목적이 없는 학습이란 없지 않은가!
하지만 나에겐 큰 목적은 없다. 다만 어제보다 나은 나, 그리고 더 나아질 내일의 나를 기다리는 즐거움이 나에겐 학습의 목적이라 할 수 있다.
인간이 학문적으로 더 나아가 정서적으로 성숙해 질 수 있다는 것은 인간이 누릴 수 있는 가장 큰 축복인 것 같다. 이런 귀한 시간을 알게 해준 하나님께 제일 감사하다~
Mindfulness 8주차 자격증 공부를 하면서 2주차를 겨우 3달만에 끝나고 있다. 나만의 루틴(totally being myself physically, 가족돌봄 제외 등 ㅋㅋㅋ)에서 최우선 과제 순위가 굉장히 분명하다. 테마가 조금씩 바뀌긴 해도 거의 순위는 비슷하다. 공부 -> 걷기 -> 독서 및 경제/심리/오디오북 청취-> 필사 -> 그리고 현지&한국 친구/언니 만나서 교류하는 순이다. 학문과 관련된 루틴이 항상 인생에서 우선순위임에도 학습이 효율적이지 못하다는 찝찝한 기분이 든다. 결론은 distraction이 문제다. 그래서 이렇게 2주차 공부가 3개월만에 해낼 일인가 하는, 집중력에 대한 회의감이 밀려온다.
그래도 모자란 내 탓인 것을 어찌할까.. ㅋㅋㅋ
오늘보다 내일이 더 나아질 거라 믿기에 오늘도 잘 마무리 해보련다. 모두들 화이팅!!! 아자아자!!!
Week 2 - Attention and The Brain
Introduction to Sitting Meditatio
Videos
1. The Monkey Business Illusion by Daniel Simons
I coundted the exact pass numbers from the experiment and also noticed the gorilla being in the experiment but did not know how the gorilla suddenly participated in.
When you are looking for a gorilla, you often miss other unexpected events. And that is Monkey Business Illusion.
This illustrates both the incredible power of attention and the inherent limitations in our ability to perceive fully what is going on around us.
2. Mindfulness Practice - Michelle Maldonado
"To be fully present in the moment to be mind, body, and surroundings with a level of curiosity and kindness.
Take the example of what is happenin in the US across economic lines, racial lines, cultural lines, political lines, there is so much that is dynamic, uncertain, ambiguous, complex, and it is confusing and it is scary. So there is a lot of fear that kind of rises up in any society.
And so how do we help ourselves navigate that and not fall into what I call sort of plaes of judment and uncertainty versus staying in discernment and curiosity or wisdon?
The entire ecosystem that starts with you. Mindfulness meditation then is kind of a mental training practice that helps us to sharpen our focus, which then also helps us sharpen our clarity. And when we see more clearly, then we have power and choiceful response. When we can't see clearly and we are lost, then we tend to react. And when we react, it is more like our emotions are taking control of us rather than us choosing how we wish to respond.
"What you think, do, pay attention to repeatedly over time changes the structure and function of your brain."
It just creates new grooves and you will creat a pattern and so that becomes your default way of thinking, of being.
"Why not be intentional about what you are putting into your brain? What is inncer critic and inner narrative? Can you reframe that? Can you change that?
The easy way to sum that up is to say,
"Neurons that fire together, wire together"
So why not choose where you are placing your attention and be intentional about it.
"Life is full and there is always an intergrated way to do things.
We all play a role in the play of our lives.
The first way to be mindful is focused attention on your breath or a sound or a visual. What you are doing is attaching an intention to each of breaths. If you notice any kinds of distractions just let it go. This also can be practice.
Everything happens in context.
We can not strive for perfection in it. What we are striving for, is simply non-striving and being human.
The goal is to live an integrated life.
We look at the ipact versus the intention, and sometimes the intention doesn't at all match the impact it is given. You can live an integrative life, the dedicated practices are what fuelsyour ability to do the integrative practives.
The essence of the message is about being fully present in the moment, cultivating mindfulness to navigate dynamic and uncertain situations, and intentionally shaping thoughts and behaviors. The power of focused attention, intentional living, and the idea that repeated actions influence brain function. The goal is to live an integrated life, considering the impact of one's actions and practicing mindfulness as a means to achieve this integration.
3. Mindful Meditation and the Brain - Shauna Shapiro
Research on meditation and the brain highlights how positive and negative emotions manifest differently in brain activity. For instance, happiness is associated with higher left-to-right ratios in the prefrontal cortex, while depression and anxiety show greater
right-to-left activity. When we are feeling happy, joyful, vital, alert, we have higher left-
toright ratios in our prefrontal cortex. When we are feeling depressed, anxious in fact,
even people who have post-traumatic stress disorder or severe depression we have much, we see much greater activity in the right-to-left ratio in the prefrontal cortex.
There was a study on meditators, they brought in this Tibetan Lama, what they found i
s that his left-to-right ratio was much higher than any of the other 175 subjects they brought into the laboratory.
“Was he kind of born happy?” Or
“Did the tens of thousands of hours that he had dedicated to this practice have an impact?
This challenges the idea of a fixed "happiness set point," suggesting that training the mind through mindfulness can lead to lasting changes in emotional well-being.
In psychology there is something called a happiness set point.
This is new research (Richie Davidson) is what it says is that, even though changing your exterior circumstances – winning the lottery – does not change your happiness level, changing our interior landscape, through training the mind, can.
“Happiness can be trained because the very structure of our brain can be modified.”
Our repeated experiences shape our brain. The actual parts of their brains that have to do with attention, concentration, emotional intelligence, compassion – those parts of the brains get stronger, bigger, it is called cortical thickening. So, the way she likes to think of it is we have these superhighways of habits, and they are just like, they are well-rooved pathways in our brain. That is what we automatically do. And what mindfulness is helping us start to do is kind of digging a country road, clearing all the brambles in your brain, you are creating this new neural pathway. Repeated experiences shape the brain, strengthening areas related to attention, concentration, emotional intelligence, and compassion. Mindfulness is likened to creating new neural pathways, gradually replacing old habits with more positive behaviors.
4. How Meditation Can Reshape Our Brains - Sara Lazar
Engaging in repetitive behaviors can lead to changes in the brain, known as neuroplasticity. Studies on meditation show that regular practice can increase grey matter in areas related to working memory and decision-making, potentially slowing down age-related decline. Another study found that an eight-week meditation program led to increased grey matter in the hippocampus (important for learning and memory) and decreased grey matter in the amygdala (associated with stress response), indicating positive changes in emotion regulation and stress reduction. These findings suggest that meditation can have a tangible impact on brain structure and function.
5. Coming to Our Senses - Jon Kabat-Zinn
Meditation focuses on cultivating attention to the general tendency of the mind to wander and worry.
The practice emphasizes being present with things as they are, developing open-hearted awareness of our experiences, and breaking free from habitual and conditioned behaviors. Mindfulness involves coming to our senses and sustaining awareness of the present moment, allowing for a new way of navigating life with greater freedom.
"The mind loves to hang out in the future, trying to arrange things to be a certain way, or worrying about how they are going to not wind up that way. And so that is like driving your car with the brake on. Huge amount of burning goes up. Worrying, worrying, worrying.
From the perspective of the meditative traditions, our entire society has attention deficit disorder. The mind loves to hang out in the future, trying to arrange things to be a certain way, or worrying about how they are going to not wind up that way. And so that is like driving your car with the brake on. Huge amount of burning goes up. Worrying, worrying, worrying.
Tp pay attention in an open-hearted way to the full range of our capacities and resources. Mindfulness is the cultivation of, is coming to our senses literally, and seeing if we can sustain our awareness of one or another experience.
Holding all of that in awareness immediately allows for a new way to navigate or be free."
6. All it takes is 10 Mindful Minutes - Andy Puddicomb
Andy discusses the importance of taking time to care for the mind, which is essential for happiness, emotional stability, and peak performance. It highlights how often people neglect their mental well-being and get caught up in stress and distraction. He shares their personal experience of dealing with stress by becoming a monk, emphasizing the value of mindfulness and being present in the moment. Research is cited showing that the mind is frequently lost in thought, leading to unhappiness. The solution proposed is dedicating just 10 minutes a day to mindfulness, which can have a profound impact on one's life. This involves observing thoughts and emotions without judgment, fostering a relaxed and focused mind.
I love to share the whole transcript with you, it is so beautiful wording.
“When did you last take any time to do nothing for 10 minutes?”
The mind, our most valuable and precious resource, through which we experience every single moment of our life. The mind that we reply upon to be happy, content, emotionally stable as individuals and at the same time, to be kind and thoughtful and considerate in our relationships with others. This is the same mind that we depend upon to be focused, creative, spontaneous, and to perform at our very best in everything that we do. And yet, we don’t take any time out to look after it. In fact, we spend more time looking after some others, car, clothes, hair…so on. The result, of course, is that we get stressed, the mind whizzes away like a washing machine going round and round, lots of difficult, confusing emotions, and we don’t really know how to deal with that. And the sad fact is that we are so distracted that we are no longer present in the world in which we live. And the crazy thing is that everybody just assumes, that is the way life is, so we have just kind of got to get in with it. That is really not how it has to be.
When a number of things happened in my life in quire quick succession, all of a sudden I was inundated with thoughts.
I guess we all deal with stress in different ways. Some people will bury themselves in work, grateful for the distraction. Others will turn to their friends, their family, looking for support.
Some people hit the bottles, start taking medication. My own way of dealing with it was to become a monk. People often ask me what I learned from that time. It gave me a greater appreciation, an understanding for the present moment. By that I mean not being lost in thought, not being distracted, not being overwhelmed by difficult emotions, but instead learning how to be in the here and now, how to be mindful and how to be present. I think the present moment is so underrated.
It sounds so ordinary, and yet we spend so little time in the present moment that is anything but ordinary. There was a research paper from Harvard, that said on average, our minds are so lost in thought almost 47 percent of the time. At the same time, this sort of constant mind-wandering is also direct cause of unhappiness.
It need only take about 10 minutes a day, it impacts our entire life. It is familiarizing ourselves with the present moment. We need to know how to do and how to approach it in the right way to get the best from it.
It is more about stepping back, sort of seeing the thought clearly, witnessing it coming and going, emotions coming and going without judgment, but with a relaxed, focused mind.
All you need to is to take 10 minutes out a day, step back, to familiarize yourself with the present moment. "
Rawpixel.com/Adobe Stock
Readings
1. Sitting Meditation - Jon Kabat-Zinn [excerpted from Full Catastrophe Living]
When you sit quietly, observing your breath, body, and mind, you'll likely notice an inner resistance to staying in that stillness for long. Within a few minutes, either your body or mind will seek activity or a change.
We need to explores the challenge of sitting quietly in meditation. In this process, one often faces restlessness and a desire for distraction. The mind and body resist being still, seeking constant activity. We encourages understanding these impulses and questioning the need for constant engagement. This self-observation reveals deeper insights into one's restlessness and the habitual need for external stimulation. By exploring the resistance to stillness, individuals can cultivate a more peaceful and relaxed state of being.
The core of formal meditation is "sitting," analogous to breathing but with heightened awareness. Unlike ordinary sitting, mindful sitting involves conscious, alert, and relaxed posture, fostering comfort without unnecessary movement. This practice embraces calm acceptance of the present without attempting to fill it with distractions. Adopting an upright and dignified posture aligns with the inner attitudes of self-reliance, self-acceptance, and alert attention.
The recommended practice for sitting meditation involves using either a chair or the floor. If using a chair, it's advised to choose one with a straight back, allowing feet to be flat on the floor. Sitting away from the chair's back is suggested for spine support, but leaning against it is acceptable. If sitting on the floor, a firm cushion is recommended to raise the buttocks. Various cross legged and kneeling postures are mentioned, such as the "Burmese" posture or kneeling with a cushion between the feet. While sitting on the floor can provide a grounded feeling, the sincerity of meditation effort is emphasized over the choice of
In meditation, whether sitting on the floor or in a chair, maintaining proper posture is crucial for cultivating inner qualities such as dignity, patience, and self-acceptance. The key points include aligning the back, neck, and head vertically, relaxing the shoulders, and finding a comfortable hand position. Typically, hands rest on the knees or in the lap with specific finger placement. Once the chosen posture is assumed, attention is directed to the breath, focusing on the inhalation and exhalation, observing sensations associated with each breath. While the practice sounds simple, sitting in stillness without external distractions can be challenging, as the mind or body may resist the quietude after a short period.
In meditation, the relationship between the mind and body becomes evident, where the restlessness of one influences the other. The impulse to avoid stillness and seek constant activity is observed without judgment. Rather than answering why the mind resists being still, the practice involves bringing attention back to the breath, building concentration and inner strength. Through this, one develops patience and non-judgmental awareness, accepting each moment without reacting. Mindfulness, in this context, involves making room for thoughts, observing them, and using the breath as an anchor to stay focused and calm.
2. Joshua Bell plays a $3,000,000 violin (and almost nobody notices)
In a Washington, DC Metro Station, Joshua Bell, one of the world’s greatest violinists, played a beautiful, intricate, moving piece on a violin worth over 3 million dollars.
During the 43 minutes he played, 1,097 people walked by. Only seven stopped to listen, and even those seven paused for only a few minutes.
Two days before, Joshua Bell had played the same music to a sold out audience in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each. His minimum fee for playing a public concert was $75,000. How could so many people have walked by?
출처 입력
It demonstrates how the busyness of our daily life can sometimes prevent us from noticing the beautiful and miraculous world all around us and also how many amazingly beautiful things do we miss in a day, because of the pace of our lives and the intense focus on getting to the next thin.
The story encourages us to pause amid busyness and appreciate the extraordinary moments in our surroundings, suggesting that there is always something amazing happening if we take a moment to notice.
3. How the Brain Rewires Itself - Sharon Begley
In an experiment at Harvard Medical School, volunteers practiced a piano exercise for two hours daily for five days, with one group physically playing and another group only imagining the practice. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) tests revealed that the motor cortex controlling piano-playing fingers expanded in both groups, demonstrating the brain's ability to alter its structure through mental practice. The findings suggest that mental training could lead to mastery with less physical practice and highlight the profound impact of mental activities on the brain's physical structure and function.
For decades, neuroscience believed in the immutability of the adult human brain, assuming it was fixed in form and function. This view hindered expectations for rehabilitation and changing pathological brain wiring. Recent research, however, has overturned this dogma, revealing the brain's neuroplasticity—the ability to change in structure and function due to experience. Neuroplasticity enables significant alterations, such as the visual or auditory cortex adapting when a person becomes deaf or blind. Even after late-life trauma like a stroke, the brain can reorganize, exemplified by techniques like constraint-induced movement therapy. The brain's structure reflects life experiences, showcasing its adaptability and ability to be rewired.
The phenomenon of phantom limb sensations demonstrates how changes in sensory input can reshape the brain's structure. After losing his left arm in a car crash, Victor Quintero reported feeling sensations in his missing limb. Neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran conducted experiments, revealing that touching specific areas on Victor's face corresponded to sensations in his absent hand. The brain reorganizes, with the cortex processing face input taking over the region originally dedicated to the missing hand. This study marked the first documented case of an individual consciously experiencing the outcomes of brain rewiring.
Researchers exploring neuroplasticity have found that the brain can undergo changes based on internal thoughts alone, with implications for mental health. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and mindfulness meditation have been shown to influence brain activity. In a studhttps://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=TTy, CBT was found to quiet the circuit associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), similar to the effects of medication. Another experiment on depression revealed that CBT and antidepressants led to brain changes in different ways. CBT targeted the frontal cortex, reducing rumination, while antidepressants affected the limbic system. These findings support the concept of "self-directed neuroplasticity," suggesting that the mind can reshape the brain.
Neuroscientist Richard Davidson investigated whether mental training, specifically meditation, could alter brain activity associated with enduring happiness and positive emotions. Collaborating with Buddhist monks, Davidson found that during compassion meditation, experienced meditators showed greater activation in brain networks linked to empathy and maternal love. The left prefrontal cortex, indicative of happiness, exhibited significantly heightened activity, surpassing the right prefrontal associated with negative moods. This suggests that positive states, such as happiness, may be trainable mental skills through practices like meditation, highlighting the transformative potential of neuroplasticity in understanding human nature.
4. How Meditation Affects the Gray Matter* of the Brain - David R. Hamilton, Ph.D.
* 대뇌 피질(大腦皮質, cerebral cortex) 또는 대뇌 겉질은 대뇌의 표면에 위치하는 신경세포들의 집합이다. 두께는 위치에 따라 다르지만 1.5~4밀리미터 정도이다. 대뇌 피질은 대뇌의 안쪽 부분과 비교해 어두운 색을 띠고 있어 회백질(gray matter)라고 부르고, 반대로 안쪽은 백질(white matter)이라 한다. - 위키피디아
뇌는 신경세포와 신경 교세포라고 하는 두 종류의 세포들이 모여 있는 덩어리입니다. 이 중에서 신경세포가 주로 신체활동과 정신활동을 담당하는데, 그 신경세포의 몸체는 주로 뇌의 겉껍질 부분에 모여 있습니다. 그래서 이 부분을 피질(皮質, cortex)이라고 부르고 약간 회색 기운을 띄고 있어서 회백질(grey matter) 이라고도 부릅니다. 반면, 신경세포의 몸체에서 뻗어 나온 가지들은 신경 섬유의 다발을 이루어 뇌의 내부로 향해 있는데, 그 색깔이 희며 반짝 반짝 윤기를 띄고 있어서 백질 (白質, white matter)이라고 불립니다. - 중앙치매센터
Meditation has profound effects on the brain, impacting both mental and physical well-being. Studies reveal that meditation induces changes in the gray matter of the lower brain stem, with regular practice promoting its growth.
Meditation induces physical changes in the gray matter of the lower brain stem, as revealed by a study led by scientists at Aarhus University. Comparing MRI scans of meditators and non-meditators, the research demonstrates that meditation promotes the growth of gray matter. Another study conducted by Giuseppe Pagoni and Milos Cekic from Emory University compared the gray matter volume in Zen meditators with non-meditators, revealing that the gray matter reduction associated with aging was notably less in meditators. This suggests a 'neuroprotective' effect of meditation, shielding the brain from certain aging effects.
"Several areas of the brain are active when we meditate, but most pronounced is the prefrontal cortex because when we meditate we are focusing our attention on something -- whether that be the body, our breathing, a word, a candle or even a spiritual ideal. When this area is active, just like a muscle being exercised, it grows.
Neuroscientists use this analogy to describe the way the brain changes. When we exercise a muscle it becomes larger and denser with muscle mass. In a similar way, when we exercise any part of the brain, which we do when we meditate, it becomes larger and denser with neural mass -- gray matter. The phenomenon is known as neuroplasticity and describes how the brain actually changes throughout life.
We learned that the brain is hardwired once we reach young adulthood. The analogy used is that when we are young, the brain is a bit like dough, which can be kneaded into various forms, but when we reach young adulthood we put the dough in the oven and it comes out with a bread crust on it. The brain is then 'hardwired,' we were taught. But this analogy has since been abandoned. We now know that we never put the dough in the oven. Our gray matter is ever-changing as we experience life; as we learn, walk, run, dance, and when we concentrate, as we do when we meditate. Our gray matter is changing until the last seconds of our life. It grows even with our last breath."
Gene analysis found distinct genetic activations in long-term meditators, hinting at potential physiological consequences, including slowing the aging process. Neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to change, challenges the outdated notion of the brain being hardwired after young adulthood, emphasizing its continuous evolution throughout life. The prefrontal cortex, crucial for attention and active during meditation, experiences growth akin to muscles when exercised, reinforcing the concept of neuroplasticity.
댓글