Meditation changes your brain

Dr. Rowe sent this along.

Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's grey matter.
"Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day," says Sara Lazar, PhD, of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program, the study's senior author. "This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing."Previous studies from Lazar's group and others found structural differences between the brains of experienced mediation practitioners and individuals with no history of meditation, observing thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration. But those investigations could not document that those differences were actually produced by meditation.For the current study, MR images were take of the brain structure of 16 study participants two weeks before and after they took part in the 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness. In addition to weekly meetings that included practice of mindfulness meditation – which focuses on nonjudgmental awareness of sensations, feelings and state of mind – participants received audio recordings for guided meditation practice and were asked to keep track of how much time they practiced each day. A set of MR brain images were also taken of a control group of non-meditators over a similar time interval.Meditation group participants reported spending an average of 27 minutes each day practicing mindfulness exercises, and their responses to a mindfulness questionnaire indicated significant improvements compared with pre-participation responses. The analysis of MR images, which focused on areas where meditation-associated differences were seen in earlier studies, found increased grey-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion and introspection. Participant-reported reductions in stress also were correlated with decreased grey-matter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress. Although no change was seen in a self-awareness-associated structure called the insula, which had been identified in earlier studies, the authors suggest that longer-term meditation practice might be needed to produce changes in that area. None of these changes were seen in the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage of time."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." says Britta Hölzel, PhD, first author of the paper and a research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany. "Other studies in different patient populations have shown that meditation can make significant improvements in a variety of symptoms, and we are now investigating the underlying mechanisms in the brain that facilitate this change."Amishi Jha, PhD, a University of Miami neuroscientist who investigates mindfulness-training's effects on individuals in high-stress situations, says, "These results shed light on the mechanisms of action of mindfulness-based training. They demonstrate that the first-person experience of stress can not only be reduced with an 8-week mindfulness training program but that this experiential change corresponds with structural changes in the amydala, a finding that opens doors to many possibilities for further research on MBSR's potential to protect against stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder." Jha was not one of the study investigators.
Source: Massachusetts General Hospital

Facebook page

I have a Facebook page if you're interested.
www.facebook.com/lee.wedlake

Lineage t-shirts

I've had some shirts made up for members of the class with the logo above and our style and lineage on the back. They should be about $15. White shirt, black logos. Ask for them in class.

Tai chi website

This is my teacher's site.
http://stonemonkeytaichi.com/default.aspx

Harvard Medical report on hip and knee pain

http://www.health.harvard.edu/special_health_reports/knees-and-hips-a-troubleshooting-guide-to-knee-and-hip-pain?utm_source=promo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2011-01-20&j=25783419&e=juliasmithfl@aol.com&l=16518174_HTML&u=297000189&mid=148797&jb=0

Tricia Yu

Tricia Yu has a nice book available. http://www.taichihealth.com/health.html

Professor doing the Short Form

This is an old film of Professor and one of many available to watch.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl2mvyjHYS0

Wikipedia entry on Professor

This is a brief write-up on Cheng Man-Ching.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheng_Man-ch'ing

Aetna finds mind-body link to care costs

Aetna finds mind-body link to care costs
01/13/11

Hartford managed care provider Aetna Inc. thinks it's on to a vital clue in which an unstressed mind and body are key to people staying well enough to lower their medical bills.
In a 12-week study in which 239 Aetna employees volunteered as guinea pigs, meditation and therapeutic yoga combined to curb stress levels in the groups that performed one or the other, the insurer said.
Of those, 96 employees were assigned to mindful meditation classes, and 90 were assigned to therapeutic yoga classes. The remainder did neither exercise and were assigned as the control group.
Not only did participants in the control group record higher stress levels than the mind-body exercise participants, they also had medical costs that were $2,000 a year higher than those reporting the lowest level of stress, Aetna said.
Aetna stressed the study results are not totally conclusive and is meant to supplement conventional health treatment. However, it says the findings are enough that it will expand the study to include more volunteers to validate the results.
"Helping people take control of their health is a critical step in achieving better health and reducing the cost of health care," Aetna President and CEO Mark Bertolini said in a statement Thursday. "Stress takes a significant toll on physical and mental health. We want to understand, and also demonstrate, whether integrative medicine can offer our members options that both better suit their lifestyles and can be proven to improve their health."

Our lineage

My teacher, Tom Baeli of Lehigh Acres, studied with the Professor in New York City. We come downline from the Professor through Tom. Here's a site you can read some articles about him.
http://www.chengmanching.com/index.html

New tai chi report

Tai Chi May Prevent Falls Among Seniors
New Guidelines Suggest Reducing Certain Medications Also May Improve Balance in Seniors
By Denise Mann
WebMD Health News   Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD    Jan. 13, 2011 --
Updated guidelines from the American Geriatrics Society and the British Geriatrics Society recommend interventions such as the slow-motion Chinese martial art tai chialong with medication reviews to help prevent falls among the elderly.
The guidelines, which appear in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, were last updated in 2001.
Falls among the elderly are linked to an increased risk for hip and other fracturesand head injuries, all of which can lead to reduced independence, early admission to long-term care facilities, and even death.
“Given the frequency of falls and the injuries that occur as a result, falling is as big of a problem as heart attack and stroke, and we need to start taking it as seriously because falls are preventable,” says guideline author Mary Tinetti, MD, a geriatrician at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. “The most effective way to prevent falls is to reduce medication, make the environment as safe as possible, and improve balance and gait through exercises including tai chi or physical therapy.”
Tinetti and other panel members reviewed studies looking at fall prevention interventions published between May 2001 and April 2008 to develop the updated guidelines.
NEWS RELEASE-BRITISH
An advisory issued by the British Geriatrics Society and the American Geriatrics Society on Wednesday has recommended elderly people to practice tai-chi to reduce their chances of broken bones. Apparently, the ancient Chinese martial art helps people in maintaining balance, which further assists in decreasing the probability of people falling down.
The suggestion is a result of many years of research that was carried out to check the does and don't, which led to people suffering from a fractured hip. It needs to be noted that hip fractures are a leading cause for extended hospitalization among older people.
It was also observed in the publicized theory that tai-chi helped in improving the balance, gait and strength of a person.
Talking about the study, Dr. Mary Tinetti from the School of Medicine, Yale University in the United States, reported that the biggest cause of health problems among seniors was their loss of functional independence. She added that, provided the frequency and the results of falls, their health risks were equivalent to that of heart attack and strokes.

Audio podcasts

Dr. Rowe and I have done several podcasts on breathing. You can find them at either of the links below.The second is on iTunes and they are both Free!

http://feed.podcastmachine.com/podcasts/3314/mp3.rss. Look for the three-part “breathing overview” or “breathing basics”, “how do you do it” or “impact injuries” podcasts.

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=381705015

New for our students

This blog is a tool we'll use for keeping our students updated. Watch for news articles, study results and observations on what tai chi has done for our students.
  To kick it off, take a look at these news clips from my class at Lee Memorial health Systems health Park Medical Center. http://www.leememorial.org/healthmatters/index.asp Look in the archive for January 6, 2011 entitled Medicating with Tai Chi and December 14, 2010 entitled Share Club Tai Chi.