Os Princípios Básicos de personal development

In several studies, mindfulness meditation appeared to increase levels of T-cells or T-cell activity in patients with HIV or breast cancer. This suggests that mindfulness could play a role in fighting cancer and other diseases that call upon immune cells. Indeed, in people suffering from cancer, mindfulness appears to improve a variety of biomarkers that might indicate progression of the disease.  In another study, elderly participants were randomly assigned to an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course or a moderate-intensity exercise program.

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.

Imagine a photocopier slowly moving over us, from our head to our toes, detecting any sensations in the body. As we scan down, we notice which parts feel relaxed or tense, comfortable or uncomfortable, light or heavy.

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.

We could always meditate to reset ourselves before our last work meeting or after we drop the kids off at school. Anytime we feel overwhelmed, we can take a break and meditate instead of pushing through.

Still, it’s encouraging to know that something that can be taught and practiced can have an impact on our overall health—not just mental but also physical—more than 2,000 years after it was developed. That’s reason enough to give mindfulness meditation a try.

In this age of constant distractions and long hours, it’s difficult to find even a few minutes of time to reflect. Yet finding that time and space can help ease the stresses of your demanding working life.

In this meditation, you bring your awareness to different parts of your body, commonly starting at your feet and traveling to the top of your head.

However, social bias isn’t the only kind of mental bias mindfulness appears to reduce. For example, several studies convincingly show that mindfulness probably reduces sunk-cost bias, which is our tendency to stay invested in 528 hz a losing proposition. Mindfulness also seems to reduce our personal development natural tendency to focus on the negative things in life. In one study, participants reported on their general mindfulness levels, then briefly viewed photos that induced strong positive emotion (like photos of babies), strong negative emotion (like photos of people in pain), or neither, while having their brains scanned. More mindful participants were less reactive to negative photos and showed higher indications of positive feeling when seeing the positive photos. According to the authors, this supports the contention that mindfulness decreases the negativity bias, something other studies support, too.

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When we start to feel bored, restless, or doubtful during practice, we can easily remind ourselves of our intention. It can be the motivation we need to keep our commitment.

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 guided meditation disease.

When we get distracted by a thought, notice it, let it go, and return our focus to the area of the body we last left off. When we finish the body scan, open the eyes.

It’s not surprising that meditation would affect attention, since many practices focus on this very skill. And, in fact, researchers have found that meditation helps to counter habituation—the tendency to stop paying attention to new information in our environment. Other studies have found that mindfulness meditation can reduce mind-wandering and improve our ability to solve problems. There’s more good news: Studies have shown that improved attention seems to last up to five years after mindfulness training, again suggesting trait-like changes are possible.