Improve Creativity with Mindfulness By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “Mindfulness meditation is a great technique to learn to help improve creativity. There have been studies done specifically to measure the cognitive rigidity of people who meditate and their ability to solve problems in novel ways. The research shows non-meditators had greater cognitive rigidity than […]
Reduce Mind Wandering and Negative Mood with Mindfulness By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “being in a mind-wandering state – instead of aware of present moment activities – is not such a happy state. We are generally happier when we are not mind-wandering.” – Susan Smalley We spend a tremendous amount of […]
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “people are substantially less happy when their minds are wandering than when they’re not, which is unfortunate considering we do it so often. Moreover, the size of this effect is large—how often a person’s mind wanders, and what they think about when it does, is far more predictive […]
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.” – Steve Jobs […]
Increase Relaxation with Focused Meditation while Increasing Activation with Open Monitoring Meditation By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “Mindfulness meditation consists of focused attention meditation (FAM) and open monitoring meditation (OMM), both of which reduce activation of the default mode network (DMN) and mind-wandering.” – Masahiro Fujino Meditation training has been shown […]
Unique Brain Activity Registers Internal Attentional States During Meditation By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “Your brain is actually shaped by your thoughts and your behaviors. . . meditation can help boost attention and keep the brain sharp. . . mindful breath awareness may improve attention and help curb impulsive behavior” – Grace Bullock There […]
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D. “meditation is the best approach we know of allowing the mind to relax and have the ability to make a surge of insight wisdom. One does not power through an “Aha! Moment” with strain and determination. Thinking and more thinking does not generate that moment of brilliance that […]