Mindfulness Reduces Stress

Researchers can’t seem to get enough of mindfulness these days. Studies have linked it to heightened creativity, improved concentration, lower stress, better working memory, and increased compassion. Now, new research also shows that it helps us overcome biases we’re not even aware we have.
The study, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, suggests that mindfulness meditation can reduce implicit bias—and the negative behaviors that it causes.

There are competing definitions of what mindfulness means, but it boils down to paying attention to what’s happening around you at any given moment, instead of operating on autopilot. By concentrating on the present, you’re more likely to act thoughtfully, and therefore less likely to succumb to automatic reactions based on previously established experiences.

Older studies have connected mindfulness with reduced automatic processing and less prejudicial behavior, but researchers Adam Lueke and Bryan Gibson found that mindfulness can also lessen implicit bias. Implicit attitudes are based on automatic associations, and they influence behavior more than we realize. Even as we assert egalitarian values or condemn discrimination, automatic processing often colors how we evaluate and treat others.

Lueke and Gibson explain that a group who listened to a 10-minute mindfulness exercise exhibited less bias on the race and age implicit association tests (IATs) than those who didn’t—without even focusing on the biases themselves.

The 72 participants were white college students who didn’t know what was being studied beforehand. The test group listened to a recording that made them aware of their heart rate and breathing. It told them to accept these sensations and thoughts “without restriction, resistance, or judgment.” The control group listened to a 10-minute recording about history. Then both groups completed the race and age IATs, which captured response times in pairing positive or negative words with black or white faces and then with old or young faces.

The mindful group showed less implicit racial and age bias than did the control group, and this was, in part, due to a reduction in the automatic activation of negative associations (i.e., black-bad, old-bad). This confirmed older research that mindfulness makes one less reliant on previously established associations. But the researchers were surprised to also find that the mindful group was less able to see differences between the faces than the control group, which seems to suggest that when you’re less likely to automatically associate black and old with “bad,” race and age are also less detectable.
The ability to curb implicit bias and weaken negative associations by simply being more mindful could help prevent all kinds of negative effects. Previous research has shown how implicit out-group bias can make someone more likely to shoot at a black suspect in a simulation or become more aggressive in a video game.

Implicit attitudes even predict some negative behaviors in the workplace better than explicit attitudes. For example, they are more predictive of discriminatory hiring decisions, lack of trust in out-group members, and hostile body language toward stereotyped group members. As Lueke explained, “People high in implicit bias will tend to maintain distance, not make as much eye contact, fidget, remain terse in their responses, and generally give non-verbal cues that are indicative of discomfort.” And this happens even if they consciously want to communicate in a non-biased way.

So how do you become more mindful? We often have other things on our mind regardless of whether we are at work or not; our to do lists, that date we went on the night before, mulling over that crazy episode of ‘The Walking Dead’ we saw, wondering what we are going to have for dinner tonight. Silencing and focusing these thoughts is a practice. But even if you’re busy, there are really basic steps you can take—anywhere, anytime—to make you more aware of the present.  Simply stop, bring your mind into the moment it is in, right here and you will feel yourself get present.  Like any muscle though, challenge is strengthening that ability through consistent use.

Past experiences have a way of influencing our decisions and immediate reactions in ways we don’t fully understand and may not even realize. It’s important to acknowledge this and find ways of making ourselves less reliant on them.  For more information on this visit:  www.LivingFromChoice.com

Time to Close the Gap

Do we really need to make "courteous engagement" a part of our employee handbooks?

It saddens me to see the continued separation we enforce with our fellow man in this society.  Something as simple as a parking place and it's an energetic fight to see who claims rights first or even worse yet, are you infringing on anothers boundaries by parking to close to the edges of the lines.  We walk through a store afraid to make eye contact, greeted by store clerks because it's actually been ordered in their training.  When asked, "may I be of assistance" we are programed to respond, "nope, I'm good" or "No Thank YOU" often diverting our eyes away from the person wanting to be of service.  Heck, I couldn't tell you how many times I've received change at a check out without a thank you or eye contact, just on to the next customer.  Do we really think this doesn't impact us long term?

Consider this scenario;  You awake from bed to a coffee pot that for whatever reason hasn't started.  Upon returning from your shower you realize that your significant other has taken most the coffee.  How do you feel?  Are you angry that they've taken more than there's by assuming?  What if they assumed you'd already gotten your coffee and knowing you don't normally take more they felt free to take what was left?  That simple scenario is grounded in scarcity and fear.  Fear that I won't get mine.  Fear I'm not important enough, fear I am not safe even.

Now, you just store this event in your fanny pack of objections that by the end of the day will be brimming with examples of how tough your day was.  And off to work you go.  On the road you experience a series of people who were completely checked out and half on their phones while driving thinking that just cause it's traffic and moving slow it can't be a hazard to text now.  No one even looking up or to the side anymore to be in relationship with the people in the car next to them.  You walk through work and get to your desk to be greeted by co-workers and the game of "who had a tougher morning starts"!  When did we decide it's beneficial to connect through our frustrations and miseries over our love and respect for one another??

After work you need to stop and get groceries, like more coffee!  LOL  You notice that the store clerks seem friendly and greet you every time they pass.  At first, you feel good at their friendliness.  But then it sets in that it's been placed in the company rule book to engage any customer within a few feet in a friendly manner.  Really???!!  Friendly, courteous and eye contact has to be put in the rule book??  That's as bad as the tag inside plastic bags that says "don't leave in the presence of an unattended child for fear of suffocation" 

As smart as our society has become technologically we've become dumber emotionally.  Our children know how to unlock a cellphone and find games before we will allow them to cross a street unattended.  We worry about SAT's and a college plan but invest very little if nothing in our youths emotional intelligence.  Teaching them how to connect with peers, why?  Because we as a society fear connection.  We wonder why bullying is at an all-time high in our schools.  Because we aren't connecting!!!

So, what...now what...
We must commit ourselves to begin the process of getting back to humans BEING instead of humans doing.  Each day to practice being connected.  Turn off your cell phone before dinner and don't turn it back on until the kids are in bed.  Look at your significant other as they lay sleeping in the morning instead of hitting your snooze alarm.  Speak to every person that you come in contact with for more than 3 minutes, and ask them a question about themselves.  Look people in the eyes when they speak to you.  And most of all...connect with you.  Look yourself in the eyes when you stare yourself in the mirror.  Hopefully each one of us brushes our teeth for at least a couple minutes...you gotta be there anyway, why not spend the time connecting with you?!  After all, if you won't be in a relationship with you, who the heck will???