By Tina Peng
In Newsweek
Nancy Muriello, 37, decided a few years ago that she wanted to “empty all the junk” from her mind. So she began studying meditation techniques and practicing breathing and mindfulness, or being aware of the present moment. Now Muriello spends 15 minutes per day clearing her head of clutter. “You can really picture it as a reversal,” says Muriello, who owns Big Apple Power Yoga in New York City. “All the junk, all the stimuli are pouring out of you, so you’re left with a clearer, lighter mind and body. You feel very refreshed, very relaxed, and you have more capacity to take on new things.”
Recent studies have shown meditation can yield a host of health benefits, from increased concentration to some relief from depression. Hospitals and clinics are including meditation as therapy, and medical schools are including it in their curricula. As the practice becomes more accepted as something that can be both secular and therapeutic, publishers are responding: at least a dozen books on meditation are scheduled for release in the next three months. “It’s definitely become very mainstream in many ways,” says Alan Wallace, president of the Santa Barbara (Calif.) Institute for Consciousness Studies.
Brain-imaging research has shown that meditation reduces stress and can enhance one’s sense of well-being. Novice practitioners have increased activity in the left prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that can produce positive feelings and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, says Richard J. Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin and the director of its Lab for Affective Neuroscience. Long-term practitioners are able to better focus their attention and cut down on a psychological effect called the “attentional blink” that causes people to overlook rapidly changing visual stimuli. Wallace, who is currently studying how meditation can be used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), says the practice can also lower anger levels and act as a supplementary treatment for depression, heart disease and social-anxiety disorders.
And it can be surprisingly easy to get started. “You don’t have to leave it all behind or run away to a mountaintop,” says Sharon Salzberg, a meditation teacher and author who cofounded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass. Practitioners can learn it in a class, off a CD or from a book. Here’s a look at some of the new offerings, as well as some of the classics.
“Real Meditation in Minutes a Day” (Wisdom Publications. $16.95. May 2008), by Joseph Arpaia and Lobsang Rapgay, leads readers step by step through the process of medi-tation, helping them build from focusing awareness to developing mental flexibility and clarity to, finally, opening the mind. Bullet-point tips and instructions make the book seem like test prep for life.
“Ending the Pursuit of Happiness” (Wisdom Publications. $16.95), by Barry Magid, takes a Zen approach to meditation and spirituality, arguing that meditation shouldn’t be a conscious effort to treat spiritual or physical ailments.
“Eat, Pray, Love” (Viking. $15), by Elizabeth Gilbert, has topped The New York Times’s paperback nonfiction bestseller list for more than a year. Gilbert writes about taking a year off to travel the world and find herself, spending four months learning to meditate at an ashram in India.
“Full Catastrophe Living” (Delta. $20), by Jon Kabat-Zinn, is about increasing mindfulness and using meditation to deal with stress and pain. Kabat-Zinn was one of the first to bring meditation into the secular world and point to its more-medical, less-spiritual applications. He’s particularly famous for this title.
Pema Chodron, a Buddist nun and well-known meditation teacher, has released several audio CDs, including “How to Meditate With Pema Chodron” ($19.77; amazon .com). She has forthcoming titles on such subjects as living with uncertainty and cultivating compassion (preorders at bn.com).
Salzberg has created Unplug ($21.56; bn.com) and Insight Meditation ($19.77; amazon.com) kits comprising workbooks, audio CDs and flashcards.
Several meditation teachers also offer free series of podcasts for download. Mary and Richard Maddox talk listeners through breathing and grounding techniques and pain-release meditation on Meditation Oasis (meditation oasis.com or iTunes).
Learn to Meditate (meditation .org.au or iTunes), produced by the Meditation Society of Australia, has published 25 podcasts since 2006. Each episode consists of a lecture on such diverse subjects as love and string theory, followed by a guided meditation session. Now you can contemplate the interconnectedness of the universe from just about anywhere.
In Newsweek
Nancy Muriello, 37, decided a few years ago that she wanted to “empty all the junk” from her mind. So she began studying meditation techniques and practicing breathing and mindfulness, or being aware of the present moment. Now Muriello spends 15 minutes per day clearing her head of clutter. “You can really picture it as a reversal,” says Muriello, who owns Big Apple Power Yoga in New York City. “All the junk, all the stimuli are pouring out of you, so you’re left with a clearer, lighter mind and body. You feel very refreshed, very relaxed, and you have more capacity to take on new things.”
Recent studies have shown meditation can yield a host of health benefits, from increased concentration to some relief from depression. Hospitals and clinics are including meditation as therapy, and medical schools are including it in their curricula. As the practice becomes more accepted as something that can be both secular and therapeutic, publishers are responding: at least a dozen books on meditation are scheduled for release in the next three months. “It’s definitely become very mainstream in many ways,” says Alan Wallace, president of the Santa Barbara (Calif.) Institute for Consciousness Studies.
Brain-imaging research has shown that meditation reduces stress and can enhance one’s sense of well-being. Novice practitioners have increased activity in the left prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that can produce positive feelings and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, says Richard J. Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin and the director of its Lab for Affective Neuroscience. Long-term practitioners are able to better focus their attention and cut down on a psychological effect called the “attentional blink” that causes people to overlook rapidly changing visual stimuli. Wallace, who is currently studying how meditation can be used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), says the practice can also lower anger levels and act as a supplementary treatment for depression, heart disease and social-anxiety disorders.
And it can be surprisingly easy to get started. “You don’t have to leave it all behind or run away to a mountaintop,” says Sharon Salzberg, a meditation teacher and author who cofounded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass. Practitioners can learn it in a class, off a CD or from a book. Here’s a look at some of the new offerings, as well as some of the classics.
“Real Meditation in Minutes a Day” (Wisdom Publications. $16.95. May 2008), by Joseph Arpaia and Lobsang Rapgay, leads readers step by step through the process of medi-tation, helping them build from focusing awareness to developing mental flexibility and clarity to, finally, opening the mind. Bullet-point tips and instructions make the book seem like test prep for life.
“Ending the Pursuit of Happiness” (Wisdom Publications. $16.95), by Barry Magid, takes a Zen approach to meditation and spirituality, arguing that meditation shouldn’t be a conscious effort to treat spiritual or physical ailments.
“Eat, Pray, Love” (Viking. $15), by Elizabeth Gilbert, has topped The New York Times’s paperback nonfiction bestseller list for more than a year. Gilbert writes about taking a year off to travel the world and find herself, spending four months learning to meditate at an ashram in India.
“Full Catastrophe Living” (Delta. $20), by Jon Kabat-Zinn, is about increasing mindfulness and using meditation to deal with stress and pain. Kabat-Zinn was one of the first to bring meditation into the secular world and point to its more-medical, less-spiritual applications. He’s particularly famous for this title.
Pema Chodron, a Buddist nun and well-known meditation teacher, has released several audio CDs, including “How to Meditate With Pema Chodron” ($19.77; amazon .com). She has forthcoming titles on such subjects as living with uncertainty and cultivating compassion (preorders at bn.com).
Salzberg has created Unplug ($21.56; bn.com) and Insight Meditation ($19.77; amazon.com) kits comprising workbooks, audio CDs and flashcards.
Several meditation teachers also offer free series of podcasts for download. Mary and Richard Maddox talk listeners through breathing and grounding techniques and pain-release meditation on Meditation Oasis (meditation oasis.com or iTunes).
Learn to Meditate (meditation .org.au or iTunes), produced by the Meditation Society of Australia, has published 25 podcasts since 2006. Each episode consists of a lecture on such diverse subjects as love and string theory, followed by a guided meditation session. Now you can contemplate the interconnectedness of the universe from just about anywhere.
1 comment:
For more information about Pema Chodron, she has a website at
www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema
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