Considerações Saber Sobre self-knowledge
A Q&A with Jack Kornfield about giving feedback at work, using social media wisely, and the poetry in his teachings.
Meditation is a highly personal activity, with everyone finding their best own way to practice. Some find guided meditations to be useful, especially when starting out, to help focus their attention.
O neurocientista cognitivo Amishi Jha conduziu uma estudo em 2012 na Universidade do Miami utilizando 48 fuzileiros navais dos EUA qual se dirigiam para o Iraque. Ela pratiquei meditaçãeste consciente com eles, o de que ESTES ajudou a aumentar a qualidade a memória. Em seu estudo de oito semanas, 31 participantes passaram duas horas por semanada treinando meditaçãeste, enquanto 17 fuzileiros navais nãeste tiveram nenhum treinamento.
“The type of meditation matters,” explain postdoctoral researcher Bethany Kok and professor Tania Singer. “Each practice appears to create a distinct mental environment, the long-term consequences of which are only beginning to be explored.” How much meditation is enough? That also depends. This isn’t the answer most people want to hear. Many of us are looking for a medically prescriptive response (e.g., three times a week for 45-60 minutes), but the best guide might be this old Zen saying: “You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day—unless you’re too busy. Then you should sit for an hour.” To date, empirical research has yet to arrive at a consensus about how much is “enough.
In one study, people with pre-hypertension were randomly assigned to augment their drug treatment with either a course in mindfulness meditation or a program that taught progressive muscle relaxation.
Jon Kabat-Zinn emphasizes that although mindfulness can be cultivated through formal meditation, that’s not the harmony only way. “It’s not really about sitting in the full lotus, like pretending you’re a statue in a British museum,” he says in this Greater Good video.
Meditating after a large meal—and certainly after drinking alcohol—can make you feel sleepy, which isn’t ideal. The goal is to stay alert during your practice.
As the day moves on and the inevitable back-to-back meetings start, mindfulness can help you lead shorter, more effective meetings. To avoid entering a meeting with a wandering mind, take two minutes to practice mindfulness.
When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts tune into what we’re sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future.
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But meditation is more like sleep. The harder we try to sleep, sometimes the harder it is to drift off. When we sit to meditate, if we try hard to empty the mind, it tends to feel full.
When they do, rather than becoming frustrated and focusing on the noise, “Why is my neighbor having a dance party right now?” or trying to tune it out, “I wish this music would stop,” we can notice our thought, let it go, and return to our breath.
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.
In fact, there has been a lot of interest in promoting mindful eating as a way to help people be more aware of what they eat, to enjoy each bite more, and even to control how much they eat. And there’s also growing interest in using the practice of mindfulness in the workplace to provide a buffer against stress.