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Rewiring the Brain

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stone tower

It’s now proven: the prac­tice of med­i­ta­tion and mind­ful­ness can rewire your brain and reduce stress in just 8 weeks.

Researchers at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity and Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­eral Hos­pi­tal have released the results of a sci­en­tific study, based on MRI imag­ing, that exam­ined the impact of med­i­ta­tion and mind­ful­ness prac­tices on brain health and plas­tic­ity.

They report that research par­tic­i­pants who spent an aver­age of 27 min­utes daily on mind­ful­ness exer­cises reduced stress fac­tors and increased the gray-mat­ter den­sity of their brains in areas asso­ci­ated with “self-aware­ness, com­pas­sion and intro­spec­tion.” Par­tic­i­pants also improved brain func­tions asso­ci­ated with mem­ory and empa­thy.

These ben­e­fits took just 8 weeks of dis­ci­plined prac­tice to be real­ized.

This research built on and rein­forced the find­ings of ear­lier stud­ies that revealed the health­ful impacts of med­i­ta­tion; how­ever, those prior stud­ies  (unlike this one) did not con­clu­sively doc­u­ment the causal rela­tion­ship between med­i­ta­tion and brain plas­tic­ity.

As the study’s senior author, Sara Lazar of Mass Gen­eral, reports:

This study demon­strates that changes in brain struc­ture may under­lie some of these reported improve­ments [refer­ring to prior research], and that peo­ple are not just feel­ing bet­ter because they are spend­ing time relax­ing.

Britta Hölzel, a research fel­low at MGH and Giessen Uni­ver­sity (Ger­many) and co-author, notes:

It is fas­ci­nat­ing to see the brain’s plas­tic­ity and that, by prac­tic­ing med­i­ta­tion, we can play an active role in chang­ing the brain and can increase our well-being and qual­ity of life.

Par­tic­i­pants in the study took part in the 8-week Mind­ful­ness-Based Stress Reduc­tion Pro­gram at the Uni­ver­sity of Mass­a­chu­setts Cen­ter for Mind­ful­ness.

If mov­ing to cen­tral Mass­a­chu­setts to take part in a 2-month pro­gram is not a viable option for you, there are home-based alter­na­tives.

I’m work­ing my way through sev­eral books on MBSR and mind­ful­ness writ­ten by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I’ve invested in a med­i­ta­tion cush­ion, and leave my yoga mat per­ma­nently unfurled, as a reminder to invest time every day in mind­ful­ness prac­tice. Between yoga and mind­ful­ness, I’m begin­ning to savor increased well-being — and hope these ben­e­fits will expand out­ward to friends, fam­ily, col­leagues and the larger com­mu­nity.

Lightening the Load

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Last fall my hus­band and I embarked on a declut­ter­ing project. We rec­og­nized that we were ill pre­pared for sud­den life changes that might force us to move or down-size on short notice. Our garage was clut­tered with remod­el­ing debris, old or bro­ken fur­ni­ture, skis and sport­ing gear we no longer used, mildewed books. We found boxes we hadn’t opened since grad school. Our clos­ets were stuffed to the gills.

The first big weekend of cleaning out the garage

The first big week­end of clean­ing out the garage

Although we’d talked about it for sev­eral years, we’d found it almost impos­si­ble to take the first real step toward declut­ter­ing. And then some­thing changed a year ago.

Our brother-in-law’s unex­pected death last August was a wake-up call. Since then we’ve been watch­ing our sis­ter strug­gle with the after­math of her husband’s pass­ing. We were able to help her after­wards for a few weeks, but then had to return to our own lives. We didn’t want to risk sub­ject­ing our friends or fam­ily to a sim­i­lar chal­lenge if some­thing hap­pened to us.

We also rec­og­nized that a house full of clut­ter takes time to deal with, which would make it hard to act quickly if we were forced to put this house on the mar­ket. Some­times life forces you to cope with unex­pected events like seri­ous ill­ness, job loss or forced retire­ment. We wanted to be less bur­dened, in case we’re forced to con­front some dif­fi­cult choices.

Adding to our con­cerns, we started to hear rumors that my husband’s job might move out-of-state later this year. [For­tu­nately, we heard last week that his job isn’t mov­ing!]

What­ever the rea­son, we rec­og­nized that the time had come to lighten our load, so we’d be more agile, less bur­dened with stuff — more able to con­sider our options or ini­ti­ate change on short notice.

Taking the First Steps

Chateau-de-Meursault-TastingShredding-projectWe knew that the first phase of declut­ter­ing would be the eas­i­est: get­ting rid of old doc­u­ments and records that no one needs any more.

We had old bank books, tax fil­ings, school projects, tick­ets, expense receipts, reports for for­mer employ­ers or clients… We had years’ worth of paid bills and credit card state­ments. We had shrink-wrapped soft­ware for com­put­ers we no longer own.

We had sou­venirs and memen­tos from travel hol­i­days, fam­ily mem­o­ra­bilia, and other keep­sakes. We had cal­en­dars from col­lege, love let­ters, greet­ing cards and old jour­nals. Some of these are worth keep­ing, so we’ve begun a back­ground project to scan and dig­i­tize the ones we might like to see again some­day.

To dis­card doc­u­ments with no emo­tional or prac­ti­cal value, we bought a heavy-duty shred­der that can run for hours before over-heat­ing. For weeks I focused intensely on shred­ding a lifetime’s worth of paper doc­u­ments — decades’ worth of detri­tus. Day after day I loaded up the Prius with bags full of shred­ded doc­u­ments, for dis­posal at a recy­cling cen­ter ten miles away.

I’ve learned my les­son about accu­mu­lat­ing unnec­es­sary paper. These days I shred incom­ing doc­u­ments that have no value, so I don’t accu­mu­late a bunch of junk I’ll have to deal with later.

Tackling the Harder Stuff

Waiting for the donation truck

Wait­ing for the dona­tion truck

Hav­ing dis­posed of the paper, I’ve switched my atten­tion to prun­ing clos­ets, look­ing for house­hold objects, unused appli­ances, gad­gets or gar­ments we can donate to char­i­ties.

Over the years I’ve donated clothes that no longer fit, so what remains is harder to give away. These clothes still fit, look good, and are made from high-qual­ity fab­ric or mate­ri­als. But, they’re either out-of-style or too dressy for my cur­rent lifestyle. So they hang in the clos­ets, unused, col­lect­ing dust. Good can­di­dates for dona­tion.

So, I take a deep breath and remind myself that, rather than hold on to them indef­i­nitely, for some occa­sion when I might use them, it’s bet­ter to give them away today to peo­ple des­per­ately in need of warm or use­ful cloth­ing. I try to remem­ber the yogic prin­ci­ple of non-attach­ment.

With prac­tice I’m get­ting much bet­ter at find­ing things to give away. As a result each week I’ve col­lected bags and boxes like these for the dona­tion trucks to pick up. Space is open­ing up in our clos­ets.

Words to Live By

Rather than just ran­domly giv­ing stuff away (which might be a good prac­tice too), I’ve found the prun­ing process works bet­ter when guided by a set of prin­ci­ples. What works for us are these guide­lines a friend shared with us last month:

Do you use it?

Do you love it?

Does it bring you joy?

If you can’t say yes to any of these ques­tions, then you’ve just found a good can­di­date for dona­tion.

It also helps to devote con­cen­trated time to sort­ing and prun­ing, so you get more effi­cient (and less emo­tional) when work­ing through these ques­tions.

If you really want to prune heav­ily, then this mantra from a Bud­dhist friend offers addi­tional wis­dom:

Can you sim­ply remem­ber the joy, and let the item go?

If you’re on the verge of declut­ter­ing your house­hold, good luck!

Rainy Day Musings

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Cotuit Marsh 6-14-15Before the rain arrived, our pre-dawn morn­ing began abruptly with a noisy debate between wild turkeys and a neighbor’s dog. Not our typ­i­cal morn­ing ser­e­nade on a late spring day in Cape Cod!

We’ve begun to see turkeys graz­ing in our salt marsh. It’s a healthy and well-flushed habi­tat, a favored fish­ing ground for herons and osprey look­ing for small fish or crabs.

As seen through my grandfather’s vin­tage binoc­u­lars, wild turkeys are really quite ugly, espe­cially when com­pared to herons or egrets. They are begin­ning to over­run this sea­side vil­lage. Turkeys are also becom­ing a haz­ard to dri­vers when the toms decide it’s time to escort their large and slow-mov­ing harems across a busy road.

When annoyed by the turkeys, I remind myself of their impor­tance to the early Pil­grims who set­tled Cape Cod and nearby Mass­a­chu­setts towns. And of course, their domes­ti­cated cousins grace our table each Thanks­giv­ing!

Baltimore_OrioleDespite the turkeys, bird watch­ing this spring has been quite col­or­ful and diverse. While walk­ing or kayak­ing, we’ve seen:

  • Ospreys fish­ing or feed­ing their babies
  • Oys­ter catch­ers
  • Wil­lets
  • Great blue herons
  • Great white herons
  • Green herons
  • Snowy egrets
  • Bal­ti­more ori­oles (shown here)
  • Car­di­nals
  • Goldfinches
  • Swans
  • Wild turkeys

And of course, the nearly ubiq­ui­tous robins, chick­adees, gulls, terns, crows, spar­rows, mal­lards, Canada geese, mourn­ing doves.

We’ve heard but not seen the owls that hunt in the nearby nature pre­serve, a 100-acre con­ser­va­tion area that includes wood­lands, salt marsh and a brack­ish river fed by Pop­pones­set Bay.

Sum­mer sea­son has not yet begun, so the birds still dom­i­nate the local waters. They share the bay with kayaks, jet skis and boaters mostly on the week­ends, although that will soon change.

By then we’ll have returned to Wash­ing­ton, but will miss the seabirds and song­birds we so love here on Cape Cod.

Remembering Mom

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Letters Home

Planting flowers for Mothers' Day

Plant­ing flow­ers for Moth­ers’ Day

These days I cringe when­ever mer­chants start spam­ming peo­ple with spe­cial offers for Moth­ers’ Day.

My mom died two years ago, shortly after Moth­ers’ Day. My griev­ing con­tin­ues, trig­gered by mem­o­ries or fam­ily sto­ry­telling. It’s height­ened around Moth­ers’ Day, although it’s now more muted and bit­ter­sweet than before.

Some­how the crass­ness of the overly com­mer­cial approach to Moth­ers’ Day makes the run up to Moth­ers’ Day week­end all the more painful…

It would be so lovely to have a mom to whom I could send some­thing spe­cial for this hol­i­day, espe­cially if it were home­made. But my mom, like most of my friends’ moth­ers, has gone on to the next chap­ter in her jour­ney…

Think­ing about Moth­ers’ Days past, I find myself dig­ging through the dig­i­tal mem­o­ra­bilia on my com­puter, look­ing for scanned images or copies of things I cre­ated and sent to my par­ents, such as this old hand­writ­ten let­ter from col­lege days.

Or my trans­la­tion of a to-die-for choco­late mousse recipe from Madame Florin, who owned the apart­ment where I lived as a stu­dent in Paris. Mme. Florin cared for nine chil­dren in that apart­ment (two of whom she adopted after her sis­ter was killed in an acci­dent) — plus two Amer­i­can stu­dent lodgers.

So in honor of my mother, who loved cook­ing for fam­ily and friends, here’s a really spe­cial choco­late mousse recipe — for peo­ple who aren’t afraid to indulge in rich choco­late and but­ter.

[Note: Eng­lish trans­la­tion fol­lows the orig­i­nal French ver­sion of the recipe.]

Practice Makes You (Feel) Younger

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My free time is increas­ingly con­sumed by sev­eral kinds of phys­i­cal and men­tal prac­tice. These pur­suits are designed to regain strength, mobil­ity and flu­ency.

Despite half-hearted com­plaints about the time they con­sume, I do appre­ci­ate the results. These prac­tices don’t turn back the clock, but (as my yoga teach­ers say), they’re juicy.

Seeking Balance

Con­tem­po­rary lives are too seden­tary, with bad long-term con­se­quences if not coun­ter­bal­anced by phys­i­cal activ­i­ties. I’ve learned this the hard way. I also watched my mother lose the use of one arm, as it became more and more stiff and stuck through inac­tiv­ity. Seden­tary defined her lifestyle…

Our high-tech cul­ture is great for innovating…and trig­ger­ing pain. Sit­ting perched over a key­board or dig­i­tal device for hours on end, day after day, sets you up for imbal­ances in mus­cle strength that may increase your risk for injury. Yoga can help.

“Bal­anc­ing Act,” Yoga Jour­nal, March 2015.

Woman in Yoga Tree Pose

Step 1: Yoga

Like most of my cohorts, I have years of desk-bound work to over­come. So, eight years ago I took up yoga as a way of cop­ing, but I’ve learned it’s not suf­fi­cient to coun­ter­act all my ail­ments.

When work and health per­mit, I prac­tice yoga daily. Off the mat I’m try­ing to be more mind­ful.

Step 1: PT

Besides yoga, my daily life now requires a dozen-plus PT exer­cises — with ther­apy bands, balls and weights. My yoga room is now clut­tered with ther­apy gear, vying for room with bol­sters and yoga mats.

My ther­a­pist has pre­scribed spe­cific move­ment pat­terns to reju­ve­nate a stiff tho­racic spine, and heal rota­tor cuff issues that had led to a frozen shoul­der.

I’m learn­ing through prac­tice that the right exer­cises can mobi­lize and strengthen “enchained” mus­cu­loskele­tal struc­tures — coun­ter­act­ing some of the con­se­quences of aging and repet­i­tive stress activ­i­ties. And unhealthy lifestyles.

It’s taken months of focused work to restore mobil­ity to my shoul­der joint/capsule and upper spine; now I’m poised to begin strength build­ing. I’ve been able to avoid surgery because my rota­tor cuff was com­pro­mised not by trau­matic injury, but by nor­mal wear-and-tear.

Thank­fully, dili­gent PT prac­tice can pay off. It’s no foun­tain of youth, but it can cer­tainly make you feel and move like a younger self. This has been my expe­ri­ence.

My doc­tor dis­charged me yes­ter­day, not­ing the ben­e­fi­cial impact of two+ months of dis­ci­plined PT. That said, he cau­tioned that I must faith­fully incor­po­rate PT exer­cises into my daily life, like floss­ing or brush­ing my teeth… If not, there will be many more flare-ups in my future.

Well-being is all about bal­ance in life. Not just phys­i­cal.

 

Saying Goodbye, A Tribute to a Friend

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the-serenity-prayerWe learned the other day that a dear friend has just moved into hos­pice. She under­went major surgery for a brain tumor last August, fol­lowed by an intense course of radi­a­tion.

After­wards she shared her hopes, her expe­ri­ences and strug­gles through the occa­sional Face­book post, but clearly her can­cer was too well entrenched. It was heart­break­ing to watch her spelling and typ­ing skills dete­ri­o­rate to the point where her posts were some­times incom­pre­hen­si­ble.

Before the sur­geons removed a big chunk of her brain, she had been one of the most gifted busi­ness writ­ers I have ever known.

She is too young to be fac­ing this next jour­ney…

In my “say­ing good­bye” card today, I called her a visual poet. She is unusu­ally gifted at both pho­tog­ra­phy and writ­ing, with an uncanny tal­ent for telling sto­ries through her pho­tos. She has been a painstak­ing crafts­man when it comes to writ­ten expres­sion, prid­ing her­self on “lucid com­mu­ni­ca­tions.”

Sev­eral years ago she moved back Ipswich, her child­hood home­town, leav­ing her Seat­tle com­mu­nity sor­row­fully behind. We shared her East Coast expe­ri­ences vic­ar­i­ously through her online writ­ings and imagery. Through her pho­tos we rev­eled in her renewed love affair with the Ipswich beaches, shore­birds and the foggy tidal marshes.

She has been a prac­tic­ing Bud­dhist for as long as I’ve known her (and that’s been over 20 years.) The way she has walked her cho­sen path has been inspir­ing despite the hur­dles life has thrown her way. Those who know and love her know just how high those hur­dles have been.

She has found real joy in liv­ing life pared to the essence of what truly mat­ters. She embod­ies beauty and grace (despite a half-shaven head).

She has blessed us with her light, her music, her poetic lan­guage and her gen­tle soul. We will miss her lov­ing pres­ence…

And her laugh­ter.

Good­bye, Hatsy.

Inspired by The Good Life

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In the midst of a declut­ter­ing project today, I came across some­thing in a file from ten years ago that stopped me in my tracks. It’s a won­der­ful def­i­n­i­tion of the good life, a life lived mind­fully. (Source unknown.)

The Good Life Defined

Sparking Memories

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As I get older (and hope­fully wiser), I appre­ci­ate the power of pic­tures and sto­ry­telling to engrave mem­o­ries in my brain. Shar­ing high­lights of a trip with friends and fam­ily is one pow­er­ful way to rein­force the mem­o­ries…

Deer Harbor view

Deer Har­bor view

Iconic pic­tures — the ones you show over and over — spark mem­o­ries. Unique fla­vors or aro­mas are also pow­er­ful mem­ory trig­gers.

There are the beau­ti­ful snap­shots…

Boat with greenery growing inside

Boat with green­ery grow­ing inside

…and the quirky ones, the ones that cap­ture some idio­syn­cratic aspect of a place.

Like gar­den fea­tures, local land­scape design, fences or build­ing styles.

Or funny signs you encounter in out-of-the-way places, like a pub­lic walk­ing path on Orcas Island, well past the Deer Har­bor marina.

No parking sign on public path

No park­ing sign on pub­lic path

Wear­ing an out­fit or using some­thing (like hand­made pot­tery) that you bought while trav­el­ing.

Read­ing a mag­a­zine arti­cle, a blog post, or a story set in that city or locale.

birthday-dinner-photoSome­times mem­o­ries are trig­gered by savor­ing rec­ol­lec­tions of a spe­cial meal, like a birth­day or anniver­sary din­ner.

Per­haps you try recipes from a cook­book pro­duced by a celebrity chef who made her mark in a restau­rant you expe­ri­enced (or wanted to visit.)

Some­times you over­hear peo­ple on an air­plane or the sub­way, talk­ing about places you’ve vis­ited. You may jump into their con­ver­sa­tion, and share some rec­om­men­da­tions.

Or you see spe­cialty items in local stores that come from places you love to visit. Like that spe­cial Parisian per­fume.

And you can’t help but grum­ble about how much less they cost there than here! Even after the con­ver­sion from euros to dol­lars.

Some­times you watch a roman­tic movie or a travel doc­u­men­tary on TV, and say to your sig­nif­i­cant other, “Remem­ber when we…?”

And some­times it’s as sim­ple as see­ing the pack­ing list from an ear­lier trip, if you come from a fam­ily of list mak­ers, as I do…

travel-list-photoThe many joys of travel…

Back to Cupertino, Hello Apple

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Hun­dreds of early Apple employ­ees are con­ven­ing in San Jose CA this Sun­day for a long-awaited reunion. Although atten­dance is lim­ited to peo­ple who worked for Apple in its first ten years, hun­dreds of us are head­ing to Cal­i­for­nia, some from far-flung places — like a for­mer boss who is fly­ing in from New Zealand.

Sharing Memories and Memorabilia

We’ve spent the past week or so, dig­ging through old boxes, bureau draw­ers and other places where we may have stashed Apple apparel, mem­o­ra­bilia and those beloved Apple tchotchkes. We’re busily pho­tograph­ing, scan­ning — upload­ing dig­i­tal images to share with friends and for­mer co-work­ers.

Years later, we’re still hold­ing on to those old T-shirts, plaques, clocks, decanters, pins, but­tons, and even office sta­tionery. It’s been quite a trip down mem­ory lane, to see the stuff that every­one is post­ing on our Face­book Group.

I have found my share of T-shirts and mem­o­ra­bilia, includ­ing two lead crys­tal apples: one by Tiffany and one by Steuben. The qual­ity of what we have kept from our Apple days is amaz­ing. Those of us who still have our employee badges will wear them to the party.

I can’t wait to see every­one in per­son, and learn how we have all weath­ered the years since Apple. Face­book has been a great place to share mem­o­ries in snip­pets, but it’s no sub­sti­tute for the sto­ries we’re going to tell at the reunion (and in the local bars after­wards, I’m sure!)

We were sponsors at early TED conferences

We were spon­sors at early TED con­fer­ences

Crystal apple from Tiffany

Crys­tal apple from Tiffany

Badge from an internal Apple event

Badge from an inter­nal Apple event

Employee badge

Employee badge

Yearning for Spring

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Early spring flowers in February

Early spring flow­ers in Feb­ru­ary

I went for a walk this after­noon, look­ing for signs of spring, and found some hardy cro­cus blos­soms and some even braver cherry trees. Even here in Wash­ing­ton it has been a long, cold win­ter so these early flow­ers are trig­ger­ing spring fever.

A few women ven­tured out today in bare feet with san­dals — a bit early, if you ask me, given tem­per­a­tures that did not exceed the mid-fifties. But it’s obvi­ous we are all des­per­ate for this win­ter to be behind us.

I was buoyed up by these hope­ful har­bin­gers, until I heard the news about Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine, and found it hard to sus­tain my hope­ful out­look.

For those of us who remem­ber his­tory lessons, like Russia’s inva­sion of Hun­gary or Czecho­slo­va­kia, today’s news is a depress­ing reminder that war­like behav­iors and aggres­sion remain like tox­ins in the blood. Some peo­ples appear to be addicted to war as of way of grab­bing for what they want, no mat­ter how dubi­ous their jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. (And I put Bush #2 in that camp.)

Although we may be enjoy­ing early spring here in the North­west, it’s clearly the start of a long cold win­ter for the unfor­tu­nate peo­ple who live in the Ukraine, given their war­like neigh­bor to the east…

It’s time to pray for the Ukraini­ans, and wish them the bless­ings of an early spring — an early and peace­ful con­clu­sion to Russia’s inva­sion of their east­ern ter­ri­to­ries.