Attention: exploring its science

I have been fascinated as I have prepared this blog to discover a number of scientific studies on 2,500 year old faith practices.
So, I invite you to take the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale and see what results you come up with. Honest self-appraisal is the goal here.

If you are fascinated by psychological research and statistics, you can compare your scores to the scale's average:
"A t test of the difference between MAAS scale scores of the Zen practitioner group (M 4.29, SD 0.66) and the comparison group (M 3.97, SD 0.64) was significant... These results indicate that the MAAS is sensitive to individual differences in mindfulness and suggest that the higher scores among those consciously practicing this skill are due to such training."
"Mindfulness captures a quality of consciousness that is characterized by clarity and vividness of current experience and functioning and thus stands in contrast to the mindless, less “awake” states of habitual or automatic functioning that may be chronic for many individuals."
After using a series of mind-body relaxation exercises with cancer patients: "The results of this clinical intervention study showed that higher levels of mindfulness were related to lower levels of both mood disturbance and stress before and after the MBSR [mindfulness-based stress reduction] intervention. Increases in mindfulness over the course of the intervention predicted decreases in these two indicators of psychological disturbance. These relations between the MAAS and the outcomes were found after controlling for the influences of fatigue and pain. Such results suggest that the scale can be applied to the study of well-being issues in cancer populations."
Brown, K.W. and Ryan, R.M. (2003). The benefits of being present: The role of mindfulness in psychological well-being.

Forgiveness: healing and reconciliation

I've written about my own journey through forgiveness into healing and would invite you to think about the healing powers of forgiveness in your life. This is one of the most powerful restorative practices. You can focus the breathing and progressive relaxation exercises we learned on the parts of the body where you hold a grudge or can't let go of fears. Where do you physically hold the anger, hurt or bitterness? Listen to your body and let your mind and body work together toward emotional, spiritual and mental healing.

Here are some good resources about forgiveness on the Internet: psychological research on forgiveness, approaches to forgiveness, assessing your capacity or willingness to forgive right now for a certain situation, powerful real-life stories about forgiveness, even detailed steps on how to work your way through forgiveness.

Gratitude: the link to well-being

There is some fascinating research on the effects of practicing gratitude and your emotional, spiritual and mental well-being. It started with a short quiz on how and when you are grateful. You can take it here.
Over the course of a number of studies, psychologists found a link between those who practiced gratitude and happiness and well-being. "People who describe themselves as feeling grateful to others and either to God or to creation in general tend to have higher vitality and more optimism, suffer less stress, and experience fewer episodes of clinical depression than the population as a whole. These results hold even when researchers factor out such things as age, health, and income, equalizing for the fact that the young, the well-to-do, or the hale and hearty might have 'more to be grateful for.'" Read further summaries.