The Practice Of Meditation Leaves Marks In The Brain

A new study conducted at IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca, shows that the subjective feeling of well-being experienced by many people with the practice of meditation is correlated with specific changes in the brain. The research, which appeared in Brain and Cognition, examined the effects of the technique known as Transcendental Meditation (TM), which consists of silent repetition of a meaningless sound, a "mantra."

For the study, conducted at the Molecular Mind Laboratory (MoMiLab) of the IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca, the researchers enrolled 34 healthy young volunteers and divided them in two groups. The first one practiced Transcendental Meditation 40 minutes per day in two sessions of 20 minutes each, one in the morning and the other in the evening; the second group did not change its daily routine.

At the beginning of the study, the researchers also measured through psychometric questionnaires the anxiety and stress level of all the participants, as well as their ability to manage stressful situations. Each individual was also subjected to a functional magnetic resonance imaging test (fMRI), in order to measure brain activity at rest and changes in the functional connectivity among different cerebral areas. After three months, at the end of the study, the same tests were repeated. (MORE)

Source: Medical Xpress

What Meditation Can Do for Your Leadership

One of the things that stands in the way of many leaders’ success — and therefore the success of their companies — is their ego. Leadership expert Jim Collins found in his seminal study on what makes companies sustainably great that in two thirds of the comparison cases, it was “the presence of a gargantuan ego that contributed to the demise or continued mediocrity of the company.” Fortunately, mindfulness can help. In fact, in my work teaching meditation to hundreds of executives, I’ve seen that one of the most valuable — and largely unrecognized — benefits for leaders is the ability to transcend their egos.

The defensive tendencies of our ego come at great costs. When it’s threatened, we hold on to past decisions for too long, we react defensively to or “explain away” negative feedback from teams or customers, and we get emotional when we need to be rational. Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s biggest hedge fund, refers in his book, Principles: Life and Work, to the “ego barrier,” which he defines as the “subliminal defense mechanisms that make it hard for you to accept your mistakes and weaknesses.” He also credits meditation as the single most important source of his success.

That’s because mindfulness meditation is an antidote to ego. It creates what Harvard neuroscience researchers describe as “self-transcendent” experiences, where meditators begin to notice that there is no stable self that is separate from others, but rather they are part of a whole. This may sound “woo-woo” but these experiences have major benefits for leaders: They allow them to see things more objectively and to form deeper relationships.

Seeing things more objectively

Our ego wants us to be right, and it perceives failure as a threat. With meditation practice, as our fixation on ego drops away, our tendency to take things personally drops away as well. (MORE)

Source: Harvard Business Review

Meditation Therapy for Substance Abuse

How Can Meditation Therapy Help Treat Substance Abuse?

An Overview of Meditation

Meditation is a powerful yet simple technique used to combat stress and anxiety. Due to the  impactful effects of meditation it has become more available in both substance abuse and general wellness circles as a form of therapy. The overall goal of meditation is to synchronize the mind and body for improved mental wellbeing and an enhanced quality of life. By taking deep breaths, chanting a mantra (or another focused word), and focusing on the breath, the result is increased awareness and connection.

Types of Meditation and Benefits

Meditation is characterized by a crossed-legged seated posture, called the lotus pose, accompanied by deep, slowed breathing. Similar to yoga, meditation can help reduce feelings of depression, anxiety, and emotional triggers, while changing brainwaves. There are also several methods that offer slightly different benefits.

• Mindfulness meditation, is one of the most popular methods of meditation and focuses on increasing focus, concentration, and awareness.
• Zen meditation brings about calmness and encourages non-reactivity. It reinforces attention to the present moment, encouraging practitioners to focus on the here-and-now and clear their past.
• Guided meditation can encourage someone to visualize peaceful mental images as someone facilitates it with guidance.
• Transcendental meditation teaches effortlessness as a means to achieve peace and reduce stress.

Meditation Therapy for Substance Abuse

With many of meditation’s benefits, it is clear it can be ideal for substance abuse relief to combat symptoms of withdrawal, triggers, and cravings. The benefits of meditation include:

• Reduced depression and anxiety (including social anxiety)
• Significantly reduced stress
• Increased concentration
• Improved mood
• Reduced PTSD and ADHD symptoms
• Increased creativity
• Improved attention
• Reduced brain activity
• Emotional stability
• Increased focus
• Increased academic performance
• Decreased insomnia

Other benefits of meditation therapy include the ability to alter brainwaves, which contribute to improved psychological function and cortisol reduction. Mindfulness practice can enhance the performance of the frontal cortex, the area of the brain that regulates planning and thinking. Meditation also impacts the amygdala, which reduces fear, and increases the activation of the anterior cingulate cortex, governing motivation and motor control. (MORE)

Source: Addiction Center

Even Quick Meditation Aids Cognitive Skills

College students who listen to a 10-minute meditation tape complete simple cognitive tasks more quickly and accurately than peers who listen to a "control" recording on a generic subject, researchers at Yale University and Swarthmore College report.

The study, published Aug. 6 in the journal Frontiers of Neuroscience, shows even people who have never meditated before can benefit from even a short meditation practice.

"We have known for awhile that people who practice meditation for a few weeks or months tend to perform better on cognitive tests, but now we know you don't have to spend weeks practicing to see improvement," said Yale's Hedy Kober, associate professor of psychiatry and psychology and senior author of the study.

The research team headed by Kober and Catherine Norris at Swarthmore randomly divided college students into two groups. One group listened to a 10-minute recording on meditation prior to performing cognitive tests and the second group listened to a similarly produced tape about sequoia trees.

Both groups were then given simple tasks designed to measure cognitive dexterity. Those who listened to the meditation recording performed significantly better, across two studies.

There was one exception, however. Those who scored highest in measurements of neuroticism—"I worry all the time"—did not benefit from listening to the meditation tape.

"We don't know if longer meditation sessions, or multiple sessions, would improve their cognitive scores, and we look forward to testing that in future studies," Kober said. (MORE)

Source: Medical Xpress

Changes In Stress After Meditation

For a thousand years, people have reported feeling better by meditating but there has never been a systematic study that quantified stress and how much stress changes as a direct result of meditation until now.

U.S. Army Research Laboratory researchers spent a year collaborating with a team of scientists from the University of North Texas to develop a new data processing technique that uses heart rate variability as a sensor to monitor the state of the brain. Their findings are reported in a paper published in the June edition of Frontiers in Physiology.

Healthy heartbeats have irregularities built into them with a slight random variation occurring in the time interval between successive beats. The sinus node, or the heart's natural pacemaker, receives signals from the autonomic or involuntary portion of the nervous system, which has two major branches: the parasympathetic, whose stimulation decreases the firing rate of the sinus node, and the sympathetic, whose stimulation increases the firing rate. These two branches produce a continual tug-of-war that generates fluctuations in the heart rate of healthy individuals.

Heart rate variability provides a window through which we can observe the heart's ability to respond to external disturbances, such as stress, said Dr. Bruce West, the Army's senior research scientist for mathematics.

He said it turns out that the HRV time series is very sensitive to changes in the physiological state of the brain and the new data processing system, called dynamic subordination technique, can quantify the changes in HRV and relate these directly to brain activity, such as produced by meditation. Thus, the DST has quantified the level of stress reduction produced by meditation and offers the potential to quantify such things as the inability to concentrate and sustain focus, impatience, impulsiveness and other dysfunctional properties that severely limit a soldier's ability to do his job.

Stress modulates the autonomic nervous system signals, which in turn disrupts normal HRV and therefore the stress level can be detected by processing HRV time series.

Through a new method of processing HRV time series data, the researchers developed a way to measure the change in the level of stress provided by meditation. This measure assigns a number to the level of variability of heartbeat interval time series before and during meditation. This number indicates precisely how much stress is alleviated by control of the heart-brain coupling through meditation. (MORE)

Source: Science Daily

Study: Meditating Can Help You Focus And Keep Your Brain Young

If you're worried about your dwindling attention span or what might happen to your brain as you get older, consider picking up meditation.

The most extensive longitudinal study to date on how meditation improves your ability to focus was just published last month in Springer's Journal of Cognitive Enhancement and suggests that meditating has "the potential to alter longitudinal trajectories of cognitive change across a person's life."

In other words, it could prevent age-related mental decline.

"This study is the first to offer evidence that intensive and continued meditation practice is associated with enduring improvements in sustained attention," lead author Anthony Zanesco, a psychologist at the University of Miami, and his colleagues report in the seven-year study.

The experiment began in 2011 when Zanesco, then at the University of California, Davis, and his colleagues assessed participants, who ranged from from 22 to 69-years-old, before and after they attended a three-month retreat at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado. The participants underwent various types of meditation training, such as sustaining focus on objects, practicing mindful breathing techniques and generating positive feelings of compassion, loving-kindness, empathetic joy and equanimity for others and themselves. (MORE)

Source: CNBC

6 Common Myths About Meditation You Need to Stop Believing

Lotus pose makes your legs hurt? That's ok.

Meditation has been hailed as a way to boost mental health, help chronic pain, reduce stress and build a new appreciation for the world around us.

But even with all this interest, misconceptions about what this ancient practice can do for human health and well-being are still circulating.

1. Myth: There is only one type of meditation

Only some meditations involve sitting quietly with legs crossed. Qi Gong and Tai Chi, for example, focus on meditative movement. This combines a relaxed but alert state of mind with slow movements and gentle breathing.

Others, like Tibetan Buddhist meditation involve visualisations and/or mantras. There is also "thinking meditation" where one reflects on topics such as impermanence, while staying relaxed yet focused and reflective.

Many types also encourage bringing meditation into ordinary daily activities – such as mindful dish washing involving paying attention to the sensations of the water and hand movements.

Similarly, there is eating meditation, where one expresses gratitude for the food and wishes for others less fortunate.

2. Myth: It's all about being still and quiet

Stable non-reactive attention is developed in all meditation types, but it is particularly targeted in mindfulness practices. Other meditation types cultivate qualities such as compassion, generosity or forgiveness. (MORE)

Source: Science Alert

Practice Meditation To Beat Rising Stress Levels

Gone are the days when you could get away with the excuse of a hectic day at work to avoid meditation.

A team of two scientists have provided some handy tips to help the people to regularly do meditation in order to beat the stress levels.

Various past studies have shown that the high stress levels could lead to array of health issues, including high blood pressure and various other cardiovascular diseases.

The American Psychological Association study suggested that the stress levels among the American natives have been increasing for the first time in ten years, reports NBC News.

Further, there are numerous studies suggesting that meditation could help in relieving anxiety and reducing stress levels, further reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

"Real people living busy lives can meditate successfully on their seven-year-old couch, in bed alone or next to their snoring partner, in the passenger seat of their car, at work, at the kitchen table, in the backseat during a road trip, in a bus or a plane seat, said researcher Light Watkins.

"And that's as it should be, because if you are waiting to find yourself atop a cliff-side or in a white, sparsely furnished room in order to feel like you can meditate, you're only going to meditate sporadically, and you're going to mistakenly conclude that what little benefit you are able to derive from your practically is magically linked to your serene environment which couldn't be further from the truth", he added.

Further Emily Fletcher founder of New York-based Ziva Meditation center highlighted the benefits and ease of practicing meditation.

"It feels just as delicious to drop into a meditation when you are feeling blissed out on a pillow with soft lighting as it does sitting at your desk at 2 pm right as your morning coffee wear off," said Emily Fletcher.

Watkins and Fletcher further suggested some techniques to start out with meditation.

- Start Practicing

Watkins recommends meditation for 15 to 20 minutes right in the beginning of your day. One must sit upright with back relaxed and shoulders not withdrawn backward. Your hands and feet must be at ease and one could stretch the legs out in front. Set a timer and close your eyes. (MORE)

Source: ANI News

Can Mindfulness Meditation Prevent Relapse?

Mindfulness meditation teaches people how to accept suffering as a normal, cohesive experience, and then move on from it.

Relapse has always been a harsh reality of addiction, but as the opioid black market fills with powerful synthetics, relapse on heroin and similar drugs grows increasingly dangerous. Fatal overdoses nearly doubled between 2015 and 2016—the majority of which are attributed to opioid-based drugs. We are bombarded daily with news headlines—some factual, some fictitious—announcing the newest therapy, or the latest hysteria-provoking scare (does death by fentanyl dust at the grocery store sound familiar?) as we scramble to unearth an affordable and effective way to curb the tragic rise in overdose deaths. Advocates wage vicious wars using news stories and social media, trying to figure out what treatment works best; what will finally fix it?

What if one of the most promising treatments to help prevent relapse has not only already existed for thousands of years, but is free and available to anyone? (MORE)

Source: The Fix

Amid Opioid Crisis, VA Hospital Moves From Medication To Meditation

In an effort to combat opioid addiction, the Veterans Integrated Pain Center at McGuire Veterans Medical Center has been moving from medication to meditation.

Over a stretch of four years the veteran’s hospital has looked for alternatives, especially with the growing public health issue.

“I remember times before I started this, I would to be in pain so bad, I wanted to cut my own knees off because of the pain,” said Army Veteran Wesley Boon.

When Boon came home from Iraq in 2005, he was struggling, physically and mentally.

“You don’t want to do anything, just lay around and pop pills, it’s like being in a dark place,” Boon explained.

Determined to get off pain killers, Boon turned to the program, welcoming the alternative methods. (MORE)

Source: WTVR.com

Meditation’s Secret Ingredient

We practice “right concentration” not to experience blissful states but to help us entertain uncertainty.

oncentration is the secret ingredient of meditation, the backbone of the entire endeavor. It is the simplest, most elementary, most concrete, most practical, and most ancient therapeutic technique in the Buddhist repertoire. It is a means of temporarily dispelling the repetitive thoughts of the everyday mind, a way of opening the psyche to new and unscripted experiences. Although it follows mindfulness on the eightfold path, it is generally taught before mindfulness when one is learning to meditate. It is such an essential introduction to Buddhist practice that its closing place on the eightfold path does not make sense at first glance. But concentration needs to be understood in the context of the entire path if it is not to become a distraction in itself. Concentration is “right” when it connects with the other branches of the whole. It is “right” when it demonstrates the feasibility of training the mind, when it supports the investigation of impermanence, when it erodes selfish preoccupation, and when it reveals the benefits of surrender. It is not “right” when it is seen as an end in itself and when it is used to avoid painful truths. One can hide out in the peaceful states that meditative concentration makes possible, but in the context of the eightfold path, this is considered a mistake.

Concentration, from a Buddhist perspective, means keeping one’s attention steady on a single object such as the breath or a sound for extended periods of time. This is not something that we do ordinarily, and it is not something that comes easily. Those who try to fix their attention in this way for even five minutes will see this for themselves. Try to follow your breath and see what happens. Note the sensation of the in-breath and repeat the word “in” to yourself. Do the same with the out-breath and repeat the word “out.” Keep the mental label in the background and the bulk of your awareness on the direct physical sensation of the breath. If you are like most people, after successfully noting a breath or two, your usual subconscious inner world will reassert itself.  Thinking, planning, fantasizing, and worrying will rush to fill the void, noises from the outside world will pull you in, and five minutes will be over before you know it.  The mind does not become concentrated just because we tell it to. (MORE)

Source: Tricycle.org

7 Simple Meditation Techniques to Practice at Work (to Boost Productivity)

Meditation is nothing new. And it doesn't require anything that you don't already have in this exact moment.

That's the beauty and simplicity of meditation--there's nowhere to go, nothing to own, nothing to lose, and everything to gain by finding stillness during a chaotic day at work.

Too often we fumble through our days at the mercy of demands--our bosses, our clients, or schedules, or our chaotic thought-filled minds.

It's so easy to get sucked into the fast pace of daily life that most people forget what it's like to notice their breath. To be aware of their bodies. To simply watch their thoughts pass by like leaves on a stream.

That type of presence, connection, and attunement to our present experience is all too rare in our personal and professional lives. And the more we get back to that state of mind, the better we feel, the clearer we think, and the happier we become.

As a coach and licensed therapist who frequently teaches mindfulness techniques to clients, I wanted to write a brief article on tips that my clients find helpful when learning how to meditate.

Some of what I discuss are different ways to practice mindfulness meditation. Others are resources commonly recommend.

My hope is that someone new to meditation--or new to consistently practicing meditation--can read this article and then re-connect with the present moment.

Read the list below to discover seven ways to practice mindfulness meditation at work.

1. Use a popular meditation app for a quick refresher.

There are many great meditation apps to try. I recommend downloading several free apps until you find one that feels like a good fit. When working with clients, the first two I recommend are Insight Timer and Headspace. Headspace is great for beginning technique and Insight Timer has many incredible free guided meditations for a wide range of experiences and expertise. (MORE)

Source: INC

Why Meditation Makes You Better At Brainstorming

When a child does something wrong, most parents ground them or put them in time-out.

When I was a kid, my parents made me write essays about what I did wrong. It forced me to contemplate what I’d done, the rules I’d broken, and how I could avoid getting in trouble again.

It was a different approach—one that was influenced by my dad’s Buddhism and his beliefs about meditation. He spent time traveling in Nepal, and when he came back, he applied what he had learned to his business and life.

As a kid, I thought it was fun to meditate in the spare bedroom he had converted to a meditation room. It was full of prayer rugs and crystals, and it always smelled like incense.

But as I got older and began to develop my own sense of self and independence, I began to really understand the benefits of meditation. I faced quite a few challenges running my first company. I knew that meditation was something I could rely on. Not just in my personal life, but also in the business world.

Whether professional or personal, here’s how meditation makes for better brainstorming:

1. Takes Your Ego Out Of The Equation.

I don’t mean “ego” in the way that we often use it—a way to describe someone’s level of pride or arrogance. I mean it in a more natural way, as in the construction of your identity that influences how you interact with people. (MORE)

Source: Forbes

Can Meditation Can Save Your Relationship? (Science Says Yes)

Mindfulness and meditation are all about cultivating an intimate relationship with yourself and the present moment, but these practices also boast transformative benefits for intimacy with your partner. Relationship intimacy involves emotional closeness, which is a key component of maintaining a meaningful relationship. In an age when busyness is our modern-day epidemic, and hyper-connectedness is the norm, mindfulness and meditation become lifelines for the success of our relationships.

The research is in! A meta-analysis published in the February 2016 issue of the Journal of Human Sciences and Extension found that mindfulness can be linked to profoundly satisfying, connected relationships. This meta-analysis looked at the results from 12 studies, including two mindfulness intervention studies. Overall, mindfulness was shown to enhance relationship connectedness and satisfaction. The practice of presence starts from within, but the benefits extend far beyond ourselves. Here are three reasons mindfulness and meditation will make you a better partner: (MORE)

Source: MindBodyGreen.com

Here's How Meditation Helps With Weight Loss

What if our ideas around weight loss are only partially true?

What if losing weight is about more than watching our eating and working out?

Entrepreneur Sarah Anne Stewart learned this when she signed a modeling contract at 15 years old and had agents immediately bark at her to "stay skinny" and "not eat until next week." For the next ten years she developed a fear and anxiety around weight that consumed her life. Then one day she woke up in an NYU hospital bed, almost dying from anorexia. When the ER staff told her she needed to make changes in her life to survive, she finally found her saving grace: meditation.

Now she's a Holistic Health Practitioner, coach and the founder of Holistically Slim. She's dedicated her career to teaching others that "what to eat" is only a small piece of having a healthy relationship with food and your body. Sarah Anne says the inner journey is equally important, and that meditation is the secret key to long-term weight loss and a healthy body. (MORE)

Source: Forbes

Veterans Who Learn Transcendental Meditation Find Relief From PTSD, Including Insomnia Symptom

Veterans of the war in Vietnam, the Gulf War, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) found significant relief from their symptoms as a result of practicing the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique. This is according to a study published in Military Medicine.

The 41 veterans and 5 active-duty soldiers in the study had been diagnosed with clinical levels of PTSD, as measured by the PTSD Checklist-Civilian (PCL-5). After one month, 87% had a clinically significant decrease of more than 10 points. The reduction was so great that 37 participants (80%) had their symptoms reduced to below the clinical level, meaning that they were no longer considered to have a disorder.

The effect size, which is a measure of the magnitude of a treatment, was 1.91. This is unusually high, with a value of .8 considered to be a strong effect. In addition, the very low p-value (p < 0.0001) indicates these results were probably not due to chance. The study included a 90-day posttest; PTSD symptoms continued to improve.

“It’s remarkable that after just one month we would see such a pronounced decrease in symptoms, with four out of five veterans no longer considered to have a serious problem with PTSD,” says lead author Robert Herron in a release.  (MORE)

Source: Sleep News

Meditation for People Who Think They Can’t Meditate

Reaching a state of mindfulness can be as easy as taking a few deep breaths.

If you’re harried and distracted, meditation can help calm your mind and body.

But that’s the rub. Some say they’re so harried and distracted that they can’t possibly meditate to quiet the mind, regain focus and ease anxiety. Within moments, they’re ruminating on the noise of extraneous thoughts or uncompleted daily to-do lists.

“Too many people have tried meditation and have given up. They’ve concluded, ‘I’m just not that kind of person,’” says Belisa Vranich, a clinical psychologist in New York City and author of the new book Breathe. “But they don’t have to be thinking about Gandhi or world peace or absolutely nothing to reach a meditative state. It’s not that complicated. In fact, it’s bizarrely simple.”

All you need do is breathe.

In her book, Vranich recommends a type of controlled breathing she calls “Recovery Breath.” The two-part breathing exercise, she says, is a form of active meditation that can reset the body after a stressful day at work, a disagreement with your spouse or partner, a test or a competition — any demanding situation. It can be done for as little as five minutes in a day.

The good news for people over 50 who’ve been frustrated in their attempts to meditate is that it gets easier with age.

— Belisa Vranich, author of 'Breathe' (MORE)

Source: Next Avenue

What You May Not Understand About Meditation

Meditation has been touted recently as the solution for everything from ADHD to PTSD. It’s being introduced in schools, workplaces, and hospitals. A meditation instructor of mine calls this growing popularity “McMindfulness.” The research does seem compelling as scientists the world over try to understand the neuroscience and physiology behind the success of mindfulness meditation. So far results have shown meditation can help us reduce stress and emotional reactivity. It also seems that meditation may lead to enduring changes for those who practice it. There’s a reason people have been doing it for thousands of years, but there is also a lot of misunderstanding that gets in the way for those hoping to benefit from this ancient practice. Here are some things to consider if you’re interested in what meditation has to offer.

Meditation is not something to be mastered
“I just couldn’t nail it,” I heard an acquaintance say recently. “I couldn’t get the breathing right.” The fact is, it’s called meditation “practice” for a reason and no one “nails” it. I have suffered with anxiety all my life. When I first started meditating years ago, I found focusing on my breath, as I was instructed, just made me feel more anxious. Instead I developed my meditation with an open awareness, eyes open, focusing on nothing in particular. Meditation eventually helped me with my anxiety making it possible for me to focus on my breath but there was no perfect way to do it.

The only wrong way to do meditation is by not doing it at all. One of the most important ideas of the practice is that you don’t judge yourself, your thoughts, or your meditation. Not judging oneself is a tall order, but meditation is where you can practice, and you begin by not judging the way you do it. The basic idea is to take some time to try to be present in the moment. If you sat down and you tried to do this, consider yourself successful. (MORE)

Source: Huffington Post

The Distracted Man's Guide to Meditation

Face it, if meditation were a pill, you'd want it. If it was a workout, you'd probably be doing it already. You've heard all about its much-lauded de-stressing capabilities; you've read that it boosts immunity, regulates sleep, and enhances memory, focus, and your gray matter; you know successful, smart people do it (Kobe Bryant, Novak Djokovic, Jerry Seinfeld, those snide geniuses at Google who call their in-house meditation class "Neural Self-Hacking").

You know all of this, but, almost assuredly, you do not meditate. Why?

"There are three things," says Dan Harris, the ABC News correspondent who chronicled his encounter with meditation in the highly skeptical (and highly hilarious) memoir 10% Happier. "The first is that guys think it's bullshit — that you have to wear your wife's yoga pants or chant. The second is that people assume it's impossible: 'My mind is too busy.' " Last, Harris explains, is that men assume meditation is all about being mellow, that it will rob them of their edge.  (MORE)

Source: Mens Journal

How to Have a Mindful New Year’s Kiss

“A kiss can be a blissful and heartfelt connector, a reminder about who and what matters most. A mindful kiss can make time stand still. Whether you’re with a long time partner or a new friend, allow yourself to be in it for all of the beauty and connection that a kiss holds.” — JoAnna Harper, Los Angeles-based Guiding Teacher, Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society.

Look deeply at the person in front of you and truly see them.

Check in to the sensations that arise in the body. Are you feeling warmth, excitement, jitters, fear, ecstasy? All are welcome. Allow yourself the freedom of the moment.

Reflect on the person you’re about to kiss. Whether it is a life partner or a new acquaintance, take a moment to be grateful for this shared intimacy.

Check out how our bodies and minds are naturally drawn toward another if we’re free of worry and fear.

Move together. See what it feels like as arms, hips, torsos and more connect.

Feel the warmth and breath as lips connect, just in this moment.

Try not to get pulled away into meaning or story, staying right here for the beauty of the moment as it unfolds, the pure joy of the kiss.(MORE)

Source: NY Times