If you truly want to let go of negative energy, this cord-cutting meditation will do wonders. Take it from Bernstein, who used it personally after wanting to release her attachment to a negative message on social media.

"You might be feeling a cord attachment to news, political views, your own anger, or frustration if you're living in compromising circumstances," Bernstein explains. Whether it's a negative person, headline, or thought, this meditation works to "cut yourself off" from whatever negativity you may be experiencing.

As you close your eyes, place your palms facing upward and identify an area in your body where you may hold discomfort.

As you breathe, identify any person, story, or fearful thought that you feel attached to right now. Visualize the dark cord that's attaching you to that negative energy, whatever it looks like to you.

First, forgive yourself for being hooked, and honor that attachment. Then breathe in and welcome that intention to release the cord attachment. Place your hand on your heart, and breathe into your heart space.

Tune into this podcast to follow along with Bernstein and me in real timeso you can have the necessary tools to free yourself from this state of trauma. With all the uncertainty going on in the world, you still have the ability to control your own breath, purpose, and emotional freedom.

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3 Meditations From Gabby Bernstein To Help Regulate The Nervous System - mindbodygreen.com

Twenty seconds isnt enough to wash our hands of some things.

For instance, on Friday, March 13th, after the count of presumptive positive COVID-19 diagnoses crossed 50 in four days and Gov. John Bel Edwards announced month-long, state-wide school closures, I combed the aisles of a store owned by Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest person in the world, wondering why the hell anybody was there right then.

The glove-handed store workers were there, re-stocking shelves, butchering meat, serving food, ringing up baskets. depending on an hourly wage to care for themselves and their families.

If they dont clock in, they dont have food if/when stock runs dry from the pandemics impact on trade (or if the government issues a mandate to close stores as chainmail that claims to be from the neighbor of a cousin of a friend of a so-called upper-level military person suggests will happen in the next 48 to 72 hours).

And I was there, creating the demand that justifies the supply of labor. The vast majority of us depend on grocery stores for access to food and potable water, and we expect stores to remain open even hope they will, in spite of the fact that in just a week, as WWL-TV reported Monday, New Orleans had become the city with the second highest per capita rate of COVID-19.

We dont yet know if or for how long stores might close or go barren. But in the event that they do, weve stocked up on out-of-season food items transported here from around the world and tap water branded by Coca-Cola and Nestle.

Meanwhile, the wealthiest person in the world is being made wealthier and more secure through the insecurity of his employees and customers in the face of a global public health crisis.

What is the outcome for people, institutions, industries, and systems that hegemonize dependence on them to the point that, only two or three generations from their inception, we cant imagine our lives without them in order to hoard power?

Louisiana history has seemingly been an experiment in answering that question: slavery, the petrochemical industry, tourism. And no matter how many happy birthdays we sing, we cant wash our hands of some things.

Every time my toddler son sings happy birthday while washing his hands, I think about the apocalypse. I grew up in a doomsday religion in which celebrating birthdays is considered devil worship that exponentially increases the likelihood of one being destroyed in the Apocalypse.

Though I left my parents religion nine years ago, I did take from it the belief that, if we have faith that there is a way of thinking and being that will make the world a better place to live for all its inhabitants, the apocalypse doesnt have to be a frightful end.

It is simply a revelation, a confirmation of things we already knew that this system is insufficient for all of us; it offers us the choice to assess the way we live and accept that changes must be made and that we do indeed have the resources necessary to make them.

Rightfully, Louisianans are currently focused on flattening the curve of COVID-19 using our head to stop the spread, as Mayor LaToya Cantrell recommended.

But whenever we get to the here-on-out, will the decisions we make be based on the hope that a pandemic doesnt happen again? Or will they be based on the reality that it can, with the understanding that no one should be in such desperate positions as some of us are now in?

It is considered normal, in the world in which we live, for us to demand that others put themselves at risk in service to our chosen dependencies, for people to be so financially insecure that they have to gamble their life chances for the possibility of survival.

As I ration water, oatmeal, honey, and cranberries for my toddlers breakfast, its hard to believe Mardi Gras the finale to a season of excess was just a few Tuesdays ago. COVID-19s ingress into Louisiana coincides with the Lenten season, the 40-day fast that follows Carnival, a meditation on purpose and our commitment to a path that will make life better for all who come after us.

Per Christian mythology, Jesus is led after his baptism by spirit to the wilderness where, over the course of 40 days, he faces the Devil who tempts him three times. Jesus turns down opportunities to demonstrate his power by turning a stone into bread, to prove his importance by jumping off the cliff with the expectation that the angels will catch him, to rule the world in exchange for worshipping the Devil.

Jesus confirms his commitment to his purpose: to sacrifice his perfect life to absolve the sin humanity inherited from Adam.

In the 10 days since the novel coronavirus first reared its head in New Orleans, 347 people in Louisiana have been given positive diagnoses of COVID-19, 231 of them in New Orleans. Six people have died in Orleans Parish, one in Jefferson Parish and one in St. James Parish.

This Lent, were being asked to make collective sacrifices for the health of the world, now and beyond the moment of crisis. Unlike Jesus, were not martyrs who have left the comforts of heaven, but necessary parts of a bio-social ecology that is increasingly debilitated by the maldistribution of resources and life chances.

What will we relinquish out of commitment to humanity, and who will we put behind us once COVIDs curve has been made flat, once we return to work (for those of us with such job security) and send the kids back to school?

It can feel overwhelming, impossible even, to imagine a society in which no one has to submit to the will of another to survive.

But just because you cant wash your hands of everything, doesnt mean you stop trying.

Lydia Y. Nichols is a writer native to New Orleans. Her critical and personal essays about race and the environment in visual art, film, and literature have been published in 64 Parishes, Bayou Brief, The Lens, Pelican Bomb, and Tribes Magazine and on her blog at ModernMaroon.com.

The Opinion section is a community forum. Views expressed are not necessarily those of The Lens or its staff. To propose an idea for a column, contact Engagement Editor Tom Wright at twright@thelensnola.org.

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The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: a Lenten meditation on COVID-19 in New Orleans - The Lens

During its three years of existence in Prague, the Tibet Open House has served to connect east and west via language classes, Buddhist teachings, exhibitions, and other events.

Due to the current movement restriction put in place by the Czech government, the culture space has had to postpone a number of its courses and events, many of them devoted to bringing Tibetan culture history, tradition, art, philosophy and religion to the Czech capital.

This week the organization has announced that it will continue its efforts online by offering mindfulness and meditation with the Residential Lama of Open Tibet House, Geshe Yeshi Gawa.

Born in eastern Tibet, Geshe Yeshi Gawa studied in the Loseling monastery in southern India and later in Dharamsala. From Monday, March 23 (6 pm) he will be offering online courses in meditation and mantra recitation.

The sessions are intended for the general public, not just Buddhist practitioners, according to the Tibet Open House website. Geshela has chosen the topics very sensitively and up to date. We hope those will help you and your loved ones.

The classes are free and in English and will take place over Zoom daily through March 26. The Tibet Open House was established by the Linhart foundation and personally blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2016. From tomorrow, two daily sessions will take place at 10 am and 6 pm.

Also read: Czech military plane returns with 150,000 rapid coronavirus testing kits from China

According to the invitation, the Green Tara mantra will be recited as part of one online course, as recommended by His Holiness the Dalai Lama for the current days.

A spokesperson for the organization said that it may continue with the classes but will wait and see the outcome of the current quarantine situation in the Czech Republic.

For more information about the classes and the Tibet Open House space see here.

Read more from the original source:

Prague-based Tibetan monk hosting free online meditation and mindfulness sessions this week - Prague, Czech Republic - Expats.cz

Meditation and mindfulness apps are booming. The top 10 apps pulled in $195 million in 2019, up 52% from the year before. Now, top meditation app Headspaces former head of research, Nick Begley, is launching a new app that goes beyond mindfulness to specifically address the needs of those suffering from anxiety. The app, called Calmer You, offers a combination of activities, including not only guided meditation, but also journaling, cognitive behavioral therapy coursework and other health and wellness material.

The latter includes things like fitness videos, sleep stories and interviews with celebrities and inspirational people on their experiences with anxiety, among other things.

Begley worked for Headspace for two years, where he learned about the power of meditation apps to aid with self-development, he says.

I realized that it doesnt have to be limited to just mindfulness, explains Begley, as to how he got started with Calmer You. Theres so much good advice out there, but just passively digesting it watching videos or reading books which is what most of us do when we want to improve, simply doesnt deliver the changes that they promise, Begley says.

The problem isnt that the advice isnt good it typically is. But people struggle with putting the advice into action, Begley says. Thats where Calmer You aims to help.

The app includes a few different components, including a 28-session course that helps guide you step-by-step to better understanding anxiety and helping to learn techniques to manage it. This includes cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness, compassion-focused therapy, analytic techniques and more. In addition, theres a toolkit with more than 50 quicker practices that are recommended based on how youre feeling in a given moment or whatever situation you may be in. A journal for tracking how you feel day-by-day is available, as well.

Customers subscribe to the app for $7.99 per month or $47.99 per year.

We didnt specifically aim to fill the gaps of Headspace, but this is what users have mentioned, Begley says. A lot of people find it hard to regularly meditate, and so we wanted to provide tools and practices in addition to mindfulness to help people with anxiety. We wanted to provide a premium quality app experience that provides a more comprehensive approach to specifically helping manage anxiety and the many ways in which it manifests, he adds.

Calmer You was developed in collaboration with anxiety expert and author Chloe Brotheridge, whose book The Anxiety Solution: A Quieter Mind, a Calmer You contributes to the apps name. The team was familiar with Brotheridges book and reached out to her to see if she would be open to building an app based on her actionable advice.

This is a part of Calmer Yous parent company PSYTs agenda turning self-help books into apps.

The Calmer You team, via PSYT, also includes psychologists. But the app itself isnt yet validated through things like randomized control trials, for example. Thats something theyd like to do further down the road, however.

Calmer You is also more geared toward women, as much of Brotheridges own work was particularly focused on anxietys impact on young women.

For as long as I can remember, Ive struggled with anxiety and I had to work out what worked best for me, said Brotheridge. This is why as a therapist, I teach people many different techniques so they can find what works best for them, not just mindfulness. While it took a lot of work to include multiple approaches in the app, I think its essential to help empower people to find the practices that work best for them and their situation, she says.

Since the apps launch into beta testing in November 2019, the company has been adding tools to respond to what users said they needed help with, including two new rebalancing tools (one for calming social anxiety, another to help communicate confidently), a worry journal for evening use and several more guided meditations and sleep stories.

The app shouldnt be used instead of visiting a doctor for severe cases of anxiety, but could be slotted into a users routine if theyre already using a meditation app, like Headspace, to aid with feelings of anxiety on a regular basis.

Calmer You is a free download on iOS with a subscription business model.

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Calmer You fills in the gaps in meditation apps for anxiety sufferers - TechCrunch

Home Blog How Meditation Changes the Brain Last updated: 9 Mar 2020

~ 4 min read

A group of neuroscientists wanted to figure out whether years of meditation had changed the brain of an expert monk. Led by Dr. Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, they connected 256 electrodes to a Tibetan monk named Matthew Ricard, who had given up a career in science and spent decades meditating in the Himalayas. Dr. Davidson and his colleagues were astonished by Ricards brain signature, having never seen anything like it before. The activity in his left prefrontal cortex (responsible for subduing negative emotions) and abnormal gamma wave levels (suggesting signs of bliss) led them to dub him the happiest man in the world.

But this wasnt an isolated finding. As it turns out experienced meditators across the board show fascinating improvements to their brains. And even novices who learn meditation, practicing over the course of a few weeks, begin to see changes take place.

Research has shown that there are several ways that meditation can change the brains structure and function:

Its important to note that it can take many years to produce these more permanent changes in brain structure. Yet some of the studies mentioned above showed changes starting to occur after just a few weeks of meditation practice.

Its incredible how quickly the brain adapts when you use it in novel ways. By repeatedly applying their attention in a particular way, meditators can build an improved brain bit by bit.

This is not unlike the athlete who can shape their body with the repeated exercise of certain muscles in the gym. Our brains are very similar, adapting to how they are used. The consensus among neuroscientists just a couple decades ago was that the brain had stopped evolving by adulthood, but these discoveries suggest that we continue to shape our brains up until our last breath.

Recent findings demonstrating the brains incredible neuroplastic (the ability for the brain to reorder itself by forming new neural connections) capacity give rise to a new concept mental fitness. It means each of us can train the mind like a muscle through meditative exercises.

Indeed, meditation is an umbrella term, like exercise, and there are over 800 different techniques by one account, each training the mind in a unique way. Mindfulness meditation is most commonly practiced in the western world, but there are also zazen, mahamudra, vedic, loving-kindness, visualization practices, dzogchen, tonglen, mantra practices, and hundreds of others. Just as running, swimming, and tennis strengthen the body in different ways, so too do these methods of meditation.

But what is the mechanism is behind meditations ability to change the brain?

When neurons fire together, they wire together mental activity actually creates new neural structures What flows through your mind sculpts your brain. Thus, you can use your mind to change your brain for the better. Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

Meditation is just self-directed neuroplasticity. In other words, you are directing the change of your brain by inwardly and consciously directing attention in a particular way. Youre using the mind to change the brain, like a child crafting a Playdough structure. Research has shown that the way you direct your attention and thoughts can significantly impact and change the brains development.

The concept of self-directed neuroplasticity means that youre literally in control of your own evolution, responsible for the shape and function that your brain takes on. For example, if you focus hard in a concentration meditation, you will exercise the attentional networks of the brain and strengthen those neural networks. This helps explain the amazing findings mentioned above that show meditations ability to change your brains structure and function.

While meditation produces some immediate changes in neurotransmitters (altered states), with practice it also produces long-lasting structural (new connections) and even functional (entirely rearranged neural networks) changes. This re-wiring of states into more permanent traits takes consistent effort.

Self-directed neuroplasticity also helps us understand why mental training is a full-time occupation. How you use your mind regularly influences the number and strength of your synaptic connections as the brain is always evolving per your interactions with the outside world.

So if you dont have the brain you want now, maybe it isnt focused or full or mental energy, then the good news is that you can in fact change your brain with meditation. Although a thick hippocampus might not attract a mate, its a worthwhile improvement that can impact something thats with you at all times determining your entire reality in each moment: your mind.

References:

Liam McClintock is the Founder & CEO of FitMind, a mental health and meditation technology company. He has trained as a meditation instructor in multiple styles, including Vipassana and Vedic meditation. Liam received a B.A. from Yale University and is completing an M.S. in Applied Neuroscience at King's College London. His work has been featured in Time, Vice, Daily Mail, and Men's Health.

APA Reference McClintock, L. (2020). How Meditation Changes the Brain. Psych Central. Retrieved on March 14, 2020, from https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-meditation-changes-the-brain/

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How Meditation Changes the Brain - PsychCentral.com

In this excessively digital age, its become harder than ever to get a good nights sleep. Most of us spend our days staring at a computer screen, only to go home and scroll through our phones and catch up on our favorite shows (both of which involve staring at, you guessed it more screens). All that blue light seriously messes with our circadian rhythm, making it difficult for us to achieve the quality, deep sleep we so desperately need to function.

Relax Melodies wants to help change that. This sleep and meditation sound generator uses a variety of different tools and techniques to help you drift peacefully off to dreamland in no time, and a one-year subscription is available now for just $29.99.

Relax Melodies lets you construct your ideal happy-place soundscape. You can start by choosing a sound that relaxes you, add a piece of nature, like a babbling brook or croaking frogs (hey, whatever gets you there). With over 100 ambient sounds and white noise options to choose from, you can create as many custom soundscapes as your heart desires.

Of course, if thats not strong enough for you, you can always pop on one of their many guided meditations created specifically to help you relax and drift off peacefully, or one of their comforting bedtime stories narrated by some of the most soothing voices and written specifically to send you off to dreamland.

In fact, what Relax Melodies does is backed by actual science their massive library of carefully crafted ASMR sounds and binaural beats are scientifically proven to lower your anxiety and induce deep sleep. Which is probably why the app comes highly recommended by doctors and neuropsychologists.

Its also pretty highly recommended by people just like you. With over 100,000 reviews on the Mac App Store, a 4.8-star rating, and 50 million happy sleepers, this app has been helping plenty of people find sweet relief at the end of the day.

Normally $60, a one-year subscription to this incredible relaxation app is on sale now for just $29.99. Or, you can get it for life for only $124.99. Do yourself a favor and upgrade the overall quality of your life by getting better sleep tonight.

Original post:

Say goodbye to bad sleep with this doctor-recommended meditation app - New York Post

Minho, a region in the north of Portugal, is a place of rough beauty, where myriad shades of green run up the hills, dotted with watercourses and millennia-old boulders covered in moss and lichen. Its feral and unpolished, a testament to the unwavering strength of everything that grew there before humankind came along. But humankind did come along, some five hundred thousand years ago, and has sought to dominate this fertile and wild place ever since. It is in Minho, not far from the place where Portugal was founded in 1143, that Australian-born, Bali-based architect Nicholas Burns has recently erected a chapel and a meditation room, the first in a number of commissions he is developing for the same client. One of the initial intents was that it wasnt a religious building, as such, Burns tells me. It started as a spiritual refuge; yet now it has a religious component to it.

The project stands on a hill inside a thirty-hectare private estate, overlooking a denser urbanization down in the valley and the many green hills around it. When I visited with the architect on a recent Saturday morning, the air was crisp; a morning of humid and mysterious, fast-moving fog that enveloped rocks, trees and humans had given way to a soft sunlight piercing through the treetops. The resulting undulating light patterns swayed gently in the soft grass, and walking the rough-cut granite path up to the chapel awakened all your senses. For Burns, this was an important aspect of this place. He describes sense of time, sense of seasons and sense of place as the elemental things that are important for people to feel naturally deeper within themselves, rather than an aesthetic that is more the rational response to experience.

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The chapels vertical scale takes an unexpected leap, shooting upward to the sky with its sinuous concrete roof.

Image: Peter Bennetts

The slithering promenade that Burns extends on the way to the building brings to mind similar exercises in different geographies, such as the pathway leading to Ryue Nishizawas incredible Teshima Art Museum in Japan. With the building tucked away between trees and gigantic granite boulders, the first thing that comes into view is a large concrete wall, peppered with circular markings that recall Tadao Ando or is it Luis Barragn, and his wide free-standing slabs where the trees cast their shadows? But get closer, and the chapel shoots up into the sky, with a sinuous concrete roof rising up to a scale that feels completely out of place. The reason for this unexpected leap is made apparent once you cross the entrance threshold: an incredible baroque gilded wood altar caps the far end of the chapels main volume, its dimensions more fitting to a monumental basilica than a private chapel. It is an unbelievably ornate masterpiece of early eighteenth-century Portuguese religious art, property of the client and recently restored. The shape of the roof was a direct result of the altar, Burns tells me to describe the sweeping motions of the concrete above us. Its not something that I couldve thought of in isolation.

The chapels entrance, defined by a protruding corten steel chamber that resounds with the sound of your footsteps, opens up to a luminous vertical volume concealing the baptismal font in a nook. A flight of steps grants access to a second, darker horizontal volume capped by the altarpiece. The element dominates the space with its size and scale, dramatically illuminated by side openings as if to float. In this area, Burns reprised the vertical rhythm of the altarpieces turned wood columns to create an enfilade of stone candleholders that leads the eye to the baptismal font at the opposite end of the building, and designed a simple altar as well as the seating. The naked concrete surfaces that are so dominant in the exterior and so unusual in these parts of the country give way to limestone throughout the interior, including the floor and the walls, softening the space considerably. The silence inside is stunning, leaving out all the vibrant nature outside; but this contemplative setting is subtly disrupted by some of the elements in the space. The rough-cut stone of the altar, the rope in the chair seats, the way the candleholders hesitate between a round and a rectangular shape these over-designed elements draw attention away from the spaces obvious central element. To the left of the altarpiece, a dark wooden door leads to a small paved courtyard and the other building in this ensemble: a meditation room.

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A baroque gilded wood altarpiece caps the far end of the chapels main volume. An ornate masterpiece of early eighteenth-century Portuguese religious art, the recently restored altar informed the undulation of the chapels roof.

Image: Peter Bennetts

This second building is fundamentally different. Here, Burns evokes a more local and traditional use of stacked shale, which defines the courtyard walls and the meditation room volume in a much darker palette. We deliberately made it a little bit rough, Burns says, more like a landscape wall rather than a building. Inside, the space is clad in dark wood ceiling, walls and floor and once the door is closed, you are left alone with your thoughts. Light pours in through a vertical corner window, revealing a massive boulder outside that appears to float atop a tranquil pool. Here, the sounds of water and birds overlap to create a pleasing atmosphere, simpler and warmer than that of the chapel. The only reappearing element is the candleholders, in a line, which mirror those in the religious space. The candles, Burns tells me, were made out of beeswax by his son in Bali.

What to make of this ensemble, with its striking array of contrasts, its mix of architectural styles, its attempted grand gestures? Clearly, Burns is extremely ambitious: we see glimpses of Ando, Nishizawa, Barragn, but also nods to Le Corbusier in the swooping concrete roof of the chapel and the glass elements in the door, which bring to mind Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France. In contrast, the lower volume of the meditation room evokes more vernacular typologies: its horizontal orientation blends well with the surroundings in the same way that Peter Zumthor builds in Graubnden, Switzerland, or the early works by lvaro Siza hide under the landscape. But where is Burns in the middle of all this effort? Perhaps because of the apparent lack of constraints, or possibly because of the private nature of the commission, the architects hand is lost and no clear intention emerges. And while Burns tells me, The form of the building is not placed on the site, its derived from the site, a study of the property is no replacement for a deeper study of place which could have greatly benefited the end result.

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Judiciously placed vertical windows connect the silent, contemplative internal spaces with the vibrant nature outside.

Image: Peter Bennetts

Minho, in the north of Portugal, is a region where other architects have intervened: Pritzker Architecture Prize-winners Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura, and even Sizas master, Fernando Tvora, have all worked with and within these geographies numerous times. Using a contextual approach, they succeeded in creating buildings that take advantage of the natural conditions, not seeking to overpower them, but yielding to them in order to thrive. This knowledge of the constraints is partly what has allowed them to create memorable works in the region; it is also a knowledge that I observe is absent in Burns Chapel and Meditation Room. While the architect seeks to innovate in the use and combination of materials concrete, corten steel, shale, limestone, granite, wood I question their appropriateness for this context, as their durability will be harshly tested. The ensemble atop the hill is the product of an ambitious set of intentions, their dissonant resolution in contrast to the harmonious nature around it.

Read the rest here:

Sacred ambition: Chapel and Meditation Room - Architecture AU

New research published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology has identified several factors that could help explain the relationship between mindfulness meditation practice and mental well-being. The study suggests that meditation is associated with improved mental health because of its relationship with selfcompassion, meaning in life, and experiential avoidance.

My interest in this topic began in 2010, when I started reading an article about mental wandering: the fact that almost the entire half of our time is spent wandering, thinking about things in the past or the future caught my attention, said study author Jos Ramn Yela, a professor of psychology at the Pontifical University of Salamanca.

Understanding how this wandering is related to emotional distress and suffering led me to establish a relationship with mindfulness programs. I had the opportunity to participate in a TED talk, and since then I got more interested in mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy program (MBCT).

Later I specialized as a trained teacher in the Mindfulness Self-Compassion (MSC) program. The desire to clarify the psychological variables responsible for the beneficial effects on health and psychological well-being produced by these programs and my interest in evidence-based psychological interventions currently guide my lines of research.

In the study, 414 meditators and 414 non-meditators from Latin America and Spain completed assessments of depressive symptoms, anxiety, self-compassion, meaning in life, and experiential avoidance.

The researchers found that people practicing meditation tended to report better mental health than non-meditators. But the overall difference between occasional meditators and non-meditators was small. The difference was slightly larger when comparing regular meditators (who practiced at least once per week) to non-meditators.

If you practice mindfulness and want to obtain a benefit in your mental health and psychological well-being, it is necessary to practice regularly. If you practice only when things are going bad, you may not benefit from it, Yela told PsyPost.

The researchers also found evidence that meditators tended to have higher levels of selfcompassion and meaning in life, and lower levels of experiential avoidance. In other words, meditators were more likely to agree with statements such as Im kind to myself when Im experiencing suffering, I have a good sense of what makes my life meaningful, and My thoughts and feelings do not get in the way of how I want to live my life.

The findings indicate that selfcompassionate attitudes, a sense of meaning, and acceptance of inner experiences play a key role in the relationship between meditation and mental health.

Mindfulness training produces positive effects because it facilitates the development of a compassionate attitude towards ourselves, which helps to clarify what is important in life (personal values/meaning of life), which in turn encourages us to accept events as they are, decreasing our tendency to avoid negative feelings/emotions/thoughts, Yela explained.

I think it is important to treat oneself with compassion under difficult situations. This has nothing to do with being conformist, weak, pusillanimous or self-indulgent. Self-compassion makes people more motivated, more assertive, less anxious and depressed, and more psychologically comfortable, Yela added.

Cultivating self-compassion requires a) taking a benevolent and warm attitude towards ourselves (as opposed to being extremely self-critical); b) understanding that suffering is part of life and not isolating oneself or being ashamed of it; and c) developing an attitude of openness or mindfulness to the emotions/sensations/thoughts that cause us discomfort, rather than entering into constant struggle/avoidance. To do this, it is useful to clarify our values to find more meaning in life and to take action by engaging in concrete activities that produce psychological well-being.

The study controlled for gender, age, education level, and labor status. But like all research, it includes some limitations. In particular, the study relied on correlational data. Future research using experimental and longitudinal methods is needed to pin down any causal relationships.

We must continue to develop explanatory models that continue to help clarify the role of other mediating variables, Yela said.

The study, Selfcompassion, meaning in life, and experiential avoidance explain the relationship between meditation and positive mental health outcomes, was authored by Jos Ramn Yela, Antonio Crego, Mara ngeles GmezMartnez, and Laura Jimnez.

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Selfcompassion and acceptance of experiences may explain the link between meditation and mental health - PsyPost

Our lives are a constant balancing act between home, family, work, and any other obligations that might come up during the week. Add to that any anxiety you might have over the news headlines of the day or trauma you sustain from microaggressions cutting you down throughout the day, and its all too easy to bring your stress to the workplace with you, making it harder to focus on tasks you want to complete, to stay motivated about your career, and to handle responsibilities efficiently.

If you often find yourself thinking all you need is a little peace and quiet, the relief youre looking for is closer than you think. The simplest antidote to stress is meditation in the workplace.

Meditating positively affects your body, health, and emotions in lots of other ways, too. Essentially, if you meditate for even just a few minutes each day, youll start reaping the benefits. Youll feel better, get more done at work, and have a sunnier outlook on your life and relationships, which is sometimes the only thing you really have control over.

Mindful Meditation: Deep Breathing Exercise

One of the great things about meditation is how simple it is: It can be done almost anywhere, any time. With mindfulness meditation, your goal is to keep all of your attention on the current moment, rather than on the tasks, deadlines, and anxious thoughts that take up your energy and attention most of the time. One easy way to do this is by focusing on your breath.

To try it, sit tall in your office chair. Take a deep breath for a count of four. Rather than letting your breath get stuck in your upper chest, try to breathe into your belly for the most benefit. Hold the breath in for a count of four. Now exhale, slowly and evenly, for a count of six. As you repeat this exercise, you should slowly begin to feel calmer and more grounded in the current moment.

This is a great technique for reducing stress use it before presentations to help with nerves, or in the middle of the workday if you need a moment to relax.

Turn Your Lunch Break Into App Time

And were not talking about logging into social media (which may or may not exacerbate what is ailing your spirit at work the jury is still out on its effects).

Meditation apps, programs that allow you to listen to guided meditations through your phone, are an easily accessible resource when youre able to take a small chunk of time for yourself. Assuming you work at a place where youre entitled to a midday break, all you have to do is throw your headphones on, close your eyes, and youre on your way to some serious inner progress.

Some employers in the corporate world actually offer free subscriptions to their employees for meditation apps like Calm, which is one of the bigger programs out there that offers guided meditations as well as breathing exercises and background music geared toward everything from getting focused to banishing stress.

But regardless of whether you work somewhere with a mindful perk like this, there are other apps out there that you can access free of charge. An app like Liberate Meditation even takes your identity into consideration, offering culturally relevant resources designed by and for people who have lived the experiences and identify as BIPOC.

Clearing your mind of stress, learning how to dial into the task at hand, or simply having the clarity to know when to say no to responsibilities that you dont have time or energy for can help you monotask and be productive and efficient at work.

Walk It Off

Cant sit still? Try this walking mindfulness meditation instead. While simply taking a run-of-the-mill stroll through nature each day can help lift your mood and benefit your health in the long run, a walking meditation is less about the scenery and more about the deliberate focus you are giving the act of walking, something you can do year round as long as you have enough space to walk about 10-15 paces without being disturbed could be a quiet hallway, the corner of a courtyard, or even the nether reaches of a parking lot (where you know youre not in a channel of traffic). Try this 10-minute practice from UC-Berkeleys Greater Good in Action, which has you tune into the mechanical and familiar process of walking as a way of tuning out the noise that is holding you back from being your best self at the office.Ultimately though, the benefits of meditation at work will spill over to the rest of your day, leaving you more open, positive, and energized beyond the workplace, allowing you to be more present for yourself, your loved ones, and your community in your downtime.

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Meditation At Work: The Secret to a More Productive You - BELatina

In the opening moments of the film Moffie, Nicholas van der Swart is walking away from a family gathering. As he disappears into the darkness, he is wishing that a part of himself will disappear.

Its 1981. The 16-year-old is about to leave for his two years of conscription into the South African army. During apartheid it was compulsory for white men to serve in the military because South Africa was waging wars against liberation forces on its borders and beyond. Nicholas must enlist to fight the communist threat at the Angolan border.

Nicholas is gay. To the Christian nationalist rulers, he is just as much of a threat as the black resistance fighters who are nameless, faceless enemies to be exterminated in the film. Everything that is not in service of the apartheid state must be extinguished or repressed.

This repression is hammered home for the viewer through the constant verbal assaults that the young men suffer and mete out during their military training. In the South Africa portrayed in Moffie, every white character, be it a parent, general, pastor, even a friend, is policing borders and boundaries; there are clear lines that cannot be crossed.

The most powerful way that this mental conditioning takes place in the film is through the use of the word moffie (often translated as faggot) which those in charge use relentlessly to insult and control the troops. The scenes of training are often harrowing, and the word comes to be an act of violence on the viewer as well.

Its effect is to strip away any resistance, and to associate femininity, diverse sexuality and any emotional range as weakness. To be gay, then, is the ultimate offence against this regime of machismo.

The violence of the word is reinforced with physical violence menial tasks that lead to exhaustion and deprivation along with other epithets (racist, gender shaming) that destroy any sense of self-worth or individuality. The young recruits are becoming the men that apartheid South Africa needs in order to cling to life: men who are violent, hateful and emotionless.

Only in moments of darkness and isolation do the characters feel able to be intimate. In the first scene where Nicholas (Kai Luke Brmmer) is alone with his love interest, Dylan Stassen (Ryan de Villiers), the young men are ordered to spend the night waiting in deep trenches.

Their commanding officer, Sergeant Brand (Hilton Pelser), seems to take pleasure in setting a boundary that they cannot cross, to stay in the trenches no matter what, until the sun rises. What Nicholas and Dylan find, trapped in the confines of these limitations on their freedom and movement, is a moment of intimacy, a spark of desire.

The fear that Nicholas feels in realising his attraction for Dylan is palpable. He can never be caught, because not only will he be subject to violence, but he will be sent to a mental facility to cure him of his desire.

These forbidden moments are riddled with anxiety, which seems to rob the boys of the love story which this film might have become.

Hermanus is masterful in linking oppressive masculinity to racism in Moffie. Ive written before about his 2011 film, Skoonheid (Beauty), and how toxic masculinity and racism place limits on intimacy.

Moffie is in many ways a superior film, with striking cinematography emphasising the bleakness of the surroundings and a punching, unnerving score that points to the conflict and anxiety of the characters.

The film is bookended by two moments of violence against black characters. The first is when the young conscripts throw a bag of vomit into the face of a black man, demanding he not sit on a bench at a train station. The second is when Nicholas kills a black soldier in combat. Nicholas looking down at the corpse, in the dark of the night that he had once found refuge in, shows how he can never escape the racist and patriarchal duties that define apartheid.

There is a similar consciously political placement of black bodies in Skoonheid. Hermanus a black man features black characters in two highly charged moments in a film about the secret gay sex lives of white Afrikaner farmers. The one is before a sex scene and the other is on a university campus as Skoonheid reaches its terrible conclusion.

The actors in Moffie brilliantly portray these moments of being subject to the assault of toxic masculinity, with a particularly strong performance by Matthew Vey, who plays Nicholass best friend, Michael. Another strong performance is from Stefan Vermaak, who plays Oscar, the more willing participant in racist and patriarchal ideology.

Brmmers powerful performance as the central character shows both subtle resistance and then participation as an agent of the apartheid state.

At the end, it is unclear whether the young men are able to escape the encroaching ideology that dictates their lives, and whether the moments of refuge and isolation are enough to free them from the memory of the incessant labelling of moffie that defined their youth.

Moffie is a challenging and deeply affecting film that represents the important, often overlooked realities of living in apartheid for gay men.

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Film review: Moffie is a harrowing meditation on white masculinity - The Conversation Africa