soothing chime meditation timers

The Digital Zen Clock also serves as a countdown and interval timer for yoga, meditation, bodywork, etc.; and it can also be set to chime on the hour as a tool for “mindfulness.”

soothing meditation timers and mindfulness practice tools

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1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Do you want an alarm clock with real, acoustic sounds - choose The Zen Clock from Now & Zen

Are you and your partner at odds over your sleeping arrangements? Does one person snore in bed and the other hog the covers? Do you hate your spouses radio alarm clock?

If sleeping next to your partner is a struggle, you’re not alone. One in fourAmerican couples sleep separately, according to a study by the National Sleep Foundation. Often the problem is not intimacy, but the seemingly simple act of sharing a bed with a spouse.

The Wall Street Journal reports that while many couples have learned to compromise in other areas of their lives, they can’t find common ground on sleeping together.

Couples often have different sleeping habits and preferences — like room temperature, watching TV in the bedroom or when to turn the lights off — and experts say it takes communication and compromise to share the sack.

Alarm Clocks with Real Sounds - No Electronic Sounds - Boulder, CO

Now & Zen – The Zen Alarm Clock Store

Alarm Clocks with Chimes – no Electronic Sounds

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

orders@now-zen.com

Sounder Slumber with Natural Chime Alarm Clocks

There’s a growing body of evidence linking sleep deprivation to poor physical health. Now there’s a study that suggests sleeplessness can hurt your fiscal fitness too.

Researchers at Duke University have found out that sleep deprivation boosts the part of your brain that tends toward optimism,; it also leads the part of your brain that processes negative outcomes to pipe down. As the news releases noted:

Sleep-deprived individuals in the study tended to make choices that emphasized monetary gain, and were less likely to make choices that reduced loss.

Although the study examined the way people in casinos behaved, it’s worth pondering how sleeplessness could be affecting your everyday financial decisions.

It’s one thing to be a sleep-deprived new parent and pony up for the Cloud b Sleep Sheepbecause you are desperate for the baby to sleep anywhere other than your arms ( … um. Not that I speak from personal experience. Or am bitter it didn’t work).

But is it possible that the chronically sleep deprived might be more prone to false thrift because they’re focusing more on the perceived financial benefits than on the realistic and likely drawbacks? Or perhaps their fiscal discipline is napping while they’re still up. In the bookNurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman write:

Sleep loss debilitates the body’s ability to extract glucose from the bloodstream. Without this stream of basic energy, one part of the brain suffers more than the rest — the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for what’s called “Executive function.” Among those executive functions are the orchestration of thoughts to fulfill a goal, prediction of outcomes, and perceiving consequences of actions.

Working toward goals, thinking through consequences — those sound like two of the governing mechanisms that help people manage their spending and saving.

Perhaps somewhere Benjamin Franklin is smiling. After all he is the one who said, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

One of the ultimate Zen like experiences is waking-up from a great slumber refreshed and energized.

The right alarm clock can be the most beneficial investment for you. With our Now & Zen natural alarm clock you are awakened more gradually and thus more naturally. Now & Zen is focused on creating a naturalistic lifestyle, and our clocks are an example of our philosophy.

One of the ultimate Zen like experiences is waking-up from a great slumber refreshed and energized. Your mind and body are harmoniously one, both alert and focused. Having a refreshed mind and body are two keys to a natural and Zen lifestyle. Waking up in the morning should not be a loud and abrupt awakening, but rather it should be a peaceful positive experience.  The right natural alarm clock can transition your deep and tranquil sleep into a serene start to consciousness. Imagine a long-resonating Tibetan bell-like chime waking you up to a beautiful morning experience.

adapted from sfgate.com by Lisa Schmeiser

Now & Zen – The Chime Alarm Clock Store – Downtown Boulder

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Orders@now-zen.com

The luxurious awakening provided by the Zen Alarm Clock is part of the growing preference for things natural—natural foods, natural fibers, and now, natural acoustic sounds.

Meditation as a Transformation Tool - Ukiyo-e

Many moons ago, a wandering Nepalese prince sat under a tree, vowing not to rise until he attained enlightenment.

After a long night of deep meditation, Siddhartha Gautama, better known as the Buddha, saw the light and declared that suffering is subjective, and can be reduced through self-awareness.

Today, 2500 years later, a growing number of American doctors and healthcare workers are teaching people who are ill how to apply Buddha’s epiphany to their lives.

adapted from abcnews.com by By Ephrat Livni

In hospitals, businesses and community centers around the country, meditation is increasingly being offered as a method of stress reduction, and to help patients better cope with the physical pain and mental strain associated with many medical conditions, including heart disease and HIV infection.

Recent research shows meditation’s soothing effects can be detected in arterial walls and in the brain. Once considered outside the mainstream, today more insurers are paying for meditation, both as a form of medication and as preventive medicine.

Learning to ‘Disidentify’

“Meditation is the act of disidentifying from inner thought flow and concentrating on calming and healing,” explains Robert Thurman, Ph.D., a professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University in New York and the first American to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Through meditation, doctors help patients detach from their pain and anxieties and cultivate a connection between the mind and the body, he says.

Gong Clock - Progressive, Soothing Tones to End Your Stillness Practice

While there are many kinds of meditation, the mindfulness approach, used widely in hospitals around the country, focuses primarily on breathing. Practices vary, but the basic idea involves sitting comfortably, with eyes closed, spine straight and attention focused on breathing.

Practitioners aim to maintain a detached, calm awareness of their thoughts and sensations. Through mindfulness, experts say, meditators learn to pay attention to the present and cultivate clarity of mind, equanimity and wisdom.

Minor Mindfulness Miracles

All of which may sound very abstract. Unless, points out Jeff Brantley, Ph.D, Director of the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program at the Duke Center for Integrative Medicine in Durham, N.C., you are a patient who is suffering.

“We had one patient, a 40-year-old woman with metastatic breast cancer who was enrolled in the 8-week MBSR program. At her exit interview she said that before the course began 5 minutes wouldn’t go by without her worrying about what would become of her and her young family and now, after the class, she can concentrate on other things for more than hour at a time, even days,” Brantley says, calling the results “a minor miracle.”

The Duke program is one of at least 70 such mind-body based courses modeled on the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Stress Reduction Clinic, in Worcester, Mass., created in 1979 by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. Taught mainly in hospitals around the country, mindfulness training is typically run as an 8-week-long outpatient program to complement other medical treatments.

The aim, according to a website dedicated to Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction, is to assist people in taking better care of themselves “through a gentle but rigorous daily discipline of meditation and relaxation.”

Doctors refer patients to mindfulness programs for any number of diseases and disorders, including heart disease, anxiety and panic, job or family stress, chronic pain, cancer, HIV infection, AIDS, headaches, sleep disturbances, type A behavior, high blood pressure, fatigue and skin disorders.

In keeping with the growing interest in preventative medicine, some insurance companies, such as Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Massachusetts and a number of insurers in what Thurman calls “the more enlightened states like Oregon and California,” are now paying for all or part of these programs.

Research for Coverage

Meditation for Well-being, Choose a Soothing, Chime Timer

While the National Institutes of Health says it is too soon to quantify the medical benefits of meditation, Anita Greene, spokeswoman for the Institute’s Complementary and Alternative Medicine division, concedes, “It is a therapy worthy of further scientific investigation to refute or support the health claims being made.”

In fact, in 1999, the NIH granted Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, $8 million during a five-year period to study the effects of meditation in African Americans with cardiovascular diseases.

Researchers at Maharishi say that relaxing and reducing stress through transcendental meditation may reduce artery blockage and the risk of heart attack and stroke, according to a study released in the March issue of the American Heart Association’s journal Stroke (see related story).

Another recent pilot study, published in the May 15 issue of NeuroReport, by Sara Lazar, Ph.D., a Harvard research fellow in psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, suggests meditation activates specific regions of the brain that may influence heart and breathing rates. Using a brain imaging technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, Lazar measured blood flow changes in experienced meditators.

“What we found were striking changes. There was significant decrease in blood flow and activity in specific areas of the brain,” says the study’s senior author Dr. Herbert Benson, president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Mass.

The usual, fight-or-flight brain response liberates adrenalin and is stressful to the body, he explains, but during meditation the brain acts to quiet the body through concentrated breathing or word repetition, evoking a relaxation response that minimizes the harmful effects of stress.

“It does away with the whole separation of mind and body and gives further proof to insurers that [meditation] is cost effective,” he says. Ultimately, Benson predicts, medicine will be akin to a three-legged stool, leaning on pharmaceuticals, surgeries and procedures, and self-care, which includes, meditation, nutrition, exercise and health management.

A Tool for Transformation

But, Thurman points out, meditation is for more than just health benefits: It is a tool for seeking inner transformation. Meditation practices in the health field are secular, however.

Gong Clock for Meditation and Yoga Practices

“We get everyone from born-again Christians to avowed atheists. We tell people we are not trying to make anyone into anything,” Duke’s Brantley reassures. No matter what their religious persuasion, he says, patients find an increased awareness and appreciation of their lives.

Registered nurse Shirley Gilloti, a San Rafael, Calif., health educator and mindfulness training teacher agrees, “I tell people to try to bring more mindfulness to saying their rosary if that’s what they do.”

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.

Gong Clock & Timers by Now & Zen, Inc. - Boulder, CO

Now & Zen – The Gong Clock Shop

Downtown Boulder, CO

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Orders@Now-Zen.com

Unusual Soothing Alarm Clocks by Now & Zen, Inc. - Boulder, CO

Waking Up in the Morning as a Form of Spiritual Practice

Waking up in the morning is a metaphor for life — a kind of daily microcosmic reenactment of our overall purpose for being in the world.  That is, just about every religious tradition emphasizes spiritual growth.  And the connection between “awakening” and spiritual growth can be found in practically all forms of spiritual teaching.

Perhaps this is stretching the matter, but there are many people who do recognize that something as simple as waking up in the morning can be an authentic form of spiritual practice.  For those who don’t have to go to work or get the kids to school, waking up naturally, whenever their body feels like it, can be a wonderful version of this practice.  Waking up without an alarm, whenever your body has had enough rest, is probably the healthiest option, and the one that will leave us feeling most refreshed and ready to start the day. However, there are few of us that have this luxury, especially during the week.

Sleep Sounder - Choose an Unusual Soothing Clock with Acoustic Chime

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

Now & Zen – The Most Unusual Alarm Clock Headquarter Store

Soothing Acoustic Chime Alarm Clocks & Timers

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Choose the Best Alarm Clock to Ring Your Bells - A Courtesan and Attendant on a Moonlit Veranda harunobu

The way we want to be awakened varies as much as the timepieces we use to get us up and going.

Invented in 1787, the alarm clock has become a necessity.

“Alarm clocks are a very individual thing,” says Neil B. Kavey, director of sleep disorders for New York-Presbyterian Hospital at Columbian Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan. “Some people have very strong preferences when it comes to alarm clocks. People who are sleep-deprived need an alarm that will wake them up instead of the sound of a chirping bird.”

But some people don’t like to be awaken by jarring bells or having to jump out of bed when the alarm sounds. Some people like to sleep an extra hour and therefore set the alarm to go off an hour early, while others like to hit the snooze button.

“Snooze alarms are helpful, but you get an interrupted sleep,” says Kavey, who noted that he is speaking clinically rather than scientifically when it comes to alarm clocks. “It’s best to get an alarm on a clock that you can live with and set it for the latest time possible, so you can sleep straight through till it’s time to get up. If you are getting enough sleep, you may only need a quiet or soothing alarm to wake you. But young people are such intense sleepers that they often require a loud alarm clock.”

Stores are filled with clocks from those that wake you with your favorite music to those that “ring” with the sound of ocean waves, rain, a babbling brook or a breeze blowing through pines.

There are even clocks that simulate the rising sun by gradually increasing the light from a high-intensity bulb during a period of 30 minutes.

“If you are worried about a power outage or getting up on time to catch a plane or for an important meeting, you might want to set two clocks, where one runs on a battery,” says Kavey. “But if you are getting enough sleep on a regular basis, you wouldn’t need an alarm clock. You’d wake up automatically based on your biological rhythms.”

"The Zen Alarm Clock," uses soothing acoustic chimes that awaken users gently and gradually, making waking up a real pleasure.

Just Say No to a Snooze Button

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

adapted from sfgate.com by Frances Ingraham Heins, Albany Times Union

One of the ultimate Zen like experiences is waking-up from a great slumber refreshed and energized. Your mind and body are harmoniously one, both alert and focused.

Now & Zen – The Chime Alarm Clocks Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

orders@now-zen.com

When the clock's alarm is triggered, its chime produces a long-resonating, beautiful acoustic tone reminiscent of a temple gong.

soothing chime alarm clocks

The Bamboo Digital Zen Clock’s long-resonating Tibetan bell-like chime makes waking up a beautiful experience – its progressive chimes begin your day with grace. When the clock’s alarm is triggered, the acoustic chime bar is struck just once … 3-1/2 minutes later it strikes again … chime strikes become more frequent over 10 minutes … eventually striking every 5 seconds until shut off. As they become more frequent, the gentle chimes will always wake you up – your body really doesn’t need to be awakened harshly, with a Zen Clock you’re awakened more gradually and thus more naturally.  Unlike artificial recorded sounds coming out of a tiny speaker in a plastic box, natural acoustic sounds transform your bedroom or office environment.

Zen Clocks awakened you more gradually and thus more naturally

Now & Zen Headquarter Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Gong Timer - Boost Your Short-Term Memory - Utagawa Toyokuni Ukiyo-e Woodblock

A certain type of meditation may help the brain retain images for short periods, says a new study on visual-spatial abilities.

When people view an object, they usually retain a clear picture of it in their visual short-term memory for only a few seconds before the details fade. An experiment by George Mason University researchers, though, found that people who practice Deity Yoga (DY) do much better at visual-spatial tasks shortly after they meditate.

The study’s authors, writing in a recent issue of Psychological Science, said the finding may have “many implications for therapy, treatment of memory loss and mental training.”

Practitioners of DY meditation zero in on an image of their deity, conjuring up a vivid, three-dimensional mental picture of it while honing in on the deity’s emotions and environment.

In the experiment, led by psychologist Maria Kozhevnikov, meditation and non-meditation practitioners performed two visual-spatial tests: imagining the rotation of a 3-D object and viewing an image, then trying to identify it from among several other similar images. After a first round of tests, the participants spent the next 20 minutes either meditating or performing non-meditative tasks before being tested again.

All the subjects had similar scores on the first round of tests, suggesting that meditating in general causes no overall, long-term improvement in visual-spatial skills.

However, those who performed DY meditation between rounds did much better on both tasks in the second phase of tests than those who did non-meditative activities or practiced Open Presence (OP) meditation. OP practitioners, rather than focusing on a specific thing, try to achieve awareness by contemplating a wider array of experiences, images or thoughts that may come to them.

Gong Timer Can Help Boost Your Short-Term Memory if You Use it to Meditate

The study authors concluded that further investigations should be done to see if other visual meditation techniques can produce similar improvements in visual-spatial memory or if the results are specific to DY meditation.

More information

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has more about the health benefits of meditation.

SOURCE: Association for Psychological Science, news release, April 27, 2009

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

It fills your environment with beautifully complex tones whenever it strikes. In the morning, its exquisite sounds summon your consciousness into awakening with a series of subtle gongs that provide an elegant beginning to your day. Once you experience the Zen Timepiece’s progressive awakening, you’ll never want to wake up any other way. It also serves as the perfect meditation timer. Available in 5 wood styles, including bamboo (shown).

Gong Timers from Now & Zen - Boulder, Colorado

Now & Zen – The Gong Timer Store

Downtown Boulder

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Set Your Gong Meditation Timer - Dama tocando el Samisem -artista Shunsui Katsu-Miyagawa

A certain type of meditation may help the brain retain images for short periods, says a new study on visual-spatial abilities.

When people view an object, they usually retain a clear picture of it in their visual short-term memory for only a few seconds before the details fade. An experiment by George Mason University researchers, though, found that people who practice Deity Yoga (DY) do much better at visual-spatial tasks shortly after they meditate.

The study’s authors, writing in a recent issue of Psychological Science, said the finding may have “many implications for therapy, treatment of memory loss and mental training.”

Practitioners of DY meditation zero in on an image of their deity, conjuring up a vivid, three-dimensional mental picture of it while honing in on the deity’s emotions and environment.

In the experiment, led by psychologist Maria Kozhevnikov, meditation and non-meditation practitioners performed two visual-spatial tests: imagining the rotation of a 3-D object and viewing an image, then trying to identify it from among several other similar images. After a first round of tests, the participants spent the next 20 minutes either meditating or performing non-meditative tasks before being tested again.

All the subjects had similar scores on the first round of tests, suggesting that meditating in general causes no overall, long-term improvement in visual-spatial skills.

However, those who performed DY meditation between rounds did much better on both tasks in the second phase of tests than those who did non-meditative activities or practiced Open Presence (OP) meditation. OP practitioners, rather than focusing on a specific thing, try to achieve awareness by contemplating a wider array of experiences, images or thoughts that may come to them.

Choose a Gong Meditation Timer for Your Mindfulness Practice

The study authors concluded that further investigations should be done to see if other visual meditation techniques can produce similar improvements in visual-spatial memory or if the results are specific to DY meditation.

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.

More information

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has more about the health benefits of meditation.

SOURCE: Association for Psychological Science, news release, April 27, 2009

Set Your Gong Meditation Timer for Your Mindfulness Practice

Now & Zen – The Gong Meditation Timer

The Gong Meditation Store - Boulder, CO

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

orders@now-zen.com