Interested in exploring mindfulness with your kids? Scott Rogers shares a four-minute “Be Like Nature” mindfulness practice
Drink less with mindfulness
Even short sessions of mindfulness meditation may help heavy drinkers imbibe less, according to a team of University College London psychologists that compared mindfulness to simple relaxation. A group of 68 women, who drank an average of 26 units of alcohol a week (14 units is the maximum recommended weekly amount), learned either an 11-minute mindfulness practice—simply noticing cravings, without acting on them—or a relaxation exercise. They were asked to practice their intervention daily for 15 minutes but were not monitored. One week later, the mindfulness group—who practiced 3-4 times for 8-9 minutes—reported drinking 9.3 fewer units of alcohol. There was no significant difference among those doing the relaxation exercise. As the researchers concluded, these findings “suggest that even ‘ultra-brief’ experiences with mindfulness can have measurable and potentially clinically meaningful effects.”
Emojitation
Ever wished for an emoji to express your love of mindfulness? Now you can! The Unicode Consortium, the standard-bearer of emojis, has added icons of people in lotus pose, a traditional posture used for meditation, to its library, which is used by platforms such as Google, Facebook, and Apple. These articles also appeared in the December 2017 issue of Mindful magazine. Read more news and current mindfulness research in the February 2018 issue of Mindful magazine, on newsstands now.
