Your Brain on Bliss

(Shih Fu Catherine here, returning to the blog after a brief time exploring the depths of rest and relaxation that come with physical injury.  I look forward to the day in the near future, when I am strong enough to return to the studio and practice with my community.)

From Yes! magazine comes an article about the benefits of meditation, written by a self-described "novice." 

The article outlines a January 2011 study, published in the journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, that suggests that meditating for just 30 minutes a day for eight weeks can increase the density of gray matter in brain regions associated with memory, stress, and empathy.

The researchers tracked 16 people who were participating in the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, the training program developed more than 30 years ago by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

These folks were not Buddhist monks and had little prior experience with any mindfulness practice. They were average Joes and Janes like you and me who reported spending 30 minutes or less per day actually meditating.

Interesting, isn't it, that the Yang Style Long Form, when practiced appropriately takes about 20 minutes or more to perform.  If you include a brief standing meditation at the beginning and then close with another brief moment of conscious connection, that puts your practice right about at 30 minutes.

And don't discount the added, cumulative benefits that come from those moments throughout the day when you stop your busy life to take a deep, conscious breath. That's when you turn your mind intent, yi, inward, and focus on the act of breathing in and out as a way to align your awareness and feel rooted in the midst of the daily chaos.

I don't know how many hours I've spent practicing Tai Chi, Qi Gong or the other meditative practices I've learned throughout my life.  It's not necessary to catalog those statistics.  You don't have to beat yourself up because you haven't found a way to practice every single day.  Practice as often as you can. Practice wherever and whenever you can.  Get to know the little signals from your body and your mind that encourage you toward practice.  Don't resist. Make time to practice for your own health and for everyone around you.

These practices are a deep well of peace and tranquility that you can return to often. Practice has teaches you how to create a nice big empty vessel, one that you can dip down into that well. Drink deeply. Quench your thirst.

Let yourself be motivated and inspired by the accumulating evidence that this practice is good medicine.