The holiday season can be considerably a stressful and overwhelming time. Holiday stress can take many forms; at this time of year, it’s not uncommon for us to overspend, to experience tense family interactions, to overeat or to drink in excess, or to experience feelings of loneliness or disappointment as one reflects on the past year. Following are some considerations on dealing well with holiday stress: [Read more…]
How long should you meditate?
How long should you meditate?
The increased popularity and research evidence for mindfulness and meditation has led many people to integrate meditation into their lives. For some people meditation is a way to stay centered and feel sane; for others it’s a way to manage anxiety; for others it’s a way to deal with stress, attention deficits, or other difficulties. Whatever the reason people practice meditation, many ask, “How long should I meditate?” This very simple question, however, does not have a straightforward answer. [Read more…]
The virtues of a focused mind
Many people with a form of anxiety characterized by overworrying find that they spend an excessive amount of time pondering either the future or the past. New research published this month in Science suggests that doing so worsens our mood. Does this very human tendency to get caught up in thoughts about the past and future affect you? [Read more…]
New meditation and genetics research – The Shamatha Project
Stress is unavoidable. However, we handle stress is often within our control. There are good ways and bad ways to handle stress, and meditation is considered a healthy stress reduction strategy.
To lower our stress levels, we can either reduce the number of stressors in our lives or we can try to reduce the effect of these stressors. Research suggests that meditation helps us reduce stress by limiting the extent to which each stressor bothers us. As a result, our overall stress levels [Read more…]
Dr. Greene’s work featured on WABC-TV
Psychotherapy is more effective today than it was 50 or even 25 years ago. Why? Because of research. In the United States, National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other agencies fund clinical trials of specific types of psychotherapy for various problems. One example of such a clinical psychotherapy trial can be seen in the work I have been involved with at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. We conducted [Read more…]