Traffic jams. Job woes. Visits from the in-laws. Life is full of stress, and more often than not, people feel it physically as well as mentally.

Although the stress response begins in the brain, it is a full-body phenomenon. When someone encounters a threat — real or imagined — the brain triggers a cascade of stress hormones. The heart pounds, muscles tense, and breathing quickens.

One of the best ways to counter stress is to pay attention to what is going on. That may sound counterintuitive, but paying attention is the first step toward cultivating mindfulness — a therapeutic technique for a range of mental health problems (and physical ones).

The opposite of multitasking

Multitasking has become a way of life. People talk on a cell phone while commuting to work, or scan the news while returning e-mails. But in the rush to accomplish necessary tasks, people often lose connection with the present moment. They stop being truly attentive to what they are doing or feeling.

Mindfulness is the opposite of multitasking. The practice of mindfulness, which has its roots in Buddhism, teaches people to live each moment as it unfolds. The idea is to focus attention on what is happening in the present and accept it without judgment.

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, professor of medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, developed a mindfulness-based stress reduction program for people with major depression (since adapted for other disorders). Another adaptation of mindfulness to clinical practice is mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, which combines mindfulness techniques with cognitive behavioral therapy.

However it is practiced, mindfulness is a powerful therapeutic tool. Studies have found, for example, that mindfulness techniques can help prevent relapse in people who have had several past episodes of major depression. Other research suggests that mindfulness techniques can help alleviate anxiety and reduce physical symptoms such as pain or hot flashes.

Watch a video

For more information about the health dangers of stress — and how mindfulness can help people relax — watch this video of a talk by Dr. Michael C. Miller, editor in chief of the Harvard Mental Health Letter, at www.health.harvard.edu/MillerStress.

Do-it-yourself methods

One of the best things about mindfulness is that it is something people can try on their own. Here’s how to get started:

Center down. Sit on a straight-backed chair or cross-legged on the floor. Focus on an aspect of your breathing, such as the sensations of air flowing into your nostrils and out of your mouth, or your belly rising and falling as you inhale and exhale.

Open up. Once you’ve narrowed your concentration, begin to widen your focus. Become aware of sounds, sensations, and ideas. Embrace and consider each without judgment. If your mind starts to race, return your focus to your breathing.

Observe. You may notice external sensations such as sounds and sights that make up your moment-to-moment experience. The challenge is not to latch onto a particular idea, emotion, or sensation, or to get caught up in thinking about the past or the future. Instead you watch what comes and goes in your mind, and discover which mental habits produce a feeling of suffering or well-being.

Stay with it. At times, this process may not seem relaxing at all, but over time it provides a key to greater happiness and self-awareness as you become comfortable with a wider and wider range of your experiences.

You can also try less formal approaches to mindfulness by trying to become more aware while you are doing activities that you enjoy. Playing the piano, juggling, walking — all can become part of your mindfulness practice as long as you pay attention to what is happening in the moment. Listen to the sounds of the music, feel the weight of the balls as they fall into your hand, or really look at what you are walking past.

Practice makes perfect

Mindfulness is something to cultivate and practice, on a regular basis.

Make a commitment. Aim for doing 20 to 45 minutes of mindfulness practice, most days of the week. (If that sounds like a lot, remember that a key part of mindfulness means letting go of expectations. Just commit to trying to become more mindful, and do the best you can.)

Make small changes. It’s hard to make big changes. It’s better to start slow and build gradually. The famous Alcoholics Anonymous motto is “one day at a time.” Mindfulness involves taking it less than one day at a time — aim for one moment at a time.

Mindfulness really does not have to be more complicated than learning to pay attention to what is going on around you. But this “simple” advice is often hard to sustain in a busy world. Try making the effort to become more mindful — and you may find the results make it worth it.

With only an hour of training, meditation works well to reduce both how people experience pain and also brain activation related to pain, according to the author of a new study.

Fadel Zeidan, Ph.D., a post-doctoral research fellow at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is the lead author. He was quoted on Science Dailyas saying, “We found a big effect — about a 40 percent reduction in pain intensity and a 57 percent reduction in pain unpleasantness. Meditation produced a greater reduction in pain than even morphine or other pain-relieving drugs, which typically reduce pain ratings by about 25 percent.”

The participants attended four 20-minute classes. They had never meditated before, but were taught a form of mindfulness meditation in which they paid attention to their breath but not to distracting thought or feelings. This is sometimes called “focused attention.”

Instead of the typical MRI scan, a scan called arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging was used that maps meditation results better. All of the 15 participants demonstrated a lessening of pain, from 11% to 93%. The pain was introduced by a heat-producing device that caused pain when placed on one leg.

The authors say the study indicates the importance of meditation in pain management. The training is brief and the results are significant. Additionally, the study showed that many areas of the brain are involved in meditation for pain management, which may account for its high level of good results.

The study can be accessed at F. Zeidan, K. T. Martucci, R. A. Kraft, N. S. Gordon, J. G. McHaffie, R. C. Coghill. Brain Mechanisms Supporting the Modulation of Pain by Mindfulness Meditation . Journal of Neuroscience , 2011; 31 (14): 5540 DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5791-10.2011

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — March 24, 2012 Event in San Francisco Features World-Class Lineup of Luminaries for a Ground-breaking Public Conversation

The Baumann Foundation (TBF) today announced the launch of a new public event “Being Human 2012: Science, Philosophy and Your Life,” where pioneers in the exploration of human nature — from behavioral economics, cognitive neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, social anthropology and philosophy — will come together for the first-ever multidisciplinary event of its kind. The purpose is to engage the public in a conversation about how recent revolutionary insights from science and philosophy challenge basic assumptions about human nature and how these insights can fundamentally shift one’s experience of daily life. The first-annual Being Human event will be hosted at the Palace of Fine Arts, in San Francisco, on March 24, 2012.

“We live at the dawn of a scientific revolution. Recent findings from science and philosophy promise to overthrow long-held biases and stories about what it means to be human,” said TBF founder Peter Baumann. “Many of these fresh insights can have a profound impact on our experience of daily life. We are delighted to bring these new understandings into the public arena, so that they are accessible to anyone who is curious about their own experience. Ultimately, our goal is to serve as a bridge between the theoretical and the practical, and to foster increased well-being.”

“We are thrilled that so many esteemed pioneers will be joining us for Being Human 2012,” said TBF Advisory Board member Richard Davidson, who will moderate Being Human 2012. Davidson, a leader in the field of mind-body medicine and one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people (2006), is best-known for his research on brain plasticity, his collaboration with the Dalai Lama and studying the brain activity of meditating Tibetan Buddhist monks. “This promises to be a unique event, where we will explore together the frontiers of understanding human nature, asking questions such as: How does the nonconscious mind influence the decisions we make? What is the relationship between self and culture? Are you who you think you are, or is that just an illusion? What does science tell us about our relationship with fellow humans? What are the evolutionary origins of the human mind?”

Among those sharing their latest insights include New York Times best-selling author David Eagleman, “the kind of guy who really does make being a neuroscientist look like fun” according to the Times, and who, in his recent best-seller Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, rounds up the latest discoveries about the mechanics happening below the surface of conscious awareness; Beau Lotto, artist and neuroscientist, who leads the world’s first public perception research space, Lottolab Studio within London’s Science Museum, exploring scientific and philosophical understanding of human perception; and Jon Kabat-Zinn, internationally known for his work as a scientist, writer, and mindfulness meditation teacher engaged in bringing mindfulness practices, especially mindfulness-based stress reduction, into the mainstream of medicine and society. For more information for each of the speakers (full list below), visit www.beinghuman2012.org/speakers .

Event Details:When: 24 March 2012, 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Where: Palace of Fine Arts, San FranciscoTickets: Special Seating $250, General Admission $135, Students $75 Register: www.beinghuman2012.org

Speakers:

Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D., Founder and Chair, Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-MadisonDavid Eagleman, Ph.D., Neuroscientist, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine, and best-selling authorPaul Ekman, Ph.D., Manager, Paul Ekman Group, LLCAnne Harrington, Ph.D., Professor of the History of Science, Harvard UniversityJon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Medical SchoolBeau Lotto, Ph.D., Neuroscientist and artist, LottolabHazel Markus, Ph.D., Davis-Brack Professor in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford UniversityThomas Metzinger, Ph.D., Professor of Theoretical Philosophy, Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat MainzV.S. Ramachandran, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Center for Brain and Cognition, UC San DiegoGelek Rimpoche, Founder, Jewel Heart, Tibetan Buddhist CenterLaurie Santos, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology, Yale University

About The Baumann Foundation:

The Baumann Foundation is a San Francisco-based think-tank that explores the experience of being human in the context of cognitive science, evolutionary theory and philosophy to foster greater clarity about the human condition. The work of the Foundation reflects the vision and passion of its founder, Peter Baumann: “Comprehending the nature of mental concepts and the dynamics of identification can foster greater clarity about the human condition and individual experience.” www.TheBaumannFoundation.org

“The experiment requires that you continue. It is absolutely essential that you continue. You have no other choice, you must go on.”

These were the words spoken to participants of Yale professor Stanley Milgram’s social psychology experiment testing obedience to authority figures. Milgram’s experiment, conducted at Yale in the early 1960s, was one of the most controversial studies in the history of psychology and remains so today — 50 years since the experiment took place.

“This was a landmark study in psychology and in Yale history,” said psychology professor Jack Dovidio. “He had a profound impact on the public recognition, appreciation and, in some ways, concern of the power of psychology.”

“The Milgram experiment,” as it is now called, was designed to observe the extent to which individuals would perform acts that violated their personal conscience when under orders from an authority figure. Milgram hoped such research might explain how the German people allowed for the terrible war crimes committed in the Holocaust, Milgram wrote in his 1974 book “Obedience to Authority.”

During the experiment, a scientist — the “authority figure” — ordered participants to ask another individual a series of questions and administer increasingly painful electric shocks for every wrong answer. The intensity of the shocks started at a level of mild pain when the experiment began but could be built up to lethal doses of electricity as the experiment continued. Unbeknownst to the participant, the setup was fake — there was no real electricity shocking anyone, all other people in the experiment were actors, and the actual purpose of the study was to observe how much pain the participant would inflict under orders. Milgram found that 65 percent of participants administered the final, lethal shock.

The results of the Milgram experiment, published in the December 1963 issue of the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, stunned the public, Dovidio said.

“Much of the public at the time criticized that psychology only told us things about human nature we already knew,” Dovidio said. “This showed there are a lot of things we really don’t know that are important to everyday life.”

In 1963, Milgram told the News that the experiment, which used 43 Yalies as participants and took place in Linsly-Chittenden Hall, reduced several “naturally poised” undergraduates to “twitching, stuttering wrecks, on the verge of nervous collapse.” In the process, Milgram said they proved themselves willing to obey people in positions of higher authority, even suggesting that they would agree to drop a bomb or push a button launching an atomic missile.

Milgram tested over 1,000 men from the Yale and New Haven community, some of whom he said fell into fits of “bizarre” laughter and flashed “unnatural smiles” as they pressed buttons marked “Danger: Severe Shock.”

Equally chilling as these accounts were the questions Milgram’s procedure raised about human testing in psychology. Milgram’s study incited national controversy and led in part to major human testing regulation reform from Yale administrators and the federal government.

“At the time, we didn’t have ethics committees or even consent forms for these tests,” Dovidio said. “Milgram’s study made people think more seriously about the ethics of research.”

By 1980, Yale had instituted reforms mandating that any experiment using paid subjects receive approval by a six-member Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects, and much tighter rules were put in place limiting the degree of deception that could be used in an experiment, a 1980 article in the News stated.

Throughout the reforms, Yale students did not forget Milgram’s role in the controversy. In a 1979 News article discussing potential weekend events at Yale, Arnold Schwartz ’79 suggested “The Milgram Show: Hilarious game show in which students are given a choice of flunking out of Yale or electrocuting fellow students into unconsciousness.”

In 2008 a Santa Clara University professor replicated an altered version of the experiment to see whether people today still obey orders against their consciousness. A 2008 Ohio State University study applied statistical analysis to Milgram’s data, researching which voltages were the crucial turning points in the experiment after which participants refused to deliver further shocks.

Brain / Body Benefits

• The cortical regions of the brain related to attention and sensory processing are strengthened. In future studies, this may prove to offset, or slow down, aging.

• The symptoms of Attention Deficit Hypersensitivity Disorder (ADHD) (i.e., lack of focus and sustained attention, disorganization, follow through) are reduced.

• Our brain responds to mindfulness by making positive changes in its density and structure. Mindfulness is good for brain plasticity, or flexibility.

• There is evidence that mindfulness meditation strengthens our immune system.

• Awareness allows the body to recover sooner from stressful situations because cortisol (the primary human stress hormone) levels decrease more quickly than in non-meditators.

Emotion / Mood Benefits

• The frontal cortex of the brain that picks up on emotional cues is activated and becomes sharper.

• Long term mindfulness practitioners show higher levels of empathic awareness. (Empathic awareness is sensing another person’s feelings, emotions, and perceptions.)

• A person’s affect (facial expression) becomes generally more positive.

• Symptoms of anxiety and depression are reduced or minimized.

• People prone to depression are less likely to relapse.

Communication / Relationships

• Love blossoms with mindfulness. Couples (romantic partners) that meditate have reported a richer quality of communication between them.

• People look at others with more compassion, empathy, and loving-kindness.

• Mindfulness meditation practice makes people less prone to taking on another’s negative attitude or emotion.

• Meditators have more compassion for themselves than less mindful types.

Parenting

• Parents that practice mindfulness show less family related stress, and report an increase of positive social interaction within the family.

• Parents have a higher level of satisfaction with their parenting skills.

• Parents report their children show less aggression and non-compliant behavior when they (the parents) practice mindfulness.

Behavior In Younger Children

• Children taught mindfulness show better self-esteem, a higher academic performance, and have a better relationship with their parents.

• Children’s overall mood is improved.

• Children with psychiatric disturbances do less internalizing (problems within the self) and externalizing (problem behaviors directed outward) of their symptoms.

• Awareness improves some children’s social skills.

Behavior In Adolescents

• Adolescents with conduct disorder demonstrate a decrease in aggression after learning mindfulness techniques. One group was taught to focus on the soles of their feet in tense situations, and theirangry behavior diminished.

• Mindful adolescents had a better quality of sleep, were generally calmer, and reported feeling more connected with nature.

Though practitioners of mindfulness do not need scientific proof of the benefits received from it, continued research into mindfulness could yield new insights into the still largely mysterious workings of our brain.

“The practice of mindfulness begins in the small, remote cave of your unconscious mind and blossoms with the sunlight of your conscious life, reaching far beyond the people and places you can see.” ~ Earon Davis

I’ve lived my whole life with a restless, fidgety animal.

It sniffs. It digs. It turns circles.

It’s easily excitable - in a bound it’s over here. Now it’s over there, dragging me along behind it.

Occasionally, it howls. Loud enough to keep me awake. Sometimes loud enough to bother others, maybe even to rattle the windowpanes.

I’m talking about my own mind.

Not that I ever thought of my own mind this way. Not that I thought much about my mind at all - who ordinarily thinks about what is going on inside the walls of your own cranium?

But this is exactly the way I now see my mind since attending sessions in mindfulness meditation, held late Tuesday afternoons at the Cancer Center for Healthy Living at 5215 N. Knoxville. The free sessions are led by Ian Wickramasekera, a psychologist who uses mindfulness meditation and related practices with patients who suffer from severe and chronic pain.

Wickramasekera’s mindfulness meditation class is one of at least three in the Peoria area. Namaste Wellness Studio at Junction City offers a meditation class with Bhante Rahula Ingiriye, a Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka, on Sunday mornings. Meanwhile, the Peoria Insight Meditation Group meets the first and third Thursday nights of each month at the Universalist Unitarian Church of Peoria on Richwoods.

The physiological and psychological effects of mindfulness meditation and other similar techniques have been studied for almost 40 years - starting in the early 1970s with Dr. Herbert Benson at Harvard Medical School.

According to Wickramasekera, studies have shown

that mindfulness meditation can be as helpful for heart attack patients as nitroglycerin. In the 1990s, studies by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn and his colleagues showed that the practice could help patients suffering from a variety of ills, including pain, nausea and cancer. Regularly practicing mindfulness meditation can be as good as psychotherapy in terms of reducing stress and anxiety. The effects are measurable.

“FMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) can see the effect of pain reducing, the level of the emotional response to the pain,” Wickramasekera said. “Over time, the pain has less and less relevance emotionally or experientially to a person. Even the sensation of pain itself can be abolished - so the raw physical sensation can be abolished.”

So what exactly is mindfulness meditation? How does it work?

The answer is preposterously simple. Mindfulness meditation consists of only two instructions. One of them can even be forgotten and the practice will still work.

The first instruction is to sit comfortably.

The second is to pay attention to your breathing - the simple sensations of your breath entering your nostrils and leaving, the rise and fall of your chest and so forth. You may close your eyes or keep them open. If you choose the latter, you simply focus on some nondescript element in the room.

That’s it.

It’s the second instruction that’s the most vital and that’s the most misunderstood.

The point here is not to maintain a laser-like focus on your breathing. For many people, including myself, doing so is simply too difficult. I’ve found that after a moment or two of focusing on my breath, my mind - ever the restless, distracted animal - flits away before I know what’s happening.

The key is to gently bring your attention back to your breath. Note the word “gently.” You are not to judge yourself or feel bad or worry about what you have been thinking. You just keep going home to your breath. Again and again, hundreds of times, as needed - each time, gently letting go of your thoughts in a nonjudgmental way.

“What you are learning is this releasing process,” said Jean Sloan, who leads the mindfulness meditation group at Universalist Unitarian. “It’s almost like training a dog. If the dog never misbehaves, you’ll never have an opportunity to correct the dog. You have to be compassionate and understanding that this is a slow process and the puppy has to understand what you want.”

After a great deal of regular practice, the time it takes for you to wake up and let go of distracting thoughts grows shorter and shorter.

“You get more and more able to stay with your sensations and to stay with your breath,” Sloan said. “When you do that, all kinds of things happen.”

One of these I think of as The Lazy Susan experience.

As I began to meditate regularly, I began to notice that my interrupting mind fell into consistent patterns, spinning like a Lazy Susan, always offering up the same menu of thought-choices. Taking Sloan’s advice, I began noting each repeating thought and naming it - Gary’s long list of things to do, Gary’s anxiety A, Gary’s anxiety B and so forth. Once I noted a thought, it was a little easier to ignore or avoid automatic reactions.

Sloan compares the experience to receiving unwanted email.

“The mind has to learn to read the subject line and delete,” she said.

“Sometimes it’s nice to stop reacting to the world and just be, and let it flow past,” said Dave Grebner, 60, who attends the meditation session at Universalist Unitarian. “The world can be very distracting, and if you don’t have a way of centering, the world starts to define you.”

“We’re able to recognize the patterns,” said Peorian Venkat Jayaraman, 27, who has been attending meditation classes at the Cancer Center. “Subconsciously, we are programmed by society (to react in certain ways) by parents, teachers, role models, childhood. In mindfulness, we become more aware of patterns and are able to step away from them. We’re not in the stranglehold of the patterns. We don’t have to live our lives just by the patterns.”

This is particularly useful if the patterns dictate eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth responses to others - which may explain why Christian mystics, such as the anonymous author of the medieval treatise “The Cloud of Unknowing,” as well as Buddhists and other religious leaders have made versions of meditation part of their spiritual practice.

Still, mindfulness meditation requires no particular religious beliefs to be efficacious. Belief is actually beside the point. The real goal, I’ve found, is simply learning to live in a peaceful, accepting way with the tumult of the roaming, distracted animal inside my skull: my own mind.

“It’s really the very open attitude about going back to your breathing that makes all the difference,” Wickramasekera said. “Because once you generate a very peaceful and very accepting state of mind - that is so helpful in every aspect of your life, even when you’re not meditating. Just the ability to accept your mind as it is no matter what its contents are is so useful in developing acceptance toward yourself.

“And if you accept yourself as pretty good, our research shows that your empathy opens up. People doing meditation have been found to be more empathetic than other people and able to be with people in a non-judgmental way through being non-judgmental of themselves.”

Cognition research aims to reduce medical errors

Special issue spotlights psychology’s vital links to health-care outcomes

WASHINGTON – How doctors, nurses and other health care professionals can be better prepared to reduce medical mistakes and improve patient care is the focus of several studies published in a special issue of the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

“These studies examine the cognitive issues related to a wide range of important safety problems in various health care scenarios, from hospital operating rooms to young adult education programs about sexually transmitted disease,” said Daniel G. Morrow, PhD, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Morrow and Francis T. Durso, PhD, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, introduced and edited the articles.

The issue presents seven peer-reviewed papers that focus on health care impacts affected by cognition, which encompasses mental processes and functions such as comprehension, decision-making, planning and learning. The number of deaths from preventable medical errors is “equivalent to a 727 (jet) or two crashing every day of the year,” Morrow and Durso said, citing a landmark 1999 Institute of Medicine study. While there have been advances in performance research related to health care, recent studies show medical errors remain a significant challenge to the health care system, they said.

Collectively, the studies address threats to patient safety due to provider errors in diagnosis, medication and surgery, and patient issues such as decision-making regarding illness prevention and self-care. Examples of the research findings include:

• Nurses who recognize patient identification errors before giving medication appear to visually scan information differently from nurses who more frequently make mistakes, according to “Nurses’ Behaviors and Visual Scanning Patterns May Reduce Patient Identification Errors,” Jenna L. Marquard, PhD, Ze He, MS, Junghee Jo, MS, Donald L. Fisher, PhD, and Elizabeth A. Henneman, PhD, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Philip L. Henneman, MD, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Mass. and Tufts University School of Medicine.
• An analysis of eye movement data from surgical nurses found that visual attention and dealing with interruptions directly relates to performance during operations, reported in “Differences in Attentional Strategies by Novice and Experienced Operating Theatre Scrub Nurses,” Ranieri Y. I. Koh, BS, and Taezoon Park, PhD, Nanyang Technological University; Christopher D. Wickens, PhD, University of Illinois; Ong Lay Teng, MSN, and Chia Soon Noi, BSN, KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Singapore.
• Surgeons doing minimally invasive surgery, which involves inserting instruments through small incisions and looking at tissues with a camera, may improve performance by using multiple camera views, reported in “Effects of Camera Arrangement on Perceptual-Motor Performance in Minimally Invasive Surgery,” Patricia R. DeLucia, PhD, and John A. Griswold, MD, Texas Tech University.
• Using simple low-cost illustrations such as bar graphs in materials to educate young adults about prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases was significantly more effective than materials without such illustrations, reported in “Effective Communication of Risks to Young Adults: Using Message Framing and Visual Aids to Increase Condom Use and STD Screening,” Rocio Garcia-Retamero, PhD, University of Granada and Max Planck Institute for Human Development; Edward T. Cokely, PhD, Michigan Technological University and Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

Other articles included:

• “Teaching Post Training: Influencing Diagnostic Strategy with Instructions at Test,” Chan Kulatunga-Moruzi, PhD, Lee R. Brooks, PhD, and Geoffrey R. Norman, PhD, McMaster University
• “Accurate Monitoring Leads to Effective Control and Greater Learning of Patient Education Materials,” Katherine A. Rawson, PhD, Rochelle O’Neil, BA, and John Dunlosky, PhD, Kent State University
• “Interactions of Team Mental Models and Monitoring Behaviors Predict Team Performance in Simulated Anesthesia Inductions,” Michael J. Burtscher, PhD, and Michaela Kolbe, PhD, ETH Zurich; Johannes Wacker, MD, University Hospital Zurich; and Tanja Manser, PhD, University of Aberdeen
• Introduction: “Health Care Research That Delivers: Introduction to the Special Issue on Cognitive Factors in Health Care,” Daniel G. Morrow, PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Francis T. Durso, PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology; Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Vol. 17, Issue 3

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world’s largest association of psychologists. APA’s membership includes more than 154,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting health, education and human welfare.

Volunteering to help others can not only make a difference in someone else’s life. It can also be good for your health. A new study published by the American Psychological Association journal Health Psychology has found that, when people volunteer to help others, they may live longer. Researchers found that volunteering for altruistic reasons or a “desire for social connections” led to people living longer lives, while those who volunteered for “personal satisfaction” had the same mortality rate as those who did not volunteer. “Going outside of ourselves,” it’s suggested, is actually good for us.

The researchers drew on data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which has tracked a random sample of 10,317 Wisconsin high school students from their high school graduation in 1957 until the present. The sample is 51.6 percent female, and the average age of those studied was 69.16 years in 2008, notes Science Daily:

In 2004, respondents reported whether they had volunteered within the past 10 years and how regularly. They reported their reasons for volunteering (or the reasons they would volunteer, for those who had not done so) by answering 10 questions. Some motives were more oriented toward others (e.g., “I feel it is important to help others,” or “Volunteering is an important activity to the people I know best”) and some that were more self-oriented (e.g., “Volunteering is a good escape from my own troubles,” or “Volunteering makes me feel better about myself”).

The researchers also considered the respondents’ physical health, socioeconomic status, marital status, health risk factors (i.e., smoking, body mass index and alcohol use), mental health and social support. Much of this information was collected in 1992, 12 years before the respondents were asked about their volunteering experience.

After determining how many respondents were still alive after four years, the researchers found that 4.3 percent  (2,384) of those who did not volunteer were deceased, a figure similar to the proportion of deceased volunteers — 4 percent — who described their motives for volunteering as more self-oriented. But, after four years, only 1.6 percent of those volunteers whose motivations were to help others were deceased. Researchers also found that “respondents who listed social connection or altruistic values as their predominant motive were more likely to be alive compared with non-volunteers.”

Says Andrea Fuhrel-Forbis, MA, co-author of the study:

“It is reasonable for people to volunteer in part because of benefits to the self; however, our research implies that, ironically, should these benefits to the self become the main motive for volunteering, they may not see those benefits.”

Those who volunteer for the so to speak “right reasons” — seeking to help and assist others — are “buffered from potential stressors associated with volunteering, such as time constraints and lack of pay,” says lead author, Sara Konrath, PhD, of the University of Michigan. Regardless of whatever stress they may feel about volunteering, the opportunity to help others mitigates and even outweighs all else.

Certainly it’s intriguing to know that volunteering can have benefits to your health. But the study’s finding that those benefits only occur if you are volunteering with a focus on truly helping others may occasion some rethinking about community service and service learning, especially if these are “required” in educational curricula or other programs. It’s good to do good for others, but perhaps — in regard to community service requirements, for instance — we need to make sure that students and participants truly understand why they are doing what they are doing. Can they articulate their motivations beyond a vague sense of “helping others”? Do they genuinely understand what altruism is and what it means to be a “person for others” not because they have to, but because they wish to?

Since the 1980s, educators in California and elsewhere have been urged to help children build self-esteem to make them feel good about themselves and reduce discipline problems. Now, some researchers are saying a better approach is to cultivate self-compassion in children, to help them accept their struggles and guard against self-absorption.

There’s a burgeoning area of psychological study focused on self-compassion. Kristin Neff, a University of Texas at Austin professor and pioneer in the field, has conducted research showing people who are more self-compassionate have less anxiety and depression and tend to be happier.

The problem with focusing on children’s self-esteem, Neff says, is it can give rise to narcissism. Self-esteem is based on comparing oneself to others and making a judgment about being better or worse than others, Neff says. Self-compassion, on the other hand, focuses on the fact that everyone deserves empathy, and it’s OK to make mistakes.

In her book, “Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind,” Neff outlines three components of self-compassion: being gentle and understanding with ourselves, recognizing that others struggle too, and putting our struggles into context so they aren’t exaggerated.

Psychologists have been teaching the principles of self-compassion for years and say there’s a growing movement under way in schools to adopt the concepts. From Oakland to LA, students are getting lessons on self-compassion and mindfulness, a related concept that involves paying attention to one’s senses, thoughts and emotions.

Amy Saltzman has seen a growing interest in the area among educators. As director of the Menlo Park-based Association for Mindfulness in Education, Saltzman is leading a conference on the topic next month and expects about 300 teachers, principals, parents and counselors to attend. She has taught lessons on mindfulness and compassion at schools in Menlo Park, Redwood City , Palo Alto and San Jose, and she says students have learned techniques to focus better on studies and cope with stress.

“I think the downsides of the self-esteem movement are pretty well known,” Saltzman said. “There are kids who are always expecting accolades and trophies. When they get into the workforce, they can’t take constructive criticism. … I think that teaching self-compassion has the positive effects of self-esteem, without the things that make kids fragile and ineffective.”

Last year, Saltzman led a weekly class at Menlo-Atherton High School for 10th-grade students studying remedial English. In the course of eight weeks, Saltzman guided the students through exercises to help them observe their breathing and emotions. The goal, she said, was to help students learn to observe their internal thoughts and feelings with kindness and curiosity, rather than judgment. Some students told her the class helped them control their anger and relax more.

It can be difficult for small children to grasp the concept of self-compassion.Santa Cruz psychologist Ali Kane suggests modeling the behavior and explaining it in simple terms.

If a child makes a mistake and is berating himself or herself, for example, Kane offers this hypothetical response: “Remember last week when you were feeling really upset, and Mommy came and hugged you and sang a song, and you felt better? You can hold yourself in that way and send that same love to yourself.”

Many people are reluctant to be self-compassionate, Neff said, because they are afraid it will lower their standards. “People confuse compassion with indulgence,” Neff said. “If a parent sees their child doing something harmful, like not studying, a compassionate parent won’t just let the child get away with anything. They can say kindly, ‘Hey, this is harming you. You need to stop and do your homework.’ The idea is to say it in a way that supports the child, instead of tearing them apart.”

California Watch is a project of the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting. For more, visit californiawatch.org.