Its 11:30 p.m., and Im waltzing, rather awkwardly, around my room. If you were to walk in, youd see me performing the slowest of slow dances, my iPhone clutched in my left hand, my AirPods nested in my ears, and my feet shuffling over my small, blue carpet.

What may look like a drug-fueled trip is my attempt at meditation using Sway, a movement-based mindfulness app for the iPhone. Since I picked it up over a weekend, Ive been setting aside moments of my day to perform my tiny routine and attempt to center my mind.

I think it might be working.

Although you might not move the same way I do, Sway will require you to you guessed it sway back and forth. Its what the developers call interactive meditation, an experience that requires you to slowly wave your phone from side to side.

The premise is that through movement and the ambient sounds and music being pumped into your headphones from Sway, youll be able to focus on the relaxed activity and calm your mind. With six different levels, Sway attempts to push you toward significant mindfulness habits by requiring you to accomplish a daily goal before unlocking the next level. If you miss a day, Sway will bump you back a level, so you have to complete it again.

Between its use of sound and goals, Sway goes beyond reminders, acting as a sort of meditation companion. Each level provides similar experiences that are pleasantly familiar, yet distinct enough that they also feel new and memorable.

As I use Sway, Im continuing to find new reasons to open it daily: colorful animations, pleasant audio, and more. But what ultimately keeps me coming back to it is the basic experience it offers me, one that Ive never had before.

Finding myself dancing around my room is bizarre to me not because of what Im doing, but because Im doing it at all. Ive never been able to consistently meditate, and my previous attempts never quite left me in a state of mind that I desired.

With Sway, my experience has been different. Through getting me on my feet and moving in a methodical way, the app has helped me relax and focus. Ive gotten lost in the audio, the sounds of rain, the beach, or birds chirping. Ive found myself craving time to open Sway, hoping to unlock further levels and maintain my streaks. Sway is very different from so many other tools I use everyday because it offers immediate, short-term benefits, rather than incremental progress like checking off tasks on a long-term project.

Of course, your mileage may vary, but I've found that Sway has all the right elements that make it a stellar productivity app: fantastic audio, an intuitive interface design, and motivational features, all of which keep me coming back for more. Although I havent built any long-term habits with Sway, it's had the same sort of initial staying power that has kept other apps on my Home screen for years.

For those looking for a fresh and effective meditation tool, I cannot recommend Sway enough. At $2.99, it feels perfectly priced for its value, especially for users who log many hours of mindfulness.

You can pick up Sway in the App Store for $2.99 here (iPhone only).

Jake Underwood

Jake is a contributor at MacStories, a public relations major at Ball State University, and an iOS app fanatic. His life is full of listening to podcasts and playing Nintendo games, as well as watching sporting events and spending too much money on Apple products.

| Email: jake@macstories.net

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Sway Review: Meditation Through Movement - MacStories

After a busy winter season, relaxation might be at the top of your to-do list.

On Sunday, April 9, Denver-based yoga teacher Jeremy Wolf will lead "Yoga Nidra: A Sleep-Based Meditation" at the Vail Vitality Center to help with that goal.

During this powerful practice, Wolf will lead a guided meditation in savasana (corpse pose), which induces a complete state of physical, mental and emotional relaxation. Yoga Nidra benefits include a strengthened immune system, an increased capacity for self healing and the release of self-limiting beliefs.

To begin the workshop, Wolf will talk about how the practice is designed, the philosophy behind it and then will skillfully guide attendees through a one-hour meditation in the corpse pose. There will be time for questions following the meditation.

The workshop is designed for practitioners of all levels.

"If one is new to meditation, this is a wonderful entry point because you can lie down and allow your physical body to relax," said Vail Vitality Center instructor Morgan Flahive-Foro, who has taken part in this workshop before. "If you are an advanced meditation practitioner, Nidra can help you access the deeper layers of repetitive thought that might keep you stuck like a mouse in a wheel. It boosts creativity, helps one manifest intentions and restores the nervous system."

Flahive-Foro considers Wolf, one of her three primary yoga teachers, to be a "thoughtful, clear and eloquent teacher."

"After studying with him I leave with a strong sense of understanding over the subject matter," Flahive-Foro said. "He's also funny and open-hearted. When it comes to Yoga Nidra, Jeremy has a true and innate gift."

Wolf has been meditating since 1993. He began studying yoga in 1998 and received his classical yoga teaching certification in India. Wolf is certified in the Amrit Method of Yoga Nidra and completed Rod Stryker's ParaYoga 500-hour teacher training. Along with being a reiki master, Wolf co-organizes and teaches multiple Front Range yoga teacher trainings.

The cost for the Yoga Nidra Workshop is $35 in advance or $40 day of (if there are spots still available). Call 970-476-7960 to register.

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Vail Vitality Center hosting sleep-based meditation April 9 - Vail Daily News

KENNETT SQUARE >> When most people hear the words mindfulness meditation, many instinctually think of millennials in their 20s or 30s, sipping coffee and breathing deeply with their eyes closed. But mindfulness meditation isnt just for millennials; its a practice that is changing the lives of seniors for the better.

Participation in a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program and research study organized by the Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine at Jefferson and sponsored by Friends Foundation for Aging has transformed the lives of a group of residents at Kendal-Crosslands Communities, a Life Plan Community, also known as a Continuing Care Retirement Community, in Kennett Square.

Its been life-changing, says Terri Rusten, a Kendal-Crosslands resident who participated in the study. I feel more peaceful, not as anxious. I have full nights of sleep now, which I didnt have before.

The study is designed to look for the effects of participating in a MBSR program and its relation to health and quality of life in older adults; things like cognitive function, anxiety, depression, and sleep patterns, says program director, Diane Reibel, Ph.D., Director of the Mindfulness Institute at Jefferson.

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As residents went through the 8-week program, organizers collected biomarkers of stress in the participants with saliva samples and even looked at brain function with MRI brain scans. The results of this quantitative data are still being analyzed.

There has been some evidence in other populations that there is a change in brain structure and function after just 8 weeks of MBSR, in areas associated with cognitive function and emotion regulation, but there has been little research done in older adults, said Reibel

Participants in the study are already seeing the impact of mindfulness in their daily lives. In qualitative interviews, participants are reporting many benefits, including improvement in vitality, interpersonal relationships, sleep and anxiety.

I find that I think more before I speak, Im more conscious of being kind and compassionate, and Im more aware of the things that people say and do, says Barbara Pusey, another program participant.

Resident Patricia Dewey says, Ive had migraine headaches for years and meditation has helped to reduce the pain. The whole experience has been very beneficial for reducing all the stress that you find with aging. I really would recommend mindfulness to anyone. Its great for stress reduction, pain management, and just feeling good about yourself.

Participants from the program continue to meet every other week to practice mindfulness meditation together, knowing that the benefits are innumerable. Residents have been motivated to practice mindfulness on their own in small groups, which shows that they really are seeing the benefits, and want to continue the practice, says Reibel.

We are so happy to have the opportunity to bring in Jeffersons Mindfulness Institute. This program is something that connects to our Quaker value of simplicity, and has truly brought something really beneficial to our community, says Kathleen McAleer, Director of Social Services for the Kendal campus. Ive practiced meditation for more than 20 years and recognize the benefits it has provided to me in my life, and the great benefits for the older adults I serve.

The study is in the middle of its second round of participants, with 26 participating in the first group, and 24 participating in the second group. This program was made possible through a grant from Friends Foundation for Aging.

The Kendal-Crosslands Communities are a Quaker-directed continuing care retirement community (CCRC) with two charming campuses. Located in the beautiful and historic Brandywine Valley of Chester County, Kendal-Crosslands Communities are a welcoming place infused with the traditional Quaker values of integrity, care and respect. Learn more at http://kcc.kendal.org/.

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Kendal-Crosslands seniors benefitting from meditation program - Daily Local News

For centuries, people have slowed their breathing to calm their minds. For some of us, this takes the form of meditation or yoga; for others, it's 10 deep breaths before a panic attack sets in.

Regardless of what you call it, scientific evidence has backed upthe fact that our breath can induce a feeling of tranquillity - although no one has ever been able to figure out exactly how that happens. Now, researchers think they might have finally found the answer, pinpointing a small group of neurons in the brain stems of mice that connect the breath with feelings of calm.

To be clear, the research so far is limited to mice - scientists are yet to replicate the results in humans.

But the mouse brain has many similarities to the human brain, so it's a good starting point that could begin to explain on a physical level how practices such as meditation and pranayama yoga can bring on feelings of calm and euphoria.

"This study is intriguing because it provides a cellular and molecular understanding of how that might work," said lead researcher Mark Krasnow from Stanford University School of Medicine.

The group of cells in question belongs to thepre-Btzinger complex, an area of neurons deep within the brain stem that are known to fire each time we breathe in or out - like a breathing pacemaker.

This structure was first discovered in mice back in 1991, but a similar structure has also been found in humans.

"The respiratory pacemaker has, in some respects, a tougher job than its counterpart in the heart," said Krasnow.

"Unlike the heart's one-dimensional, slow-to-fast continuum, there are many distinct types of breaths: regular, excited, sighing, yawning, gasping, sleeping, laughing, sobbing."

"We wondered if different subtypes of neurons within the respiratory control centre might be in charge of generating these different types of breath," he added.

Last year, Krasnow and his team found evidence that a small group of neurons within this pre-Btzinger complex were solely responsible for generating sighs - without them, mice never sighed, and when they were simulated, the animals couldn't stop sighing.

In this latest paper, they found a separate group of neurons in the complex that have a more zen function - they appear to regulate states of calm and arousal in response to our breath.

To figure this out, the team identified two genetic markers called Cdh9 and Dbx1 that they noted were active in the pre-Btzinger complex and appeared to be linked to breathing.

They then genetically engineered mice without any of the neurons that expressed these two genes - taking out a subpopulation of about 175 neurons in the brain stem.

Interestingly, the mice without these neurons still breathed normally, but with key one difference - they breathed more slowly than normal mice.

"I was initially disappointed," said Kevin Yackle, one of the research team, now at the University of California, San Francisco.

But after a few days, the team noticed something else strange going on - the mice without the Cdh9 and Dbx1 neurons were extraordinarily calm compared to their control group peers. They still showed varieties of breathing, but they were all at a much slower pace.

"If you put them in a novel environment, which normally stimulates lots of sniffing and exploration," said Yackle, "they would just sit around grooming themselves." For mice, that's taken as evidence of a zen state of mind.

"We were totally surprised," Yackle told Diana Kwon over at Scientific American."It certainly wasn't something we expected to find."

Upon further investigation, the team found evidence that the neurons were forming connections with thelocus coeruleus - a region of the brain stem that's involved in modulating arousal and emotion, and is responsible for waking us up at night and triggering anxiety and distress.

The team concluded that rather than regulating breathing, this little group of neurons was responding to it and reporting their findings to the locus coeruleus so that it could regulate our mood in response.

"If something's impairing or accelerating your breathing, you need to know right away," said Krasnow. "These 175 neurons, which tell the rest of the brain what's going on, are absolutely critical."

You can see below the pathway (green) that directly connects the brain's breathing centre to the arousal centre and the rest of the brain.

Krasnow Lab

The work is definitely a promising step forward, but we need to keep in mind that there's still a lot we have to learn about how the pre-Btzinger complex works, particular in humans.

Still, the new paper raises the possibility that "any form of practice - from yoga, pranayama to meditation - that is actively manipulating respiration might be using this pathway to regulate some aspects of arousal," neurobiologist Antoine Lutz from the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, who wasn't involved in the research, toldScientific American.

While other teams will now need to pursue this research further in mice and eventually humans, Krasnow and his team are now continuing to get a better understanding of what other secrets could be hiding in the pre-Btzinger complex.

"The pre-Btzinger complex now appears to play a key role in the effects of breathing on arousal and emotion, such as seen during meditation," said Feldman.

"We're hopeful that understanding this centre's function will lead to therapies for stress, depression and other negative emotions."

The research has been published inScience.

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Scientists think they've pinpointed the group of brain cells that ... - ScienceAlert

Photo: Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media

The alter, a point for focusing ones inner energy is set for the Greenwich Water Club as it prepares for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The alter, a point for focusing ones inner energy is set for the Greenwich Water Club as it prepares for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The alter, a point for focusing ones inner energy is set for the Greenwich Water Club as it prepares for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The alter, a point for focusing ones inner energy is set for the Greenwich Water Club as it prepares for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Greenwich Water Club is preparing for the opening of a new yoga and meditation program at the club in Greenwich, Connecticut.

70,000 thoughts: new meditation center wants to clear your mind

If theres one thing Carla Zilka wants to stress about the burgeoning practice thats ballooning into a billion-dollar industry, its this: Most people understand meditation all wrong.

Please write this down, the Greenwich Water Club yoga programs director said during a tour of the clubs new meditation center and with a clear note of exasperation.

Meditation is not about removing all thoughts from your mind everyone will tell you that. Thats not going to happen. We have 70,000 thoughts a day, Zilka said. Seventy thousand, she repeated louder. Meditation is about allowing the thoughts to be there but not allowing them any time.

The real purpose of meditation, according to Zilka, is to distract you from all those thoughts so you can be present. There are different types of meditation to fit all personality types, Zilka said, but each is geared at focusing people on a small action or repeated word that commands all their attention.

Let me ask you, the former Wall Street trader and General Electric executive said in a tone implying she already knew the answer. When was the last time you were just totally quiet and present?

Similar prompts have led millions, including Silicon Valley stars and corporate chiefs such as Greenwich resident Ray Dalio, whos attributed his success to transcendental meditation, to set out on their own mindfulness practices. For Zilka, the rising tide of apps and studios dedicated to both is encouraging as she credits meditation with keeping her sane during trying times.

Finding community in meditation

In 1987, fresh out of college, the Saratoga, N.Y., native headed straight to one of Manhattans top trading floors at Shearson Lehman Bros., where she recalls being the only woman. Working in a stressful, competitive environment in a city where she knew no one was tough, Zilka said. I went to New York and I just felt daggers. It was like I needed to put up a shield to protect myself.

Finding a safe, supportive community was crucial for her, and she discovered it at Jivamukti Yoga, a studio founded in New York City thats expanded around the world and culled notable clients like Gwyneth Paltrow, Heidi Klum, Madonna, Steve Martin and Sting. Within a month of first attending, I was going every day, Zilka said. Now, she requires all her yoga teachers to attend and train at the same studio.

From the high-stakes New York trading floor, Zilka marched her way through a number of high-powered corporate jobs, including rising to vice president of growth for consumer finance at GE and running her own global consulting firm. Just a brief outline of her resume indicates why shed want to learn how to press pause on her thoughts.

Since joining the Water Club two years ago after selling her own yoga studio, Zilkas empathy for members crammed schedules and overworked minds has helped prioritize changes to its offerings that increased yoga classes participation and membership, according to Mike Wieneke, club director of programs and member services, as people can sign up solely for the clubs yoga program headed by Zilka.

What were all here for

The newest addition is the clubs conversion of a storage room into a serene meditation space thats intended to be a sanctuary that provides everything Zilka once wanted as a new New Yorker: safety, serenity and peace.

This is a safe harbor, Zilka said, pointing out defining details such as infrared radiant heating panels that warm the room, but dry like India not humid like Florida, an altar with dancing Shiva, the calming sound of trickling water and meditation cushions with heavy Mexican blankets.

The clubs new meditation room and expanded classes are planned to debut Sunday, during its annual Yoga Open House. By fall, Zilka also hopes to have published her newest book on meditation called The Happiness Process, and launched a meditation instructors curriculum she co-designed.

Her pivot from successful corporate businesswoman to immersion in meditation training is evident through her answer as to why the ancient practice has re-emerged and gained so much traction. Were going through a revolution where people are saying, How do I feel better when theres a conflict of what Im doing and what I should be doing? she said.

My son told me, I dont want to go to college, work and then die. As a collective, were moving toward consciousness. And right now, this moment is the only thing thats real. The past is an illusion. The future is an illusion. Being conscious in the present is the only place where we can find happiness, and isnt that what were all here for?

MBennett@greenwichtime.com, 203-625-4411; Twitter @Macaela_

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70000 thoughts: new meditation center wants to clear your mind - Greenwich Time

Well toward the end of Christopher Theofanidiss enormous 2015 oratorio, Creation/Creator, the chorus sings text that was probably written by the academic art critic Michael Fried: The essence of something is in its conviction. There are no footnotes, but this sounds like something that Fried might have said. The musical setting is emphatic full of conviction with the words clearly articulated by the rhythms, and the harmony tinged with piquant dissonance. Fried is not so famous (at least in musical circles) as the other writers quoted in the libretto, including Franz Schubert, John Keats, Michelangelo and Franz Kafka. But his brief appearance offers an epigram suitable to the larger work, scored for a huge orchestra and even bigger chorus, with actors, vocal soloists and accompanying videos and lasting about an hour and a half.

Performed Friday evening by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Creation/Creator is brimming with a generalized sense of conviction, the idea that ideas matter, and the conviction that there are important questions to be asked, if not answered. The title hints at an homage to Haydns late 18th-century oratorio The Creation, and to some degree it shares with that work an appealing refusal to be absolutely serious. But its real relatives are such distinctly American scores as Philip Glasss Symphony No. 5 (which uses a similar mlange of religious and poetic texts), Hindemiths When Lilacs Last in Dooryard Bloomd and perhaps Leonard Bernsteins musically and spiritually eclectic Mass. Theofanidiss oratorio is an exemplar of one strain of American spirituality that takes its cues from the larger political project of inclusion and assimilation, with even God himself invited to the party, but strictly admonished not to be too bossy.

[The Shift Festival starts with musical postcards from Boulder, Colorado]

The performance was brilliantly executed by a stunningly good choir; there seems to be no slippage since the days (more than 30 years ago) when the late conductor Robert Shaw built the Atlanta orchestras chorus into a vital center of the contemporary vocal tradition. Under the direction of conductor Robert Spano, the orchestra finessed a complicated work, full of textural and strategic challenges: the audibility of soloists, the interplay of spoken word and musical accompaniment. Theofanidis has built a close relationship with Atlanta, and the fruits of that collaboration should be more widely appreciated. So this is a perfect example of what the Shift Festival, a joint project by the Kennedy Center and Washington Performing Arts, which presented the concert, can do: bring to the nations capital substantial works, and major orchestras, that need to be heard more widely.

The strength of the piece is its choral writing. Theofanidis can set unwieldy text with real grace and melodic flair. This gem of text from the Rig Veda There was neither nonexistence nor existence then rises through unrelated but pleasingly consonant parallel harmonies, familiar from minimalism, but with an earworm catchiness. In a movement based on words by St. Augustine, including A long time is only long because it is made of many successive moments, the text is divided up among choral sections, sometimes word by word, mimicking the philosophical idea of division and continuity, with hypnotic musical results.

[The National Symphony Orchestra brings public diplomacy to Russia]

Other strengths of the piece include: an ebullient ritornello led by the strings, following a Truman Capote quote; a swelling meditation full of closely intertwined instrumental lines that elaborates on words from an Aboriginal invocation; and a passage from Verlaine, offering a lovely setting for the luxuriously toned mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke.

One might remove some of the purely spoken passages, including a monotonous shouted recitation of a Chinese creation myth, which interrupt the music, and plead for something in a more contemplative vein, that is, music that gets at the silence and nothingness from which thoughts about creativity often emerge. What would Mahler do? Hed do something like that. And the staging, including the presentation of the score to the audience at the end, is sometimes tacky. But these are minor quibbles with a major work.

[New works from North Carolina part of the Shift Festival]

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A giant meditation on creation fills the Kennedy Center Concert Hall - Washington Post

Breathing techniques & Meditation are effective tools to bring out our best in us and enhance the overall quality of life.

"Learning about our breath is very important. Our breath has a great lesson to teach us, which we have forgotten, for every rhythm in the mind, there is a corresponding rhythm in the breath, for every rhythm in thebreaththere is a corresponding emotion. So, when you cannot handle your mind directly, through breath you can handle the mind. " - H.H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Join us for the workshop to learn about these techniques.

Admission:FREE (Please RSVP due to limited seating)

Location:Meeting Room 1, CRC, 171 W Edmundson Ave, Morgan Hill, CA 95037

When:3:00pm - 4:00pm

Please note this session is open for people with any or no experience of meditation or breathing exercises.

Session Contents

1. Light body stretching.

2. Relaxing breathing techniques.

3. Guided Meditation.

4. Take Home practices for daily use.

Benefits Reported

1. Reduced Stress & Increased Productivity.

2. Increased Joy & Happiness.

3. Enhanced Focus & Concentration.

4. Improved Relationships.

Meditation Sunday in Morgan Hill is a free event.

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Meditation Sunday in Morgan Hill - Gilroy Dispatch

Mindfulness is a type of meditation practice that involves awareness of the present moment without judgment. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, defines mindfulness as being fully awake in our lives. It is about perceiving the exquisite vividness of each moment.

Q: How can I cultivate mindfulness into daily life?

A: Mindfulness is a lot like weightlifting. Typically, you practice mindfulness in short, timed sessions, such as three to five minutes per session, once a day. You choose a focus point, such as breathing, walking, eating, listening or looking, and you bring yourself back to the focus point when you notice your mind wandering. As you continue practicing mindfulness, sessions become longer. You will also notice that you are more mindful in general life. This is similar to weightlifting in that, as you increase the number of repetitions or amount of weight, you will notice that everyday tasks such as carrying groceries become easier.

Q: How does mindfulness reduce stress in my life?

A: Being present in the moment allows you to function in the moment. Much of the stress in our lives comes from ruminating over things that happened in the past or worrying about what has not happened yet in the future. When we connect with the present, we choose meaningful behaviors for the present. This connectedness reduces stress.

For example, if you are worrying about what to make for supper tonight, you are not present to enjoy your breakfast. If you eat your breakfast too quickly, you might become hungry earlier than normal, which could lead you to snack on junk food during the day. If you snack on junk food, you might start judging yourself (Why do I always eat junk?), which could make you feel guilty. Feeling guilty takes a lot of mental energy, which could lead you to other bad decisions (e.g., Well, I already messed up my diet today; I might as well order pizza, instead).

In this example, simply being mindful during breakfast could help you avoid the other pitfalls. There are many other situations in which mindful behaviors help reduce stress, and there is significant research support for mindfulness practice for stress reduction.

Q: Can cultivating mindfulness in my life help with anxiety?

A: Anxiety often takes the form of future-based worry, which is sometimes called catastrophizing. Generally, our fear or worry of what might happen in the future is much worse than the actual feared situation, such as thinking about getting a flu shot versus actually getting the flu shot. When we are fearful of something, we typically try to avoid that situation, which can lead to additional problems such as avoiding the flu shot and subsequently getting the flu.

Mindfulness helps us to focus on the present moment, which generally is not nearly as painful as anxiety makes it out to be. This way, our brain can learn to lessen the focus on anxious thoughts and focus on the actual moments of peace and comfort that we have during the day.

Dr. Marie Schaaf Gallagher is a psychologist at Sanford Seventh and Rosser Clinic in Bismarck. She completed her undergraduate and masters degrees from North Dakota State University in Fargo and received her doctorate degree from University of South Dakota in Vermillion, S.D.

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Meditation technique can reduce stress | Health | bismarcktribune.com - Bismarck Tribune

Multi-platinum and Grammy-nominated artist Jewel said she developed a mindfulness meditation practice on her own at a young age to help cope with a tough childhood, homelessness as a teen and even pitfalls in her music career.

"I just started habitually forcing myself to do what I call my 'anecdotal thought,'" Jewel told ABC's Dan Harris on his "10% Happier" podcast. "So when I would have anxious feeling, I would retract the thought, I would see what the lie was, what my brain was telling me and I would tell myself the truth.

"And the truth was," she continued. "I am capable of learning and I will learn more today, and that calmed my anxiety down and helped me re-wire and ... that started creating reliance."

Subscribe and listen to the "10% Happier" podcast on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn, on ABC News Radio podcasts and under the "Listen" tab on the ABC News app.

Jewel, whose full name is Jewel Kilcher, is known for her soft, poetic hits such a "Who Will Save Your Soul," "You Were Meant For Me," and "Foolish Games," songs that dominated the radio airwaves in the '90s. Her debut album, "Pieces of You," sold over 12 million copies and became an inspiration for several other female artists.

She reinvented herself as a pop artist with her 2003 album, "0304," then as a country singer with her 2008 album, "Perfectly Clear." Her last album, "Picking Up the Pieces," was released in 2015.

Growing up in Alaska, Jewel was raised in a family of musicians. She said her mother and father would perform at hotels for tourists, but when she was eight years old, her parents divorced and she stepped in to sing with her father as a duo.

"I was probably the only fourth grader that went right from the elementary school to the bar," she said. "And I watched how people handled pain. I watched people use relationships, drugs, alcohol to try to numb and medicate feelings...and I was like, 'Im in trouble.'"

As a young girl, Jewel said she quickly realized she couldn't run from the pain and turned to writing down her feelings as a way to calm herself down.

"[Writing] was my first mindfulness practice," she said. "I noticed every time I sat down to write, I felt calmer, I felt less anxiety, and it took the edge off just enough."

"I had plenty of anxiety," Jewel continued. "But the anxiety lessened every time I wrote and later as I developed this practice of writing, it was like having breadcrumbs back to my real self... I was always able to see the truth when I wrote."

In her 2015 memoir, "Never Broken -- Songs Are Only Half the Story," Jewel goes into great detail about her tumultuous family upbringing, including that her father, a Vietnam veteran who she said suffered from PTSD, drank and became abusive after her mother left.

Jewel said her father, Atz Kilcher -- who she said gave her permission to publicly discuss his problems -- later got sober and they reconciled. She remains estranged from her mother.

At the age of 15, Jewel moved away from home and tried to start a new life for herself, what she dubbed her "happiness project." She put herself through school, attending a fine arts high school in Michigan on a vocal scholarship.

"I knew statistically kids like me end up repeating the cycles that they're raised by," she said. "So I knew statistically I was going to end up in a ditch or on a pole or on drugs or in an abusive relationship in short order, because that was the emotional language I was taught."

While at school, Jewel said she didn't have enough money to return to Alaska so she began hitchhiking across the country. She learned to play the guitar and kept writing along the way.

"I started writing lyrics about what I was seeing around me and 'Who Will Save Your Soul' was the first song I actually ever wrote. I wrote that when I was 16, as I was hopping trains and hobo-ing and street singing," Jewel said. "I noticed this idea of people wanting to be a victim and saying, 'Somebody else save me,' and I started asking this question, 'how do I save myself?'"

At age 16, Jewel said she started suffering from panic attacks. By the time she was 18, she was homeless and at one point, she said she became so sick from kidney infections she nearly died.

She said she also started shoplifting, until one day she had a moment of clarity.

"I was [looking] in the mirror in a dressing room, trying to steal a dress, and I looked at myself and I went, 'oh I failed. Im a statistic. I didnt beat the odds, at 15 I set out to not be a statistic, and three short years later my life came to a grinding halt,'" Jewel said. "So I went back to my - the word 'mindfulness' wasnt even around back then, but I went back to this idea of how can I ... re-wire my brain."

She said she went back to her journals and very consciously began monitoring her thought process that would lead to negative thoughts or lead her to want to steal. Jewel said that self-conscious exercise eventually inspired her to write another hit song, "Hands."

"I started watching my hands because your hands are the servants of your thoughts," she said. "If you want to see what youre thinking just watch what your hands are doing."

To deal with her panic attacks, Jewel said she came up with her own visualization exercises to help reduce her anxiety.

"I learned to do this meditation where I imagined I was on a very stormy ocean," she said. "Id imagine myself sinking through the ocean, allowing myself to relax, I would get calmer. I would notice the color of the ocean change. Id notice the taste of salt on my lips. Id notice the rays of sunlight coming in and the further I got down to the sandy floor, it got calm, it got tranquil by then, and I would look up at the stormy surface and it was in the distance."

Today, Jewel has turned many of the mindfulness exercises she taught herself over the years into what she calls "modules" on her JewelNeverBroken.com website, where she tries to help other people learn healthy mental fitness habits.

Although she said she'll never stop writing music, Jewel said she's "not as interested in touring" because she wants to work on building her mindfulness platform and being a mother to her five-year-old son, Kase.

"I dont want to look back on my life and go, my art is my best art," she said. "I want my life to be my best work of art."

Subscribe and listen to the "10% Happier" podcast on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn, on ABC News Radio podcasts and under the "Listen" tab on the ABC News app.

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Singer-songwriter Jewel used self-taught meditation to help cope ... - ABC News

Unless you've been living in a cave the last few years, someone has no doubt recommended meditation to you. With top entrepreneurs swearing by the practice and a parade of articles suggesting mindfulness for everything from stress reduction to better concentration, meditation is undeniably hot.

Is it also science-backed? With its religious origins, spiritual cast, and mysterious mechanisms, to the skeptically minded meditation can appear like just another dubious self-help craze.

But if you're not the type to spend time aligning your chakras or harmonizing your aura, be aware that meditation doesn't need spirituality to sell itself (though, of course, that's a fine reason to start a practice if you're so inclined). A huge body of research has found that meditation has very real effects on your brain.

The many benefits of meditation, in other words, are thoroughly backed by science and can be seen plain as day on a brain scan, a fact Buffer writer Belle Beth Cooper delved into in depth on the startup's blog. Her complete post is well worth checking out if you want a deep dive into how meditation physically alters your brain, but here are a few highlights.

Meditation has been shown to measurably reduce anxiety. How does it accomplish that? Cooper explains:

There's a section of our brains that's sometimes called the Me Center (it's technically the medial prefrontal cortex). This is the part that processes information relating to ourselves and our experiences. Normally the neural pathways from the bodily sensation and fear centers of the brain to the Me Center are really strong. When you experience a scary or upsetting sensation, it triggers a strong reaction in your Me Center, making you feel scared and under attack.

When we meditate, we weaken this neural connection. This means that we don't react as strongly to sensations that might have once lit up our Me Centers. As we weaken this connection, we simultaneously strengthen the connection between what's known as our Assessment Center (the part of our brains known for reasoning) and our bodily sensation and fear centers. So when we experience scary or upsetting sensations, we can more easily look at them rationally.

Another benefit of meditation is improved memory recall. It turns out this might be a side effect of another positive effect of mindfulness--better concentration and focus.

Researcher Catherine Kerr "found that people who practiced mindful meditation were able to adjust the brain wave that screens out distractions and increase their productivity more quickly that those who did not meditate. She said that this ability to ignore distractions could explain 'their superior ability to rapidly remember and incorporate new facts,'" writes Cooper.

These changes are only the tip of the iceberg, however. Specific types of mediation have been shown to increase creativity, for instance, while a mindfulness practice can also help turn back on the clock on aging brains. Get all the details in Cooper's post.

If all this has convinced you that meditation is less self-help fad and more ultimate life hack, how do you get started? It's less difficult than you probably imagine. As Cooper points out, there are tons of apps like Headspace to help, and you only need a few minutes of meditation every day to reap rewards.

Read the rest here:

Neuroscience: This Is How Meditation Changes Your Brain for the Better - Inc.com