Uncategorized – Page 2 – The Nurtured Mind

We are Melbourne’s premium boutique relaxation and meditation sanctuary.

At The Nurtured Mind we are proud to be supporters of mindfulness and meditation practices for people firmly planted in the modern world.

The training we offer is the product of considerable research. On this basis, we can say with confidence that mindfulness and meditation training At The Nurtured Mind:

enhances focus and attention
increases self-awareness and the awareness of others
raises levels of resilience and emotional intelligence
strengthens cognitive effectiveness

The skills we teach enable you to:

listen attentively
be emotionally aware
communicate clearly
direct your thoughts appropriately
focus your mind with consistency
relax yourself effectively

Our meditation sessions a free of religious content and spiritual hype. We offer practical advice which stems from scientific methodology. Our advice is tailored to our client’s needs, and which they can incorporate into their every day lives. We help our clients incorporate relaxation, mindfulness and meditation into their lives so it is not difficult, uncomfortable or imposing.

It is wise for those new to meditation to remember one important point before embarking on their practice: meditation is like going to the gym. Although you will most likely feel great after leaving your initial class, you should not expect immediate results. If you stick with the practice and meditate regularly at home as well as in class, it will change your life.

This article offers a summary of several different styles of meditation practice. Alternatively, you will find a list of articles written by our founder at the bottom of this screen.

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Multitasking: How To Get Nothing Done, Quickly

In today’s frantic world, we are constantly pressured to multitask in order to get everything we have on our to-do list done. However constant multitasking isn’t good for us. In fact, it can drain our energy, increase stress, and overtime, leaves us feeling chronically scattered in the mental department.

Luckily for us, the human brain is amazing. It does a great job of processing the continuously shifting information we take in. But according to neuroscience, flipping from task to task comes at a cost to our overall sense of well-being. Why? Because when our brains are confronted with too much information to process, we can struggle to filter the trivial from the important. As it turns out, all of the attention filtering and decision making that we do in a bid to increase productivity, is actually leaving us fatigued and frazzled.

Think of it this way, every status update you read on Facebook, every tweet or text message you get from a friend, is competing for attention from your brain. Competing with more important things like what you should do with your savings, where you left your passport, or how to best patch things up with a close friend you just had an argument with.

But what to do? With life pushing us this way and that, with the endless commitments to our friends, family, jobs, school … what can we do to give our brains a competitive edge? The answer is paradoxical in many ways. To achieve greater success, we need to rest. No, we don’t suggest you make like a movie star and hit the Mediterranean (if only!) but instead, just take a little time out to do nothing. NO. THING.

Put away all of your devices, Switch off the TV and the radio, don’t eat, don’t drink, don’t even read a book. Then go somewhere quiet you won’t be disturbed for five minutes and become intensely aware of your 5 senses: sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. Give each sense 1 minute of your undivided attention. That’s it. Done. Your mind will thank you.

No time to stop? Consider this: there are 1440 minutes in a day, this activity requires 5 of them.

And if you need any further convincing, simply ask yourself: “How valuable is my mind?”

Mindfulness and meditation practice, no matter how simple, affords us the opportunity to increase our awareness. This allows us to shift our perception and see how our minds are fashioning the meaning of events that constantly take place around us. Over time we begin to see that the beliefs we have around any particular event, ultimately, leads to how we construct the meaning of our lives. In essence, with awareness, we can re-frame our thinking.

Click here to contact us and discover the many ways we can help you achieve more balance and ease in your life.

WARNING! The Following Content May Offend*

Meditation & Wrinkles…

Can meditation turn back our biological clock? Quite possibly. A study published in 2013 found that people who meditated daily had longer telomeres than people who don’t get their zen on regularly. (Biochemistry 101: Telomeres are the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes. Chromosomes are the building blocks that make up DNA. And DNA makes you human. Or a tree. Or a dinosaur. It’s amazing stuff.) Generally, telomeres shorten as we age, this we cannot avoid. However what’s interesting is that telomere shortening may be accelerated in the presence of cellular oxidative damage, more commonly known as Miss Free Radical. And what’s a major contributor to Miss Free Radical getting all crazy and multiplying in your body by one trillion really quickly? Chronic psychological stress. Don’t shoot the messenger, this is according to Elizabeth A. Hoge, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Something about her title tells us she’s a credible source though.

So can meditation help? Yes! How? Well, meditating can be rather relaxing, it’s like a warm bubble bath for your brain after a long hard day. When you are relaxed you are not stressed. “Thank you Captain Obvious” we hear you say, but bear with us! A decrease in psychological stress leads to a decreases in the body’s production of stress hormones. Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline (public health enemies one and two, respectively) have negative effects on the human body. These effects include accelerated tissue damage which = premature aging.

Now don’t go getting stressed about being stressed, that would be completely counterproductive. We are covering this topic to engage the modern day gal, and as any modern day gal will quickly point out- a certain amount of stress is unavoidable in our world today. But we implore you- START MEDITATING! In particular explore loving-kindness meditation. This form of meditation has its origins in the Buddhist tradition but anyone and everyone can and should give it a go. Ladies that visit us at The Nurtured Mind love it as the benefits are immediately palpable.

As you practice loving-kindness meditation you are encouraged to think of other people. Someone who you know well, someone you don’t, a person you like and finally, a person you may want to smack (although, at The Nurtured Mind we try and refrain for using the term ‘smack’). This type of social focus can lead to a significant increase on the activity of the oxytocin in the brain. Boosts in oxytocin have been linked to health benefits including lower blood pressure, faster wound healing and you guessed it, slowing down the aging process.

Now, what about Botox and similar fandangle “treatments” available out there? Well, if you feel good about this stuff then go for it. We won’t tell anyone!

But if you’re stuck on the fence, (the way many modern women are these days) be open to asking yourself ‘does this stuff really feel good?’

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