It’s 4:30 in the morning, my favorite time of the day during the summer. Watching the light begin to penetrate the darkness, I am greeted by a pair of cardinals singing their wake-up song outside the open window.
While on vacation last month, I would get up every morning at about this time of day and walk down to the dock to sit in uninterrupted silence for about an hour or two. It became my daily ritual. Coffee in hand, I would watch how the rising of the sun gradually changed the landscape. A great blue heron landed silently on the pond, one of the surprise gifts of early morning. Occasionally, a loon would give its haunting cry. I thought, “It sounds like a call to prayer — nature’s call to prayer.”
What are the gifts of silence? What do we gain from slowing down to rest? Common sense tells us the obvious — we all need periods of rest and replenishment, and I find that the older I get, the more of it I need. Rest is a difficult commodity to come by these days. We’re so used to the frantic pace that slowing down sometimes feels a little foreign.
Even when we purposefully take time for vacation, rest isn’t something we seem to value so much anymore. Staying busy and productive is what we equate with importance. Some people even find that sitting quietly in contemplation is boring, even anxiety-provoking.
And yet, taking the time to commit to a regular, daily practice of restful activity (such as yoga, meditation, prayer, or spending time in nature) has been documented to be good for us. Research has shown that daily repetition of restful activities helps to quiet the brain and the body, for it is through repetition that we are able to break old habits and slow down enough to become aware of the world around us.
Dan Siegel, a neuro-psychiatrist and author of “The Mindful Brain,” states that meditation, particularly mindfulness meditation, has the power to change brain chemistry. Changes include greater emotional balance, improved cardiac and immune functioning, and greater attunement to life in the present. In addition, daily meditation has been shown to increase the neuronal fibers in the corpus callosum, the area of the brain that connects the right and left hemispheres. What this means is that there is greater integration and connection to the two halves of the brain, thus enabling the brain to further develop and improve overall functioning.
These findings have implications for our overall health as well as providing documentation about how the brain continues to develop throughout our life span. Introducing children and adolescents to yoga and/or meditation has produced improvements in self-esteem and has shown a moderate decrease in hyperactivity. Siegel’s research also suggests that if we develop restful practices we can change neuronal pathways and increase the brains neuro-plasticity.
Increased neuro-plasticity is what helps the brain retain vital functions such as memory, creativity, judgment, and the ability to handle complexity. In addition, the practice of yoga has been documented to be the single most effective exercise in lowering blood pressure.
What is fascinating about Siegel’s research is that it has shown that it is not necessarily the amount of time that you dedicate to a contemplative practice that affects brain changes, it is the frequency with which you commit to a practice that makes a difference. For example, people who meditated for five minutes every day had more noticeable effects in terms of brain changes than people who meditated for one hour three times a week. Regular practice has an accrual effect, much like depositing money in a bank. Eventually, it adds up. We may forget about the importance of saving, may even begrudge our commitment to putting money aside; but then one day, all of a sudden, we are startled by the amount that has built up.
The brain is a lot like a bank. It takes time to change the firing patterns of the neuronal pathways in our brain. However, making a simple commitment to five or 10 minutes each day can make a big difference. Try it for six months and see what happens. You might even start waking up at 4:30 in the morning.
The only thing I found in last six month is – Giving sometime to yourself (alone) will make you more confident, productive and dedicated towards your dreams and goals. Hope you will try the same. All the Best 🙂
A Thinker's Diary 