Superb presentation! The points about mindfulness suggested to my mind the image of a coin. On one side it is heads and the other tails. Let’s attach this imagery to the idea of mindfulness. We can declare the unmindful way of being as tails and then the mindful way of being would be heads. An unmindful or unconscious life would look like us flipping a coin to see what will show up, in the moment, to influence the choice we are about to make. A mindful or conscious choice would look like reaching into your pocket of change, choosing a quarter and placing the quarter heads up on the counter. When my life is defined by my conscious choices it is a much more empowered life than one defined unconsciously. The promise of mindfulness training is that it can enhance our ability to make a conscious choice in the moment. The other option would be to REACT to the circumstances of the situation. This could lead to blaming others or life for.........fill in your own blank.
Mindfulness and Happiness: a different perspective from affective neuroscience. Being in the moment, or being mindful, has as its major entailment a state of rest, which affectively is a pleasant state. However, happiness, if defined empirically as a combination of pleasure and arousal, requires but a simple modification of mindfulness practice to elicit both affective states, and can easily be mapped to simple neurologic processes. Hypothesis and simple proof below. HYPOTHESIS: Dopaminergic activity will stimulate endogenous opioid systems when the latter are in a non-suppressed state. EXPLANATION AND ‘PROOF’: Activity that involves continuous positive act/outcome discrepancy or novelty (productive or meaningful behavior) while the covert musculature is inactive (a resting state) will result in heightened feeling of pleasure and arousal, or ‘eudaemonia’, ‘flow’, or ‘peak’ experience. This derives from the observation that neuro-muscular tension (or stress) inhibits endogenous opioid (pleasure) release, while relaxation accentuates it, the latter permitting opioid systems to be further stimulated by dopaminergic activity (arousal) elicited by meaningful behavior. The reason this explanation does not appear evident from general observation is that its counterpart as ‘flow’ or ‘peak’ experience is described through literary metaphor and not scientific language and obscures the independent and dependent measures that accurately describe it. The virtue of this explanation is that it is easily testable by anyone. Just get into a relaxed state (mindfulness protocols are the best way to do this) and then exclusively pursue or anticipate pursuing productive activity for periods of a half hour or so, and voila, you will have a flow or eudaemonic experience. It is that simple. I offer a more detailed explanation in pp. 47-52, and pp 82-86 of my open source book on the neuroscience of resting states, ‘The Book of Rest’, linked below. www.scribd.com/doc/284056765/The-Book-of-Rest-The-Odd-Psychology-of-Doing-Nothing This above book is based on the research of the distinguished neuroscientist Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan, a preeminent researcher and authority on dopamine, addiction, and motivation, who was kind to vet the work for accuracy and endorse the finished manuscript. Berridge’s Site and his article on the neuroscience of happiness sites.lsa.umich.edu/berridge-lab/ sites.lsa.umich.edu/berridge-lab/wp-content/uploads/sites/743/2019/10/Kringelbach-Berridge-2012-Joyful-mind-Sci-Am.pdf also: Meditation and Rest from the International Journal of Stress Management, by this author www.scribd.com/doc/121345732/Relaxation-and-Muscular-Tension-A-bio-behavioristic-explanation
Oxfordmindfulness, thank you for sharing this with me. It was extremely hopeful and informative.
Outstanding! Thank you so much!
I love this talk.
Superb presentation! The points about mindfulness suggested to my mind the image of a coin. On one side it is heads and the other tails. Let’s attach this imagery to the idea of mindfulness. We can declare the unmindful way of being as tails and then the mindful way of being would be heads. An unmindful or unconscious life would look like us flipping a coin to see what will show up, in the moment, to influence the choice we are about to make. A mindful or conscious choice would look like reaching into your pocket of change, choosing a quarter and placing the quarter heads up on the counter. When my life is defined by my conscious choices it is a much more empowered life than one defined unconsciously. The promise of mindfulness training is that it can enhance our ability to make a conscious choice in the moment. The other option would be to REACT to the circumstances of the situation. This could lead to blaming others or life for.........fill in your own blank.
Fantastic, thanks.
Mindfulness and Happiness: a different perspective from affective neuroscience.
Being in the moment, or being mindful, has as its major entailment a state of rest, which affectively is a pleasant state. However, happiness, if defined empirically as a combination of pleasure and arousal, requires but a simple modification of mindfulness practice to elicit both affective states, and can easily be mapped to simple neurologic processes.
Hypothesis and simple proof below.
HYPOTHESIS: Dopaminergic activity will stimulate endogenous opioid systems when the latter are in a non-suppressed state.
EXPLANATION AND ‘PROOF’: Activity that involves continuous positive act/outcome discrepancy or novelty (productive or meaningful behavior) while the covert musculature is inactive (a resting state) will result in heightened feeling of pleasure and arousal, or ‘eudaemonia’, ‘flow’, or ‘peak’ experience. This derives from the observation that neuro-muscular tension (or stress) inhibits endogenous opioid (pleasure) release, while relaxation accentuates it, the latter permitting opioid systems to be further stimulated by dopaminergic activity (arousal) elicited by meaningful behavior.
The reason this explanation does not appear evident from general observation is that its counterpart as ‘flow’ or ‘peak’ experience is described through literary metaphor and not scientific language and obscures the independent and dependent measures that accurately describe it. The virtue of this explanation is that it is easily testable by anyone. Just get into a relaxed state (mindfulness protocols are the best way to do this) and then exclusively pursue or anticipate pursuing productive activity for periods of a half hour or so, and voila, you will have a flow or eudaemonic experience. It is that simple.
I offer a more detailed explanation in pp. 47-52, and pp 82-86 of my open source book on the neuroscience of resting states, ‘The Book of Rest’, linked below.
www.scribd.com/doc/284056765/The-Book-of-Rest-The-Odd-Psychology-of-Doing-Nothing
This above book is based on the research of the distinguished neuroscientist Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan, a preeminent researcher and authority on dopamine, addiction, and motivation, who was kind to vet the work for accuracy and endorse the finished manuscript.
Berridge’s Site and his article on the neuroscience of happiness
sites.lsa.umich.edu/berridge-lab/
sites.lsa.umich.edu/berridge-lab/wp-content/uploads/sites/743/2019/10/Kringelbach-Berridge-2012-Joyful-mind-Sci-Am.pdf
also:
Meditation and Rest
from the International Journal of Stress Management, by this author
www.scribd.com/doc/121345732/Relaxation-and-Muscular-Tension-A-bio-behavioristic-explanation
this guy's delivery makes listening too miserable...the nervous laugh mixed in with the delivery of someone too amped up on speed. Horrible.