BetterBrainBetterLife
  • HOME
  • BRAIN TRAINING
    • OVERVIEW
    • DEVICES & PROGRAMS
    • BRAIN TRAINING GAMES
    • MIND TRAINING
  • NOTES & NEWS
  • BOOKS
  • ABOUT
  • FAQS
  • CONTACT

Notes, News and Views

The most exciting frontier in human knowledge right now is the human brain. We focus on sharing research that has a practical bent: food, exercise, sleep, memory improvement, supplements and so on. We also cover personal experiences with brain and mind training. Occasional guest writers share their perspectives on brain enhancement and scientific discovery. Enjoy!

Focus: One Result of Workplace Meditation

12/14/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
I am happy to bring your attention to this summary of an APA journal article. One of the authors, Julianna Raye, will be profiled in my upcoming book on meditation teacher and neuroscience researcher, Shinzen Young. Julianna is such an impressive woman, from every angle, and you can learn more about her at: unifiedmindfulness.com.

Picture
In their recent article in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Jerry Slutsky, Brian Chin, Julianna Raye and J. David Creswell examined the effectiveness of mindfulness training in the workplace.
 
Top companies, such as Google, Apple, Aetna, and McKinsey, have conducted mindfulness training intended to improve employee well-being and productivity, but there's good reason to be skeptical about workplace mindfulness. Too often, what's being delivered as mindfulness training does not reflect the research-supported practice or may be led by instructors with as little as two days of teacher training. Additionally, few high-quality studies of the effects of workplace mindfulness training have been conducted.
 
This study is one of the few active treatment randomized controlled trials of mindfulness training in the workplace. Randomized controlled trials are designed to increase the validity of results.

Delivered by an instructor with more than 18 years' experience teaching mindfulness, the training was given to 60 employees of a Midwestern digital marketing firm. All participants completed a half-day mindfulness workshop using the Unified Mindfulness system.

In this approach, mindfulness is defined as three specific attention skills working together: Concentration, Sensory Clarity, and Equanimity.
 
Participants learned to practice while seated and also learned how to develop these skills during activities such as conversation, eating, and listening to music. Building the skills during a range of activities is intended to optimize people's time while enhancing a given activity.

After the half-day training, participants were randomly assigned to either a group that did not practice mindfulness during the six-week period or to a group that practiced mindfulness daily for six weeks. Researchers sent surveys measuring employee well-being to participating employees' smartphones throughout the workday for three consecutive days before and after the 6-week period.
 
While very few randomized controlled trial mindfulness studies have been conducted in the workplace, fewer still have surveyed participants while they were working. This step allowed for a more fine-grained data set, once again helping to increase the validity of the results.

Compared to the participants on the waiting list, the six-week participants showed reduced work-life conflict, increased job satisfaction, and an increased ability to focus their attention. Notably, this was the first study to research the effects of mindfulness training on attentional focus during the workday.
 
Overall, these findings suggest that while small doses of mindfulness training (such as the half-day training) may be enough to increase perceptions of job productivity, longer-term mindfulness training programs (such as the half-day training combined with daily practice for six weeks) are needed to improve work focus, job satisfaction, and a positive relationship to work.

Today's work culture can cause great strain on employees — high workloads and frequent distractions can have negative effects on employee well-being. A regular mindfulness practice might be one way to buffer from these negative effects on employees.
​
The researchers hope this study encourages further quality research investigating how mindfulness-based training can help employees.
​
Citation
  • Slutsky, J., Chin, B., Raye, J., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Mindfulness training improves employee well-being: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000132
 

0 Comments

Reversing Alzheimer's: Is This Crazy Talk?

7/28/2016

1 Comment

 
By Paddy Kamen, publisher BetterBrainBetterLife.com
PictureDale Bredesen
Is it possible to turn Alzheimer’s around, to have someone walk back from a diagnosis, return to work, recall foreign languages that were lost to them, and re-grow hippocampal volume? The latest research says yes, but is that research sound? This article covers the details of this groundbreaking research, along with criticism of it. 

What constitutes crazy talk with respect to Alzheimer's treatment may be a matter of opinion. Click 'Read More' below to see where the battle lines are being drawn. 


Read More
1 Comment

Insanity Averted - for Now

7/8/2016

0 Comments

 
By Paddy Kamen, publisher, BetterBrainBetterLife.com
Picture
At 3:36 a.m. I was awakened by voices from the boarding house across the street. Mind started in with worries about health, money, and numerous perceived problems like the fact that I don’t have an adequate filing system and the garage is a mess of stuff that needs to be gone through so that if I die suddenly my children won’t have to deal with it. Mind would not stop. Some of this was gripping stuff, and I’m not being facetious (e.g. my health*). Some of it was less urgent (the dahlias are being eaten by bugs and I’m not doing anything about it). But when in a crisis like this, the important matters and the less so merge into a battering ram of misery.
 
After a while, I felt crazy, as in, ‘I can’t possibly cope with my life and I’ll likely end up in the hospital or homeless and on the street’. The mind crap was spiraling. I needed emergency self-surgery. I got out of bed and started to sit meditation.


Read More
0 Comments

Key to Happiness: Excellent Video

5/10/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Mind training is about gaining perspective on who we are and the mystery of the world around us. This TED X talk by Polly Young-Eisendrath, a psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst practicing in Burlington, Vermont, sheds light on how we might shift perspective and gain happiness. 
I had the privilege of meeting Young-Eisendrath and meditating in her home in Vermont some years ago. She is a colleague of my meditation teacher, Shinzen Young  (they are not related). I sense that Polly is making a wonderful contribution to our world and I consider this talk exemplary. She gives some very practical suggestions for learning to be in the moment, and for putting our experience in perspective. This is mind training, and as we know, the way we use our minds directly influences our brains.


0 Comments

Keys to DNA Longevity

9/17/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
By Paddy Kamen, Publisher, BetterBrainBetterLife.com

Telomeres are all over the news these days. Those pesky little caps of DNA on our chromosomes shorten as we age and research shows that some cancers, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, depression, diabetes, obesity and heart disease are all more likely to arise in people with shorter telomeres. So it is fair to say that longer telomeres equal longevity.

Read More
0 Comments

Mom’s Brain, My Fears

7/11/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
By Paddy Kamen, Publisher, BetterBrainBetterLife.com

My mother began experiencing mini-strokes about 15 years ago. She’s now 87 and has had full-blown dementia for at least five years. Before mom became incapable, she named me as her attorney for personal care (or substitute decision maker). This means I have a decision-making veto in the event that she is unable to make her own health care decisions. This is clearly the case now.

Read More
0 Comments

Music, the Mind and Sensory Deprivation: Musician’s Device Wins Coveted Spot at TED Conference

2/26/2011

0 Comments

 
Picture
By Paddy Kamen, Publisher, BetterBrainBetterLife.com

What if the brain gains associated with meditation practice could be married to the soothing elements of music in an incredibly comfortable cocoon of darkness? What if technology can be used to foster positive mood and mind states?

Jay Vidyarthi says he’s a dreamer, because he “wants to help people achieve a state of peace and then apply their happiness forward to generate more positivity.” But he’s also one heck of a practical guy who has woven his interest and expertise in brain function, music and technology into a new device — the Sonic Cradle — that is premiering this week at the exclusive TEDActive conference in Palm Springs, California.


Read More
0 Comments

Longer DNA, Anyone?

11/29/2010

0 Comments

 
Picture
By Paddy Kamen, Publisher, BetterBrainBetterLife.com

In a stunning research ‘first’, the practice of meditation has been linked to cellular longevity. The discovery was made in a study that was part of the Shamatha project, which is housed within the Center for Mind and Brain at University of California, Davis (UCD).

Led by Clifford Saron, associate research scientist at the Center for Mind and Brain, the Shamatha project is one of the first long-term, detailed, matched control-group studies of the effects of intensive meditation training on mind and body.

Read more about this and other research into the incredible mind/body benefits of practicing meditation in my book: Better Brain Better Life: Tips and Tales from the Tantalizing World of Brain Science.
0 Comments

    Subjects

    All
    Addiction
    Alcohol
    Alzheimer's Disease
    Anorexia
    Anxiety
    Appetite Control
    Autism
    Betterbrainbetterlife.com
    Blue Light
    Body Work
    Brain Atrophy
    Brain Death
    Brain Disease
    Brain Enhancement
    Brain Exercise
    Brain Games
    Brain Health
    Brain Images
    Brain Injury
    Brain Research
    Brain Shrinkage
    Brain Size
    Brain Training
    Brain Volume
    Brigham And Women's Hospital
    Buck Institute For Aging
    B Vitamins
    Children's Brain Health
    Cognition
    Concussion
    Consciousness
    Creativity
    Deep Brain Stimulation
    Dementia
    Digestion
    Eating Disorders
    EEG
    Emotions
    Equanimity
    E-Readers
    Feldenkrais
    Food For The Brain
    Glial Cells
    Grey Matter
    Grief
    Gut
    Head Injury
    Hearing Loss
    Homocysteine
    Hot Flashes
    Improve Memory
    Lauren Sergio
    Magnetic Stimulation
    Marvin Berman
    McGill University
    Meditation
    Melatonin
    Memory
    Menopause
    Men's Brains
    Microbes
    Microbiome
    Mindfulness
    Mindfulness Meditation
    Mind Training
    Mini-stroke
    Mirror Neurons
    Mood
    Mood Disorders
    Neurology
    Neuropsychology
    Open Focus
    Paddy Kamen
    PTSD
    Quietmind Associates
    Relaxation
    Rob Ford’s Brain
    Schizophrenia
    Seniors
    Shinzen Young
    Sleep
    Stress
    Stroke
    Substitute Decision Makers
    Supplements
    Teenagers
    TMS
    Turmeric
    Video Games
    Vitamin Deficiency
    Vitamin Supplements
    Weight Control
    White Matter
    Women's Brains
    Women's Health
    York University

    Sign Up
    Join Our Mailing List
    Promise: Just interesting stuff 
    and not too often!
© betterbrainbetterlife.com 2016. We respect your privacy. BetterBrainBetterLife will not share your email address with third parties.
Photo used under Creative Commons from Hey Paul Studios