Top Executive Coaching with Tony Mayo

Brain regions associated with attention, interoception and sensory processing were thicker in meditation participants than matched controls, including the prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula, areas shown to be involved in the integration of emotion and cognition.  Meditators may be able to use this self-awareness to more successfully navigate through potentially stressful encounters that arise throughout the day.

Between-group differences in prefrontal cortical thickness were most pronounced in older participants, suggesting that meditation might offset age-related cortical thinning. Finally, the thickness of two regions correlated with meditation experience. Connections between sensory cortices and emotion cortices play a crucial role in processing of emotionally salient material and adaptive decision making.

The main focus of Insight meditation is the cultivation of attention and a mental capacity termed ‘mindfulness’, which is a specific nonjudgmental awareness of present-moment stimuli without cognitive elaboration. This form of meditation does not utilize mantra or chanting. Participants were not monks, but rather typical Western meditation practitioners who … meditated an average of once a day for 40 minutes, while pursuing traditional careers in fields such as healthcare and law [some were meditation or yoga teachers].

–Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness
by Sara W. Lazar, Massachusetts General Hospital
Catherine E. Kerr, Harvard Medical School
Rachel H. Wasserman, Yale University and others.

See free, easy Meditation Instructions on this blog.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Share it!

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) consists of multiple forms of mindfulness practice, including formal and informal meditation practice, as well as hatha yoga.

Although there is no explicit instruction in changing the nature of thinking, or emotional reactivity, MBSR has been shown to:

• diminish the habitual tendency to emotionally react to and
  ruminate about transitory thoughts and physical sensations;
• reduce stress, depression, and anxiety symptoms;
• modify distorted patterns of self-view;
• amplify immune functioning;
• enhance behavioral self-regulation; and
• improve volitional orienting of attention.

Recent functional neuroimaging studies of MBSR have provided evidence of reduced narrative and conceptual and increased experiential and sensory self-focus at post-MBSR and decreased conceptual–linguistic self-referential processing from pre- to post-MBSR.

The formal practice consists of:

• breath-focused attention,
• body scan-based attention to the transient nature of sensory experience, Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 3% [?]

Share it!

I had the great privilege of talking with eminent psychoneuroimmunologist Dr. Lydia Temoshok last night in Reston, at a Chez Nous event. Dr. Temoshok has been a pioneer in the scientific study of stress on our immune systems and its impact on the progress of diseases, especially HIV/AIDS.

She reviewed for us the classic result published in Science in 1983. Three groups of rats were studied. One group was subjected to shocks administered from the floor of their cage but they also had a lever that, when pressed by a rat, would stop the shock. A separate group felt exactly the same shocks as the first group but had no relief lever to press. The third group of rats had no shocks. The rats subjected to uncontrollable shocks suffered suppressed immune systems. The rats subjected to shocks with some control over their environmental stress, group one, not only did better than the rats without control but–by at least one measure–had a better immune response than the control group of rats with no shocks at all. The conclusions of the study have been repeated and extended by many other experiments, including some that showed this change in immune system response affected the speed at which cancer tumors grew.

I asked Dr. Temoshok if it was sensible to compare these conclusions with the famous Whitehall Studies of British civil servants. These long-term studies Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 2% [?]

Share it!

…chronically stressed rats lost their elastic rat cunning and instead fell back on familiar routines and rote responses, like compulsively pressing a bar for food pellets they had no intention of eating. … regions of the brain associated with executive decision-making and goal-directed behaviors had shriveled, while, conversely, brain sectors linked to habit formation had bloomed.

Behaviors become habitual faster in stressed animals than in the controls, and worse, the stressed animals can’t shift back to goal-directed behaviors when that would be the better approach.

I call this a vicious circle.

–Nuno Sousa, MD PhD
Life and Health Sciences
Research Institute

But with only four weeks’ vacation in a supportive setting free of bullies and Tasers, the formerly stressed rats looked just like the controls, able to innovate, discriminate and lay off the bar. Atrophied synaptic connections in the decisive regions of the prefrontal cortex resprouted, while the overgrown dendritic vines of the habit-prone sensorimotor striatum retreated.

–Brain Is a Co-Conspirator
in a Vicious Stress Loop
NYTimes.com

Popularity: 3% [?]

Share it!

One word has suddenly appeared in nearly every conversation with my executive coaching clients: stress. Everyone is aware of increased stress. For many, stress is the dominant experience. Let’s examine the mechanism, symptoms, and treatments.

Stress is a word imported from engineering, where it refers to pressure sufficient to cause a body to deform. High stress can permanently alter the form and function of the material bearing the load, even to the point of destruction. No wonder that endocrinologist Hans Selye chose stress to describe the reactions of lab rats to his injections of what would later be labeled stress hormones: cortisol, adrenaline, etc. You and I do not need an injection to experience the symptoms of stress; we make plenty of these hormones ourselves.

Some immediate symptoms of excessive emotional stress are:

• Headache
• Memory Loss Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 6% [?]

Share it!

Many companies and organizations are dealing with multiple changes right now to adapt to the huge shifts in our economy: layoffs, salary reductions and freezes, office closings, budget cuts, etc. My CEO executive coaching clients are making painful decisions, managing personal stress, communicating more often with employees, customers, and suppliers. All of that is useful and important.

I also find it useful to remind managers that change is not quick or easy for companies.

Leaders, especially the most dynamic, creative, and  entrepreneurial, must keep in mind that stability is in the nature of organizations. That’s why we call them organizations, rather than alterizations or adaptizations. People, especially in groups, need Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 5% [?]

Share it!