Odd things about Mindfulness you might not have known.
Youve all heard about it but heres some odd things ive heard a long the way about mindfuness which might interest you and spark your interest into trying it out….
MRI scans reveal that after an eight-week mindfulness course, the amygdala, the brain's "fight or flight" center linked to fear and stress, appears to shrink. Meanwhile, the prefrontal cortex, responsible for higher-order functions like awareness and decision-making, thickens.
Research is now showing in the last few years that there is an incredible plasticity of the brain in response to mindfulness practice (ability to change and evolve). Through neuroimaging studies, regular mindfulness can reshape neural circuits associated with attention, emotional regulation, and empathy.
A lot of meditation books talk about self love, compassion and being kind. An approach by the tibetan Buddhist meditation teacher Tsyonki Rinpoche is that we must connect to ‘ Essence Love’ - Rinpoche argues that there are many different forms of love, the most fundamental of which is Essence Love – “a basic okayness underlying the feeling world.” A lot of us dont feel ok deep down for whatever reasons. Its through connecting in with this sense of ‘im ok’ means we can reconnect back into our true self. Sometimes this means saying hello and showing kindness to strong emotions such as shame, anger, fear, sadness, grief, frustration etc your ‘beautiful monsters’ as Rinpoche explains….“Once we make friends with our beautiful monsters, then we are no longer afraid of ourselves.”
It's estimated that humans experience a whopping 70,000 thoughts daily, highlighting the constant mental activity we navigate. Hence the working with thoughts is probably the most challenging in meditation practice. However, one of the most illuminating things for me in my own practice was there is actually a way to looking at ‘thoughts’ and we can move beyond stressful thinking. When confronted with the inner critic, cultivating self-compassion can be transformative, offering kindness and understanding to the parts of ourselves that may be self-critical. Other technciques such as labelling thoughts as "thinking" or "planning" can create distance and objectivity, helping us to recognize that we are not our thoughts but rather the observers of them, empowering us to choose how to respond rather than react. Not every thought requires our attention and sometimes our thinking patterns is mere habits and old programming also.
Willpower is a finite resource, as it relies on energy in the form of oxygen and glucose. Thus, saying "no" becomes more challenging when fatigued or depleted.
Concentration meditation, where attention is focused on a single object or task, activates brain regions crucial for attention control, even in beginner practitioners.
The brain's ability to concentrate diminishes over time, typically needing a reset every 90 minutes or so to maintain optimal function. So you do need to get up off your chair, take a break and walk around whilst in work.
The myth of only using 10% of the brain is just that – a myth. Every region of the brain serves a specific purpose and contributes to overall cognitive function.
Mindfulness meditaion can actually make you notice everything a lot more - your perception widens. Your sensory perception can widen making colors a lot brighter and flavors are more sensed. Perceptive people better recognize how others feel and why, which improves relationships, your career and your sense of self. Perceptive people tend to have a wider sense of attention to detail when focusing on a task, they connect more with their natural gut instincts, their smart decision making, and their natural inner GPS guidance system. They sound like the merlins of the modern world but if you think about it , when one is feeling caught up in the mind habitually feeling stressed your world becomes VERY narrow and even the body feels tight and rigid. You certainly dont start to notice the small things. It reminds me of a thich nant hanh silent retreat i went on many years ago. We sat there silently eating our food with the occasional awkward glance or smile at the person opposite us. But after a few days i tell you…that bread, that potato and that carrot honestly tasted so amazing. It was like my whole perception of taste had reved up a few levels. This is why on the MBSR mindfulness courses they sometimes intrduce the ‘eating the raison!” . exciting stuff i know but you’d be amazed how the raison tasted as we really started to take the whole process. This basic practice is how teaching us how to connect with inner joy - with simplicity.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have practiced mindfulness to cope with the psychological challenges of living in space. Mindfulness techniques help them maintain mental well-being and adapt to the unique environment of space travel.
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