Read Online Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World by Mark Williams, Danny Penman - Free Book Online
Authors: Mark Williams, Danny Penman
empathy
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Scientific research using brain imaging (fMRI) has shown that the insula becomes energized through meditation. 9 this is hugely significant because this part of the brain is integral to our sense of human connectedness as it helps to mediate empathy in a very real and visceral way. Empathy allows you to see into another’s soul, as it were, helping you to understand their predicament “from the inside.” With it comes true compassion, true loving-kindness. If you looked inside your brain using a scanner you would see this area buzz with life when you are feeling empathy for another person. 10 Meditation not only strengthens this area, but also helps it to grow and expand.
But why is this important? Apart from being good for society and all of humanity, empathy is good for
you
. Empathy and feeling genuine compassion and loving-kindness toward yourself and others have hugely beneficial effects on health and well-being. The longer a person has meditated, the more highly developed is the insula. But even eight weeks of mindfulness training is sufficient to show changes in the way in which this critical area of the brain functions. 11
----
Numerous clinical trials have now shown that these hugely positive effects on the brain translate into benefits for our sense of happiness, well-being and physical health too. A few examples are shown in the box on page 50 .
Other proven benefits of meditation
----
Research centers around the world are continuing to discover the benefits of mindfulness meditation on mental and physical health. Here are just a few:
Mindfulness, loving-kindness and positive mood
Professor Barbara Fredrickson and colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have proved that meditation focusing on loving-kindness for the self and for others boosted positive emotions that then led to a sense of having a greater zest for life. After just nine weeks of training, meditators developed an increased sense of purpose and had fewer feelings of isolation and alienation, along with decreased symptoms of illnesses as diverse as headaches, chest pain, congestion and weakness. 12
Different aspects of mindfulness affect different moods
Each of the meditations in this book produces different—but intimatelyconnected—benefits. For example, research at the University Medical Center at Groningen, the Netherlands, shows that increases in positive mood and well-being are directly related to becoming more aware of routine daily activities, observing and attending to the ordinary experiences of life and acting less automatically. By contrast, decreases in negative mood are more closely related to accepting thoughts and emotions without judgment and learning to be open and curious about painful feelings. 13
Mindfulness and autonomy
Kirk Brown and Richard Ryan at the University of Rochester, New York, have discovered that more mindful people engageinmore autonomous activities. That is, they do not do things because others want them to or pressure them into doing them. Nor do they engage in tasks just to help them look good to others, or even to help them feel better about themselves. Rather, those who are more mindful spend more time doing things that they truly value, or that they simply find fun or interesting to do. 14
Meditation and physical health
Numerous recent clinical trials have shown that meditation can have a profoundly positive effect on physical health. One study, funded by the US National Institutes of Health and published in 2005, discovered that the form of meditation that has been practiced in the West since the 1960s (Transcendental Meditation) leads to a massive reduction in mortality. Compared with controls, the meditation group showed a 23 percent decrease in mortality over the nineteen-year period that the group was studied. There was a 30 percent decrease in the rate of cardiovascular mortality and also a large decrease
----
Scientific research using brain imaging (fMRI) has shown that the insula becomes energized through meditation. 9 this is hugely significant because this part of the brain is integral to our sense of human connectedness as it helps to mediate empathy in a very real and visceral way. Empathy allows you to see into another’s soul, as it were, helping you to understand their predicament “from the inside.” With it comes true compassion, true loving-kindness. If you looked inside your brain using a scanner you would see this area buzz with life when you are feeling empathy for another person. 10 Meditation not only strengthens this area, but also helps it to grow and expand.
But why is this important? Apart from being good for society and all of humanity, empathy is good for
you
. Empathy and feeling genuine compassion and loving-kindness toward yourself and others have hugely beneficial effects on health and well-being. The longer a person has meditated, the more highly developed is the insula. But even eight weeks of mindfulness training is sufficient to show changes in the way in which this critical area of the brain functions. 11
----
Numerous clinical trials have now shown that these hugely positive effects on the brain translate into benefits for our sense of happiness, well-being and physical health too. A few examples are shown in the box on page 50 .
Other proven benefits of meditation
----
Research centers around the world are continuing to discover the benefits of mindfulness meditation on mental and physical health. Here are just a few:
Mindfulness, loving-kindness and positive mood
Professor Barbara Fredrickson and colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have proved that meditation focusing on loving-kindness for the self and for others boosted positive emotions that then led to a sense of having a greater zest for life. After just nine weeks of training, meditators developed an increased sense of purpose and had fewer feelings of isolation and alienation, along with decreased symptoms of illnesses as diverse as headaches, chest pain, congestion and weakness. 12
Different aspects of mindfulness affect different moods
Each of the meditations in this book produces different—but intimatelyconnected—benefits. For example, research at the University Medical Center at Groningen, the Netherlands, shows that increases in positive mood and well-being are directly related to becoming more aware of routine daily activities, observing and attending to the ordinary experiences of life and acting less automatically. By contrast, decreases in negative mood are more closely related to accepting thoughts and emotions without judgment and learning to be open and curious about painful feelings. 13
Mindfulness and autonomy
Kirk Brown and Richard Ryan at the University of Rochester, New York, have discovered that more mindful people engageinmore autonomous activities. That is, they do not do things because others want them to or pressure them into doing them. Nor do they engage in tasks just to help them look good to others, or even to help them feel better about themselves. Rather, those who are more mindful spend more time doing things that they truly value, or that they simply find fun or interesting to do. 14
Meditation and physical health
Numerous recent clinical trials have shown that meditation can have a profoundly positive effect on physical health. One study, funded by the US National Institutes of Health and published in 2005, discovered that the form of meditation that has been practiced in the West since the 1960s (Transcendental Meditation) leads to a massive reduction in mortality. Compared with controls, the meditation group showed a 23 percent decrease in mortality over the nineteen-year period that the group was studied. There was a 30 percent decrease in the rate of cardiovascular mortality and also a large decrease
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