress in a Working
Population. Journal of Occupational Medicine, 22, 221-231.
• Derezotes, D. (2000). Evaluation of Yoga and Meditation
Trainings With Adolescent Sex Offenders. Human Science
Press, 17, 97-113.
• Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full Catastrophe Living: Using the
Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and
Illness. Delta.
• Hall, S. S. (2003). Is Buddhism Good for Your Health? New
York Times Magazine, September 14.
• Shapiro, S. L. et al. (2002). Meditation and Positive
Psychology. In C. R. Snyder and S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook
of Positive Psychology, 632-645. Oxford University Press.