What Can Paying Attention to Your Breath Do for You? Mindfulness Impact on Mind-Body-Soul

May 9, 2019 ~ Written by: W.B. “Bud” Kirchner

Approx. Read Time: 8 Minutes

“To understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still.” ― Jiddu Krishnamurti

Mindfulness

I have written on the topics of mindfulness and decision making in previous articles, including Daniel Kahneman Meets Dalai Lama, which is clearly one of the more poignant examples of the benefits of this “state of being” from the perspective of the Business Brain Model. I feel I would be remiss if it did not round out the story a bit, but only as an overview (reference guide) since there is no shortage of information generally available. This post is simply a cross section of information designed to illustrate some of the many documented benefits of mindfulness.

As a quick sidebar, I feel compelled to point out an important quandary. I believe it is philosophically inconsistent with mindfulness for it to be used to “enhance performance”. Rather, it is designed to enable you to come to grips with your life – not in a way that results in you not striving for success (whatever that means to you), but rather enables you to accept the challenges for what they are.

“Setbacks are inevitable. Failure is a choice.” – Zen adage

While I will categorize the following, clearly, any lines segregating mind/body/soul are at best artificial and flies in the face of the underlying principles of mindfulness.

Having said that, here is some food for thought:

Mind

“It was a way to get answers even before you asked the questions.”  – Albert Einstein

• Wandering mind not a happy mind – Steve Bradt
  • Increases your sense of well being
  • The more mindful you are, the happier you are
• A multi-method examination of the effects of mindfulness on stress attribution, coping and emotional well-being – Netta Weinstein, Kirk W. Brown, Richard M. Ryan
  • Reduces stress, anxiety and other destructive emotions
• Mindfulness improves cognition including working memory study – Zeidan F, Johnson SK, Diamond BJ, David Z, Goolkasian P.
  • Sharpens your memory
  • Creates clearer, more focused thinking and improves efficiency
• The Science of Mindfulness – Daniel Siegel
  • Creates an internal sense of stability and clarity
  • Achieved more executive function improvements (sustaining attention, diminishing distractibility) than are accomplished with medications
  • Aids with obsessive compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder, and drug addiction
  • Reduction of the “attentional blink”
  • The likelihood of recurrence for patients who had experienced depression was reduced by half

• Mindfulness Can Literally Change Your Brain – Christina Congleton, Britta K.Holzel and Sara W. Lazar
  • Demonstrate superior performance on tests of self-regulation, resisting distractions and making correct answers
  • Enhanced learning from past experience to support optimal decision-making

• Effects of mindfulness on psychological health: a review of empirical studies – Keng SL, Smoski MJ, Robins CJ.
  • Increased subjective well-being
  • Improved behavioral regulation

• How to build a bigger brain – Mark Wheeler
  • Increases gray matter

• The science of willpower – Lia Steakley
  • Cultivates willpower

Body

“No one can listen to your body for you…To grow and heal, you have to take responsibility for listening to it yourself.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn

• Stress Reduction in the Secondary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease – R.H. Schneider et al
  • Lowered risk for mortality, myocardial infarction, stroke and coronary disease
  • Lower blood pressure and psycho-social stress factors

• Ask Well: The Health Benefits of Meditation – Roni Caryn Rabin
  • May help reduce blood pressure in young adults at risk of hypertension
  • Ease anxiety and bolster quality of life in cancer patients
  • Reduce the incidence, severity and duration of acute respiratory illnesses like flu
  • Reduces common menopausal symptoms like hot flashes

• Mindfulness and immunity study – Davidson RJ, Kabat-Zinn J, Schumacher J, Rosenkranz M, Muller D, Santorelli SF, Urbanowski F, Harrington A, Bonus K, Sheridan JF.
  • Improves health and boosts immunity

• Effects on mindfulness on heart disease study – Manish J Parswani, Mahendra P Sharma, and SS Lyengar
  • Beneficial effects on many serious illnesses such as cancer and heart disease

• Mindfulness, weight loss and treatment of obesity – Jill Suttie
  • Shown to work better than any diet for effective long-term weight loss

• What Does Mindfulness Meditation Do to Your Brain? – Tom Ireland
  • Less pain than non-meditators

• New Study Suggests Meditation Can Actually Alter Your Body on A Cellular Level
  • Telomere length preservation
  • Eases inflammation

• Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being – Madhav Goyal, MD, MHP et al
  • Eases stress and anxiety

Soul

“Feelings are much like waves, we can’t stop them from coming but we can choose which ones to surf.” – Jonatan Mårtensson

• The Soul of Mindfulness – Pete Kirchmer
  • The inherent quality of loving-kindness
  • Allowing life to unfold the way it is, is actually a radical act of mindful self-compassion
  • To become more grateful for this precious life, gentler with ourselves and more compassionate to others, what could possibly be more soul-full than that

• Mindful Spirit: How Noticing Your Inner and Outer Worlds Opens the Door to Happiness – Paige Burkes
  • The associations of spirit with the breath of life, vital energy, consciousness
  • Discover the essence of his/her being
  • Feel peaceful, joyful and content
  • Human “being” and not a human “doing”

• Mindfulness develops compassion and empathy study – Jason Marsh
  • Improves your emotional and social intelligence and develops empathy and compassion

• Body, Mind and Spirit – Soul feeling! – The GOODista
  • Promote curiosity, openness and acceptance
  • Self-knowledge

• What are the benefits of mindfulness – Daphne M.Davis, PhD and Jeffrey A. Hayes, PhD
  • Helps relationship satisfaction
  • Cuts emotional reactivity

• Meditation reduces loneliness – Mark Wheeler
  • Reduces loneliness

About the Author: W.B. “Bud” Kirchner is a serial entrepreneur and philanthropist with more than 50 years of business success. He is not a scientist or an academic but he does have a diversified exposure to neuroscience, psychology and related cognitive sciences. Generally speaking, the ideas he expresses here are business-angled expansions of other people’s ideas, so when possible, he will link to the original reference.