The Joy of Missing Out comes from being present

Are you thinking about making a resolution to live more mindfully in 2014? You're in good -- and trendy -- company, according to global advertising and marketing company JWT, which named "Mindful Living" among its Top 10 trends for 2014. 

Ann Mack, the company's director of trend spotting, points to the Slow Food Movement, the rise of digital detox camps where you go to disconnect from social media, and meditation programs in major companies like Google and General Mills.

The mind-calming, mind-blowing concept goes like this, according to Mack: “You’re enjoying what you’re doing in the here and now and not on social media broadcasting or seeing what everybody else is doing.”

The trend-spotter offers a name for it: Joy of Missing Out, or JOMO (for which she gives credit to tech blogger Anil Dash). It follows 2013's Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO, which bred anxiety among Instagram users who envied the meals, vacations, and life events posted by people they follow on the photo-sharing app.

Of course, there are less snappy names for it. Mindfulness, taught by the Buddha and countless secular psychologists and therapists, is a kind, non-judgmental awareness of what's happening in the present moment. By keeping our attention on what's happening now we can avoid the stress that rises from ruminating on the past or worry about the future.

Right now I'm breathing and aware, which means I can choose how to respond to what's happening in my life. Meditation is a great way of developing that awareness and of finding some peace amid the chaos of thoughts in our minds.

Rather than focusing on what's missing, you notice what's present. And you relax with it instead of measuring it against some standard. Joy arises when you can simply be present.

So maybe the resolution for 2014 is just to be there for it, not looking ahead or back.




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Mindful gene changes

The study compared a group of experienced meditation who took part in a day of intensive mindfulness meditation to a group of untrained control subjects who engaged in quiet non-meditative activities. After eight hours of mindfulness practice, the meditators showed a range of genetic and molecular differences, including altered levels of gene-regulating machinery and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes, which in turn correlated with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation.

A new study has found specific molecular changes from a day of mindfulness meditation. Researchers believe it's the first study to find rapid alterations in gene expression from mindfulness meditation.

"Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs," says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Spain, where the molecular analyses were conducted.

Read more here

Mindfulness and empathy

Even as mindfulness is becoming ubiquitous -- popular with businesses, physicians, and stressed-out average joes -- empathy is declining.

In the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof cites the work of a Princeton University psychology professor, Susan Fiske, who found that when research subjects look at photos of the poor and homeless, brain imaging shows they often react as if they are seeing things, not people. Her analysis suggests that Americans sometimes react to poverty not with sympathy but with revulsion.

Instead of seeing the similarities -- there but for the grace of God go I -- we look for differences, for explanations to reassure ourselves that whatever led to other people being in difficult circumstances won't happen to us.

Mindfulness, though, should lead us in the other direction. Seeing how we want to be happy, to be safe, to live at peace and how many of our thoughts are about that and how we can secure it opens us up and lets us know how much others also want that.  Mindfulness -- kind, non-judgmental, present-moment awareness -- lets us see how we suffer. It's only a small step to see that others also want what we want and suffer when they don't have it. All we have to do, really, is to extend kind awareness to others.

And when we see the world through the lens of mindfulness, we also are more clear about how we can reduce suffering, our own and others'.

When mindfulness is equated with bare attention, it can easily lead to the misconception that the cultivation of mindfulness has nothing to do with ethics or with the cultivation of wholesome states of mind and the attenuation of unwholesome states. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

- B. Alan Wallace

We should be courteous to the poor as well as to the powerful. We should avoid attachment to relatives and animosity toward enemies, ridding ourselves of all partiality. But let us be especially respectful towards poor, humble people of no importance. Do not be partial! Love and compassion should be universal toward all beings.

Dilgo Kyentse Rinpoche

Study: Meditation may head off dementia

Medical studies in recent years have documented changes in the brains of those who meditate -- but it hasn't been clear what those changes might mean. A new pilot study led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center suggests that the brain changes associated with meditation and stress reduction may play an important role in slowing the progression of age-related cognitive disorders like Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.

"We know that approximately 50 percent of people diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment – the intermediate stage between the expected declines of normal aging and the more serious cognitive deterioration associated with dementia – may develop dementia within five years. And unfortunately, we know there are currently no FDA approved medications that can stop that progression," says first author Rebecca Erwin Wells, MD, MPH, who conducted her research as a fellow in Integrative Medicine at BIDMC and Harvard Medical School. "We also know that as people age, there's a high correlation between perceived stress and Alzheimer's disease, so we wanted to know if stress reduction through meditation might improve cognitive reserve."

The study used adults with mild cognitive impairment divided into a control group and a group that was trained in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, whose members meditate each day for the eight-week program and did a day-long retreat.

The study found improved functional connectivity in the part of t he brain responsible for memory in the meditators. It also found less atrophy of the hippocampus, which plays a role in dementia.

"MBSR is a relatively simple intervention, with very little downside that may provide real promise for these individuals who have very few treatment options," says Wells. She adds that future studies will need to be larger and evaluate cognitive outcomes as well. "If MBSR can help delay the symptoms of cognitive decline even a little bit, it can contribute to improved quality of life for many of these patients."

How Not to Fade ... er, Meditate

In Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book," Bod is a young (human) boy being raised by ghosts. His education includes training in the art of Fading, which sounds remarkably like a lot of meditation instruction I've received.

He took a deep breath, and did his best, squinching up his eyes and trying to fade away.
Mr. Pennyworth was not impressed.
"Pah, that's not the kind of thing. Not the kind of thing at all. ... Try again."
Bod tried harder.
"You're as plain as the nose on your face," said Mr. Pennyworth. "And you nose is remarkably obvious. As is the rest of your face, young man. As are you. For the sake of all that is holy, empty your mind. Now. You are an empty alleyway. You are a vacant doorway. You are nothing."
... Bod tried again. He closed his eyes and imagined himself fading into the stained stonework of the mausoleum wall, becoming a shadow on the night and nothing more. He sneezed.
"Dreadful," said Mr. Pennyworth.

Poor Bod. When I was learning to meditate, I went to "learn to meditate" sessions at a yoga center where I'd gone mainly to do yoga. And I was told, over and over, to empty my mind. I had as much luck with that as Bod did with fading. Minds don't empty. Minds think. But meditation is still possible.

How?

Notice the thoughts. Don't try to force them to stay down or push them away or feel bad because they're there. Just notice them as they arise and as they pass. Your mind has enough space to hold thoughts without getting tangled up in them.

Bod (was) standing in the middle of the room with his eyes tightly closed and his fists clenched and his face all screwed up as if he had a toothache, almost purple from holding his breath.
"What you a-doin' of now?" she asked.
He opened his eyes and relaxed. "Trying to Fade," he said.
Liza sniffed. "Try again," she said.
He did, holding his breath even longer this time.
"Stop that," she told him. "Or you'll pop."

I've seen people like that in the meditation class I lead. Shoulders hunched. Eyes scrunched. Jaw clenched. Determined. But there's no space to meditate. It takes something in between -- not too tight and not too loose, as the Buddha famously said. Balanced.


"What do you do when you try to Fade?" 
"What Mr. Pennyworth told me. 'I am an empty doorway. I am a vacant alley, I am nothing. ...' But it never works."
"It's because you're alive," said Liza with a sniff.

You're alive, and you have a curious mind that wired and trained to think. That's a precious thing. But you don't have to follow every thought to its logical conclusion or emotional resolution. You can rest, with thoughts in your head like bats in the evening sky, swooping past but never touching down.

Happy Halloween!

Do you judge people by their phone?

I got a provocative email today asking: "Do people judge you by the phone you carry?" It went on to detail a survey of 1,000 businesspeople that found in part:

* 55 percent of respondents say that if a business meeting participant pulls out a damaged or old cell phone, this negatively affects their impression of him or her.

* Over 80 percent of people say they judge a person to be “frugal,” “not tech savvy,” or “old” if they carry an older phone model.

* 35 percent of people will think a person is “poor” if they carry an older phone type.

I don't judge you by your phone. I probably couldn't tell anything about your phone just by looking at it. Also, I know young adults who prefer dumb phones -- old school clamshell-style phones that don't connect to the Internet -- so I might think you were cool if you pulled one out. But I am old, frugal, and not tech savvy.

A friend who is so savvy that she works in a tech field admitted that she does make those judgments. Of course you would, if that's your field, like I would be very curious about what you're reading. Avocationally, I would notice your shoes too.

The thing is -- and here's where it relates to meditation -- noticing is not judging. Noticing is just noticing -- that person has an old-style phone. Judging is when you ascribe meaning to what you have noticed -- that person is poor. Judgments often lead to feelings; you may feel pity for the poor person with the old phone or think that your savviness makes you superior. And feelings like to actions: You may treat the person with pity or contempt based on your judgment.

This is why, in meditation, we try to notice thoughts without evaluating or judging them. Thoughts that come up during meditation are not good or bad thoughts, they're just thoughts. All of them. If we catch the thought before it becomes a judgment, it hasn't yet got its hooks into us. But if it moves to a judgment, it grows into a story and becomes an action. (I'm thinking about ice cream when I should be meditating ... that's a bad thought... I need to lose weight ... thinking about food won't help me because I have no will power I'll never lose weight ....)

You can practice noticing without judging -- which is, really, just noticing -- any time. Look around you. Notice something. Look for the moment of noticing before judgment arises. Rest there. When notice judgment arising, and see if you can let it keep going. Judgment is a thought too.

I won't judge you by your phone. But I will judge you if you pull it out while we're speaking.

Meditators make better decisions

A new study says that as little as 15 minutes of meditation can help businesspeople make better decisions and avoid the "sunk cost bias," Forbes reports.

The sunk cost bias–also known as the sunk cost fallacy, or the sunk cost effect–is recognized as one of the most destructive cognitive biases affecting organizations today. Put simply, it’s the tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment has been made in an attempt to recoup or justify “sunk” irrecoverable costs. The phenomenon is not new; psychological scientists have been studying the “escalation of commitment” since the mid-1970s, noting its ability to distort rational thought and skew effective decision-making. Often, it’s a subconscious action, which can result in millions of dollars being invested into a project, not because it’s a sound investment but because millions of dollars have already been spent.

The study, Debiasing the Mind Through Meditation: Research and the Sunk Cost Bias, found that  just 15 minutes of mindfulness meditation– concentrating on breathing or doing a body scan – helps build resistance to this "problematic decision process," which often stems from stress, anxiety, guilt, and fear, and allow better decision-making.

The study's author's say that mindfulness meditation, which brings the meditator into contact with the present moment, reduces mind-wandering and diminishes "the negative feelings that distort thinking, thereby boosting resistance to the sunk cost bias."