Mindfulness in Eight Weeks. Michael Chaskalson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and visit their doctor half as often as people who don’t meditate.

       Mindfulness can reduce addictive behaviour, and meditation practices generally have been found to help reduce use of illegal drugs, prescribed medication, alcohol and caffeine.

      Neuroscience Research

      We also know that mindfulness training has a significant impact on how the brain is shaped, wired and activated. After just eight weeks of mindfulness training we know from separate studies that one might expect:

       increased brain grey-matter concentration in areas connected with sustained attention, emotional regulation and perspective taking;

       increased cortical thickness;

       decreased amygdala activation: the amygdala is a key component in the brain’s threat-detection system – when it is less active you feel more at ease with yourself and others;

       increased activity in the left prefrontal cortex and less activity in the right prefrontal cortex: the ratio of left to right prefrontal activation is a good predictor of overall happiness and well-being – if the left prefrontal is more active then you’re likely to experience higher levels of well-being;

       increased working-memory capacity: working memory is the system that actively holds information in the mind to do tasks such as reasoning and comprehension, and to make it available for further information processing. Measures of working-memory capacity are strongly related to success in the performance of complex cognitive tasks. It is also a key component in emotion regulation and it is reduced by acute or chronic stress.

      The skills that emerge from mindfulness training are gradually beginning to be recognised as crucial life skills. Really, we should all have learned them at school and it is deeply heartening that programmes for schoolchildren and young adults, like .b and the programme developed by my colleagues at Bangor University, are beginning to find their way into schools. Most of us missed that chance, but thankfully it is never too late to learn.

      I sometimes begin my programmes by asking how many people in the room think that regular physical training can be crucial for their health and well-being. Everyone puts up their hand. I then ask how many people think that regular mental training can be crucial for their health and well-being. Most people put up their hand, a little more tentatively perhaps. I then point out that, had I asked the physical-training question to a general audience at the end of the nineteenth century, very few would have raised their hand. And, indeed, even as late as 1970, when the New York City marathon was first run with 127 entrants, of whom fewer than half completed the course, it was thought that only a few thousand people in the United States had the capacity to run a marathon. In 2010, 44,829 people finished – a world record for a marathon race – and every year tens of thousands of potential entrants are unsuccessful in the lottery for starting places.

      There has been a paradigm shift in our cultural attitude to physical fitness.

      We are now on the brink of another paradigm shift. We are beginning to recognise the importance of what we might think of as mental and emotional fitness and to see how we can train to build this.

      When you’re more skilled at working with your mind and mental states, things go better: for you and everyone around you.

      Before Beginning the Course

      You will read about a number of different mindfulness practices in each chapter of this book. If you’re using the book as a do-it-yourself manual for the eight-week course, it would be best to do the practices in the order in which they are described.

      To that end, it would be good, if you can, to read the book at a time when and in a place where you’re less likely to be disturbed. It would also be good to be able to engage in some of the meditations in the order in which they are taught. Some of the time, where indicated, you might want to put the book aside and take the time to listen to the particular audio material for that part of the course. The track name and its timing are shown at the appropriate place in the text.

      Since you’ll be doing different meditations from time to time, it will generally be good to have access to an upright chair, rather like a kitchen or dining chair, or a meditation bench or cushion if you want to meditate sitting on the floor. I’ll say more about the postures for sitting meditation when we come to that part of the course.

      For Week One, beginning in the following chapter, there are two other items of equipment you’ll need.

      There is the option for doing one of our meditations lying on the floor, so you might want to have a rug or mat handy for that.

      And our first meditation is going to be an eating meditation. But we’re not going to eat very much – just one raisin in fact – and I’ll be providing fairly detailed guidance on how to do that as an eating meditation. So if you’re going to read on, now might be a good time to go and find yourself a raisin. If you don’t have one handy, a very small section of any fruit or vegetable that you can eat will do instead.

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

/9j/4QAYRXhpZgAASUkqAAgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP/sABFEdWNreQABAAQAAABQAAD/4QQGaHR0cDov L25zLmFkb2JlLmNvbS94YXAvMS4wLwA8P3hwYWNrZXQgYmVnaW49Iu+7vyIgaWQ9Ilc1TTBNcENl aGlIenJlU3pOVGN6a2M5ZCI/PiA8eDp4bXBtZXRhIHhtbG5zOng9ImFkb2JlOm5zOm1ldGEvIiB4 OnhtcHRrPSJBZG9iZSBYTVAgQ29yZSA1LjAtYzA2MSA2NC4xNDA5NDksIDIwMTAvMTIvMDctMTA6 NTc6MDEgICAgICAgICI+IDxyZGY6UkRGIHhtbG5zOnJkZj0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMTk5 OS8wMi8yMi1yZGYtc3ludGF4LW5zIyI+IDxyZGY6RGVzY3JpcHRpb24gcmRmOmFib3V0PSIiIHht bG5zOnhtcE1NPSJodHRwOi8vbnMuYWRvYmUuY29tL3hhcC8xLjAvbW0vIiB4bWxuczpzdFJlZj0i aHR0cDovL25zLmFkb2JlLmNvbS94YXAvMS4wL3NUeXBlL1Jlc291cmNlUmVmIyIgeG1sbnM6eG1w PSJodHRwOi8vbnMuYWRvYmUuY29tL3hhcC8xLjAvIiB4bWxuczpkYz0iaHR0cDovL3B1cmwub3Jn L2RjL2VsZW1lbnRzLzEuMS8iIHh

СКАЧАТЬ