21 February 2012 Pain relief: meditation better than drugs, study finds

Better than morphine ... meditation can reduce pain dramatically, study finds.

When Subhana Barzaghi was a midwife she taught breathing and meditation techniques to relieve the pain caused by contractions.

“Most of us have a habitual reaction to pain – an aversion that we react against,” Subhana, who is now a meditation teacher at North Sydney’s Bluegum Sangha, explains.

“Meditation teaches us to observe rather than get caught up in the strong sensations we are experiencing. We learn to stop labeling and therefore stop reacting. In this way, instead of tightening up against it and resisting, which causes further tension, we start to soften into it. As we do this, the pain can begin to soften and subside.”

Recently, the 5000 year old intuitive teachings of meditation were given the backing of science. A report from the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center states that meditation can be more effective than morphine.

“This is the first study to show that only a little over an hour of meditation training can dramatically reduce both the experience of pain and pain-related brain activation,” said Fadel Zeidan, PhD, lead author of the study and post-doctoral research fellow at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. “We found a big effect – about a 40 per cent reduction in pain intensity and a 57 per cent reduction in pain unpleasantness. Meditation produced a greater reduction in pain than even morphine or other pain-relieving drugs, which typically reduce pain ratings by about 25 per cent.”

In the study, 15 volunteers, who had never previously meditated, were taught mindfulness meditation techniques over four 20-minute sessions. Mindfulness meditation teaches the individual to focus the attention on an object, such as the breath.

“This concentration brings the awareness to the present moment, allowing the individual to experience what’s going on at a subtle level, ” Subhana explains. “As the mind stops jumping around like a 24-hour TV channel, we develop our sense of calm and begin to cultivate equanimity and serenity. In this way, we enhance our own natural relaxation response.”

During the study, participants had their brain activity measured, with an arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging (ASL MRI), both before and after meditation, while they were subjected to a pain-inducing heating device – heated to 120 farenheit or almost 50 degrees celsius – over five-minute periods.

The scans found that after meditation, participant’s pain was reduced by as much as 93 per cent. They also showed that activity in the somatosensory cortex – the region of the brain associated with pain response – which was rapid prior to meditation, was significantly diminished afterwards. Movement in the anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula and the orbito-frontal cortex however, was increased after meditation.

“These areas all shape how the brain builds an experience of pain from nerve signals that are coming in from the body,” says Robert C Coghill, PhD, senior author of the study and associate professor of neurobiology and anatomy at Wake Forest Baptist. “Consistent with this function, the more that these areas were activated by meditation the more that pain was reduced. One of the reasons that meditation may have been so effective in blocking pain was that it did not work at just one place in the brain, but instead reduced pain at multiple levels of processing.”

As a result of the study, Wake Forest recommended meditation be used as standard clinical practice to deal with pain.

This scientific endorsement came as a welcome, but not unexpected result for those in the profession.

“With guidance from a trained practitioner, mindfulness meditation allows you to achieve a level of focus and concentration where you are deeply calm and even blissful,” Subhana says. “Certainly, this shifting of mind and body state at times of intense stress has the power to be stronger than drugs.”

20 February 2012 Meditation helps kids pay attention, leading researcher says

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Meditation, long deemed the exclusive domain of monks and Eastern culture fads, is now being shown by scientific research to have positive, long-lasting effects on the human brain — even among children.[iStockphoto/Thinkstock

Simple meditation techniques, backed up with modern scientific knowledge of the brain, are helping kids hard-wire themselves to be able to better pay attention and become kinder, says neuroscientist Richard Davidson.Davidson — who will speak Friday at the University of British Columbia on his new co-authored book, The Emotional Life of Your Brain— has put his research into practice at elementary schools in Madison, Wis.About 200 students at four elementary schools have used breathing techniques to hard-wire their brains to improve their ability to focus on their work.

“It’s so widely popular and successful, the district wants us to scale it up the entire (Madison) school system,” Davidson said Wednesday in an interview.

Davidson, who was inspired by a meeting with the Dalai Lama in 1992 to research areas like kindness and compassion, heads up several laboratories at the University of Wisconsin including the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds.

In 2006, Davidson was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people.

Davidson said research has shown why the brain’s circuitry is important in governing a person’s resilience to stress.

Research has also shown the brain is elastic, that it can be shaped by experience and behaviour.

Research, including brain imaging studies, also shows it is possible to cultivate the mind to change brain function and structure in ways that will promote higher levels of well-being and increased resilience, said Davidson. His research is outlined in dozens of articles in scientific journals.

The techniques used with elementary schoolchildren are quite simple. To improve a child’s ability to pay attention — and also improve their studying abilities — a stone is put on a child’s belly, and they learn to focus on their breathing as the stone goes up and down.

The technique can be taught to children as young as four, said Davidson.

“A simple anchor like one’s breath is a centuries-old meditation technique, but it turns out to have some very beneficial qualities in terms of changes in both the brain and behaviour,” he said.

To foster kindness in teenagers, students are asked to visualize a loved one suffering followed by a thought that they be relieved of that suffering.

This is extended to difficult people as well, said Davidson.

This exercise has also been shown to produce meaningful changes in the brain and behaviour, he said.

Elementary schools in Vancouver have also embraced these meditation techniques as part of a program called MindUp that teaches children that it is hard to concentrate when the brain is stressed.

More than 1,000 teachers have trained in the program at the Vancouver school board, and the district has received requests from other school districts, including in Yukon, to teach the program.

16 February 2012 The Brain/Gut Connection Influences Well Being and Mental Health

The hundred millions of neurons that exist in our gut justify the expression "gut feeling".

How many of us over the years have heard the saying two brains are better than one?  Would you be surprised to find out that we do have two brains in our own body?  Yes it turns out that the gut does have a mind of it’s own and it is known as the “enteric nervous system”.   Just like the brain, which we identify as the mind, there is also a brain in our gut that is located in the tissue lining of our esophagus, stomach, small intestine and colon.  According to, Dr. Michael Gershon, author of   The Second Brain, “the connection between the two can be unpleasantly clear.”  In fact, we can all relate to this statement “butterflies in the stomach”, before giving a speech, or the first time we kiss someone, anytime we have to make an important decision that involves risk, or the night before a significant examination a bout of diarrhea.  This is a direct experience of the action between our two nervous systems.

Many of you may be surprised to hear that there are 100 million neurons in the gut, and that this is greater than what we have in our spinal cord.  Furthermore, there are major neurotransmitters like serotonin (95% of serotonin is produced in the gut), as well as, dopamine, glutamate, norepinephrine, and nitric acid.  Not to mention the presence of two-dozen small brain proteins, called neuropeptides, as well as major cells of from the immune system.  The presence of Enkephalins (a member of the endorphin family) is also found in the gut.  Endorphins are small protein molecules that are produced by cells in your body and their goal is to relieve pain with an analgesia type effect.  This is experienced by some as the natural high experienced in running or some other form of exercise.  It is also one of the sited reasons why soldiers continue to fight in war when they have been injured.  Benzodiazepines, an anxiolytic medication (anti-anxiety medication) is also abundantly found in the gut, from the popular psychoactive chemicals known as Valium and Xanax.

The brain and the enteric nervous system (gut) are connected by the vagus nerve.  The vagus nerve is the major communication network between the two brains.  Messages between the two brains run up and down this network and are supported by other neural networks such as the myenteric plexus and the submucosal plexus, which command and control neurons in the gut.

According to the current research, there is a plethora of evidence that is coming to light regarding the circuitry between the two brains.  Scientists, psychologists and nutritionists are beginning to understand why people act and feel the way they do.  It has long been known by psychology the connection between fight and flight and that the response is initiated by a fearful situation, which in turn results in the release of stress hormones that prepare the body to flee or fight.  If the body prepares to fight like on the battlefield the higher brain communicates to the gut and tells it to shut down.  However, fear can also result in the opposite result whereby the vagus nerve turns up the volume of the serotonin circuits in the gut resulting in overstimulation and diarrhea.

Current research is clearly making a connection between the gut and the brain and how digestive imbalance and mental health are highly correlated.  Therefore, if we balance the gut, issues like depression, anxiety, and digestive issues, autoimmune illnesses, and arthritis, fatigue, eczema, migraines, and attention deficit disorder come into balance.

There is an old saying, “we are what we eat” and it is never truer than now.  It is time to pay attention to what we eat.  It is true that some people eat all the right foods but for some reason they cannot digest them or absorb the necessary nutrients.  In these cases the result is diarrhea, constipation or irritable bowel syndrome (known as IBS).   Below are some of the stats on what the current research is finding with gastrointestinal diseases.

1. 84% of state anxiety (chronic anxiety) is related to small intestine bowel disorders, such as h-pylori and ulcerative colitis.
2. 67% of trait anxiety (periodic anticipation of something happening in life) is related to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
3. 27% of depression is related to celiac and irritable bowel syndrome.
4. IBS affects 10-20% of the adults in the U.S.  According to Dr. Gershon more than a two million Americans are afflicted with IBS, which arises in part from too much serotonin in the gut, and may well be regarded in the future as the mental illness of the gut.
5. 70-90% of patients who seek treatment for IBS have a psychiatric co-morbidity such as a mood disorder or anxiety disorder.
6. 19% of population has schizophrenia.
7. 29% of IBS patients have Major Depressive Disorder.
8. 46% of IBS patients have a panic disorder.
9. 40-80% are at high risk for having migraines, and fibromyalgia.
10.  91% of children with autism have a gastrointestinal issue.

In my practice I focus on an integrative approach between all factors, body (food, supplements, water, breath, rest and sleep), mind (stress management, yoga, meditation and automatic negative thoughts), relationships (important connections with others in our lives), and spirit (our connections to something beyond the physical).  The client is asked to keep a thorough food diary (including how they feel after they eat certain foods) and activity log (detailing how much exercise and how they feel after they exercise).   All ingested materials are looked at included prescription drugs and supplements.   The philosophy I take is that food and exercise are our best medicine and when everything in our lives is balanced we will feel better.

8 February 2012 Benefits of Meditation: Some May Surprise You

Most physicians within the field of traditional medicine not only cite the health benefits of meditation, they actually prescribe it for many of their patients.  Most of us are aware that practicing medication can improve our health by doing things like lower our blood pressure.  Meditation can even strengthen our immune system and help the body fight off infection and disease.  However, there are many other, often overlooked benefits of practicing meditation that you may not be aware of – or need to be reminded of.

Meditation can help you lose weight

At the time this was written one out of every three adults in the United States is obese.  Most people don’t understand the difference between being overweight and being obese.  If you are overweight, it means you weigh more than an average range relative to your height.  If you are obese, it means that you have excessive body fat.  More important is the fact that obesity is significantly more dangerous to your health then being overweight.

It comes as no surprise that the cause of obesity – eating more than we should – but the reason why many of us eat more than we should is where meditation comes into play.  A large majority of obesity is caused by something called “emotional eating.”  Emotional eating is a response to high levels of anxiety, stress, or other mood related states such as sadness, even boredom.

The practice of meditation promotes reduces levels  of anxiety and stress, and can also improve our mood.  All of which reduces the risk of emotional eating as well as promoting weight loss.

Mediation can make you younger

While this may sound like some crazy claim you’d hear on a late night informercial, there is scientific evidence that meditation can reverse biological age.  Biological age is the term used to describe how old someone is physiologically.  It is based on how well major body systems are working.  Research studies on those who have been practicing meditation regularly for more than 5 years indicates that, on average, these meditators are 12 years younger physiologically than their actual chronological age.

Meditation can relieve insomnia

Research estimates that there are 70 million Americans who suffer from insomnia.  Add to that number those who have occasional difficulty getting and staying asleep, and we can see why the pharmaceutical companies are making billions off of sleeping pills both by prescription and over the counter.  However, sleeping pills can have detrimental side effects, some of which represent serious risks to your health and well-being.

Practicing meditation at bedtime can be an extremely effective and natural sleeping aid – and the side effects are all positive.  Bedtime mediation not only promotes getting to sleep more quickly as well as staying asleep, but has been shown in medical studies to create improvement of sleep in 100% of those in the study and 91% of those who continued to meditate regularly after the study reported that they were able to significantly reduce or eliminate their reliance on sleeping pills.

Meditation helps you remember things

There are many ways to improve your memory and scientists have now included meditation among them.  One study involved having people meditate for 40 days.  The results were astounding.  After the study the people who participated in the study were tested along with a group who had not participated.  Researchers were impressed by statistics that showed those who had participated by meditating for 40 days did four times better on memory tests than those who did not.

Meditation frees the creative mind

Creativity is one of the most profound characteristics of being human.  Unfortunately, in a world filled with distractions and almost constant stressors, for many of us creativity is stymied.  Those who practice meditation benefit by quieting their agitated and anxious mind.  Additionally, science suggests that mediation assists in the promotion of what you might call a “free exchange of ideas” between our “creative” right brain and our “rational” left brain.  Furthermore, the practice of meditation improves our ability to focus.  All of these things encourage creative thinking and new ideas.

Meditation can increase your intelligence

At one time it was felt that a person’s level of intelligence was fixed at birth.  In other words, you were stuck with whatever amount of intelligence you happened to be born with.  Research now indicates that our brains our much more “plastic” than previously thought, meaning that it is possible to improve IQs.  There are various methods shown to improve IQ, and researchers include meditation into this mix.  Evidence for this includes measuring muscle mass.  Meditation has been shown to increase the muscle mass of the cortex of the brain, what is commonly referred to as “grey matter.”  It has been shown that practicing meditation can contribute as much as 20 points to an individuals IQ.

For more, read the original at Quantum Jumping.

17 January 2012 Anatomy of a Freeze – or Dorsal Vagal Shutdown

(Drawn from Steven Porges and Peter Levine)

In order to sustain life, the body has two complementary nervous systems: a Sympathetic (arousing) and a Parasympathetic (calming). Both are needed not only for psychological balance, but for survival. Without a Parasympathetic modification, the heart would beat too quickly to sustain life.

Ideally there is a smooth balance between the two, a gentle collaboration. The Sympathetic is dominant in exertion, exercise, athletics, emotional and sexual arousal as well as stressful situations.

The Parasympathetic takes over in relaxation, sleep, meditation, massage, gentle touch, connecting deeply with another person, nurturing – both nurturer and nurtured.

When stress is very great, the Sympathetic system automatically goes to a fight or flight response. This is built in to the system. It can happen in response to external threat or the perception of threat.

Either fighting or fleeing can resolve the stress.

If neither is possible or successful, the sympathetic arousal can get so extreme that it is too much for the body to handle.

At this point, we have a failsafe survival mechanism. The Parasympathetic system spikes. It comes in so strongly that it overwhelms the Sympathic arousal and sends the person into a state of Freeze. This can be full collapse, dissociation, or a more partial freeze such as inability to think clearly or access words or emotions, or move parts of the body.

This can be momentary, short term – such as a possum freezing and becoming reanimated after the predator leaves, or, in humans, continue indefinitely.

Stephen Porges has focused his attention on the Vagus Nerve, one of the largest nerves in the body and a major part of the Parasympathetic system.

The Vagus has two branches: dorsal (back) and ventral (front). The Dorsal Vagus is a large, primitive nerve, which is common to all animals, including fish. I goes down the spine and has a role in controlling our lungs, hearts (moderating heartbeats so they don’t get too rapid) and stomach (where it actually aids digestion).

It is prominent in sleep and relaxation – i.e. when we lie on the beach in the sun. It is very active in the “diving reflex” that allows marine mammals to hold their breaths for long periods of time.

A cultivation of the reflex has allowed humans to set records of over 6 minutes under water.

Normally, the Dorsal Vagus serves a very positive function. It helps the body gently pendulate between arousal and relaxation. However, when the Sympathetic is too aroused, the Dorsal Vagas nerve can shut down the entire system and we go into freeze. This is most common in trauma and shame, which is developmental trauma.

The Ventral or front Vagus Nerve is a much more recent addition. It is common to mammals, who raise live young, not reptiles, birds or fish. It goes directly to the muscles of the face and helps determine expression and is active in social engagement.

When the Ventral Vagal is active we seek and initiate social contact.

Social engagement for mammals is a way of activating the Parasympathetic system. Ventral Vagal social engagement – or attachment behavior – is a way to prevent and come out of Dorsal Vagal Shutdown.

17 January 2012 A Gut Check for Many Ailments

What you think is going on in your head may be caused in part by what’s happening in your gut.

Mark McGinnis - New research indicates problems in the gut may cause problems in the brain, just as a mental ailment, such as anxiety, can upset the stomach.

A growing body of research shows the gut affects bodily functions far beyond digestion. Studies have shown intriguing links from the gut’s health to bone formation, learning and memory and even conditions including Parkinson’s disease. Recent research found disruptions to the stomach or intestinal bacteria can prompt depression and anxiety—at least in lab rats.

Better understanding the communication between the gut and the brain could help reveal the causes of and treatments for a range of ailments, and provide diagnostic clues for doctors.

The gut—considered as a single digestive organ that includes the esophagus, stomach and intestines—has its own nervous system that allows it to operate independently from the brain.

This enteric nervous system is known among researchers as the “gut brain.” It controls organs including the pancreas and gall bladder via nerve connections. Hormones and neurotransmitters generated in the gut interact with organs such as the lungs and heart.

Like the brain and spinal cord, the gut is filled with nerve cells. The small intestine alone has 100 million neurons, roughly equal to the amount found in the spinal cord, says Michael Gershon, a professor at Columbia University.

The vagus nerve, which stretches down from the brainstem, is the main conduit between the brain and gut. But the gut doesn’t just take orders from the brain.

“The brain is a CEO that doesn’t like to micromanage,” says Dr. Gershon. The brain receives much more information from the gut than it sends down, he adds.

Many people with psychiatric and brain conditions also report gastrointestinal issues. New research indicates problems in the gut may cause problems in the brain, just as a mental ailment, such as anxiety, can upset the stomach.

Stanford’s Dr. Pasricha and colleagues examined this question in the lab by irritating the stomachs of newborn rats. By the time the animals were eight to 10 weeks old, the physical disturbance had healed, but these animals displayed more depressed and anxious behaviors, such as giving up more quickly in a swimming task, than rats whose stomachs weren’t irritated.

Compared to controls, the rats also showed increased sensitivity to stress and produced more of a stress hormone, in a study published in May in a Public Library of Science journal, PLoS One.

Other work, such as that of researchers from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, demonstrated that bacteria in the gut—known as gut flora—play a role in how the body responds to stress. The exact mechanism is unknown, but certain bacteria are thought to facilitate important interactions between the gut and the brain.

Electrically stimulating the vagus nerve has been shown to reduce the symptoms of epilepsy and depression. (One treatment approved by the Food and Drug Administration, made by Cyberonics Inc., is already on the market.)

Exactly why such stimulation works isn’t known, experts say, but a similar procedure has been shown in animal studies to help improve learning and memory.

Earlier this month, researchers made a small step toward understanding a gastrointestinal ailment that typically affects children with autism.

In a study of 23 autistic children and nine typically developing kids, a bacterium unique to the intestines of those with autism called Sutterella was discovered.

The results, published online in the journal mBio by researchers at Columbia’s school of public health, need to be studied further, but suggest Sutterella may be important in understanding the link between autism and digestive ailments, the authors wrote.

Dr. Gershon, professor of pathology and cell biology at Columbia, has been studying how the gut controls its behavior and that of other organs by investigating the neurotransmitter serotonin.

Low serotonin levels in the brain are known to affect mood and sleep. Several common antidepressants work by raising levels of serotonin in the brain.

Yet about 95% of the serotonin in the body is made in the gut, not in the brain, says Dr. Gershon. Serotonin and other neurotransmitters produced by gut neurons help the digestive track push food through the gut.

Work by Dr. Gershon and others has shown that serotonin is necessary for the repair of cells in the liver and lungs, and plays a role in normal heart development and bone-mass accumulation.

Studying the neurons in the gut also may also help shed light on Parkinson’s disease. Some of the damage the disease causes to brain neurons that make the neurotransmitter dopamine also occur in the gut neurons, researchers say.

Researchers are now studying whether gut neurons, which can be sampled through a routine colonoscopy, may help clinicians diagnose and track the disease without invasive brain biopsies, says Pascal Derkinderen, a professor of neurology at Inserm, France’s national institute of health.

11 January 2012 Compassion, the vagus nerve and how to live longer

9 January 2012 Simple Remedies for Stress

eitheory.com

Five days a week, 9 – 5, I sit in a chair at a desk by the window. I mostly talk to people; and write.  Sometimes I talk to people while I write. At the end of the day, after I am finished with all this talking and writing, sitting and listening, I walk, briskly; at least four miles. I look forward to walking. Exercise helps to maintain my emotional and physical health – especially on days when I make myself emotionally unwell.

Like most of you, on occasion, I provoke myself into some measure of the stress response.  Criticism, the ill-mannered, unfair treatment and disrespect are the perceptions I personally find most challenging.  Of course, there is no such thing as criticism, the ill-mannered, unfair treatment or disrespect.  These are my perceptions. Emotional events unto themselves are meaningless without my active interpretation of them.

If I can change my interpretation of events, I can change my response to events. Instead of perceiving my experiences as threats, I can perceive them as bothersome inconveniences, incommode, unfortunate events.

I know this.

Intellectual insight is not often enough.  Combining knowledge with new behaviors, however, is essential to changing any habit – including how we emote. Simply knowing the right thing to do is not sufficient to make any kind of real change in how we perceive adversity.  I often fail to make this connection.  My sympathetic nervous system, on the other hand, never fails.  My sympathetic nervous system does an excellent job of rapidly preparing me to deal with whatever I perceive as threatening.

I am sometimes my own worst enemy.

Within nanoseconds of nut-headed thinking, a corresponding metabolic process is begun, allowing us to cope with our perception of danger. Our adrenal glands release adrenaline (epinephrine);  our breathing increases along with our heart rate and blood pressure, moving more oxygen-rich blood faster to our brains and the muscles – the fuel needed for fighting or fleeing.  From a distance, while all of this is going on inside of me, I am just a guy sitting by the window in his chair behind his desk.  In reality I am a time bomb of neuro-chemicals and hormones, fully prepared to lead a Spartan army into battle.

The Muzak overhead has no effect on me.

While in this stressed state, our unnecessary bodily functions shut down. Growth, reproduction and our ability to fight off disease (the immune system) are all temporarily put on hold for the sake of safety.  Blood-flow to the skin is reduced. Over time, chronic stress can lead to obesity, heart disease, sexual dysfunction and various skin ailments.  Mental illness (particularly depression and anxiety) can also result. Medical conditions that are influenced by a nervous system response such as chronic pain, IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), digestive disorders or headaches are likely to become exacerbated by stress.

At some point, we have to make a commitment to take an active role in how we process our unhealthy, self-defeating and irrational thoughts.  I have made a commitment to manage my automatic bio-psycho response.  And I try to keep that pledge.

So I walk, briskly and stay focused on my physical and emotional health.

I cannot expect that the way I perceive events in my environment and how I think about them can change overnight.  On the contrary, thinking differently is a demanding task, likely to last the rest of my life.  I can, however, begin every day by reminding myself of my pledge.  I have committed to being an active player in my emotional life – an aspect of my life that can never again be viewed as a passive process.

I have found two important, yet simple, steps I can take immediately to help interfere with my stress response.  These steps work wonders for me. These steps motivate me to change my nutty thinking and help return my body and mind to balance.

I walk.

I breathe.

I pardon myself and others.

Especially, I pardon myself.

Moderate exercise and deep breathing can be emotionally and physically cleansing.  Those harmful stress hormones that linger in the bloodstream can be processed and eliminated through exercise and breathing deeply.  Breathing deeply, into the lower abdomen, stimulates the vagus nerves, the longest of the cranial nerves.  The vagus nerves pass through the neck and thorax into the abdomen. We know that vagal nerve endings act as the heart’s pacemaker by promoting the release of the transmitter acetylcholine.  Acetylcholine helps reduce blood pressure and counterbalances the effects of stress. Deep breathing stimulates the vagus nerves and promotes a return to balance.

Finally, while walking and breathing, I process the day’s stressful perceptions.  Instead of looking for blame and damning others for their poor choices, I pardon myself for thinking so foolishly.  I remind myself that everyone has a perfect right to behave as foolishly as they choose to behave.  I forgive myself for thinking people have to behave according to my rules and I pardon others for making the choices they make.

I couldn’t possibly believe that my own mistakes are more pardonable than those made by others.

So, I walk, briskly.

I breathe, deeply.

And I pardon, broadly.

It takes the force of will to do this.

5 January 2012 Meditation keeps breast cancer survivors from becoming depressed

Following a positive lab test for breast cancer, a woman may feel overwhelmed and stressed. This reaction is common among breast cancer survivors and is a primary cause of depression. However, new research indicates that simple meditative practices may help prevent depression among breast cancer survivors.

For the study, a team of researchers from the University of Missouri recruited a group of breast cancer survivors to participate in a meditation class lasting between eight and 10 weeks. The class explained the basics of meditation and how to deal with stress that may arise during the course of recovery.

The results showed that participants were able to lower their blood pressure, heart rate and respiratory rate through meditation. Additionally, meditation helped many individuals improve their moods.

Given the fact that up to 50 percent of breast cancer survivors develop depression, the findings could have important implications. Jane Armer, one of the principle researchers on the study, said that meditation may serve as an effective complement to standard cancer therapies. This may help individuals regain a sense of control in their lives, thereby reducing their diabetes risk.

28 December 2011 Holiday happiness is just an attitude boost away

Paul Chinn / The Chronicle - Graduate student Craig Anderson (left) and psychology professor Dacher Keltner conducts research on happiness in Keltner's UC Berkeley lab on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011

It turns out you don’t have to be miserable during the holidays.That’s now scientifically proven by studies, say UC Berkeley scientists who do those studies.

These wise men and women have come up with quantifiable, tested data showing that with little more than an attitude boost, anyone can get through the toughest of holiday times with not just smiles on their faces, but real warmth in their hearts.

That goes for all those encounters with father-in-laws who could never stand your face, nephews who smash your favorite platter just to hear it shatter and sisters who think you’re a loser. Or even cousins fresh out of prison for the New Year.

It’s all about concentrating on the things in our lives that work well and being thankful for them, then tossing in a heaping helping of compassion, say the goodness-minded folks at the Greater Good Science Center.

Carrying on nice family rituals, religious or not, that are comforting and foster pleasant togetherness also goes a long way, they say.

Grind out the Grinch

The center has a set of reports, self-administered online tests – the “Altruism Quiz” is one – and graphics with good-attitude hints to reinforce all this advice. Paying close attention can help grind the Grinch right out of anyone, the center’s researchers say.

“The gist of it isn’t any more complicated than the fact that consumption and materialism will not make us happy,” said Christine Carter, a sociologist whose title at the center is the Santa-worthy one of “Happiness Expert.”

“We confuse those things with happiness,” Carter said. “But we have found that there are three main things that make you happier over the holidays, and they have nothing to do with materialism.”

Those three things consist of feeling grateful for the good things in your life, taking time with your family and using every opportunity you can to help others.

“The need for feeling grateful starts with Thanksgiving, but it doesn’t have to end,” Carter said. “It’s important all year round to be grateful for the things that a lot of people take for granted. It can be your kids, your close friends, even just the fact that you have hot water for a shower.

“When you train your attention on what you feel grateful for, you are highly likely to miss the hassles,” Carter said. “Our brains act as giant filters. We are either going to notice what we appreciate, or things that tick us off.”

Helping helps

As for helping others, Carter said, studies of emotional stimulation prove that the old saying about it being “better to give than to receive” is not just folklore.

“When you help someone else, whether it’s at a soup kitchen or just among your friends, it just makes you happier,” she said. “For one, when we’re focused on other people, we can’t focus on ourselves as much. You can’t be brooding on that nasty e-mail you got from the stepmother who doesn’t want you to cook turkey, or whatever.

“A lot of us just need to be distracted from ourselves sometimes,” Carter said.

Dacher Keltner, founder of the center and a UC Berkeley psychology professor, said his research on the vagus nerve in the brain is reinforcing the importance of compassion.

The vagus nerve extends from the brain down to the abdomen, and it reflects and stimulates feelings of happiness. Dacher’s research with doctoral candidate Craig Anderson indicates that showing compassion, maintaining eye contact and taking time to relax with techniques such as taking a deep breath all result in a healthily stimulated vagus – which in turn makes you happier.

“We know that December is one of the most violent months on the calendar, and there is stress this time of year with travel and getting together with family,” Keltner said. “But there is rock-solid science that shows that, instead of moving toward stress, you can move toward appreciating other people and feeling calmer at this time of year.”

Connect to others

He said his center has found that people are less connected to their neighbors and have fewer friends than 20 years ago, and that counteracting that trend is useful for Christmas, Hanukkah or New Year bliss.

“If you volunteer, look more closely to people who support you, allow yourself to touch people you care about with hugs or even just a neck massage – it all helps,” Keltner said. “Also, watch how you breathe – taking deep breaths when you need to, really do help calm you down.”

Carter is well aware that the reaction to feel-good advice can at times be more a rolling of the eyes rather than a nod of the head. That’s understandable, she said.

Letting yourself enjoy the holidays, let alone your entire life, can take a bit of concentration and work, she said. But it’s worth it.

“I think of happiness as a skill,” said Carter, whose seemingly perpetual incandescent smile would indicate that she takes her own advice. “It’s all about what you practice and think about.”