5 elementos essenciais para spirituality
, “These changes are trait-like: They appear not simply during the explicit instruction to perceive the stressful stimuli mindfully, but even in the ‘baseline’ state” for longer-term meditators, which supports the possibility that mindfulness changes our ability to handle stress in a better, more sustainable way.”
The body is a wonderful touchstone for meditation. Use it to help guide your attention inward and to train it to notice what’s right happening in the moment.
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Mindfulness also involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them—without believing, for instance, that there’s a “right” or “wrong” way to think or feel in a given moment.
People tend to lose some of their cognitive flexibility and short-term memory as they age. But mindfulness may be able to slow cognitive decline, even in people with Alzheimer’s disease.
To develop these skills in everyday life, you can try these exercises used in Kabat-Zinn’s MBSR program and elsewhere:
Life is sometimes difficult, stressful, and challenging. We can’t control what happens, but we do have the potential to change the way we relate to those things.
If it’s appropriate, you can approach human resource or training departments to see if they have any interest in sponsoring workshops or providing a quiet place where people can go to practice mindfulness.
Being present to others enabled people to bring more attention to relationships and to appreciate their time with others. They talked about how being present to others helped them let go of distressing histories, allowing them to relate to others in new ways. Disagreements also became more constructive, as participants were able to identify their communication problems, and were better able to take on another’s perspective and focus on potential solutions. Study participants also described having more energy, feeling less overwhelmed by negative emotion, and being in a better position to cope with healing music and support others.
Mindfulness is not about living life in slow motion. It’s about enhancing focus and awareness both in work and in life.
While cognitive stimulation and relaxation training seemed to be somewhat beneficial in comparison to pelo treatment, the mindfulness training group had much more robust improvements on cognitive scores than any other group. Mindful Breathing
In another study, people with heart disease were randomly assigned to either an on-line program to help them practice meditation or to a waitlist for the program while undergoing normal treatment for heart disease.
Want to give it a try? With our eyes closed, bring our focus to the top of our heads. Slowly, begin to scan down. Spend about 20 seconds noticing how each body part feels, then move on to the next.
It can also be helpful to notice how emotions feel in the body. Is anxiety making us clench our fists? Is worry making us sweat? Is boredom causing us to zone out? Then we can use the breath to try and ease some of that tension.