To some, mindfulness and meditation do not belong in the serious arena of science. Recently, however, a psychologist named Amishi Jha has been working with the US military in order to help increase mental resilience in a war zone. The results were that if the soldiers designated 12 minutes per day to “meditation” they would improve their ability to pay attention over time. In addition to helping keep the attentiveness of troops in combat, it would seem that scientists believe that mindfulness can be useful in increasing scores on standardized testing in school. Some students were to meditate for 10 minutes per day, for 2 weeks before writing an important exam. The results showed that the students who did their mindfulness training averaged a 16 percentile higher score on the verbal part of the test. And for many others, mindfulness is a way to realize what your brain is up to, and instead on focusing on the actual thoughts, you can let some of them slip away and concentrate on other things, including your physical side. Jonathan Schooler of the University of California conducted an interesting experiment that had participants conduct a task that did not require much focus. He found that the un-demanding task and mind wandering led to more creative success.
The trick is knowing when mindfulness is called for and when it’s not. “When you’re staring out the window, you may well be coming up with your next great idea,” he said. “But you’re not paying attention to the teacher. So the challenge is finding the balance between mindfulness and mind wandering.
The practice of mindfulness seems to be, in some cases, an effective way to deal with temptation and addiction. Scientists have observed that over a short period of a mindfulness approach, the addicts studies showed increased blood flow to the part of the brain that controls self-control. In addition to this test, researchers at Yale University saw that over a period of a few weeks their subjects had cut down on their cigarette intake by 90%.
Another approach to mindfulness benefiting addicts is the: Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention. The method is designed to figure out the triggers of addiction, as well as common patterns and potentially dangerous responses to mental and physical urges. MBRP is modeled after a similar technique used to combat depression, and for the most part it is intended as an “after-treatment” option that doesn’t interfere with cognitive therapy, medicine and conventional treatment options.
