The power of meditation.

Meditation comes down to two things: Awareness and focus... and eventually those will become joy, clarity and trust.

Awareness means you are conscious about your body, your thoughts and your surroundings.

You become the observer. It is as simple as being aware of your heartbeat. Of being alive.

Focus is to channel your attention on one thing, to tune out all distractions.

The most common practice is focusing your attention on your breath. Focus is a super power in modern times where everything is competing for your attention.

Sit a down in a quiet place, set a timer for 5 minutes, and do nothing. Observe your own mind: What are you thinking about? How do you feel? Observe yourself like another person. Do not judge, simply observe and become aware of your thoughts and feelings.

Chasing negative thoughts limits your ability to achieve your goals and be successful. Meditation gives you a break from negativity- clogged thoughts and develops positivity while helping you in tackling your problems and to achieve goals.

“Mindfulness training may improve emotion regulation though changing neurobiological responses associated with our ability to remember that a stimulus is no longer threatening,” said Gunes Sevinc, postdoctoral researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Studies have shown that meditating regularly can help relieve symptoms in people who suffer from chronic pain, but the neural mechanisms underlying the relief were unclear. Now, MIT and Harvard researchers have found a possible explanation for this phenomenon.

In a study published online April 21 in the journal Brain Research Bulletin, the researchers found that people trained to meditate over an eight-week period were better able to control a specific type of brain waves called alpha rhythms.

“These activity patterns are thought to minimize distractions, to diminish the likelihood stimuli will grab your attention,” says Christopher Moore, an MIT neuroscientist and senior author of the paper. “Our data indicate that meditation training makes you better at focusing, in part by allowing you to better regulate how things that arise will impact you.”

There are several different types of brain waves that help regulate the flow of information between brain cells, similar to the way that radio stations broadcast at specific frequencies. Alpha waves, the focus of this study, flow through cells in the brain’s cortex, where sensory information is processed. The alpha waves help suppress irrelevant or distracting sensory information.

A 1966 study showed that a group of Buddhist monks who meditated regularly had elevated alpha rhythms across their brains. In the new study, the researchers focused on the waves’ role in a specific part of the brain — cells of the sensory cortex that process tactile information from the hands and feet.

Meditation in the workplace

and while driving, walking, shopping, talking, learning...

Meditation allows you complete focus and awareness in the present moment, allowing you to process information with clarity by quieting down mental noise and daily-life concerns.

By learning to focus on your breath, you are also learning to focus in the present moment, letting go of thoughts of the past and the future, allowing you to learn and perform better.

Mindfulness goes hand in hand with concentration, as you learn to avoid distractions that occur within your own mind.

As your practice improves, you can use the same technique to increase your emotional intelligence, as you learn to be the observer and detach from ego.

The practice of mindfulness meditation will help you achieve your full potential, and realize your personal capabilities by getting to know the structure and depths of your own mind.

If something is wrong, fix it now. But train yourself not to worry. Worry fixes nothing. -Ernest Hemingway