The presidents budget request for fiscal 2021 proposed $738 million to fund the National Institutes of Science and Technology, a dramatic reduction from the more than $1 billion in enacted funds allocated for the agency this fiscal year.

The House Science, Space and Technology Committees Research and Technology Subcommittee on Wednesday held a hearing to hone in on NISTs reauthorizationbut instead of focusing on relevant budget considerations, lawmakers had other plans.

We're disappointed by the president's destructive budget request, which proposes over a 30% cut to NIST programs, Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., said at the top of the hearing. But today, I don't want to dwell on a proposal that we know Congress is going to reject ... today I would like this committee to focus on improving NIST and getting the agency the tools it needs to do better, to do its job.

Per Stevens suggestion, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director Walter Copan reflected on some of the agencys dire needs and offered updates and his view on a range of its ongoing programs and efforts.

NISTs Facilities Are in Bad Shape

President Trumps budget proposal for fiscal 2021 requests only $60 million in funds for facility construction, which is down from the $118 million enacted for fiscal 2020 and comes at a time when the agencys workspaces need upgrades.

Indeed the condition of NIST facilities are challenging, Copan explained. Over 55% of NIST's facilities are considered in poor to critical condition per [Commerce Department] standards, and so it does provide some significant challenges for us.

Some of the agencys decades-old facilities and infrastructures are deteriorating and Copan added that hed recently heard NISTs deferred maintenance backlog has hit more than $775 million. If the lawmakers or public venture out to visit some of the agencys facilities, you'll see the good, the bad, and the embarrassingly bad, he said. Those conditions are a testament to the resilience and the commitment of NISTs people, that they can work in sometimes challenging, outdated environments, Copan said.

The director noted that there have already been some creative solutions proposed to address the issue, including the development of a federal capital revolving fund. The agency is also looking creatively at the combination of maintenance with lease options for some of its facilities, in hopes that it can then move more rapidly by having its officials cycle out of laboratories to launch rebuilding and renovation processes.

It's one of my top priorities as the NIST director to have our NIST people work in 21st-century facilities that we can be proud of and that enable the important work of NIST for the nation, Copan said.

Advancing Efforts in Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing

The presidents budget request placed a sharp focus on industries of the future, which will be powered by many emerging technologies, and particularly quantum computing and AI.

During the hearing and in his written testimony, Copan highlighted some of NISTs work in both areas. The agency has helped shape an entire generation of quantum science, over the last century, and a significant portion of quantum scientists from around the globe have trained at the agencys facilities. Some of NISTs more recent quantum achievements include supporting the development of a quantum logic clock and helping steer advancements in quantum simulation. Following a recent mandate from the Trump administration, the agency is also in the midst of instituting the Quantum Economic Development Consortium, or QEDC, which aims to advance industry collaboration to expand the nations leadership in quantum research and development.

Looking forward, over the coming years NIST will focus a portion of its quantum research portfolio on the grand challenge of quantum networking, Copans written testimony said. Serving as the basis for secure and highly efficient quantum information transmission that links together multiple quantum devices and sensors, quantum networks will be a key element in the long-term evolution of quantum technologies.

Though there were cuts across many areas, the presidents budget request also proposed a doubling of NISTs funding in artificial intelligence and Copan said the technology is already broadly applied across all of the agencys laboratories to help improve productivity.

Going forward and with increased funding, he laid out some of the agencys top priorities, noting that there's much work to be done in developing tools to provide insights into artificial intelligence programs, and there is also important work to be done in standardization, so that the United States can lead the world in the application of [AI] in a trustworthy and ethical manner.

Standardization to Help the U.S. Lead in 5G

Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., asked Copan to weigh in on the moves China is making across the fifth-generation wireless technology landscape, and the moves the U.S. needs to make to leadnot just competein that specific area.

We have entered in the United States, as we know, a hyper-competitive environment with China as a lead in activities related to standardization, Copan responded.

The director said that officials see, in some ways, that the standardization process has been weaponized, where the free market economy that is represented by the United States, now needs to lead in more effective coordination internally and incentivize industry to participate in the standards process. Though U.S. officials have already seen those rules of fair play bent or indeed broken by other players, NIST and others need to help improve information sharing across American standards-focused stakeholders, which could, in turn, accelerate adoption around the emerging technology.

We want the best technologies in the world to win and we want the United States to continue to be the leader in not only delivering those technologies, but securing the intellectual properties behind them and translating those into market value, he said.

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NIST Works on the Industries of the Future in Buildings from the Past - Nextgov

Quantum computing is expected to be the new technology, fully integrated with the financial sector within five to ten years. This form of computer, also known as supercomputers, are capable of highly advanced processing power that takes in massive amounts of data to solve a problem in a fraction of the time it would for the best traditional computer on the market to resolve.

Traditional Computer vs. Quantum Computing

A typical computer today stores information in the form of bits. These are represented in the binary language (0s and 1s). In quantum computing, the bits are known as Qubits and will take on the processing of similar input but rather than break it down to 0s and 1s will break the data down significantly greater where the possibilities of computational speed can be almost immeasurable.

Quantum Computing in Banking

Lets examine personal encryption in banking for example. Using a security format called RSA-2048, traditional computers would be able to decrypt the security algorithm in about 1,034 steps. With our best computers on the market, even with a processor capable of performing a trillion calculations per second, these steps translate to 317 billion years to break the secure code. While it is possible, it is not practical for a cyber-criminal to make it worthwhile.

A quantum computer, on the other hand, would be able to resolve this problem in about 107 steps. With a basic quantum computer running at one million calculations per second, this translates to ten seconds to resolve the problem.

While this example centered on breaking complex security, many other use cases can emerge from the use of quantum computing.

Trade Transaction Settlements

Barclays bank researchers have been working on a proof of concept regarding the transaction settlement process. As settlements can only be worked on a transaction-by-transaction basis, they can easily queue up only to be released in batches. When a processing window opens, as many trades as possible are settled.

Complex by their very nature, Traders can end up tapping into funds prior to the transaction being cleared. They will only be settled if the funds are available or if a collateral credit facility was arranged.

As you could probably handle a small number of trades in your head, you would need to rely on a computer after about 10-20 transactions. The same can be described for our current computational power in that it is now nearing the point where it will need more and more time to resolve hundreds of trades at a time.

With quantum computing using a seven-qubit system, it would be able to run a greater amount of complex trades in the same time it would for a traditional system to complete the trades. It would take the equivalent of about two hundred traditional computers to match the speed.

Simulating a Future Product Valuation

Researchers at JP Morgan were working on a concept that simulates the future value of a financial product. The team is testing quantum computers to perform complex intensive pricing calculations that normally take traditional computer hours to complete. This is a problem as each year greater complexity is added via newer algorithms, getting to the point where it is nearing an impossibility to calculate in a practical sense.

The research team has discovered that using quantum computing resulted in finding a resolution to the problem in mere seconds.

Final Thoughts

Banks are working on successful tests today with quantum computing to resolve extreme resource-intensive calculations for financial problem scenarios. Everything from trading, fraud, AML, etc. this is a technology not to be overlooked.

According toDeltec Bank, Bahamas - Quantum Computing will have positive impacts on portfolio optimization, risk analysis, asset pricing, and trading strategies is just the tip of the iceberg of what this technology could provide.

Disclaimer: The author of this text, Robin Trehan, has an Undergraduate degree in economics, Masters in international business and finance and MBA in electronic business. Trehan is Senior VP at Deltec International http://www.deltecbank.com. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this text are solely the views of the author, and not necessarily reflecting the views of Deltec International Group, its subsidiaries and/or employees.

About Deltec Bank

Headquartered in The Bahamas, Deltec is an independent financial services group that delivers bespoke solutions to meet clients unique needs. The Deltec group of companies includes Deltec Bank & Trust Limited, Deltec Fund Services Limited, and Deltec Investment Advisers Limited, Deltec Securities Ltd. and Long Cay Captive Management.

Media Contact Company Name: Deltec International Group Contact Person: Media Manager Email: Send Email Phone: 242 302 4100 Country: Bahamas Website: https://www.deltecbank.com/

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Deltec Bank, Bahamas Quantum Computing Will have Positive Impacts on Portfolio Optimization, Risk Analysis, Asset Pricing, and Trading Strategies -...

Meditation and mindfulness apps are booming. The top 10 apps pulled in $195 million in 2019, up 52% from the year before. Now, top meditation app Headspaces former head of research, Nick Begley, is launching a new app that goes beyond mindfulness to specifically address the needs of those suffering from anxiety. The app, called Calmer You, offers a combination of activities, including not only guided meditation, but also journaling, cognitive behavioral therapy coursework and other health and wellness material.

The latter includes things like fitness videos, sleep stories and interviews with celebrities and inspirational people on their experiences with anxiety, among other things.

Begley worked for Headspace for two years, where he learned about the power of meditation apps to aid with self-development, he says.

I realized that it doesnt have to be limited to just mindfulness, explains Begley, as to how he got started with Calmer You. Theres so much good advice out there, but just passively digesting it watching videos or reading books which is what most of us do when we want to improve, simply doesnt deliver the changes that they promise, Begley says.

The problem isnt that the advice isnt good it typically is. But people struggle with putting the advice into action, Begley says. Thats where Calmer You aims to help.

The app includes a few different components, including a 28-session course that helps guide you step-by-step to better understanding anxiety and helping to learn techniques to manage it. This includes cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness, compassion-focused therapy, analytic techniques and more. In addition, theres a toolkit with more than 50 quicker practices that are recommended based on how youre feeling in a given moment or whatever situation you may be in. A journal for tracking how you feel day-by-day is available, as well.

Customers subscribe to the app for $7.99 per month or $47.99 per year.

We didnt specifically aim to fill the gaps of Headspace, but this is what users have mentioned, Begley says. A lot of people find it hard to regularly meditate, and so we wanted to provide tools and practices in addition to mindfulness to help people with anxiety. We wanted to provide a premium quality app experience that provides a more comprehensive approach to specifically helping manage anxiety and the many ways in which it manifests, he adds.

Calmer You was developed in collaboration with anxiety expert and author Chloe Brotheridge, whose book The Anxiety Solution: A Quieter Mind, a Calmer You contributes to the apps name. The team was familiar with Brotheridges book and reached out to her to see if she would be open to building an app based on her actionable advice.

This is a part of Calmer Yous parent company PSYTs agenda turning self-help books into apps.

The Calmer You team, via PSYT, also includes psychologists. But the app itself isnt yet validated through things like randomized control trials, for example. Thats something theyd like to do further down the road, however.

Calmer You is also more geared toward women, as much of Brotheridges own work was particularly focused on anxietys impact on young women.

For as long as I can remember, Ive struggled with anxiety and I had to work out what worked best for me, said Brotheridge. This is why as a therapist, I teach people many different techniques so they can find what works best for them, not just mindfulness. While it took a lot of work to include multiple approaches in the app, I think its essential to help empower people to find the practices that work best for them and their situation, she says.

Since the apps launch into beta testing in November 2019, the company has been adding tools to respond to what users said they needed help with, including two new rebalancing tools (one for calming social anxiety, another to help communicate confidently), a worry journal for evening use and several more guided meditations and sleep stories.

The app shouldnt be used instead of visiting a doctor for severe cases of anxiety, but could be slotted into a users routine if theyre already using a meditation app, like Headspace, to aid with feelings of anxiety on a regular basis.

Calmer You is a free download on iOS with a subscription business model.

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Calmer You fills in the gaps in meditation apps for anxiety sufferers - TechCrunch

In this excessively digital age, its become harder than ever to get a good nights sleep. Most of us spend our days staring at a computer screen, only to go home and scroll through our phones and catch up on our favorite shows (both of which involve staring at, you guessed it more screens). All that blue light seriously messes with our circadian rhythm, making it difficult for us to achieve the quality, deep sleep we so desperately need to function.

Relax Melodies wants to help change that. This sleep and meditation sound generator uses a variety of different tools and techniques to help you drift peacefully off to dreamland in no time, and a one-year subscription is available now for just $29.99.

Relax Melodies lets you construct your ideal happy-place soundscape. You can start by choosing a sound that relaxes you, add a piece of nature, like a babbling brook or croaking frogs (hey, whatever gets you there). With over 100 ambient sounds and white noise options to choose from, you can create as many custom soundscapes as your heart desires.

Of course, if thats not strong enough for you, you can always pop on one of their many guided meditations created specifically to help you relax and drift off peacefully, or one of their comforting bedtime stories narrated by some of the most soothing voices and written specifically to send you off to dreamland.

In fact, what Relax Melodies does is backed by actual science their massive library of carefully crafted ASMR sounds and binaural beats are scientifically proven to lower your anxiety and induce deep sleep. Which is probably why the app comes highly recommended by doctors and neuropsychologists.

Its also pretty highly recommended by people just like you. With over 100,000 reviews on the Mac App Store, a 4.8-star rating, and 50 million happy sleepers, this app has been helping plenty of people find sweet relief at the end of the day.

Normally $60, a one-year subscription to this incredible relaxation app is on sale now for just $29.99. Or, you can get it for life for only $124.99. Do yourself a favor and upgrade the overall quality of your life by getting better sleep tonight.

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Say goodbye to bad sleep with this doctor-recommended meditation app - New York Post

Home Blog How Meditation Changes the Brain Last updated: 9 Mar 2020

~ 4 min read

A group of neuroscientists wanted to figure out whether years of meditation had changed the brain of an expert monk. Led by Dr. Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, they connected 256 electrodes to a Tibetan monk named Matthew Ricard, who had given up a career in science and spent decades meditating in the Himalayas. Dr. Davidson and his colleagues were astonished by Ricards brain signature, having never seen anything like it before. The activity in his left prefrontal cortex (responsible for subduing negative emotions) and abnormal gamma wave levels (suggesting signs of bliss) led them to dub him the happiest man in the world.

But this wasnt an isolated finding. As it turns out experienced meditators across the board show fascinating improvements to their brains. And even novices who learn meditation, practicing over the course of a few weeks, begin to see changes take place.

Research has shown that there are several ways that meditation can change the brains structure and function:

Its important to note that it can take many years to produce these more permanent changes in brain structure. Yet some of the studies mentioned above showed changes starting to occur after just a few weeks of meditation practice.

Its incredible how quickly the brain adapts when you use it in novel ways. By repeatedly applying their attention in a particular way, meditators can build an improved brain bit by bit.

This is not unlike the athlete who can shape their body with the repeated exercise of certain muscles in the gym. Our brains are very similar, adapting to how they are used. The consensus among neuroscientists just a couple decades ago was that the brain had stopped evolving by adulthood, but these discoveries suggest that we continue to shape our brains up until our last breath.

Recent findings demonstrating the brains incredible neuroplastic (the ability for the brain to reorder itself by forming new neural connections) capacity give rise to a new concept mental fitness. It means each of us can train the mind like a muscle through meditative exercises.

Indeed, meditation is an umbrella term, like exercise, and there are over 800 different techniques by one account, each training the mind in a unique way. Mindfulness meditation is most commonly practiced in the western world, but there are also zazen, mahamudra, vedic, loving-kindness, visualization practices, dzogchen, tonglen, mantra practices, and hundreds of others. Just as running, swimming, and tennis strengthen the body in different ways, so too do these methods of meditation.

But what is the mechanism is behind meditations ability to change the brain?

When neurons fire together, they wire together mental activity actually creates new neural structures What flows through your mind sculpts your brain. Thus, you can use your mind to change your brain for the better. Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

Meditation is just self-directed neuroplasticity. In other words, you are directing the change of your brain by inwardly and consciously directing attention in a particular way. Youre using the mind to change the brain, like a child crafting a Playdough structure. Research has shown that the way you direct your attention and thoughts can significantly impact and change the brains development.

The concept of self-directed neuroplasticity means that youre literally in control of your own evolution, responsible for the shape and function that your brain takes on. For example, if you focus hard in a concentration meditation, you will exercise the attentional networks of the brain and strengthen those neural networks. This helps explain the amazing findings mentioned above that show meditations ability to change your brains structure and function.

While meditation produces some immediate changes in neurotransmitters (altered states), with practice it also produces long-lasting structural (new connections) and even functional (entirely rearranged neural networks) changes. This re-wiring of states into more permanent traits takes consistent effort.

Self-directed neuroplasticity also helps us understand why mental training is a full-time occupation. How you use your mind regularly influences the number and strength of your synaptic connections as the brain is always evolving per your interactions with the outside world.

So if you dont have the brain you want now, maybe it isnt focused or full or mental energy, then the good news is that you can in fact change your brain with meditation. Although a thick hippocampus might not attract a mate, its a worthwhile improvement that can impact something thats with you at all times determining your entire reality in each moment: your mind.

References:

Liam McClintock is the Founder & CEO of FitMind, a mental health and meditation technology company. He has trained as a meditation instructor in multiple styles, including Vipassana and Vedic meditation. Liam received a B.A. from Yale University and is completing an M.S. in Applied Neuroscience at King's College London. His work has been featured in Time, Vice, Daily Mail, and Men's Health.

APA Reference McClintock, L. (2020). How Meditation Changes the Brain. Psych Central. Retrieved on March 14, 2020, from https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-meditation-changes-the-brain/

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How Meditation Changes the Brain - PsychCentral.com

Minho, a region in the north of Portugal, is a place of rough beauty, where myriad shades of green run up the hills, dotted with watercourses and millennia-old boulders covered in moss and lichen. Its feral and unpolished, a testament to the unwavering strength of everything that grew there before humankind came along. But humankind did come along, some five hundred thousand years ago, and has sought to dominate this fertile and wild place ever since. It is in Minho, not far from the place where Portugal was founded in 1143, that Australian-born, Bali-based architect Nicholas Burns has recently erected a chapel and a meditation room, the first in a number of commissions he is developing for the same client. One of the initial intents was that it wasnt a religious building, as such, Burns tells me. It started as a spiritual refuge; yet now it has a religious component to it.

The project stands on a hill inside a thirty-hectare private estate, overlooking a denser urbanization down in the valley and the many green hills around it. When I visited with the architect on a recent Saturday morning, the air was crisp; a morning of humid and mysterious, fast-moving fog that enveloped rocks, trees and humans had given way to a soft sunlight piercing through the treetops. The resulting undulating light patterns swayed gently in the soft grass, and walking the rough-cut granite path up to the chapel awakened all your senses. For Burns, this was an important aspect of this place. He describes sense of time, sense of seasons and sense of place as the elemental things that are important for people to feel naturally deeper within themselves, rather than an aesthetic that is more the rational response to experience.

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The chapels vertical scale takes an unexpected leap, shooting upward to the sky with its sinuous concrete roof.

Image: Peter Bennetts

The slithering promenade that Burns extends on the way to the building brings to mind similar exercises in different geographies, such as the pathway leading to Ryue Nishizawas incredible Teshima Art Museum in Japan. With the building tucked away between trees and gigantic granite boulders, the first thing that comes into view is a large concrete wall, peppered with circular markings that recall Tadao Ando or is it Luis Barragn, and his wide free-standing slabs where the trees cast their shadows? But get closer, and the chapel shoots up into the sky, with a sinuous concrete roof rising up to a scale that feels completely out of place. The reason for this unexpected leap is made apparent once you cross the entrance threshold: an incredible baroque gilded wood altar caps the far end of the chapels main volume, its dimensions more fitting to a monumental basilica than a private chapel. It is an unbelievably ornate masterpiece of early eighteenth-century Portuguese religious art, property of the client and recently restored. The shape of the roof was a direct result of the altar, Burns tells me to describe the sweeping motions of the concrete above us. Its not something that I couldve thought of in isolation.

The chapels entrance, defined by a protruding corten steel chamber that resounds with the sound of your footsteps, opens up to a luminous vertical volume concealing the baptismal font in a nook. A flight of steps grants access to a second, darker horizontal volume capped by the altarpiece. The element dominates the space with its size and scale, dramatically illuminated by side openings as if to float. In this area, Burns reprised the vertical rhythm of the altarpieces turned wood columns to create an enfilade of stone candleholders that leads the eye to the baptismal font at the opposite end of the building, and designed a simple altar as well as the seating. The naked concrete surfaces that are so dominant in the exterior and so unusual in these parts of the country give way to limestone throughout the interior, including the floor and the walls, softening the space considerably. The silence inside is stunning, leaving out all the vibrant nature outside; but this contemplative setting is subtly disrupted by some of the elements in the space. The rough-cut stone of the altar, the rope in the chair seats, the way the candleholders hesitate between a round and a rectangular shape these over-designed elements draw attention away from the spaces obvious central element. To the left of the altarpiece, a dark wooden door leads to a small paved courtyard and the other building in this ensemble: a meditation room.

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A baroque gilded wood altarpiece caps the far end of the chapels main volume. An ornate masterpiece of early eighteenth-century Portuguese religious art, the recently restored altar informed the undulation of the chapels roof.

Image: Peter Bennetts

This second building is fundamentally different. Here, Burns evokes a more local and traditional use of stacked shale, which defines the courtyard walls and the meditation room volume in a much darker palette. We deliberately made it a little bit rough, Burns says, more like a landscape wall rather than a building. Inside, the space is clad in dark wood ceiling, walls and floor and once the door is closed, you are left alone with your thoughts. Light pours in through a vertical corner window, revealing a massive boulder outside that appears to float atop a tranquil pool. Here, the sounds of water and birds overlap to create a pleasing atmosphere, simpler and warmer than that of the chapel. The only reappearing element is the candleholders, in a line, which mirror those in the religious space. The candles, Burns tells me, were made out of beeswax by his son in Bali.

What to make of this ensemble, with its striking array of contrasts, its mix of architectural styles, its attempted grand gestures? Clearly, Burns is extremely ambitious: we see glimpses of Ando, Nishizawa, Barragn, but also nods to Le Corbusier in the swooping concrete roof of the chapel and the glass elements in the door, which bring to mind Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France. In contrast, the lower volume of the meditation room evokes more vernacular typologies: its horizontal orientation blends well with the surroundings in the same way that Peter Zumthor builds in Graubnden, Switzerland, or the early works by lvaro Siza hide under the landscape. But where is Burns in the middle of all this effort? Perhaps because of the apparent lack of constraints, or possibly because of the private nature of the commission, the architects hand is lost and no clear intention emerges. And while Burns tells me, The form of the building is not placed on the site, its derived from the site, a study of the property is no replacement for a deeper study of place which could have greatly benefited the end result.

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Judiciously placed vertical windows connect the silent, contemplative internal spaces with the vibrant nature outside.

Image: Peter Bennetts

Minho, in the north of Portugal, is a region where other architects have intervened: Pritzker Architecture Prize-winners Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura, and even Sizas master, Fernando Tvora, have all worked with and within these geographies numerous times. Using a contextual approach, they succeeded in creating buildings that take advantage of the natural conditions, not seeking to overpower them, but yielding to them in order to thrive. This knowledge of the constraints is partly what has allowed them to create memorable works in the region; it is also a knowledge that I observe is absent in Burns Chapel and Meditation Room. While the architect seeks to innovate in the use and combination of materials concrete, corten steel, shale, limestone, granite, wood I question their appropriateness for this context, as their durability will be harshly tested. The ensemble atop the hill is the product of an ambitious set of intentions, their dissonant resolution in contrast to the harmonious nature around it.

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Sacred ambition: Chapel and Meditation Room - Architecture AU

New research published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology has identified several factors that could help explain the relationship between mindfulness meditation practice and mental well-being. The study suggests that meditation is associated with improved mental health because of its relationship with selfcompassion, meaning in life, and experiential avoidance.

My interest in this topic began in 2010, when I started reading an article about mental wandering: the fact that almost the entire half of our time is spent wandering, thinking about things in the past or the future caught my attention, said study author Jos Ramn Yela, a professor of psychology at the Pontifical University of Salamanca.

Understanding how this wandering is related to emotional distress and suffering led me to establish a relationship with mindfulness programs. I had the opportunity to participate in a TED talk, and since then I got more interested in mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy program (MBCT).

Later I specialized as a trained teacher in the Mindfulness Self-Compassion (MSC) program. The desire to clarify the psychological variables responsible for the beneficial effects on health and psychological well-being produced by these programs and my interest in evidence-based psychological interventions currently guide my lines of research.

In the study, 414 meditators and 414 non-meditators from Latin America and Spain completed assessments of depressive symptoms, anxiety, self-compassion, meaning in life, and experiential avoidance.

The researchers found that people practicing meditation tended to report better mental health than non-meditators. But the overall difference between occasional meditators and non-meditators was small. The difference was slightly larger when comparing regular meditators (who practiced at least once per week) to non-meditators.

If you practice mindfulness and want to obtain a benefit in your mental health and psychological well-being, it is necessary to practice regularly. If you practice only when things are going bad, you may not benefit from it, Yela told PsyPost.

The researchers also found evidence that meditators tended to have higher levels of selfcompassion and meaning in life, and lower levels of experiential avoidance. In other words, meditators were more likely to agree with statements such as Im kind to myself when Im experiencing suffering, I have a good sense of what makes my life meaningful, and My thoughts and feelings do not get in the way of how I want to live my life.

The findings indicate that selfcompassionate attitudes, a sense of meaning, and acceptance of inner experiences play a key role in the relationship between meditation and mental health.

Mindfulness training produces positive effects because it facilitates the development of a compassionate attitude towards ourselves, which helps to clarify what is important in life (personal values/meaning of life), which in turn encourages us to accept events as they are, decreasing our tendency to avoid negative feelings/emotions/thoughts, Yela explained.

I think it is important to treat oneself with compassion under difficult situations. This has nothing to do with being conformist, weak, pusillanimous or self-indulgent. Self-compassion makes people more motivated, more assertive, less anxious and depressed, and more psychologically comfortable, Yela added.

Cultivating self-compassion requires a) taking a benevolent and warm attitude towards ourselves (as opposed to being extremely self-critical); b) understanding that suffering is part of life and not isolating oneself or being ashamed of it; and c) developing an attitude of openness or mindfulness to the emotions/sensations/thoughts that cause us discomfort, rather than entering into constant struggle/avoidance. To do this, it is useful to clarify our values to find more meaning in life and to take action by engaging in concrete activities that produce psychological well-being.

The study controlled for gender, age, education level, and labor status. But like all research, it includes some limitations. In particular, the study relied on correlational data. Future research using experimental and longitudinal methods is needed to pin down any causal relationships.

We must continue to develop explanatory models that continue to help clarify the role of other mediating variables, Yela said.

The study, Selfcompassion, meaning in life, and experiential avoidance explain the relationship between meditation and positive mental health outcomes, was authored by Jos Ramn Yela, Antonio Crego, Mara ngeles GmezMartnez, and Laura Jimnez.

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Selfcompassion and acceptance of experiences may explain the link between meditation and mental health - PsyPost

Our lives are a constant balancing act between home, family, work, and any other obligations that might come up during the week. Add to that any anxiety you might have over the news headlines of the day or trauma you sustain from microaggressions cutting you down throughout the day, and its all too easy to bring your stress to the workplace with you, making it harder to focus on tasks you want to complete, to stay motivated about your career, and to handle responsibilities efficiently.

If you often find yourself thinking all you need is a little peace and quiet, the relief youre looking for is closer than you think. The simplest antidote to stress is meditation in the workplace.

Meditating positively affects your body, health, and emotions in lots of other ways, too. Essentially, if you meditate for even just a few minutes each day, youll start reaping the benefits. Youll feel better, get more done at work, and have a sunnier outlook on your life and relationships, which is sometimes the only thing you really have control over.

Mindful Meditation: Deep Breathing Exercise

One of the great things about meditation is how simple it is: It can be done almost anywhere, any time. With mindfulness meditation, your goal is to keep all of your attention on the current moment, rather than on the tasks, deadlines, and anxious thoughts that take up your energy and attention most of the time. One easy way to do this is by focusing on your breath.

To try it, sit tall in your office chair. Take a deep breath for a count of four. Rather than letting your breath get stuck in your upper chest, try to breathe into your belly for the most benefit. Hold the breath in for a count of four. Now exhale, slowly and evenly, for a count of six. As you repeat this exercise, you should slowly begin to feel calmer and more grounded in the current moment.

This is a great technique for reducing stress use it before presentations to help with nerves, or in the middle of the workday if you need a moment to relax.

Turn Your Lunch Break Into App Time

And were not talking about logging into social media (which may or may not exacerbate what is ailing your spirit at work the jury is still out on its effects).

Meditation apps, programs that allow you to listen to guided meditations through your phone, are an easily accessible resource when youre able to take a small chunk of time for yourself. Assuming you work at a place where youre entitled to a midday break, all you have to do is throw your headphones on, close your eyes, and youre on your way to some serious inner progress.

Some employers in the corporate world actually offer free subscriptions to their employees for meditation apps like Calm, which is one of the bigger programs out there that offers guided meditations as well as breathing exercises and background music geared toward everything from getting focused to banishing stress.

But regardless of whether you work somewhere with a mindful perk like this, there are other apps out there that you can access free of charge. An app like Liberate Meditation even takes your identity into consideration, offering culturally relevant resources designed by and for people who have lived the experiences and identify as BIPOC.

Clearing your mind of stress, learning how to dial into the task at hand, or simply having the clarity to know when to say no to responsibilities that you dont have time or energy for can help you monotask and be productive and efficient at work.

Walk It Off

Cant sit still? Try this walking mindfulness meditation instead. While simply taking a run-of-the-mill stroll through nature each day can help lift your mood and benefit your health in the long run, a walking meditation is less about the scenery and more about the deliberate focus you are giving the act of walking, something you can do year round as long as you have enough space to walk about 10-15 paces without being disturbed could be a quiet hallway, the corner of a courtyard, or even the nether reaches of a parking lot (where you know youre not in a channel of traffic). Try this 10-minute practice from UC-Berkeleys Greater Good in Action, which has you tune into the mechanical and familiar process of walking as a way of tuning out the noise that is holding you back from being your best self at the office.Ultimately though, the benefits of meditation at work will spill over to the rest of your day, leaving you more open, positive, and energized beyond the workplace, allowing you to be more present for yourself, your loved ones, and your community in your downtime.

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Meditation At Work: The Secret to a More Productive You - BELatina

In the opening moments of the film Moffie, Nicholas van der Swart is walking away from a family gathering. As he disappears into the darkness, he is wishing that a part of himself will disappear.

Its 1981. The 16-year-old is about to leave for his two years of conscription into the South African army. During apartheid it was compulsory for white men to serve in the military because South Africa was waging wars against liberation forces on its borders and beyond. Nicholas must enlist to fight the communist threat at the Angolan border.

Nicholas is gay. To the Christian nationalist rulers, he is just as much of a threat as the black resistance fighters who are nameless, faceless enemies to be exterminated in the film. Everything that is not in service of the apartheid state must be extinguished or repressed.

This repression is hammered home for the viewer through the constant verbal assaults that the young men suffer and mete out during their military training. In the South Africa portrayed in Moffie, every white character, be it a parent, general, pastor, even a friend, is policing borders and boundaries; there are clear lines that cannot be crossed.

The most powerful way that this mental conditioning takes place in the film is through the use of the word moffie (often translated as faggot) which those in charge use relentlessly to insult and control the troops. The scenes of training are often harrowing, and the word comes to be an act of violence on the viewer as well.

Its effect is to strip away any resistance, and to associate femininity, diverse sexuality and any emotional range as weakness. To be gay, then, is the ultimate offence against this regime of machismo.

The violence of the word is reinforced with physical violence menial tasks that lead to exhaustion and deprivation along with other epithets (racist, gender shaming) that destroy any sense of self-worth or individuality. The young recruits are becoming the men that apartheid South Africa needs in order to cling to life: men who are violent, hateful and emotionless.

Only in moments of darkness and isolation do the characters feel able to be intimate. In the first scene where Nicholas (Kai Luke Brmmer) is alone with his love interest, Dylan Stassen (Ryan de Villiers), the young men are ordered to spend the night waiting in deep trenches.

Their commanding officer, Sergeant Brand (Hilton Pelser), seems to take pleasure in setting a boundary that they cannot cross, to stay in the trenches no matter what, until the sun rises. What Nicholas and Dylan find, trapped in the confines of these limitations on their freedom and movement, is a moment of intimacy, a spark of desire.

The fear that Nicholas feels in realising his attraction for Dylan is palpable. He can never be caught, because not only will he be subject to violence, but he will be sent to a mental facility to cure him of his desire.

These forbidden moments are riddled with anxiety, which seems to rob the boys of the love story which this film might have become.

Hermanus is masterful in linking oppressive masculinity to racism in Moffie. Ive written before about his 2011 film, Skoonheid (Beauty), and how toxic masculinity and racism place limits on intimacy.

Moffie is in many ways a superior film, with striking cinematography emphasising the bleakness of the surroundings and a punching, unnerving score that points to the conflict and anxiety of the characters.

The film is bookended by two moments of violence against black characters. The first is when the young conscripts throw a bag of vomit into the face of a black man, demanding he not sit on a bench at a train station. The second is when Nicholas kills a black soldier in combat. Nicholas looking down at the corpse, in the dark of the night that he had once found refuge in, shows how he can never escape the racist and patriarchal duties that define apartheid.

There is a similar consciously political placement of black bodies in Skoonheid. Hermanus a black man features black characters in two highly charged moments in a film about the secret gay sex lives of white Afrikaner farmers. The one is before a sex scene and the other is on a university campus as Skoonheid reaches its terrible conclusion.

The actors in Moffie brilliantly portray these moments of being subject to the assault of toxic masculinity, with a particularly strong performance by Matthew Vey, who plays Nicholass best friend, Michael. Another strong performance is from Stefan Vermaak, who plays Oscar, the more willing participant in racist and patriarchal ideology.

Brmmers powerful performance as the central character shows both subtle resistance and then participation as an agent of the apartheid state.

At the end, it is unclear whether the young men are able to escape the encroaching ideology that dictates their lives, and whether the moments of refuge and isolation are enough to free them from the memory of the incessant labelling of moffie that defined their youth.

Moffie is a challenging and deeply affecting film that represents the important, often overlooked realities of living in apartheid for gay men.

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Film review: Moffie is a harrowing meditation on white masculinity - The Conversation Africa

A Simple Trick For Staying Focused During Meditation

After a few years bouncing between meditation apps and classes, I started to wonder if something in my brain was broken or just not wired for meditation. I'd sit down, close my eyes, and start to count my breaths . . . but something just wouldn't turn off.

We all hear that the benefits of meditation are seemingly boundless, and it's not just the yogis and alt-wellness crowd saying it; meditation has significant clinical data and scientific research to vouch for its superpowers. Whether the goal is to relieve stress, lose weight, ease pain, or improve your mental health, meditation has proven that mind over matter really is legit. But if you're anything like me, it's easier said than done.

It didn't matter what program I was doing or how much I wanted to clear my head, the damn thing would not clear. And if I'm being frank, it still doesn't always get completely quiet. However, I've finally begun to have breakthroughs moments where I'm mentally screaming "I'M DOING IT!!!" before quickly telling myself to hush and enjoy the silence. How? It's so simple, it feels almost stupid to admit: making a list.

I know, I know. A list. Seriously! I realized that my mind would race through a number of thoughts, but most often they pertained to my to-dos. Work, chores, errands, scheduling, story ideas, dog-mom responsibilities . . . I'd find myself wondering if I scheduled that vet appointment, or if the laundry needed to be put in the dryer, or how many emails I needed to get through, or when I was going to find time to get groceries in between deadlines.

The lists in my head are not linear, and they're infinitely long. Perhaps it comes down to being a Type-A Virgo with anxiety and seemingly infinite ideas, but nevertheless, my brain is a constant frenzy of thoughts; a hundred internet tabs open at the same time.

One day, it just dawned on me: get the list out of my head and onto some paper. I did this first, then started my meditation audio, and voila: my brain got quieter. My thoughts fizzled down, and it was like parts of my brain were able to go to sleep for a few minutes. I tried this strategy again the next day, and sure enough a little quieter still.

This is now my go-to if I'm trying to take a solid 10 minutes or more for truly quiet, regenerative meditation. Get this list (or just your thoughts, if you're not as to-do focused as I am!) onto a piece of paper; write, journal, plan, then leave it there in the notebook or on the desk so you can have some peace and silence.

While I still have days when my brain is having a time and the damn thing won't shut up, I'm a thousand percent (rough guesstimate) improved from where I was before, and now meditation is actually starting to make a difference in my life. Hopefully this impossibly simple tip helps transform your practice the way it transformed mine.

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I Could Never Turn Off My Brain Long Enough to Meditate, Until I Discovered This Simple Trick - POPSUGAR