People who practice meditation and mindfulness have long reported health benefits, from lower blood pressure to reduced anxiety. New research released this week shows that such practices can actually change your brain.
"To meditate mindfully demands 'an open and receptive, nonjudgmental awareness of your present-moment experience,'"says J. David Creswell, who led the study and is an associate professor of psychology and the director of the Health and Human Performance Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University in this week's announcement.
Brain scans confirmed that mindful meditation reduced unhealthy inflammation in the part of the brain responsible for stress-related reactions.
Heightening awareness and deepening insight—the very definition of mindfulness—is a key focus of our soon-to-be-released Hebrew in Harmony program.
Rooted in music, Hebrew in Harmony encourages students to create meaning from personal and communal prayer. The materials for each prayer include mindfulness exercises that ground students in the language, melody and feelings evoked by it.
To read the full article on the mindfulness research, click here.
For a preview of Hebrew and Harmony, click here.
