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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

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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.

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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.
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The researchers hope this study encourages further quality research investigating how mindfulness-based training can help employees.
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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
 

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

2/26/2011

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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.


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Can You Imagine? A Path to Pain Relief and Peak Performance

1/15/2011

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By Paddy Kamen, Publisher, BetterBrainBetterLife.com

Dr. Les Fehmi, Princeton Biofeedback Centre

What if your mind was like a clear pond, and the thoughts within it darting fish that don’t disturb the surface? What if you had a sense of mental lightness even when you are really busy? What if you could dissolve any physical or emotional pain with just 30 minutes of relaxed attention?

Thanks to the pioneering work of Les Fehmi, an electrical engineer turned psychologist thousands of people have experienced the above, and more.

Fehmi  is a pioneer in EEG technology and its application to human experience. He and Donald B. Lindsey, his mentor in graduate school, discovered how the brains of monkeys process information simultaneously at several sites, rather than linearly, as was previously thought. The ability of the brain to process information simultaneously is known as synchrony.

Building on his and Lindsey’s synchrony discoveries and that of research psychologist Joe Kamiya’s finding that profound states of mental quiet associated with alpha brain waves could be trained with EEG-based feedback, Fehmi hooked himself up to a self-made EEG feedback device and tried to generate alpha wave activity. After 12 two-hour sessions he was getting nowhere. Then, during the 13th session, he became frustrated and gave up in abject failure. As soon as he gave up, the EEG showed clear and significant alpha wave activity. In fact, Fehmi experienced a profound state of consciousness that has fueled his life and work ever since.

Read about Fehmi’s groundbreaking research in my book: Better Brain Better Life: Tips and Tales from the Tantalizing World of Brain Science.

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Longer DNA, Anyone?

11/29/2010

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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.
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