Weblog writing: May 2010

Walking meditation
If you find that sitting still makes you antsy and anxious, a walking meditation might be more your bag. Instead of trying to still your brain chatter, you give your mind a point of focus --- in this case, walking --- that helps you to be more present in the moment and in your body. Go outside and give yourself 20 minutes. Begin walking at a normal pace, but focus your attention on the physical sensations: feel your feet strike the ground and roll to the toes, notice the way your arms and hips swing. Do a body scan by bringing your attention from the feet to the ankles up through every part of your body to the top of your head. As you notice any tension in the body, breathe awareness into it and then let it go. When your mind wonders to the sights around you, gently guide your focus back to sensations of walking. Don't get frustrated -- you may have to do this dozens of times, but that's part of the practice.

Active meditation
Truly, any activity can be a meditation as long as we bring a focus of mindfulness to it. What does that mean? It means being utterly in the moment while you're washing the dishes, brushing your teeth, or taking a shower. Use all your senses to keep your mind focused on the the task at hand: feel the warm sudsy water in the sink, notice the color of the soap as you squeeze it onto the sponge; be aware of the way the shampoo smells, how the toothbrush feels in your hand, or the sensation of the hot water hitting your back and shoulders. As you do this, try to keep your focus soft and diffuse, rather than lasering in on one thing. Bringing this kind of attention into small moments throughout the day is a challenge, but it brings with it a deep sense of peace.

Sunday 2 May 2010

Happiness may protect against heart disease

Feb.  21, 2010

Courtesy European Society of Cardiology

and  World Science  staff

People who are usually happy, enthusiastic and content are less likely than others to develop heart illness, according to a new study.

The scientists involved say the study, published in the European Heart Journal, is the first to show an independent relationship between positive emotions and coronary heart disease, the most common type of heart disease. Previous studies had linked happiness with long life, but the exact reasons for that association are uncertain.

Karina Davidson of Columbia University Medical Center in New York, who led the new study, said it suggests heart disease might be in some degree preventable through positive emotions. But it would be premature to make clinical recommendations without further study, she added.

“We desperately need rigorous clinical trials in this area. If the trials support our findings, then these results will be incredibly important in describing specifically what clinicians and/or patients could do to improve health,” said Davidson, who directs Columbia’s Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health.

Over 10 years, Davidson and colleagues tracked 1,739 healthy adults, split about evenly between men and women, participating in a study known as the 1995 Nova Scotia Health Survey. At the start, trained nurses assessed the participants’ risk of heart disease and, with both self-reporting and clinical assessment, they measured symptoms of depression, hostility, anxiety and the degree of expression of positive emotions, which is known as “positive affect.”

Positive affect is defined as the experience of pleasurable emotions such as joy, happiness, excitement, enthusiasm and contentment. These feelings can be transient, but they are usually stable and trait-like, particularly in adulthood, according to researchers. Positive affect is largely independent of negative affect, so that someone who is generally a happy, contented person can also be occasionally anxious, angry or depressed.

After taking account of age, sex, cardiovascular risk factors and negative emotions, the scientists found that increased positive affect predicted less risk of heart disease by 22 percent per point on a five-point scale measuring levels of positive affect expression. “We also found that if someone, who was usually positive, had some depressive symptoms at the time of the survey, this did not affect their overall lower risk of heart disease,” Davidson said. “As far as we know, this is the first prospective study to examine the relationship between clinically-assessed positive affect and heart disease.”

“We have several possible explanations” for the effect, said Davidson. “First, those with positive affect may have longer periods of rest or relaxation physiologically,” making their bodies better able to regulate blood pressure and heart rate. “Second, those with positive affect may recover more quickly from stressors, and may not spend as much time ‘re-living’ them, which in turn seems to cause physiological damage. This is speculative, as we are just beginning to explore why positive emotions and happiness have positive health benefits.”