Mindfulness

In Your Head Sport is about helping us understand how the mind works so that we can use it to help us accomplish our sporting goals.  The article I am quoting below is not about sport.  It is about research with how the mind works with the body.

Now I doubt many of us will be going through the extreme stresses that those in the military do and the question I ask is does the body know the difference between stressful situations and therefore what can mindfulness give us all...?

 For the full and original article go to UC San Diago News Centre - http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/war_and_peace_of_mind

War and Peace (of Mind)

Meditation training may help reduce stress disorders among U.S. military personnel

Researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Navel Health Research Center have found that mindfulness training - a combination of meditation and body awareness exercises can help U.S. Marine Corps personnel prepare for and recover from stressful combat situations.

The bar graph shows that U.S. military personnel who received mindfulness training (red) had reduced activity in a region of the brain knowns as the insula, also known as the insular cortex, which acts as the brains connector strip.  Meditation appears to change how people's brains respond to and recover from highly stressful events.