Getting Things Done: The Art of Time Management
Getting Things Done: The Art of Time Management |
- Getting Things Done: The Art of Time Management
- Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 5/28/2013
- Emptiness is not nirvana
- "Dirty money" tied to RSSB guru's Ranbaxy wealth
- "Dirty money" tied to RSSB guru's Ranbaxy wealth
- Dealing with resentment
- 10 unexpected ways to meditate every day
- Buddha Weekly Reports on Meditation Techniques for People with Unsettled Minds, Buddha’s Birthday and Zen Skateboarding
- Genes Play Role in Baby's Sleep at Night
- How meditation can make the world a better place
| Getting Things Done: The Art of Time Management Posted: 28 May 2013 11:00 AM PDT  Drop into any office during peak working hours and you are sure to find people busy at their desks trying to get their day's work done; yet, at the end of the day, it seems like there is still so much left undone. Read more »Speak to any stay-at-home parent and you will find them complaining of always racing against the clock to get all their jobs done. What's the problem here? It's obviously not a lack of effort because everyone works pretty hard; it is more likely to be a lack of an important skill – time management. If you find yourself nodding in reply to the description of people stressed for time, here are a few ideas you may find useful in managing time better.     Read More @ Source | ||
| Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 5/28/2013 Posted: 28 May 2013 05:00 AM PDT  "The discipline which I have imparted to you will lead you when I am gone. Practice to attain the goal of enlightenment and awakening." ~The Buddha      Read More @ Source | ||
| Posted: 28 May 2013 12:00 AM PDT Is realizing emptiness the same as the attainment of nirvana? The simple answer to this question is no. When the Buddha in the Pali Nikayas and Agamas talks about his awakening, emptiness is never mentioned. It is the same with the Lalitavistara Sutra. This is not to suggest that emptiness plays absolutely no role in working towards nirvana. But nirvana is positive liberation even though it is sometimes explained in negative terms, whereas emptiness has several different uses depending upon the context. Interpreting emptiness or shunyata, for example, as absolute is certainly not without its problems. This becomes an issue in the later evolution of postmortem Buddhism in which we see the leveling down of nirvana so that it almost becomes a kind of samsara. This makes it possible for emptiness to enter through the backdoor as the new nirvana. Reflecting the older use of emptiness which serves as a special form of negation, Asanga describes it this way:
This early form is not unlike the Latin vacuus which denotes a vacancy of the object qualified, for example, an empty village. I expected to find villagers. But I can see there are none. In another direction, according to Asanga anyone who asserts that emptiness is the negation of all has wrongly conceptualized emptiness. On the same score, emptiness can be easily confused with abstraction which implies the mental separation of one thing from another. When I say the all is empty, I am really separating myself from the all which confronts me. But this is not the proper notion of emptiness. As a matter of consistency, even emptiness has to be negated insofar as it operates metaphorically (aupacârika) being, itself, just another discursive thought. In this respect, emptiness is a tool for overcoming dependent origination. It helps us to realize absolute truth or nirvana which transcends dependent origination (nirvana is the logical counterpart of dependent origination). | ||
| "Dirty money" tied to RSSB guru's Ranbaxy wealth Posted: 27 May 2013 11:02 PM PDT Like I said in this post, there's a tangled web of financial dealings surrounding the newfound wealth of Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family. Gurinder Singh is the current guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, an India-based spiritual organization I used to be a member of. Theologically, he is considered to be "god in human form." Financially, his family has become one of the richest in India, thanks to gifting of Religare stock by several relatives (and RSSB initiates), Malvinder and Shivinder Singh. Another post of mine describes the money connections between Religare and the guru. Religare is a company that Malvinder and Shivinder Singh invested heavily in after selling their stake in Ranbaxy, a pharmaceutical company. So the money gifted to the guru and his family is rooted in previous Ranbaxy holdings. Wikipedia describes the involvement of Malvinder Singh with Ranbaxy: Malvinder Mohan Singh is a former Chairman and CEO of Ranbaxy Laboratories, an Indian unit of Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo, who resigned in 2009 after Ranbaxy posted losses and after Daiichi Sankyo decided to get more actively involved in the newly acquired Indian unit.[1] He is the grandson of Bhai Mohan Singh, the founder of Ranbaxy. He and his brother Shivinder Singh, who in 1999 upon the death of their father inherited their family's 33.5% stake in Ranbaxy, are among the twenty richest Indians. ...Malvinder Singh's tenure as CEO of Ranbaxy starting in 2006 is controversial. Corporate culture of fraud continued unchecked under his tenure. In November 2006, Malvinder Singh led a delegation to FDA headquarters to try to reverse the decision to accept new drug applications from Ranbaxy. This attempt failed as FDA asked Ranbaxy to turn over audits done by its outside consultant, Parexel, which the company was claiming were confidential. The meeting ended in a standoff. Soon thereafter Mr. Singh decided to cash in. On June 11, 2008, Singh stunned the Indian business world by announcing that he and his brother were selling their 34% stake in Ranbaxy to the Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo for $ 2 billion. That phrase, "corporate culture of fraud," is much elaborated on in a lengthy May 15, 2013 CNN Money story, Dirty Medicine: The epic inside story story of long-term criminal fraud at Ranbaxy, the Indian drug company that makes generic Lipitor for millions of Americans. What Thakur unearthed over the next months would form some of the most devastating allegations ever made about the conduct of a drug company. His information would lead Ranbaxy into a multiyear regulatory battle with the FDA, and into the crosshairs of a Justice Department investigation that, almost nine years later, has finally come to a resolution. On May 13, Ranbaxy pleaded guilty to seven federal criminal counts of selling adulterated drugs with intent to defraud, failing to report that its drugs didn't meet specifications, and making intentionally false statements to the government. Ranbaxy agreed to pay $ 500 million in fines, forfeitures, and penalties -- the most ever levied against a generic-drug company. As noted in the Wikipedia article, Malvinder Singh (the guru's nephew, I'm pretty sure) became CEO of Ranbaxy in 2006. Another CNN Money story says: Ranbaxy has been grappling with quality issues for years. In 2008, the Food & Drug Administration took a highly unusual step, barring the importation of 30 drugs from two of Ranbaxy's plants in India. The FDA slapped the company with what's called an "Application Integrity Policy," halting the review of new drug applications from one of the company's Indian facilities until Ranbaxy proved its truthfulness. Which, of course, it wasn't able to do. Ranbaxy was permeated by sleazy corporate policies aimed at making more money by avoiding drug safety and testing requirements. The details are laid out in Dirty Medicine. I find this Ranbaxy story fascinating for several reasons. As noted before, my involvement with Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) began in the days of a previous guru, Charan Singh, who was scrupulous about not mixing spirituality with money-making. So far as I know, Charan Singh lived completely off of his own earnings, never mixing up his RSSB gurudom and personal financial dealings. Gurinder Singh, the current guru, operates much differently. In a previous post I quoted an Indian blogger who referred to Gurinder Singh's early involvement with Ranbaxy : For instance, the patriarch of the Radha Soami sect headquartered at Beas (he is also called the Beas Sant or the saint of Beas) is reported to have played his role in the succession drama at Ranbaxy after the death of then CEO and promoter Parvinder Singh in 1999. I readily admit that few large corporations are ethically impeccable. Making lots of money usually requires cutting some moral corners. But traditionally Indian spiritual leaders have stood apart from this "dark side" of modern culture, pointing to a way of living that elevates direct experience of divinity above material concerns/desires. In that light, here's another excerpt from the Dirty Medicine story: In January 2006, Malvinder Singh, the founder's grandson, succeeded Brian Tempest as Ranbaxy's managing director and CEO. At 33, with an MBA from Duke University, Singh was brash and competitive. The Indian business press dubbed him the Pharaoh of Pharma, and hailed him as an "out-of-the-box decision-maker." Others viewed Singh as petulant and immature. "I want profit!" he would yell in meetings, two former employees recall. Among the staff, he was known for being preoccupied with his ranking on the Forbes list of India's 40 richest people. When he and his brother Shivinder fell from No. 9 in 2004 to No. 19 in 2005, despite $ 1.6 billion in assets, Singh seemed to blame the decline on a lack of employee loyalty, a former employee recalls. Shows that even if "god in human form" is your uncle, enlightenment and detachment from worldly concerns can be far away. | ||
| "Dirty money" tied to RSSB guru's Ranbaxy wealth Posted: 27 May 2013 11:00 PM PDT Like I said in this post, there's a tangled web of financial dealings surrounding the newfound wealth of Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his family. Gurinder Singh is the current guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, an India-based spiritual organization I used to be a member of. Theologically, he is considered to be "god in human form." Financially, his family has become one of the richest in India, thanks to gifting of Religare stock by several relatives (and RSSB initiates), Malvinder and Shivinder Singh. Another post of mine describes the money connections between Religare and the guru. Religare is a company that Malvinder and Shivinder Singh invested heavily in after selling their stake in Ranbaxy, a pharmaceutical company. So the money gifted to the guru and his family is rooted in previous Ranbaxy holdings. Wikipedia describes the involvement of Malvinder Singh with Ranbaxy: Malvinder Mohan Singh is a former Chairman and CEO of Ranbaxy Laboratories, an Indian unit of Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo, who resigned in 2009 after Ranbaxy posted losses and after Daiichi Sankyo decided to get more actively involved in the newly acquired Indian unit.[1] He is the grandson of Bhai Mohan Singh, the founder of Ranbaxy. He and his brother Shivinder Singh, who in 1999 upon the death of their father inherited their family's 33.5% stake in Ranbaxy, are among the twenty richest Indians. ...Malvinder Singh's tenure as CEO of Ranbaxy starting in 2006 is controversial. Corporate culture of fraud continued unchecked under his tenure. In November 2006, Malvinder Singh led a delegation to FDA headquarters to try to reverse the decision to accept new drug applications from Ranbaxy. This attempt failed as FDA asked Ranbaxy to turn over audits done by its outside consultant, Parexel, which the company was claiming were confidential. The meeting ended in a standoff. Soon thereafter Mr. Singh decided to cash in. On June 11, 2008, Singh stunned the Indian business world by announcing that he and his brother were selling their 34% stake in Ranbaxy to the Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo for $ 2 billion. That phrase, "corporate culture of fraud," is much elaborated on in a lengthy May 15, 2013 CNN Money story, Dirty Medicine: The epic inside story story of long-term criminal fraud at Ranbaxy, the Indian drug company that makes generic Lipitor for millions of Americans. What Thakur unearthed over the next months would form some of the most devastating allegations ever made about the conduct of a drug company. His information would lead Ranbaxy into a multiyear regulatory battle with the FDA, and into the crosshairs of a Justice Department investigation that, almost nine years later, has finally come to a resolution. On May 13, Ranbaxy pleaded guilty to seven federal criminal counts of selling adulterated drugs with intent to defraud, failing to report that its drugs didn't meet specifications, and making intentionally false statements to the government. Ranbaxy agreed to pay $ 500 million in fines, forfeitures, and penalties -- the most ever levied against a generic-drug company. As noted in the Wikipedia article, Malvinder Singh (the guru's nephew, I'm pretty sure) became CEO of Ranbaxy in 2006. Another CNN Money story says: Ranbaxy has been grappling with quality issues for years. In 2008, the Food & Drug Administration took a highly unusual step, barring the importation of 30 drugs from two of Ranbaxy's plants in India. The FDA slapped the company with what's called an "Application Integrity Policy," halting the review of new drug applications from one of the company's Indian facilities until Ranbaxy proved its truthfulness. Which, of course, it wasn't able to do. Ranbaxy was permeated by sleazy corporate policies aimed at making more money by avoiding drug safety and testing requirements. The details are laid out in Dirty Medicine. I find this Ranbaxy story fascinating for several reasons. As noted before, my involvement with Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) began in the days of a previous guru, Charan Singh, who was scrupulous about not mixing spirituality with money-making. So far as I know, Charan Singh lived completely off of his own earnings, never mixing up his RSSB gurudom and personal financial dealings. Gurinder Singh, the current guru, operates much differently. In a previous post I quoted an Indian blogger who referred to Gurinder Singh's early involvement with Ranbaxy : For instance, the patriarch of the Radha Soami sect headquartered at Beas (he is also called the Beas Sant or the saint of Beas) is reported to have played his role in the succession drama at Ranbaxy after the death of then CEO and promoter Parvinder Singh in 1999. I readily admit that few large corporations are ethically impeccable. Making lots of money usually requires cutting some moral corners. But traditionally Indian spiritual leaders have stood apart from this "dark side" of modern culture, pointing to a way of living that elevates direct experience of divinity above material concerns/desires. In that light, here's another excerpt from the Dirty Medicine story: In January 2006, Malvinder Singh, the founder's grandson, succeeded Brian Tempest as Ranbaxy's managing director and CEO. At 33, with an MBA from Duke University, Singh was brash and competitive. The Indian business press dubbed him the Pharaoh of Pharma, and hailed him as an "out-of-the-box decision-maker." Others viewed Singh as petulant and immature. "I want profit!" he would yell in meetings, two former employees recall. Among the staff, he was known for being preoccupied with his ranking on the Forbes list of India's 40 richest people. When he and his brother Shivinder fell from No. 9 in 2004 to No. 19 in 2005, despite $ 1.6 billion in assets, Singh seemed to blame the decline on a lack of employee loyalty, a former employee recalls. Shows that even if "god in human form" is your uncle, enlightenment and detachment from worldly concerns can be far away. | ||
| Posted: 27 May 2013 10:01 PM PDT
This is something that just about all of us need help with. 1600 years ago, a compiler and commenter of Buddhist Spirituality texts called Buddhaghosa put together an extraordinary "tool kit" of ways to deal with resentment. I was recently looking at this guidance, which is part of Buddhaghosa's encyclopedic work on meditation, The Visuddhi Magga, or Path of Purity, and thought it was so fresh, well thought-out, and relevant that it was worth restating some of what he had to say. Twelve techniques for getting rid of resentment1. Lovingkindness practice This one's pretty obvious — if you're a meditator at least. You can simply call to mind the person you're resentful of, and cultivate good will toward them. We have a whole section of this site devoted to teaching the metta bhavana (development of lovingkindness) practice, so I won't say much about that here, except that it does work! When I first started practicing meditation I had a lot of problems with resentment, and I was often surprised by how quickly my anger and resentment toward someone would just vanish. 2. Reflect that resentment is never justified Buddhaghosa suggests that we "reflect upon the saw." This one needs a bit of unpacking. There's a "Simile of the Saw" in the early Buddhist Spirituality scriptures, where the Buddha says that even if bandits brutally sawed a person limb from limb, "he who entertained hate in his heart would not be one that carried out my teaching." In other words, it doesn't matter what the provocation is, hatred is never justified. The mind can go "but … but …" as much as it likes, but hatred remains a negative emotion that destroys our happiness, causes suffering for others, and prevents us from experiencing peace. Pretty much all of us, though, carry around the idea that there's such a thing as "righteous resentment." And we assume that hatred is justified. We tell ourselves stories about how bad the other person is, and this seems to make it natural for us to hate them. What we're not doing is taking responsibility for our ill will. It's our interpretation of other people's actions that makes us hate them. We cause our own hate. Don't take the parable of the saw literally. Of course (unless you're an advanced practitioner of superhuman stature) you'd experience hatred toward an aggressor who was torturing you. That wouldn't mean that you weren't a Buddhist Spirituality — but it would mean that in the moment of hatred you would not "be one that carried out [the Buddha's] teaching." The point of the parable is simply to undermine the idea of "righteous resentment." Incidentally, some Tibetan monks and nuns who have been brutally tortured by Chinese security forces have avoided developing hatred toward their tormentors by means of compassion — reflecting that their torturers are building up bad karma for themselves. 3. Winning the real battle Hot on the heels of the advice to reflect on the parable of the saw is an admonition to reflect that in developing hatred you're actually giving a person who hates you what they want. (This is assuming that the other person hates you, which isn't always the case.) What does a person who hates you want for you? Bad stuff, that's what. Buddhaghosa points out that hatred makes you ugly, causes you pain, destroys your good fortune, causes you to lose your wealth (or not to create any, perhaps because you're distracted), detracts from your reputation, loses you friends, and leads to a bad rebirth. This is all bad stuff. Someone who really hated you might wish all these things on you, and here you are doing them to yourself! You're handing your hater victory. You're doing him or her a favor. And by getting angry at an angry person, Buddhaghosa says, you become worse than them, and "do not win the battle hard to win," which is of course the battle with yourself, to remain happy and unruffled. So basically, we reflect here that true victory can't come from getting angry at an angry person. That's defeat. Victory comes from remaining calm, loving, and equanimous.  If you like my articles and want to support the work I do, please click here to check out my books, guided meditation CDs, and MP3s. Or you can make a donation.
4. "Accentuate the positive" Buddhaghosa suggests that we think about something positive in the other person, so that you can "remove irritation." This works, too. Resentment doesn't like complexity. When you bear in mind someone's good points — even things (dammit!) that we admire — it's harder to keep the resentment going. 5. Develop compassion But if you can't think of anything positive about the other person, or if they truly don't have any positive qualities (although that's almost impossible) then you should develop compassion toward them. In Buddhaghosa's world view, a person with no redeeming qualities is bound for the torments of the hell realms, and is therefore worthy of our compassion. I should stress that in Buddhism the hells are not permanent and are not punishments — they are simply places where we are reborn for a while as a result of our actions. Buddhist Spirituality hells are a kind of "fat farm" where we burn off our bad karma. 6. Notice how you're causing yourself suffering As Ann Lamott points out, resentment hurts us. Buddhaghosa offers many reflections along those lines: If another person has hurt us, why should we then hurt ourselves? In your life you've had to give up many things that brought you happiness, so why not walk away from resentment, which makes you miserable? If another person has done something we disapprove of, then why do something (like getting angry) that we would also disapprove of? If someone wants you to get angry, why give them the satisfaction? You may make the other person suffer with your anger. Then again you may not. But you'll definitely hurt yourself. The thing you got angry about is impermanent and in the past. So why are you angry now? He's kind of unrelenting, that Buddhaghosa. 7. Reflect that all beings are the owners of their karma This is a common reflection in Buddhism: all beings create their own actions (kamma) and inherit the consequences of those actions. The other person may have done things that are unskillful, and those actions will cause them suffering. So what's the point of you doing exactly the same thing, by acting out of the unskillful state of resentment? It's like picking up a hot coal to throw at the other person. You may hurt them, but you're definitely going to hurt yourself. The other person, if they are angry with you, is causing themselves pain. It's like, Buddhaghosa says, them throwing a handful of dust into the wind. They may be aiming at you, but it's their eyes that will end up smarting. Reflecting in this way we can untangle our respective lives. The other person's faults, real or imagined, are no longer an occasion for us to exercise our own faults. 8. Reflect on exemplars of patience Buddhaghosa goes a bit over the top with this one, devoting almost as much time on this method of dispelling resentment as he does on all the others put together. His approach is to remind us of various past lives of the Buddha, or jataka tales, as they're called. These are mythological stories about the Buddha's previous lives, as he developed the qualities of compassion and wisdom that led to his awakening. I've found that being in the presence of someone who is very patient causes me to let go of my resentments. I had a good friend in Scotland who I never — not once — heard say an unkind word about anyone. Sometimes I'd be bitching about someone else, and my friend would just come in with some wise and kind word about the other person's life that would put everything in perspective and leave me feeling a bit petty about having ranted. Even now, just calling that friend to mind helps me evoke a sense of patience. 9. Reflect that all beings have been your dearest friends and relations in a previous life I'm not big on past lives, or in belief in rebirth generally, but if you do take that kind of thing seriously, then Buddhaghosa's advice is to remember that because of the beginninglessness of time, every being — including those you get most pissed off with — have been your mother, father, brother, sister, son, and daughter. When that person was your mother, they carried you in their womb, suckled you, wiped away your snot and shit, and generally lavished you with love. And we can reflect, Buddhaghosa says, thus: "So, it is unbecoming for me to harbor hate for him [or her] in my mind." Being one of a scientific bent, and not putting much stock in reflections that rely on assuming that rebirth is a reality rather than a myth, or perhaps a metaphor, I find myself approaching this advice in a different way. Let's take rebirth as a metaphor: change is happening all the time, and so we're each reborn in every moment. Each moment we die and are reborn. Each momentary contact with the world is part of this process of death and rebirth. In fact, each perception is a kind of birth. It's the birth of a new experience, and thus of a new "us." Each contact that we have with another being is part of this process. Each time we see someone, hear someone, touch someone, even think or someone, a new experience arises and a new being is born. So in this way, all beings that we have contact with are our mothers. Each being we have contact with in this moment helps give birth to the being that exists in this moment. And since, in our immensely complex world, the unfolding, never-ending death-and-rebirth of each being is ultimately connected with the never-ending death-and-rebirth of each other being, all beings are our mothers. 10. Reflect on the benefits of lovingkindness You can reflect on the benefits of lovingkindness, and how you'll deny yourself those benefits by indulging in resentment. What are the benefits? Well, it's worth reflecting on that through examining your own experience, but here's Buddhaghosa's list, which comes from the scriptures: You'll sleep in comfort, wake in comfort, and dream no evil dreams. You'll be dear to human beings and to non-human beings. Deities will guard you. Fire and poison and weapons won't harm you (although that seems unlikely, to say the least). More plausibly, your mind will be easily concentrated. You'll be reborn in a pleasant realm (or at the very least the future you that arises will have more a pleasant existence than the being that would have arisen had lovingkindness not been a part of its previous existence). Some of these are plausible. There is scientific research showing that there are health benefits, and mental health benefits, from practicing lovingkindness meditation. Friendly people generally seem to have a more pleasant experience of the world, with less conflict and more fulfilling experience of others. You'll deny yourself these benefits if you indulge in resentment. Resentment is the saturated fat of emotions, clogging the arteries of our happiness. 11. Break the other person into tiny pieces Mentally (not physically!) we can dissolve the object of our resentment into various elements, asking ourselves what exactly we're angry with. Is it the head hairs, the body hairs, the nails, the teeth, etc? Is it the solid matter making up that person, the liquid, the gas, the energy? This might seem a little silly. In fact it seemed silly to me, right up to the moment that I tried it. There had been resistance to the idea, because I thought, "Well, of course I'm not angry with any of those things, I'm angry with them — with the person as a whole. But setting that resistance aside, and just reflecting on the bits that make up a person takes you away from the thought of them "as a whole" and you temporarily can't be angry with them! As Buddhaghosa says, "When he tries the resolution into elements, his anger finds no foothold, like a mustard seed on the point of a needle." He's right. 12. Give a gift This one's delightfully straightforward and earthy. If you give the other person a gift — especially something you value — then you break the dynamic of your resentment. You shake things up within yourself. You have to think of the other person as a human being with needs. You have to think about what they might like. You stop your mind from going around and around in the same old rut of complaining. You have to let go of your damned pride. You have to take a risk. You have to make yourself vulnerable. And giving to the other person changes the dynamic of the relationship. If there's mutual resentment, then you may shock the other person into seeing you differently. Buddhaghosa points out that giving naturally leads to kind speech:
Of course you may be thinking something along the lines of, "Wait! I hate this person; why on earth would I give them something?" But that just brings up another question. Do you want to end your resentment? Well, do you? PS. You can see a complete list all the 100 Days of Lovingkindness posts here. Read More @ Source | ||
| 10 unexpected ways to meditate every day Posted: 27 May 2013 09:00 PM PDT
Standing meditation. Standing instead of sitting to meditate can relieve lower back… Read the original article » Read More @ Source | ||
| Posted: 27 May 2013 04:00 PM PDT
Buddha Weekly celebrates Wesak, the Buddha's Birthday, with a profile on the most celebrated Buddhist holiday around the world, and the important of keeping precepts and acting with loving kindness. In the same issue, the magazine covers unconventional meditation techniques for the active monkey mind, including walking, standing and skateboarding. "Meditation Techniques for People with Unsettled Monkey Minds" The monkey mind disturbs peaceful reflection and creates endless obstacles to… Read the original article » Read More @ Source | ||
| Genes Play Role in Baby's Sleep at Night Posted: 27 May 2013 03:00 PM PDT
Parents who are having difficulty getting their babies to sleep through the night may be somewhat relieved by a new study showing that a large determinant of an infant's nighttime sleep is simply the luck of the genetic draw. Researchers in Canada studied sleep records from nearly 1,000 identical and fraternal twins in Quebec, and found that genes largely determine whether children sleep through the night. However, children's ability to nap during the day is controlled more by their environment. While some parents may find themselves fortunate in having a sound sleeper, the researchers said there are also ways to help a child along. "The genetic influence is only part of the equation that controls sleep duration. One should not give up on trying correcting inadequate sleep duration or bad sleep habits early in childhood," said study author Evelyne Touchette, a psychology researcher at Laval University in Quebec. The researchers found there is a particularly sensitive time for the influence of parental interventions, at around 18 months, Touchette said. "This is a good time to implement sleep strategies in order to improve the child's nighttime sleep habits if they are not already in place," she said. Parents should not assume that a child who doesn't seem to sleep enough doesn't need more sleep, Touchette said. Only 5 percent of children in the study were considered "short-persistent sleepers," meaning they seemed to need less than 10 hours of sleep nightly. "One should use caution before concluding that their child is truly a short-sleeper. More often than not, children do not get sufficient sleep for other reasons," she said. In the study, the researchers did not look for specific genes associated with sleep, rather they looked at whether identical twins were more likely than fraternal twins to share sleep patterns. While children can vary in their sleep habits, there are some milestones to look for, said Dr. Dennis Rosen, associate medical director of the center for pediatric sleep disorders at Boston Children's Hospital and author of "Successful Sleep Strategies for Kids" (Harvard University, 2012). At 6 weeks old, infants begin napping two to three times a day, moving to two daily naps by age 6 months, he said. At 18 months, a toddler should be down to one nap during the day. "Most children are finished with daytime naps by the time they're about 5, but many children stop napping earlier," he said. In the Quebec study, 4 percent of children had stopped napping by age 4, but that number was 68 percent in a similar study from Italy, showing culture has some impact on nap times. It's key to find balance between spending enough time in bed but not too much time, Rosen said. Children not given enough time to sleep will often become irritable and cranky, but children who stay in bed longer than they need will often not stay asleep, or will wake up multiple times throughout the night. Both Rosen and Touchette said it is important to establish a routine that allows the child autonomy in getting themselves to sleep. "From about [6 months], I recommend putting children to bed when they are drowsy but still awake, so that they can develop appropriate sleep-onset associations and learn to fall asleep on their own," Touchette said, adding that this also helps children to fall back asleep quickly when they wake up at night. Parents should look for possible sleep problems, such as loud snoring, gasping or pauses in breathing. But even other issues that have a child consistently waking parents up can be problematic. "These are things that are not medical issues but they can be quite disruptive," Rosen said. "The parents need to sleep as well." "Speaking to somebody who is knowledgeable about sleep in children, a pediatrician or sleep specialist, can be very beneficial." Follow MyHealthNewsDaily @MyHealth_MHND, Facebook & Google+.  Read More @ Source | ||
| How meditation can make the world a better place Posted: 27 May 2013 02:00 PM PDT
The national journal Psychological Science recently published a study by Weng that suggests adults can learn to be more compassionate. How so? Through a meditation CD, of course. And by repeating nice phrases like "may you have joy and happiness." This type of research — which focuses on what fosters positive thinking in… Read the original article » Read More @ Source |
Resentment is seductive. We assume on some level that it's going to help us, but it doesn't. It just causes us pain.
Sophia Breene, Health: Ready to get Zen? Meditation can do way more than people think—and it's not just for hippies. Practicing meditation regularly has legitimate health advantages, especially for the brain. Studies suggest meditation can do it all: reduce anxiety and sensitivity to pain, make us smarter, ward off sickness, and prevent stress. If carving out an hour to sit on a cushion doesn't float your boat, there are many unexpected ways to meditate every day. Get the benefits of meditation by trying out an alternative style from the list below.
Digital Journal: Toronto, ON (PRWEB)
Jack Craver, The Capital Times: Helen Weng, like thousands of other Madison residents, is reaching the end of that long crawl toward a Ph.D. Unlike many of the University of Wisconsin's underpaid grad students, Weng already has had a taste of the limelight that is usually reserved for full-fledged professors.| You are subscribed to email updates from BuddhaRocks ☸ To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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