the zen of air travel

Flight delayed for another three hours? Just breathe deeply.

The San Francisco International Airport continues its quest to make itself its own destination. The airport has just opened a yoga room for harried travelers seeking a moment of peace following airport security.

In Terminal 2, serving Virgin America and American Airlines passengers, SFO’s “Zen Room” is reportedly the first of its kind. The space features dimmed lights meant to soothe weary spirits, a glass wall and door to act as a sound barrier from the busy noises of the terminal, and felt-covered rocks to add to the Zen garden atmosphere. The room will have plenty of yoga mats for travelers to use, and will be open from 4:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. each day.

zen mediation space in SF airport

Melissa Mizell, design director for Gensler, the architecture firm behind Terminal 2, said in a statement that the room “gives modern travelers a space that fosters and supports quiet and reflection,” MSNBC reports.

adapted from Time Magazine, January 2012

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

Now & Zen’s Yoga Timer Shop

Yoga Timer and Alarm Clock Shop - Boulder, CO

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

zen chime alarm clock and meditation timers

The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you "make time" for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

Simple Strategies to Strengthen Self Control

Witness the role of willpower in your daily life: From the moment the alarm sounds in the morning, it’s only by sheer determination that you rouse yourself from the warm sheets into the still-dark morning. You grit your teeth when the barista takes 6 minutes to fill your coffee order–never mind those $200 shoes you talk yourself out of buying or the fries you force yourself to leave on your plate at lunch. It’s no wonder that by the time 6 pm rolls around, you’re waging World War III on your husband for forgetting to pick up the milk on his way home. Again.

Our lives are full of temptations that tax our self-control and drain our willpower, but a new and growing body of research says you can make it through the day without losing your cool–and it isn’t as hard as you think. First, you need to realize that doing anything you don’t want to do–suppressing irritation at your mother-in-law, fighting an impulse to do something you shouldn’t, completing a task when you want to quit–draws on the same storehouse of willpower. But help is here: According to Roy Baumeister, PhD, director of social psychology at Florida State University, willpower functions like a muscle. It can be fatigued by overuse, but it can also be strengthened to make you more productive, less stressed, and happier. All you need are a few healthy habits to keep your willpower tank on full.

Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra.

When Dr. Baumeister monitored workers in Germany, he was surprised to find that people spent between 3 and 4 hours per day resisting desires, the most common of which were urges to eat, sleep, take a break from work, and have sex. But Dr. Baumeister also found that people with strong self-control spent less time resisting desires than other people did. At first he was puzzled. If self-control is for resisting desires, why are people who have more of it using it less? Soon the explanation emerged: They’re better at proactively arranging their lives to avoid problem situations. These are the folks who take the car to the shop before it breaks down, give themselves enough time to finish a project, and steer clear of all-you-can-eat buffets. They play offense instead of defense–which means they set themselves up so they have a realistic chance of succeeding.

“Mindfulness” is the spiritual practice of being aware of your present moment. World famous Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh has developed the use of a bowl-gong in a practice he calls the “mindfulness bell.” When you hear the sound of the mindfulness bell, you are invited to take a moment to breathe in and out and center yourself in the present.  This practice allows the sound of the bowl-gong to periodically connect you to the peace and tranquility that resides inside you right now.  This delightful practice reduces stress and improves your overall health.

The Zen Timepiece can serve as a mindfulness bell in two ways: it can be set to strike on the hour (providing an hourly moment of stillness), or it can be set to strike at a programmed interval, such as every 20 minutes, or even every three hours.

The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you "make time" for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

Now & Zen – The Gong Meditation and Alarm Clock Shop

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

orders@now-zen.com

It's exquisite sounds summon your consciousness out of your meditative state with a series of subtle gongs.

Trying to not think about falling asleep only creates stress for troubled sleepers. And the more stress, the less chance of falling into slumber. An ancient Kundalini yoga relaxation technique can give your mind something else to focus on and, in turn, help you relax.

Nancy Elkes, an instructor at Practice Yoga in Manhattan, recommends using the Meditation on the White Swan (also called Hunsani meditation) to quiet the mind in order to fall asleep. The more you use it before bed, the more accustomed your body becomes to this process of physically settling down. Once it’s part of your routine, it can soothe your entire body to fall asleep faster.

Meditation on the White Swan

1. Sit in a comfortable seat with a straight spine. Fold your fingers into your palms with the thumbs extended. Press your thumb tips together until they turn white (no need to press hard, just firmly). The tips are facing down in a V-shape to keep the joint relaxed.

2. Place your hands 6 to 8 inches in front of the brow point, with the backs of the hands facing you. Fix your eyes on the white of your thumb tips and get a clear mental image of your thumbs.

Wake up with gradual, beautiful acoustic chimes. The Zen Alarm Clock transforms your mornings and gets you started right, with a progressive awakening

3. Then close your eyes and clearly “see” the thumb tips through the eyelids mentally.

4. Let the mind meditate on the sound “Sat” (Sanskrit for “truth”) as you inhale, and think “Nam” (meaning “the expression of your truth”) as you exhale. Let the mental sound vibrate in your body and continue for 5-11 minutes.

5. Give yourself over to the sleep gods as you let go. “You will reach a state of complete relaxation when you surrender all the mind’s busy thoughts and all of the body’s tensions over to someone or something else,” Elkes says. “Even if you have to envision your thoughts and aches or tension being swallowed up in the waves, let them flow away from you.”

6. To finish, touch the tongue to the roof of the mouth, gently swallow, softly float your eyes open and lay down for a deep sleep.

You can also try this lying down. You might find that soon after envisioning your thumbs, your alarm is waking you up.

Boulder, Colorado—an innovative company has taken one of life’s most unpleasant experiences (being startled awake by your alarm clock early Monday morning), and transformed it into something to actually look forward to. “The Zen Alarm Clock,” uses soothing acoustic chimes that awaken users gently and gradually, making waking up a real pleasure.  Rather than an artificial recorded sound played through a speaker, the Zen Clock features an alloy chime bar similar to a wind chime.  When the clock’s alarm is triggered, its chime produces a long-resonating, beautiful acoustic tone reminiscent of a temple gong.  Then, as the ring tone gradually fades away, the clock remains silent until it automatically strikes again three minutes later.  The frequency of the chime strikes gradually increase over ten-minutes, eventually striking every five seconds, so they are guaranteed to wake up even the heaviest sleeper.  This gentle, ten-minute “progressive awakening” leaves users feeling less groggy, and even helps with dream recall.

What makes this gentle awakening experience so exquisite is the sound of the natural acoustic chime, which has been tuned to produce the same tones as the tuning forks used by musical therapists. According to the product’s inventor, Steve McIntosh, “once you experience this way of being gradually awakened with beautiful acoustic tones, no other alarm clock will ever do.”

adapted from Women’s Health Magazine, by BY KRISTEN DOLLARD

It serves as the perfect meditation timer.

Now & Zen – The Gentle Chime Alarm Clocks & Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Orders@now-zen.com

meditation calms the mindmeditation calms the mind

Wave Change

Even people meditating for the first time will register a decrease in beta waves, a sign that the cortex is not processing information as actively as usual. After their first 20-minute session, patients show a marked decrease in beta-wave activity, shown in bright colors, top.

BEFORE meditation –Frontal lobe –Parietal lobe –Occipital lobe

AFTER meditation –Frontal lobe –Parietal lobe –Occipital lobe

Inside the Meditating Brain

Frontal lobe This is the most highly evolved part of the brain, responsible for reasoning, planning, emotions and self-conscious awareness. During meditation, the frontal cortex tends to go offline.

Parietal lobe This part of the brain processes sensory information about the surrounding world, orienting you in time and space. During meditation, activity in the parietal lobe slows down.

Thalamus The gatekeeper for the senses, this organ focuses your attention by funneling some sensory data deeper into the brain and stopping other signals in their tracks. Meditation reduces the flow of incoming information to a trickle.

Reticular formation As the brain’s sentry, this structure receives incoming stimuli and puts the brain on alert, ready to respond. Meditating dials back the arousal signal.

Meditation Training

meditation training

After training in meditation for eight weeks, subjects show a pronounced change in brain-wave patterns, shifting from the alpha waves of aroused, conscious thought to the theta waves that dominate the brain during periods of deep relaxation

Relaxation increases… Power of theta waves as a percentage of total EEG power –Meditation group –Control group –Sessions

…conscious thought decreases Power of alpha waves as a percentage of total EEG power –Meditation group –Control group –Sessions

Source: Dr. Gregg Jacobs, Harvard Medical School, author of The Ancestral Mind.

adapted from Time Magazine, Aug. 2003

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

meditation timers with singing bowl chime

Now & Zen’s Meditation and Yoga Timer Shop

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

meditation

Science has proven that meditating actually restructures your brain and can train it to concentrate, feel greater compassion, cope with stress, and more. Read the latest research and put it into practice.

Yoga citta vritti nirodhah. Yoga is the ending of disturbances of the mind. (Yoga Sutra, I.2)

Nothing is quite as satisfying as a yoga practice that’s filled with movement. Whether you prefer an intense and sweaty vinyasa practice, a gentle but deliberate Viniyoga practice, or something in between, all systems of hatha yoga provide a contented afterglow for the same reason: You sync your movement with your breath. When you do, your mind stops its obsessive churning and begins to slow down. Your attention turns from your endless to-do list toward the rhythm of your breath, and you feel more peaceful than you did before you began your practice.

For many of us, accessing that same settled, contented state is more difficult to do in meditation. It’s not easy to watch the mind reveal its worries, its self-criticism, or its old memories. Meditation requires patience and—even more challenging for most Westerners—time. So, why would you put yourself through the struggle?

Quite simply, meditation can profoundly alter your experience of life. Thousands of years ago the sage Patanjali, who compiled the Yoga Sutra, and the Buddha both promised that meditation could eliminate the suffering caused by an untamed mind. They taught their students to cultivate focused attention, compassion, and joy. And they believed that it was possible to change one’s mental powers and emotional patterns by regularly experiencing meditative states. Those are hefty promises.

But these days, you don’t have to take their word for it. Western scien-tists are testing the wisdom of the masters, using new technology that allows researchers to study how meditation in-fluences the brain.

The current findings are exciting enough to encourage even the most resistant yogis to sit down on the cushion: They suggest that meditation—even in small doses—can profoundly influence your experience of the world by remodeling the physical structure of your brain.

adapted from Yoga Journal, By Kelly McGonigal

Meditation Timers with Tibetan-Singing Bowls

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO 80302

(800) 779-6383

Having a refreshed mind and body are two keys to a natural and Zen lifestyle.

Do you believe you can feel better every single day—even in hard times? Dr. Andrew Weil says you can, but how will surprise you.

If you’ve ever wanted to be happier than you are, you’re obviously not alone. But Andrew Weil, MD, the founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, is here to gently suggest that we might be going about it all wrong. Ever since he graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1968, Dr. Weil has been sounding the alarm about the wrongheadedness of the diagnose-and-drug model of health care. And now, with his new book, Spontaneous Happiness, he’s fixing his gaze on what makes us truly happy, what to do when we’re not, and how to better weather life’s inevitable highs and lows. He says we can all feel better—much better—than we do.

There’s an unspoken message in our society that we should all be happy all the time, and people are making themselves miserable trying to achieve it.
I don’t think that happiness or depression is a mood we should be in all or even most of the time. Most of us look for happiness “out there,” which renders it out of our control. The truth is, extremely negative and positive moods, like bliss and despondency, mark the edges of our emotional spectrum. They can help us discover a neutral midpoint of emotional health.

Now & Zen is focused on creating a naturalistic lifestyle, and our clocks are an example of our philosophy.

And what is that midpoint exactly?
It’s contentment, which is an internal state of well-being that’s relatively impervious to life’s transient ups and downs, and it’s independent of what you have or don’t have. If you hitch your moods to something external–getting a raise, a new car, a new lover–then what happens if that goes away? Contentment, on the other hand, is an inner feeling of calm; it’s not dependent on external circumstances, possessions, or an episode of good fortune.

So how do we foster contentment?
A good place to start is with a journal where you write down what you’re grateful for and then express thanks to key people in your life. Regularly practicing this sort of thinking is one of the best strategies for enhancing a sense of well-being. You should also try some form of meditation and deep breathing–which is free, and it’s right under your nose! Breathing mindfully helps calm our nervous system—it’s an easy, powerful tool.

But let’s say you work two jobs, your parents are sick, your kids are struggling in school—how can you find time to do this?
I understand it’s difficult, but breathing exercises literally take five minutes a day; sitting down quietly and meditating on your life takes just a few minutes too.

adapted from Prevention by By Siobhan O’Connor

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga & Meditation Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you "make time" for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

Now & Zen – The Yoga & Meditation Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

orders@now-zen.com

Wake up with gradual, beautiful acoustic chimes. The Zen Alarm Clock transforms your mornings and gets you started right, with a progressive awakening

Driven to sleeplessness by the effects of stress and the demands of their own biology, women are more likely than men to have serious sleep problems, experts say.

“We see insomnia much more frequently in women, probably at least 50 percent more often than men,” said Dr. Ryan Hays, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

In response, women have turned to medication for help. In the age range most affected by insomnia, ages 40 to 59, nearly 15.5 million American women got a prescription last year to help them sleep — nearly double the rate for men in the same age group, according to IMS Health, a health-care consulting firm in Danbury, Conn.

But sleep researchers believe there’s a better way. Changes to a person’s lifestyle and to the way they approach sleep can help in a more natural and more effective way than simply popping a sleeping pill.

And putting away the pills may be especially appealing in light of a report earlier this week in the journal BMJ Open that suggested prescription sleep aids may shorten your life or increase your risk of certain cancers.

“That’s the ideal, to not rely on a pill to help you get to sleep,” said Shelby Harris, director of the behavioral sleep medicine program in the Sleep-Wake Disorders Center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. “It’s always best to solve a problem without a pill. It really does depend on the patient, but we prefer if you can avoid medication.”

Two major factors make women more likely than men to suffer insomnia, Harris said.

The first factor is innate and ancient. “There are a lot of hormonal and biological changes throughout the life cycle that women experience, and those affect sleep,” she said.

These hormonal changes begin with menstruation and continue through menopause. Pregnancy also can hamper sleep, particularly in the third trimester, and many women find it very difficult in the first few post-partum months to maintain a deep, healthy slumber. “Every little noise keeps you awake or wakes you up,” Harris said, tracing the phenomenon back to evolution and a hypervigilance developed by our primitive ancestors to better protect their young.

But the second factor is external and modern. Much is required of women these days, as they juggle many different life roles, and the stress this creates can make it difficult to sleep, Harris said.

Waking up in the morning should be as pleasant as falling asleep at night. The Zen Alarm Clock's gradual, gentle awakening is transformative.

“It always seems like they’re trying to fit a 30-hour day into 24 hours,” she said. “There’s little time for moms in particular to relax and unwind, to be able to go to sleep at night.”

These problems can create a vicious cycle, where a woman who has trouble sleeping will begin to fret, which makes it even more difficult to sleep, Hays said.

“Patients often feel if they don’t get a good night’s sleep, the day after is going to be the worst,” he said. “They start to learn to dread the bed.”

Hays and Harris both recommend that their patients adopt changes in their routine to help them get better sleep. These behavior modifications go beyond the usual “sleep hygiene” recommendations — like getting to bed on time every night, partaking in regular exercise or using your bed only for sleep or sex.

For example, many women with insomnia will lie in bed thinking about all the things they need to get done the next day, Harris said. She recommends that these women write up a to-do list early in the evening and then prioritize it. “Write everything out, so it’s on paper and out of your head,” she said.

Other women wake up in the middle of the night and decide to get some work done or perform some chores, which sounds like a good use of time but might be making matters worse, Harris noted.

“If you do that every night at 3:00 in the morning, you’re just training your body to get up and do work at that hour,” she said.

The two sleep experts also recommend that women get out of bed if they wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep within a half-hour or so. But instead of working, they recommend that women do something calming, monotonous or even boring: fold clothing, or read old magazines or books in dim light.

“They’re better able to fall back asleep quicker than if they stayed in bed and became frustrated,” Hays said.

Women with extreme insomnia might even consider trying a counter-intuitive approach in which they limit their time in bed, Hays said. If they’re only getting five hours of good sleep a night, for instance, they could allow themselves only four hours in bed.

“If they spend less time in bed, there’s a better chance they’ll spend more of that time sleeping,” Hays said.

Another little sleep trick involves body temperature. Researchers have found that sleep comes with a drop in a person’s core temperature, Hays noted. Taking a relaxing warm bath before bedtime could help aid sleep. “That may increase the amount the body’s temperature actually drops, which may help sleep continuity,” he explained.

Finally, women can help themselves fall asleep by “setting the table” for sleep by adopting a routine set of relaxing rituals just before bedtime.

“A lot of people treat sleep like an on/off switch,” Harris said. “You should set aside a half-hour to treat sleep like a dimmer switch.” Sit in a favorite chair, dim the lights and do something relaxing and enjoyable.

“You’re setting the stage for sleep,” she said. “Then get in bed when you’re actually sleepy.”

Our Zen Timepiece’s acoustic 6-inch brass bowl-gong clock is the world’s ultimate alarm clock, practice timer, and “mindfulness bell.”

Wake up with gradual, beautiful acoustic chimes. The Zen Alarm Clock transforms your mornings and gets you started right, with a progressive awakening

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on sleep and sleep disorders.

The Zen Alarm Clock transforms mornings, awakening you gradually with a series of gentle acoustic chimes Once you use a Zen Clock nothing else will do

Now & Zen – The Zen Alarm Clock Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800)779-6383

Orders@now-zen.com

Once you experience the Zen Timepiece's progressive tones, you'll never want to meditate any other way. It serves as the perfect meditation timer.

It’s not what you believe in; it’s that you believe that makes a difference

Spiritual or religious beliefs can be a potent stress reducer. And it doesn’t seem to matter what you believe in, according to Dr. Esther Sternberg, director of the Integrative Neural Immune Program and chief of the Neuroendocrine Immunology and Behavior section at the National Institute of Mental Health.

God, yoga, prayer, gardening or your pet, she says an interview in the June issue of Science & Theology News, can all trigger physiological processes that de-stress you. In other words, it’s not what you believe, but that you believe in something, that positively affects your immune system and helps you get and stay well.

Sternberg says that she came to recognize the importance of beliefs when she and her mother discussed them as her mother was dying. The issue arose again when she developed arthritis following her mother’s death.

“I’ve certainly seen in the last decade a huge shift,” she said, “a sea change, where all these kinds of notions–first that stress makes you sick and more recently that believing could make you well–are accepted now that there is a biology to it.”

The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you "make time" for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

adapted from Prevention by By Jan Eickmeier

Use our unique "Zen Clock" which functions as a Yoga Timer. It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal.

It serves as the perfect meditation timer. Available in 5 wood styles, including bamboo.

Now & Zen – The Yoga & Meditation Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

orders@now-zen.com

The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you "make time" for meditation in your life.

Calm your mind with focus and breathing

Meditation instructor Jim Malloy of St. Petersburg, FL, offers this easy-to-do meditation technique that only requires you to do it once a day for 5 minutes. (It works even better if you give it 20 minutes, twice a day.)

Find a quiet, comfortable place, where you won’t be distracted. Sit with your back straight. Place your hands in a comfortable position. If you please, you can call on God or a “higher power” to help you. Allow your eyes to rest comfortably downward, gazing softly but not focused on anything. Let your breathing become deep and rhythmic. It’s okay to let your attention drift a bit, but stay relaxed. If your eyes become heavy, let them close. Don’t worry about doing it right. You simply want to clear your head, and relax.

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga & Meditation Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

adapted from Prevention by By Selene Yeager

The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you "make time" for meditation in your life.

The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you "make time" for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

Now & Zen

The Yoga & Meditation Timer Shop

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

orders@now-zen.com