Meditation Practice - Try a Singing Bowl Meditation Timer for Your Stillness Practice

Nearly 40 percent of Americans use some form of complementary and alternative medicine, according to the 2007 National Health Interview Survey. These practices include meditation, yoga, acupuncture and other types of mind-body-practices. And now, many are receiving the support of conventional doctors who have seen apparent benefits in some of their patients.

Some studies suggest meditation can help lower blood pressure and even improve immune function.

“There are a lot of great benefits for people that are starting to meditate and we find that that’s cumulative,” said Harden. “So the more you meditate, the more the benefits last.”

Meditation has more recently been tried to treat eating disorders, alcoholism, psoriasis, and even impotence. More than two dozen medical centers across the country, including specialized cancer centers, have attached complementary medicine centers, or provide meditation or other mind-body classes.

However, many of these uses of meditation are experimental, and the results vary by each patient. Many experts say meditation is more likely to treat medical conditions successfully when it is used in conjunction with conventional therapies.

Although meditation can be done in almost any context, practitioners usually employ a quiet, tranquil space, a meditation cushion or bench, and some kind of timing device to time the meditation session.  Ideally, the more these accoutrements can be integrated the better.  Thus, it is conducive to a satisfying meditation practice to have a timer or clock that is tranquil and beautiful.  Using a kitchen timer or beeper watch is less than ideal.

Meditation for Well-being, Choose a Gentle Zen Timer to End Your Practice

And it was with these considerations in mind that we designed our digital Zen Alarm Clock and practice timer.  This unique “Zen Clock” features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings the meditation session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal.

adapted from worldnews.com by Lara Salahi & Catherine Cole

Now & Zen – The Zen Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

It's exquisite sounds summon your consciousness out of your meditative state with a series of subtle gongs. Once you experience the Zen Timepiece's progressive tones, you'll never want to meditate any other way.

Choose a Soothing Sounds Alarm Clock - Elegant Women. Courtesy of the Japan Ukiyo-e Museum

Ask yourself: What health-related effects of stress have you already noticed in your life?

If you haven’t considered (or you’ve chosen to ignore) the harmful effects that stress can have on your mind and body, you’re overlooking a major threat to your well-being.

Taking a long, hard look at the potential consequences of unrelenting, unaddressed anxiety can help us realize that we need to make a change, before it’s too late.

Soothing Sounds Alarm Clocks and Timers with Acoustic Chimes

Start a Meditation Practice:

Although meditation can be done in almost any context, practitioners usually employ a quiet, tranquil space, a meditation cushion or bench, and some kind of timing device to time the meditation session.  Ideally, the more these accoutrements can be integrated the better.  Thus, it is conducive to a satisfying meditation practice to have a timer or clock that is tranquil and beautiful.

Using a kitchen timer or beeper watch is less than ideal.  And it was with these considerations in mind that we designed our digital Zen Alarm Clock and practice timer.  This unique “Zen Clock” features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings the meditation session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal.

Soothing Sounds Timers and Alarm Clocks with Chime

Now & Zen – The Soothing Sounds Alarm Clock Headquarter Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

How to Get That Extra Hour of Sleep: UTAMARO, Kitagawa, A Mother Dozing While Her Child Topples a Fish Bowl

Amid the hustle of every day stress, there are some simple steps people can take to get a better night’s sleep.

“You need to set aside the time for sleep. You need a few hours to unwind before. It takes time for the brain to wind down,” said Dr. Charles Czeisler, professor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School.

At Northside Hospital Sleep Disorders Center Roberts was taught “sleep hygiene,” — a healthy routine that should be practiced before bed.

Stimulants — soda, chocolate, any kind of caffeine — should be avoided at least four hours before bed, she said. She also said that you should not exercise three to four hours prior to sleep. Eating a light meal and eliminating alcohol consumption also helps. And lights should be dimmed and the TV turned off to help prepare the mind to relax into a slumber.

And calling it an earlier night may show some benefits. In a 2009 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, heart attacks in Sweden rose by 5 percent in that first week of spring, when many people were adjusting to losing an hour of sleep. In the fall when the clocks are reset, heart attacks dropped, according to the study.

Alternative Alarm Clock - for a Soothing, Progressive Awakening

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.

adatped from abcnews.com by LARA SALAHI

Alternative Alarm Clock - The Zen Clock with Chime

Now & Zen – The Alternative Alarm Clock Store

Real Acoustic Alarm Clocks with Chimes and Gongs

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

How does sleep lock in your emotions?

Sleeping after a traumatic event might lock in bad memories and emotions, a new study has found.

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst asked more than 100 healthy adults to rate their emotional responses to a series of images, some depicting unsettling scenes. Twelve hours later, they rated the images again. The difference: Half of the subjects slept during the break; the other half did not.

“Not only did sleep protect the memory, but it also protected the emotional reaction,” said Rebecca Spencer, a neuroscientist at UMass Amherst and co-author of the study that was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Study subjects who stayed awake for 12 hours had a weaker emotional response to the unsettling images the second time around, suggesting sleep serves to preserve and even amplify negative emotions. Their memories were also weaker than those of their well-rested counterparts, as they struggled to remember whether they had seen the images before.

“It’s true that ‘sleeping on it’ is usually a good thing to do,” said Spencer, citing evidence that sleep boosts memory and other cognitive functions. “It’s just when something truly traumatic or out of the ordinary happens that you might want to stay awake.”

Spencer said people often find it difficult to sleep after a traumatic event.

“This study suggests the biological response we have after trauma might actually be healthy,” she said. “Perhaps letting people go through a period of insomnia before feeding them sleeping meds is actually beneficial.”

Not only did sleep protect the memory, but it also protected the emotional reaction

While the findings may have implications for post traumatic stress disorder, Spencer emphasized that daily emotional ups and downs are not grounds for sleep deprivation.

“Just because we have a bad day doesn’t mean we should stay awake,” she said. “We need to maintain some memories and emotional context to know what to avoid. We do learn something from them.”

Although sleep gives the body some much-needed rest, the brain stays active. Spencer used polysomnography to monitor brain activity in some sleeping subjects.

“REM sleep in particular was associated with a change in how emotional you found something,” she said. “We think there are parts of the brain being activated during sleep that allow us to process those emotions more than during day.”

Next, Spencer plans to study the link between sleep and memory in the context of aging. With age, the amount of time spent sleeping drops dramatically.

“We want to know if those changes actually underlie some of the cognitive and behavioral changes that occur with age,” she said.

Our 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.

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.”

adapted from Worldnews.com by Kate Moisse

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

The Zen Timepiece can serve as a mindfulness bell

Little by little, meditation is shedding its image as a strange spiritual discipline practiced by monks and ascetics in Asia. Gwyneth Paltrow meditates. Rivers Cuomo, lead singer of the rock band Weezer, meditates. David Lynch — his movies are strange, but he is strangely normal — meditates. Meditation has helped recent military veterans deal with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Beyond celebrities and the military, there’s science. A growing body of research shows that meditation has a discernible effect on the brain that promotes various types of health and well-being.

Anyone interested may need to surmount the final hurdle: the assumption that meditation is hard, time-consuming, painful or complicated. Or religious. While there are lots of different kinds of meditation — from transcendental meditation to Zen — experts and health organizations such as the National Institutes of Health agree a beginner need not bother grappling with them. Meditation is simple and easy, and everyone can do it and benefit from it. Here are some tips:

Find some free time — at least 20 minutes — and as calm and quiet a place as you can. Meditating with interruptions from your BlackBerry or your computer doesn’t really work.

Buddha

Sit down and make yourself comfortable. Some traditions use physical positions — mudras, in Sanskrit — in meditation. The most famous is sitting on the ground in the lotus position, i.e., Indian style. If you are comfortable sitting this way for longer than a few minutes, fine. If not, sit in a chair.

Don’t just do something, sit there — to quote the title of a well-known book on meditation by Sylvia Boorstein. Don’t launch immediately into what you think meditation is. Let your mind and body settle for a minute or so. Life is stressful enough; don’t make meditation stressful and rushed.

Pick something and gently center your attention on it. It can be your breathing, which works well because of its easy, natural rhythm. It can be an image, mental or physical — one can meditate with eyes open or closed, whichever works. It can be a mantra, a sound or word that you repeat in your mind or with your voice. “Om” — with most of your time resting on that nice m sound — is the most famous.

When your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the thing you picked.

When your mind wanders again, gently bring it back to the thing you picked. The mind is a wandering machine. Meditation is not having an empty mind; it’s gently quieting your mind using the technique of concentrating on one thing. Over the time you sit, you will likely notice your mind getting a bit quieter.

When your mind wanders again, gently bring it back to the thing you picked. The key word is gently. Meditation is a simple technique, but it’s also an approach, a way of being. People, especially Americans, tend to worry about doing it right. Worrying about doing it right is the one wrong way to meditate. Don’t be angry or frustrated with your mind or yourself.

Gently close your meditation when you wish or need to. The idea is relaxation and reducing stress, remember? Make it smooth, not jarring. Let the relaxation you cultivated breathe a bit before going on to the next thing in your day.

Repeat as needed. Meditation works best when it’s done regularly and over a long period. That doesn’t have to mean for hours every day. It can be once every other day for 20 minutes. Many meditaters refer to their “practice.” Its benefits happen, and happen more deeply, when it’s something you do regularly for some time.

The Zen Timepiece - a Singing Bowl Meditation Timer and Clock

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 worldnews.com by Edward Lovett

Singing Bowl Meditation Timer called The Zen Timepiece

Now & Zen – The Singing Bowl Meditation Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Soothing Sound Timer and Alarm Clock - Harunobu Suzuki, Beauty at the Veranda

In the yogic tradition, breath is the foundation of all life, the sustaining connection between body and spirit. A telling indicator of health and mood, breath puts us in closer touch with ourselves on every level. Through pranayama, or breath control, we can manage our emotions, gain clarity — and take greater control of our lives. “The way you breathe is a metaphor for the way you live your life,” says Amy Weintraub, Kripalu yoga-teacher mentor and author of Yoga for Depression. “Are you taking little sips of breath as though you don’t deserve to take up space on the planet, or are you breathing full and standing tall?” Try this pranayama exercise once a day or whenever you need to.

Ocean-Sounding Victory Breath
This calming breath, also known as ujjayi breath, has a settling effect on the central nervous system while increasing mental alertness and clarity — making it very effective for those suffering from anxiety and depression, says Weintraub. “Even three ujjayi breaths can cause a complete paradigm shift in your mood. This is a great exercise to do before meditation or anytime to help reduce stress.”

Soothing Sounds Meditation Timer and Alarm Clock with Acoustic Chime

1. Inhale through your nostrils with a slight constriction at the back of your throat so the breath travels over the glottis, making a soft but audible sound. Think ocean waves rolling over pebbles. Imagine that you are actually breathing from the back of your throat.

2. Exhale through your nostrils, pulling the belly toward your spine. Empty your lungs completely. Begin again, slowly.

3. Continue to breathe deeply and audibly on the inhalation and exhalation. Allow the belly, the rib cage, and the upper chest to expand with each inhalation. Let the breath be like a lullaby to yourself.

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 body + soul, April/May 2005 Terri Trespicio

Soothing Sounds Alarm Clock and Meditation Timer from Now & Zen, Inc.

Soothing Sounds Alarm Clock & Timer Store

Now & Zen, Inc.

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Soothing Sounds Timer and Alarm Clock with Gentle Acoustic Chime

Breathing Exercise to Calm Down:

Of course, breathwork alone won’t magically resolve your issues. But it can bring you into greater awareness of your emotions before they sabotage your mood or behavior. And that alone may be worth it.

Calm Down: Slow Breath (three minutes)

What You’ll Need
A Zen Chime Timer; a folded blanket or firm cushion.

What It Does
This practice calms the mind and the central nervous system, helping put the brakes on a frenzied pace. “When you slow your breathing down, you slow your life down,” says Strom. Plus, it can spark your creativity. “I’ve had students stop in the middle of class and grab a pen. When the mind chatter stops, the ideas fly in.”

How To Do It
Set your Zen Timer & Clock for three minutes so you don’t have to keep track. Be sure to keep your spine erect. (Slouching can inhibit deep breathing.)

-Begin to lengthen the inhalation and exhalation (breathing slowly through your nose). First try inhaling for a count of four and exhaling for a count of four, then lengthen (aim for a count of seven on the in breath and seven on the out breath).
-Be careful not to hold your breath. You want to slow it down, not stop it.
-When the timer goes off, return to a normal breathing pace.

Soothing Sounds Time with Gentle Chime

Soothing Sounds Timer & Alarm Clock by Now & Zen

Now & Zen – The Soothing Sounds Alarm Clock Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

chime on the hour clock with real acoustic chimes

In addition to functioning as a chiming alarm clock and countdown timer, the  Digital Zen Alarm Clock can be set to chime repeatedly at any set interval, and to chime once on the hour every hour. The chime’s “B tone” has been hand-tuned using the ancient Pythagorean method-the clock’s tone is the same as that produced by tuning forks used by musical therapists. And not only does the Digital Zen Alarm Clock sound beautiful, it looks beautiful as well. Its solid hardwood case is an attractive addition to an altar or mantel. Our company, Now & Zen, began in 1996 with the introduction of our now world famous Zen Alarm Clock (the original table-top model). Although we have developed many new products since then, nothing we have produced has generated the excitement and anticipation of the Digital  Zen Alarm Clock.

sleeping woman, wake up to soothing chime alarm clocks

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

How Do My Sleep Needs Change As I Get Older?

sleep needs change as we age

Reena Mehra, M.D., Prof. or Pulmonology, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine, University Hospitals Case Medical Ctr.

Question: How do my sleep needs change as I get older?

Answer: So the amount of sleep that we need changes over the course of our age spectrum.

Neonates (infants) need approximately 18 hours of sleep at least, and adolescents need approximately ten hours of sleep, middle-aged adults, seven to eight hours of sleep.

And in older individuals, it is thought that perhaps they need less sleep, but more likely what is going on is the prevalence of many types of sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome actually increase in prevalence with older age.

It is not as necessary to be jolted out of bed by ones alarm clock as we age.  A soothing, gentle, chiming alarm clock is ideal.  The maker’s of the chime Zen Alarm Clock aave been the first in this market to use an acoustic chime to do the trick.

Our circadian rhythm also undergoes changes associated with aging. So in adolescents, for example, they may be more likely to fall asleep later and sleep in, whereas older adults may be more likely to fall asleep earlier and wake up earlier.

gentle alarm clocks are needed as we age

Now & Zen Headquarter Store

1638 Pearl St.

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

gong meditation timers and alarm clocks

The Most Unique Gong Meditation Timer with Tibetan Singing Bowl

As beautiful to see as it is to hear, the Zen Timepiece is also a decorative accessory that adds elegance to any room. Its wood platform (available in cherry or maple) is designed to be positioned either with the clock’s digital display to the front, or turned around, with the bowl-gong in the front. Although the clock looks good both ways, when the digital display is turned to the back it accentuates the clock’s natural theme and helps reduce the visual clutter of electronic modernity in one’s interior environment. At a suggested retail price of $199.95, it may be the world’s most expensive alarm clock, but according to Steve McIntosh, it’s definitely worth it: “Waking up in the morning is a metaphor for life, and anything that adds grace and beauty to this daily process is a good investment. When you use the Zen Timepiece it’s like waking up in a Zen temple.”

zen clocks and chimes

Now & Zen – The Gong Meditation Timer Store

1638 Pearl St.

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383