reverie, altruism & nostalgia.

don7dro9you4smil3:

neuromorphogenesis:

The science behind meditation, and why it makes you feel better
Meditation yields a surprising number of health benefits, including stress reduction, improved attention, better memory, and even increased creativity and feelings of compassion. But how can something as simple as focusing on a single object produce such dramatic results? Here’s what the growing body of scientific evidence is telling us about meditation and how it can change the way our brains function.
Before we get started it’s worth doing a quick review of what is actually meant by meditation. The practice can take on many different forms, but the one technique that appears most beneficial, and which also happens to be among the most traditional, is called mindfulness meditation, or focused attention.
By mindfulness, practitioners are asked to focus their thoughts on one thought and one thought alone. An overarching goal is to be firmly affixed to the present moment. This typically means concentrating on the breath — observing each inhalation and exhalation — and without consideration to other thoughts. When a “stray” thought arises, the practitioner must be quick to recognize it, and then turn back to the focus of their attention. And it doesn’t just have to be the breath; any single thought, like a mantra, will do.
Now, if you’ve ever tried it, you know how unbelievably difficult this is — particularly in this day in age when our attention spans are taxed to the limit. Our minds are notorious at wandering and moving from thought-to-thought; it’s hard sometimes to string just a few seconds of focused attention together.
And indeed, notions that meditation is simply about relaxation or cleansing the mind of allthoughts are common misconceptions. Meditation is hard work and it takes a lot of practice to get better. The more you do it, the easier it becomes to stay focused. Progress can be measured by how long a single thought can be focused upon without straying.
Remarkably, for something so exceedingly simple, it can produce an astounding number of health benefits. Eager to learn more, a growing number of scientists are looking into the cognitive effects of meditation, including studies on Buddhist monks. And they’re learning that meditation is a very powerful tool indeed.
As a quick aside, most of the studies cited here consider the benefits of focused attention. That’s not to suggest that other practices, like open attention, can’t yield positive results as well.
Changes to the Brain
Buddhists have meditated for literally thousands of years. They’re familiar with its positive effects, including the way it works to instill the inner strength and insight required for the overarching spiritual practice; meditation, or “sitting,” is to Buddhist monks what prayer is to Christians. But instead of trying to hack into the mind of God, Buddhists are trying to hack into their own mind to harness it under control.
But it has only been in recent times that neuroscientists have been able to peer directly into the brain to see what’s going on. The advent of fMRIs and other brain scanning techniques have largely paved the way.
For example, neuroscientists observing MRI scans have learned that meditation strengthens the brain by reinforcing the connections between brain cells. A 2012 study showed that people who meditate exhibit higher levels of gyrification — the “folding” of the cerebral cortex as a result of growth, which in turn may allow the brain to process information faster. Though the research did not prove this directly, scientists suspect that gyrification is responsible for making the brain better at processing information, making decisions, forming memories, and improving attention.
Indeed, as much of the research is showing, meditation causes the brain to undergo physical changes, many of which are beneficial. Other studies, for example, have shown that meditation is linked to cortical thickness, which can result in decreased sensitivity to pain.
Or take the 2009 study with the descriptive title, “Long-term meditation is associated with increased gray matter density in the brain stem.” Neuroscientists used MRIs to compare the brains of meditators with non-meditators. The structural differences observed led the scientists to speculate that certain benefits, like improved cognitive, emotional, and immune responses, can be tied to this growth and its positive effects on breathing and heart rate (cardiorespiratory control).
The integrity of gray matter, which is a major player in the central nervous system, certainly appears to benefit. Meditation has been linked to larger hippocampal and frontal volumes of gray matter, resulting in more positive emotions, the retention of emotional stability, and more mindful behavior (heightened focus during day-to-day living). Meditation has also been shown to have neuroprotective attributes; it can diminish age-related effects on gray matter and reduce cognitive decline.
A study from earlier this year showed that meditators have a different expression of brain metabolites than healthy non-meditators, specifically those metabolites linked to anxiety and depression.
But it’s not just the physical and chemical components of the brain that’s affected by meditation. Neuroscientists have documented the way it impacts on brain activity itself. For example, meditation has been associated with decreased activity in default mode network activity and connectivity — those undesirable brain functions responsible for lapses of attention and disorders such as anxiety, ADHD — and even the buildup of beta amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s disease.
And finally, meditation has been linked to dramatic changes in electrical brain activity, namely increased Theta and Alpha EEG activity, which is associated with wakeful and relaxed attention.
Health Benefits
While most of the studies listed above addressed the neuro-cognitive aspects of meditation, other studies have correlated meditation with many of the health benefits already described.
Perhaps the most significant benefit of meditation is its ability to improve attention. In 2010, researchers looked at participants who practiced focused attention meditation for about five hours each day over the course of three months (which is a lot!). After conducting concentration tests, the participants were shown to have an easier time sustaining voluntary attention. Which makes sense; if you can concentrate for extended periods of time during meditation, it should carry over to daily life. Focused attention is very much like a muscle, one that needs to be strengthened through exercise.
As an aside, five hours of meditation per day is a bit excessive. Other studies show that 20 minutes a day is all that’s required to get beneficial results, like stress reduction.
Indeed, other research has shown that even a little bit of meditation can help. Studies indicate that, after 10 intensive days of meditation (pdf), people can experience significant improvements in mindfulness and contemplative thoughts, the alleviation of depressive symptoms, and boosts to working memory and sustained attention.
A not-so-surprising study from last year showed that meditation can significantly reduce stress after just eight weeks of training (pdf; more here). Participants who meditated, as compared to those who did not, performed better on stressful multitasking tests. This may have something to do with reduced levels of cortisol, which is a stress hormone. And interestingly, meditatingbefore a stressful situation may help reduce feelings of stress during the event.
For you creative types, open-monitoring (OM) meditation can promote idea generation. OM meditation is basically the polar opposite of focused attention meditation, requiring practitioners to non-reactively monitor the content of experience from moment to moment.
And lastly, meditation has also been shown to increase levels of empathy, but it has to come from a specific practice known as loving-kindness-compassion meditation. It’s a kind of focused attention meditation, but the practitioner is asked to concentrate on feelings of love, compassion, and understanding. By comparing fMRI scans of novices to those of expert Buddhist monks (each with more than 10,000 hours of practice), researchers watched as emotional stimuli (sounds of people in distress) caused those areas of the brain linked to empathy light up; the monks exhibited greater degrees of empathetic response than the novices. In turn, the scientists speculate that compassion meditation can make a person more empathetic.
So what are you waiting for? Start sitting, and transform your brain!
Image: “Theologue” by Alex Grey.

Lengthy but totally worth it

Nov
24 Data from the new study show, for example, that women make up a majority of the gay and transgender population, and people of color are more likely to identify as gay or transgender than whites. Gay and transgender women, and especially women of color, are also more likely to be raising children than their male counterparts. These data suggests that the “typical” gay and transgender family is likely battling sex and race discrimination in addition to the economic barriers unique to gay and transgender Americans. In other words, achieving social equality and economic security for these families cannot be accomplished by achieving only gay and transgender equality.
By
New Data Demonstrate the Unique Needs of Gay and Transgender Families | Center for American Progress

Fascinating…

And of course, isn’t that new show ‘the new normal’ about two white cis gay men? hmph.

(via biyuti)

I wonder if people of color and women are more likely to come out because they don’t have as far to “fall”, so to speak, in terms of privilege, while white gay men are more likely to try to conform rather than risk losing their privilege?

(via stormswaneforsaken)
(Source: americanprogress.org, via litteraenimoccidit)

2,691 notes

Nov
01

lovechampagnekisses:

In the nineteenth century, a morbid and curious custom has spread to various parts of the world: the photos were ”Post Mortem”.”Post Mortem” comes from Latin, meaning after death.The photos ”Post Mortem” apparently originated in England, when Queen Victoria asked to photograph the corpse of an acquaintance or a relative, so she can keep as a souvenir.soon after, this idea spread around the world, keeping a morbid reminder of loved ones that have passed on.Even today, as strange as it may seem, some places still have this custom.
The girl who is standing in the photo is the one who is dead.
This is a classic example of photographic art.
Notice the hands
for people wondering how the corpse is standing up, there is a posing stand supporting the body it’s very hard to see but the stand is supporting the neck, arms and back.

the girl in this picture has her eyes open, but in some cases the photographer will paint pupils on the eye lids to make it seem like they are wide awake

Oct
25

This Is the Most Detailed Image of the Universe Ever Captured
NASA has just published the most detailed view of the Universe ever taken. It’s called the Extreme Deep Field—or XDF for short. It took ten years of Hubble Space Telescope photographs to make it and it shows some the oldest galaxies ever observed by humans, going 13.2 billion years back in time.
It’s a mindblowing, extremely humbling view. Not only for what it shows, but for what it doesn’t show. While this image contains about 5,500 galaxies, it only displays a tiny part of the sky, a ridiculously small slice of the Universe.

Sep
01

Jun
05

motherjones:

The transit of Venus begins today. Here’s a map of where and when today’s transit will be visible. It’s only happened six times since the invention of the telescope and we are 99.9999% sure you will never see one again.

May
25

discoverynews:

Is This a Parrot on Mars?
A new paper claims this is not a Rorschach test for the extraterrestrially challenged, but an anatomically correct, three-dimensional rendering of a parrot on Mars that is too accurate for chance.
So concludes an independent team of two geologists, three veterinarians and a sculptor — who spent six years hashing out the details of three images from NASA’s now-defunct Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft taken between April 2000 and December 2005.
What is generically described by NASA as “repeat layered material and rectilinear ridges” in its description of Mars Global Surveyor photo No. S13/01480, actually includes an “avian-shaped formation that exhibits a unique set of proportional features,” says independent researchers Michael Dale, George Haas, James Miller, William Saunders and veterinarians A.J. Cole, Joseph Friedlander and Susan Orosz, in a paper in the Journal of Scientific Exploration.
keep reading

May
23

1,407 notes

May
06

heartmindspirit:

“In spiritual alchemy, the single red rose represents the mystic center of a person, his or her heart of hearts - one’s true nature. It also represents the process of purification to reveal one’s essence or the inner “pearl beyond price.”“Alchemist Daniel Maier discusses the symbolism of the rose in his Septimana Philosophica: “The rose is the first, most beautiful and perfect of flowers. It is guarded because it is a virgin, and the guard is thorns. The Gardens of Philosophy are planted with many roses, both red and white, which colors are in correspondence with gold and silver. Virgin in the ancient world did not mean “untouched” it meant “untouchable.”
“Because of its association with the workings of the heart, the rose in alchemy has come to symbolize secrets of the heart or things that cannot be spoken or an oath of silence in general. In the folded structure of the rose, the flower seems to be concealing a secret inner core. “Mystery glows in the rose bed and the secret is hidden in the rose,” wrote the twelfth-century Persian alchemist Farid ud-din Attar.”

Mar
25

121,233 notes

Mar
20

A donor heart beating in a mechanical system which keeps it warm, oxygenated, with nutrient enriched blood pumping through.

Jan
09

Jan
03

22,675 notes

Dec
28

639,948 plays

liamdryden:

Scientists discover most relaxing tune ever

Sound therapists and Manchester band Marconi Union compiled the song. Scientists played it to 40 women and found it to be more effective at helping them relax than songs by Enya, Mozart and Coldplay.

Weightless works by using specific rhythms, tones, frequencies and intervals to relax the listener. A continuous rhythm of 60 BPM causes the brainwaves and heart rate to synchronise with the rhythm: a process known as ‘entrainment’. Low underlying bass tones relax the listener and a low whooshing sound with a trance-like quality takes the listener into an even deeper state of calm.

Dr David Lewis, one of the UK’s leading stress specialists said: “‘Weightless’ induced the greatest relaxation – higher than any of the other music tested. Brain imaging studies have shown that music works at a very deep level within the brain, stimulating not only those regions responsible for processing sound but also ones associated with emotions.”

The study - commissioned by bubble bath and shower gel firm Radox Spa - found the song was even more relaxing than a massage, walk or cup of tea. So relaxing is the tune, apparently, that people are being advised against listening to it while driving.

God

I downloaded this instead and as it played I slowly just sagged in my chair til there was nothing in it but my back

then Imogen Heap came on immediately after and it was like being paralysed in the depths of space

(via picturesinthestars)

171,257 notes