MODERN LEADERSHIP
yes, there’s a clear cost associated
with that method.
The solution is mindfulness; the
cost is your time and effort.
No one wakes up and thinks, “I
can’t afford happiness and health
today.” But that’s in essence what
we choose when we don’t make
time for a mindful life¬¬–and the
research illuminating the benefits of
mindfulness is growing every year.
Here are some of the key reasons to
make time for mindfulness.
1. Increased Happiness:
Meditation has been proven
to change our brain chemistry
by increasing the production of
neurotransmitters and hormones
associated with positive mood
and feelings of relaxation and
happiness.
The practice of meditation has
also been shown to decrease
concentrations of stress hormones
and boost immune system function.
2. Increased Brain Power:
The practice of mindful meditation
changes the structure of no fewer
than eight regions of the brain.
In the cortical regions of the
brain, the home of cognition and
executive function, researchers
have demonstrated that meditation
increases in the volume and density
of grey matter (neurons) as well as
the density of white matter (axons)
that connect specific regions of the
brain.
These findings provide substantial
evidence that meditation effectively
“rewires” the brain through the
process of neuroplasticity.
3. Increased Self-Awareness
and Emotional Regulation:
The practice of meditation
changes the pattern of electrical
activity (neurons firing) observed in
the brain.
Functionally speaking, this
observation helps to explain the
increases in self-awareness,
attention control and emotional
regulation that result after even
brief periods of mindful meditation
training.
Taken together, these findings
provide concrete evidence that
mindful meditation training leads
not only to subjective improvements
in wellbeing, but to changes in
the brain at the cellular, structural
and functional levels. Mindful
meditation triggers more than a
placebo effect. There is a causeand-effect relationship between
the practice of meditation and
neuroplastic changes in the brain
that lead to improvements in
depressive symptoms, feelings of
happiness and executive function.
Hundreds of research studies have
indicated that mindfulness practice
can provide the following additional
benefits–benefits you’re missing
out on if you “can’t afford time” for
mindfulness:
Stress and anxiety reduction:
More than 160 studies have shown
mindfulness practice to have a
positive and substantial effect
on factors of wellbeing, including
reducing stress, negative mood and
anxiety. One study on mindfulness
practice in the workplace found a 36
per cent decrease in stress levels.
Improved cognitive skills:
Mindfulness practice leads to
significant improvements in critical
cognitive skills after only four
days of training for 20 minutes a
day, including sustained attention,
visuospatial processing and
working memory, which helps
with processing and reasoning. It
also improves our ability to focus
attention and suppress distracting
information, as well as increasing
our information processing speed.
Mindfulness has been proven to
create structural and functional
changes in the brain such as
generation of new brain cells
November 2016
ModernBusiness
55