Why Mindfulness 101 is a Career Saver

Why Mindfulness 101 is a Lifesaver

Are you curious about new scientific research on baby-easy meditation that can help overcome chronic insomnia, reduce high blood pressure, and support self-control over anxiety?

Would you be interested in scientific research on how about 9 minutes of Mindfulness meditation can seriously help reduce backaches, and even chronic arthritic pain?

We do not offer medical advice, so Google Mindfulness, and then discuss it with your physician.

Science - Not Quackery

Scientific research on the results of meditation on our mind, body and emotions
started at Harvard by Professor Herbert Benson in 1968. He called it the Relaxation
Response.

Forty years later researchers call it Mindfulness meditation, and report it offers evidence of your ability to help overcome chronic pain without the dangers and
side-effects of drugs.

Our Experience With Executives

We have recommended Mindfulness to hundreds of stressed out executives who rate it indispensable in functioning in our high-powered Knowledge Economy. They use Mindfulness because it is brief – about nine-minutes – and produces immediate relief from chronic stress. Some executives suggest it increases their creativity.

Executives can practice Mindfulness at their desk. VPs often suggest it to their peers to improve attention span, help double long-term memory, and elevate self-confidence. Many credit it with their promotions because it improves their presentation skills and self-esteem. They walk around the office with a sly smile of competence.

We offer our research for your approval – with no strings attached.

How To Do It

All you need to gain the benefits of Mindfulness is a pair of Earplugs. Why?
It shuts out office distractions for the 9 minutes, and increases the sound of breathing through your nose.

Step 1: post a “stay out!” sign and turn off your telephone and computer alerts.
Sit down, kick off your shoes. Place your outstretched fingers on top of each knee. Now insert your earplugs and close your eyes. Why? We want you to move from Beta brainwaves (13-40 cycles per seconds) of alert, arousal activity to comfortable
relaxation of Alpha brainwaves (8 –13 cps). How? Close your eyes for 10 seconds.

Step 2: focus your internal attention on the sound and feeling of breathing through your nose. Be a witness (observer) to thoughts that pass through your mind, but pay no attention to them.

Your job is to notice the rise and fall of your chest and the movement of air through your nose. If you lose your concentration, take one-diaphragmatic (deep, slow breath) and kick back into non-arousal (relaxed) Alpha again.

Step 3: Make your thumb; forefinger and middle finger gently touch while remaining on each knee. Why? It is a somatic (bodily) signal to your brain to stay in Alpha brainwave cps.

Step 4: Each time you exhale through your nose, mentally (silently) hear the sound OM (Oh-Mmm). Stretch out OM by separating the Oh! from the Mmm! If you forget to execute the OM, just return to it on the next exhalation.

Why? It gives your left-hemisphere an activity to concentrate and permits access to your right-brain creativity.

Step 5: For optimal results of creativity and increased immune function – maintain a wide smile on your face. It sounds easy but forgetting to smile is common, so return to smiling each time you notice you stopped.

Why? Smiling affects your mind-body connection and creates positive mental movies and mood improvement. Most of us rarely smile from 9 to 5. We recommend smiling because it releases healthy endorphins (opioid peptides) that reduce pain and anxiety.

Smiling during Mindfulness meditation has a long-term effect after you return to
your Beta activities. It happily lingers in your Muscle Memory and increases problem-solving and a positive attitude for up to 90 minutes.

Coda: a) Sit at your desk, insert your earplugs and close your eyes.
b) Focus on your breathing (nose and chest) and ignore Self-Talk.
c) Fold your fingers into two separate circles and maintain those gestures.
d) On each Exhalation hear the sound OM mentally.
e) Most importantly, S-M-I-L-E as often as you can remember.

Anticipation

Mindfulness meditators learn to ignore anxiety signals and minor aches and pains.
It keeps you in a positive, happy mood. Adults anticipate certain daily aches and pains, but with Mindfulness chronic pain anticipation is dissolved. According to
researchers at the University of Manchester, Meditation trains the brain to be
more Present-Conscious and to avoid anticipating future negative events.

Folks who regularly meditate, control their attention and thought processes. Their Prefrontal cortex shows different activity than non-meditators. Scientists show results of reduced chronic pain, for example, arthritic disability, with continued
Mindfulness sessions. Google: Pain journal, 2010. DOI

“Meditation increases attention span, and helps you self-regulate your emotions.”
See: Katherine MacLean, lead author, Psychological Science.

Pain And Emotion

“Depressed Mood drives pain and causes it to feel worse.” It causes maladaptive
changes in the brain function associated with chronic stress, anxiety and pain.

Google: Dr. C. Berna, appears in Biological Psychiatry, 2010, 67 (11) 1083 DOI.

“All you have to do to alleviate pain is use your mind, change the way you look at
the perception of pain and affects the feeling of pain.” Dr. F. Zeidan, University of
North Carolina (Charlotte). Mindfulness reduces awareness and sensitivity to pain and increases ‘pain-management’.

Frowning

A fancy term like Facial Feedback Hypothesis scares the public. An example explains it all: when you’re smiling the whole world smiles with you. New research
led by David Havas, University of Wisconsin- Madison, offers evidence that when we are NOT frowning, the world (environment) seems less angry and less sad.”

Smiling, even when you do not feel like it, creates a positive change in your bodily
processes of perception (understanding), action and emotion. We are convinced that
intentionally smiling like a grinning baboon, improves your health and makes folks love you.

Smile every time you think of it, even when you are faking it. Why? It produces scientifically positive results. After 21 days of Mindfulness, it goes on Autopilot, and you become a conditioned Smiler. The benefits are extensive and scary, including promotions in your career and better personal relationships. Check it out.

See ya,

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copyright © 2010 H. Bernard Wechsler www.speedlearning.org hbw@speedlearning.org.
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