Choose a Luxurious Awakening with Chime Alarm Clocks

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.  Like organic tomatoes in your salad, the organic sounds of the Zen Alarm Clock’s sweet acoustic chimes are truly a gourmet experience.

Natural Acoustic Chime Alarm Clocks

Now & Zen Headquarter Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

Just Say No to a Snooze Button

Most modern alarm clocks include a “snooze button” mechanism which allows the user to go back to sleep for a brief period after the initial alarm.

just say no to the snooze button on your alarm clock

Zen Alarm Clocks make waking up a beautiful experience

Boulder, Colorado

How do you make time for what matters most?

Now & Zen, Inc., based in Boulder, Colorado, is an Alarm Clock Company founded in 1995 by artist and entrepreneur Steve McIntosh.  Now & Zen’s mission is to participate in the emerging movement in society toward a more spiritually focused lifestyle. Our shorthand way of describing this lifestyle is “quality of thought and stillness of being”.   These complimentary aspects of spiritual living are described below.

Quality of thought

The idea of quality of thought applies to the holistic or “integral” perspective by which we consider the full impact of our choices and actions. Quality thinking is value driven and concerned with the welfare of the greatest relevant whole—our whole selves, our whole environment, and our whole society.   Quality of thought is another way to refer to the practice of the “golden rule”—our concern for the common good.

Quality of thought also embraces the insights of cutting edge science as well as ancient wisdom from diverse traditions.  While a spiritual lifestyle extends far beyond “thought,” we must use our minds to recognize the movement of spirit in the world.  Now & Zen’s Alarm Clocks embody quality of thought through their use as tools for education and transformation, in the esoteric principles used in their design, and in their beauty and originality.

Stillness of Being

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Perhaps the most important aspect of spiritual living is feeling the presence of the Sacred, however we define it.  Cultivating a stillness practice such as meditation or prayer can be a powerful way to feel the presence of spirit.  Stillness of being is also about inner peace and faith in a higher power.  Just as quality of thought is about seeking for truth—the yang aspect of a spiritual life, stillness of being involves the yin principle of receptivity.  It is in the state of stillness that the blessings of spirit are most fully received.

Now & Zen products embody stillness of being by helping to reduce stress and through the use of images of peace, such as the raked sand from a Zen garden and similar peaceful images used for our clock dial faces.

Ultimately, a spiritual lifestyle can be defined as any path that leads to spiritual experience.  And as we understand it, spiritual experience is about beauty, truth and goodness.  We thus strive to bring quality of thought and stillness of being to all Now & Zen products by making each one beautiful, true, and good: Every Now & Zen’s Alarm Clocks are designed to be beautiful to the eye and ear; all of our product claims are true—scientifically accurate and philosophically reasonable; and all of our products are “good for something,” that is, useful in our daily lives and not merely decorative or symbolic.

quality of thought, stillness of being

Now & Zen Headquarter Store

1638 Peal Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

progressive awakening

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.

waking up

Digital Zen Alarm Clock

love waking up with gentle chimes?

Soothing Chime Alarm Clocks

Fear is an Alarm Clock

Paul Williams’ little book, Das Energi, is a classic of progressive spirituality, first published in 1973.

Here is a juicy excerpt that we thought would be appropriate for our “alarm clock blog“:

“It’s hard to stop the reasoning mind, which of course is the breeder of fear. Here is an argument your mind is sure to come up with; you may as well be familiar with it.

The argument is that fear is needed, fear is a warning, fear protects us from danger, if a baby didn’t learn to fear the hot stove he would be burned again and again. Not to think about fear, not to let it live, so the argument goes, is to blind oneself to danger.

Your mind will phrase the argument; your mind must answer it. Must answer it in advance; these arguments are deadly if they wait till fear is present, raging. Fear is born of reason, and it destroys reason.  One must not use reason to combat fear.

So think about this argument now. Do we need fear? Is it our protection?  This is what I think. I think fear is an alarm clock. The first thing you do when the alarm sounds is shut it off! Then respond to the alarm, collect yourself, take action.”

There Is No Need to Fear Your Zen Chime Alarm Clock

Now & Zen Headquarter Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

meditation improves attention

New research shows that meditation can help you improve your ability to concentrate in two ways. First, it can make you better at focusing on something specific while ignoring distractions. Second, it can make you more capable of noticing what is happening around you, giving you a fuller perspective on the present moment.

Some of the most fascinating research on how meditation affects attention is being conducted by Antoine Lutz, PhD, an associate scientist at the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in collaboration with Richard Davidson and the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin. Their work has shown that concentration meditation, in which the meditator focuses complete attention on one thing, such as counting the breath or gazing at an object, activates regions of the brain that are critical for controlling attention. This is true even among novice meditators who receive only brief training. Experienced meditators show even stronger activation in these regions. This you would expect, if meditation trains the brain to pay attention. But extremely experienced meditators (who have more than 44,000 hours of meditation practice) show less activation in these regions, even though their performance on attention tasks is better. The explanation for this, in Lutz’s view, is that the meditation training can eventually help reduce the effort it takes to focus your attention. “This would be consistent with traditional accounts of progress in meditation practice. Sustaining focus becomes effortless,” Lutz says. This suggests that people can immediately enhance concentration by learning a simple meditation technique, and that practice creates even more progress.

Buddha

The researchers also looked at whether vipassana meditation training can improve overall attention. (Vipassana means “to see things as they really are,” and the meditation techniques are designed to increase focus, awareness, and insight.) Researchers label our inability to notice things in our environment as “attentional blink.” Most of us experience this throughout the day, when we become so caught up in our own thoughts that we miss what a friend says to us and have to ask her to repeat it. A more dramatic example would be a car accident caused by your thinking about a conversation you just had and not noticing that the car in front of you has stopped. If you were able to reduce your attentional blink, it would mean a more accurate and complete perception of reality—you would notice more and miss less.

To test whether meditation reduces attentional blink, participants had to notice two things occurring in rapid succession, less than a second apart. The findings, published in PLoS Biology, reveal that the meditation training improved the participants’ ability to notice both changes, with no loss in accuracy.

What explained this improvement? EEG recordings—which track patterns of electrical activity in the brain, showing precise moment-by-moment fluctuations in brain activation—showed that the participants allocated fewer brain resources to the task of noticing each target. In fact, the meditators spent less mental energy no-ticing the first target, which freed up mental bandwidth for noticing what came next. Paying attention literally became easier for the brain.

As a result, Lutz and his colleagues be-lieve that meditation may increase our control over our limited brain resources. To anyone who knows what it’s like to feel scattered or overwhelmed, this is an ap-pealing benefit indeed. Even though your attention is a limited resource, you can learn to do more with the mental energy you already have.

adapted from Yoga Journal, by Kelly McGonigal

Zen Timepiece with brass singing bowl, a meditation timer

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Get a Good Night's Sleep, Choose Soothing Chime Alarm Clocks to Wake You

Learn to cope with nighttime disruptions―no pills required.

If You Can’t Relax

• Listen to soft music. Background music has been shown to help improve sleep. In one recent study published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, senior citizens in Taiwan who had difficulty sleeping listened to calming music for 45 minutes before bedtime. They subsequently slept significantly longer and more deeply than those who didn’t hear the music.Try: Whatever music you find soothing and relaxing. The Taiwan study used various selections, including harp music by Georgia Kelly, quiet jazz by Paul Desmond, and synthesized sounds by Steven Halpern.
• Sip warm drinks. Chamomile tea works for many people, as does hot milk. “Some teas have mild soporific effects,” says Emsellem. “When you warm milk, it releases tryptophan,” an amino acid used by the body to make serotonin, a neurotransmitter believed to promote sleep. “But over time the body can develop an immunity to tryptophan,” she adds, “and its sleep-promoting properties dissipate.” Some doctors suspect the power of warm drinks resides largely in the ritual of sipping them. “Biologically, we can’t find much evidence for these drinks,” Maas says. “But psychologically, if they make people relax and reduce stress, they work.”Try: Warm milk, caffeine-free herbal tea, or hot water with lemon and honey. These drinks may help get your body ready for rest.
  

  Zen Chime Alarm Clocks Wake You Gradually and Naturally

• Breathe soothing scents. Lavender, in particular, is a scent that is said to help lull the body to sleep. But no scientific evidence supports this claim, so experts neither recommend nor discourage it. “It’s like 300-thread-count sheets,” Neubauer says. “If you believe it works, it will.”Try: Anything that relaxes you before bedtime―a gentle scent or a nice, warm bath.And remember waking up in the morning should be as pleasant as falling asleep at night. The Zen Alarm Clock’s gradual, gentle awakening is transformative.

By Mary Duenwald; Additional Reporting By Lisa Ann Smith, Real Simple.com

Zen Clock Headquarter Store, Boulder, Colorado

Now & Zen, Inc.

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Wonderful, Soothing Chime Alarm Clocks

Best Alarm Clocks:

Our Zen Alarm Clock Can Help You Wake-up on the Right Side of the Bed!

Weird and wonderful.

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.

Sweetest Sounding Chime Alarm Clocks

Now & Zen Headquarter Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383