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How can yoga help us to find our way towards restful states and to move our bodies? I will tell you more about yoga’s benefits and what the research says.
Is there a trick that is as effective for health as vacationing? The psychologists in an American-Dutch research team believe that meditation can be that.
Mindfulness can help you focus, feel happier and reduce your anxiety. But what does research say about mindfulness for children? And what happens when schools have mindfulness on the schedule? Read more about how mindfulness can help children and young people – while their brains grow.
With the support of yogic breathing you can make small changes that lead to big ones. One breath at a time. Learn more about how the yogic practice of pranayama can work as an alternative method to cultivate well-being!
Sara Lazar, at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, have made several studies on how meditation affects the brain. Studies show that practicing meditation not only stimulates the activity in the brain, but actually has an impact on its physical structure.
The researcher behind this study, Sara Lazar, was working out for the Boston marathon when she was ordered by her physiotherapist to focus on her stretching. She tried yoga and after some time started to notice a whole bunch of positive effects.
- The yoga teacher claimed that yoga and meditation could improve my compassion and open up my heart, Sara Lazar says. I thought “sure”. But eventually I actually noticed that I became calmer, and better at managing difficult situations. I also became more open-hearted and could easier see things from other people’s perspective. So I became interested to understand how it works.
In the first study, 20 people who regularly meditated were compared to a control group. They discovered that the people who meditated a lot had an increased substance of grey matter - a large part of the central nervous system that treats a lot of the information we take in - in the insular lobe and in the auditive and sensory cerebral cortex. Maybe it’s not so surprising, considering that when you're fully present, you pay attention to your breathing, the sounds around you and the present moment. They also found that the people who were used to meditate have more grey matter in the front cerebral cortex, that is linked to working memory and decision-making.
We know that our cerebral cortex shrinks when we get older – for instance it becomes harder to remember certain things. However, according to the study, 50 year olds who meditate have as much grey matter in the cerebral cortex as a 25-year old.
In the second study they wanted to find out if the people with more grey matter had it before they started to meditate. The study only included people who never meditated before. They were divided into two groups, one control group and one group who participated in a 8-week mindfulness program. The people in the mindfulness group joined a meditation class every week. They were also encouraged to meditate at home for 40 minutes every day, with the help of a sound file.
After 8 weeks, the researchers could see changes in the five different parts of the brain. They saw in the people in the mindfulness group that the volume of the brain had grown in four areas. The biggest difference were seen in the back part of the cingulate cortex in the brains middle part, that receives signals from the limbic system for emotions, values and motivation. The left hippocampus, which is linked to learning, cognition, memory and emotional regulation, had become bigger. Hence, even areas associated with perspective taking, empathy, compassion as well as an area in the brain stem where a lot of regulating neurotransmitters are produced.
Also amygdala, the fight-or-flight response of the brain, that is important in regards to anxiety, fear and stress in general, changed in the group who meditated – it shrank.
Read more about the studies here!
Why do some people worry more than others? What causes unease and anxiety and how do we get rid of it? Here we discuss eight new research studies on the subject.
1. Be kind to others and reduce your anxiety
To do kind acts for other people can help the person suffering from social anxiety to have an easier time to socialize with others. In one study, the participants were divided into three groups. One of the groups did kind things for each other, such as doing the dishes for their roommates. The other group took part in different social situations without doing any kind acts. The third group was the control group. The study results showed that that the people performing good deeds were the ones who were most comfortable in social situations.
2. Why anxiety creates isolation
Research shows that anxiety makes us focus more on ourselves and reduce our empathy for other people. The result is that we have difficulties seeing things from other people’s perspective. This could be a factor of why anxiety feels so isolating.
3. Anxiety can run in the family
A hyperactive network in the areas of the brain can influence how children inherent anxiety and depression from their parents. It concerns three areas in the brain that cooperates to control our reaction of fear. A study shows that 35 percent of differences in anxiety could be explained by family history.
4. Sedentary life is connected to anxiety
Activities that don’t require much energy, such as watching TV, working by the computer or playing video games or computer games can be connected to anxiety. A new study shows that a sedentary lifestyle can increase your anxiety. The causes behind this connection are believed to be that your sleep are interrupted, lower metabolism and you become socially secluded.
5. Social anxiety linked to increased serotonin levels
Earlier it was believed that social anxiety is linked to low serotonin level in the brain, however, nowadays they believe it's high levels. Serotonin is a signal substance that among other things influence our mood and state of mind. People suffering from social anxiety tend to produce more of the neurotransmitter serotonin. And the more serotonin that is produced, the more anxiety follows.
6. Fermented food can help reduce anxiety
A study has shown that people who eat more fermented, that is acid, food suffer from less social anxiety. Fermented food contains lactic acid bacteria, probiotic, which you can find in for instance acid vegetables, sour milk, yoghurt and the Asian beverage kombucha.
7. Anxiety is contagious
Studies show that anxiety is ”contagious” and can be traced from parent to child and vice versa. The infectious nature of anxiety is a genetic factor.
8. Exercise and relaxation reduces anxiety
New research shows that relaxation techniques and exercise can help to combat anxiety because they change our way to perceive the world. After exercise or relaxation, we are less inclined to perceive the neutral signals as threatening, or negative, which we on the contrary do when we feel anxiety and are worried.
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Read more about the studies here.
Are you in a unstoppable spiral where the days run together? Is it difficult to find the time to live between job, commuting, pickup and leaving, leisure activities and the never-ending pile of laundry? Here we discuss the research on Downshifting – less working hours and consuming less, to get more time for other things.
Jörgen Larsson is time researcher at the sociological institute at Gothenburg University. He has done research on time constraints and families with young children. He is of the opinion that downshifting has had a great impact. But why? We make more money than before, does that not bring us more freedom?
– My research results show that ownership and consumption contributes to time constraints. The more you own, the worse it gets, Jörgen Larsson says to the Swedish TV channel SVT.
Jörgen Larsson shows in his research study “On parents' time pressure” that the total amount of working hours for a mother and a father with young children has increased with 10 hours per week the last 30 years. This, together with increased consumption levels, is the cause for our growing time pressure. The problem with having enough time is the fourth most common discussion topic during the break at the office.
The research study conducted by Jörgen Larsson, included 1500 people and reveals that when we earn and spend more, we also feel more time pressure. Mothers’ working hours have increased and it has not led to any compensation of shorter working hours for the fathers, which creates less opportunity for us to manage all parts of life.
Do you own your things - or do they own you?
In regards to consumption, Jörgen Larsson mentions Ghandi who suggested that if we own more than 50 things, the things own us. Jörgen believes that we need question our own choices and priorities, which he himself has done. Because he knows how it is when you can't find the time to actually live. In his previous well-paid and stimulating job as a environment consult the tempo just became more intensive, the job took all the energy and there was nothing left for the family.
To change lifestyle is not an easy thing to do, and it requires willpower to say no to time-consuming activities. But persistency prevails. Larsson downshifted and now feels he can live more balanced life as well as more environmentally friendly.
It’s not only our own actions and notions that stand in the way of downshifting. According to Larsson's time research, less people are willing to work fewer hours if others don’t do it. There is a strong full-time norm in our society. It's all planned for you to work 40 hours per week. Only parents with young children are seen as having the right to work less – others are seen as different.
Question the norms and your own expectations
The study “On parents' time pressure” reveals the most important reason to downshift: personal development and your health. So how do we do it? Larsson suggests that we look over our expectations of what we have to do in our everyday life. And it’s good to question the norms! Find quick ways to do some of the things, sleep and exercise, ask for help from family and friends, and pay for certain services, and we increase the resources and energy to keep up with our expectations.
In his book ”Rik på riktigt” (Rich for real), Jörgen Larsson offers some tips on how we can think to have more time, connected to our consumption. Reflect over his questions below before you make your next purchase:
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