Tag: mindfulness based stress reduction

In your yoga practice, are you “paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment by moment”? Are you at least striving to do that? If so, you are practicing a form of mindfulness as defined by Jon Kabat-Zinn. I call it mindful meditation. There is a growing body of research that demonstrates that yoga as a mindful meditation can actually alter certain structures in your brain, including structures responsible for feelings of love, peace and well-being. Let’s use peace as an example, which I define as the absence of stress. The stress response is a complicated trigger system governed by the amygdala, the small but vital portion of your brain responsible for memory, decision-making and emotions. When presented with a stressful stimulus (in modern life anything and everything can be a stressful stimulus) there is often an immediate reaction. We know this as the flight, fight or freeze response. It is automatic and often without...