Soothe your little sweetie with a gentle massage

Empirical research suggests our appreciation of massage starts early—as tastes go, it’s one that needs little acquiring. That’s certainly the message behind the growing trend of infant massage, where mothers and fathers (and sometimes caretakers) bond with their wee ones through loving touch and improve their overall health. Parents, nurses, and doctors say that massage helps babies grow better, improves digestion, and eases colic. Studies conducted at the Touch Research Institutes at the University of Miami School of Medicine show that infant massage facilitates weight gain in preterm infants, decreases babies’ level of stress hormones, and balances out their sleep/wake cycle. “Nurturing touch is important for children’s physical, social, behavioral, mental, and cognitive development,” says Linda Garofallou, an infant and pediatric massage therapist at Children’s Hospital in Newark, New Jersey. She gives infant massage to patients and also trains others in the technique.

To do an infant massage, choose a time when your baby is well fed and rested. Set your Zen Timer for twenty minutes.  Put a towel in a quiet room for the baby to lie on, choose a natural oil such as coconut, almond, or avocado, and play relaxing music. Assess the baby’s receptivity by observing her response to your touch. If she is stiff or tense, then use your intuition: either hold her closely in your arms until she relaxes—or wait for another time. A gazing, quiet, yet alert state means she is ready to begin.

Mom and baby

A common stroke, called Indian Milking, entails holding one foot with your hand and then “milking” the leg from the ankle to thigh. Follow this by holding the thigh with both hands and gently twisting and squeezing your hands as you move from thigh to foot. (For more strokes, see Vimala Schneider’s classic book, Infant Massage: A Handbook for Loving Parents [Bantam, 1989] or visit the International Association of Infant Massage, www.iaim.ws/home.html, to find a certified infant massage instructor near you.)

Babes aren’t the only ones who benefit from infant massage. Experts like Andrea Kelly, ceo of the International Association of Infant Massage in Ventura, California say that giving a massage releases nurturing hormones for both the mother (oxytocin) and the father (prolactin).

In addition to bonding, infant massage helps kids born with addictions or serious health problems, says Joanne Starr, MD, director of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery at Children’s Hospital. She’s seen the positive effects of Garofallou’s infant massage on the tiny heart patients she’s operated on. “I think it’s a very important part of their healing,” says Starr, who adds that many of these infants can’t be held because they are hooked up to ventilators. “It’s such a helpless feeling for the parents, but massage empowers them to do something.”

adapted from Natural Solutions Magazine, October 2007

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.

Bamboo Digital Chime Clock, a calming timer and alarm clock made from natural materials like bamboo, walnut, and maple

Now & Zen – The Zen Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Flower of Life

The Zen Timepiece can also be more actively incorporated into your meditation practice as a form of “mantra” or “yantra.”  Mantra is a sanskrit word which means “mental protection.”  In Eastern meditation traditions, a mantra takes the form of a word or sound which is chanted to occupy the mind and keep disturbing thoughts from distracting the meditator.  A yantra is used in Eastern meditation traditions as an image upon which the meditator concentrates until it “disappears.”

Zen Timepiece by Now & Zen, Boulder, CO

The Zen Timepiece’s bowl strikes can be used as a sort of external mantra or sonic yantra.  The clock’s countdown mode repeat function (the interval timer) allows the bowl to be struck repeatedly at any set period, so that as the strikes repeat, they serve to bring you back to the focal point of concentration.

Now & Zen's Meditation Timers and Alarm Clocks

Now & Zen’ s Meditation Timer Store

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can meditation reduce stress?

Dhyana heyah tad vrttayah.

Meditation removes disturbances of the mind. (Yoga Sutra II.11)

Research shows that meditation can help people with anxiety disorders. Philippe Goldin, director of the Clinically Applied Affective Neuroscience project in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, uses mindfulness meditation in his studies. The general practice is to become aware of the present moment—by paying attention to sounds, your breath, sensations in your body, or thoughts or feelings—and to observe without judgment and without trying to change what you notice.

Like most of us, the participants in Goldin’s studies suffer from all sorts of disturbances of the mind—worries, self-doubt, stress, and even panic. But people with anxiety disorders feel unable to escape from such thoughts and emotions, and find their lives overtaken by them. Goldin’s research shows that mindfulness meditation offers freedom for people with anxiety, in part by changing the way the brain responds to negative thoughts.

In his studies, participants take an eight-week mindfulness-based course in stress reduction. They meet once weekly for a class and practice on their own for up to an hour a day. The training includes mindfulness meditation, walking meditation, gentle yoga, and relaxation with body awareness as well as discussions about mindfulness in everyday life.

Before and after the intervention, participants have their brains scanned inside an fMRI (or functional MRI) machine, which looks at brain activity rather than the structure of the brain, while completing what Goldin calls “self-referential processing”—that is, thinking about themselves. An fMRI scanner tracks which brain areas consume more energy during meditation and, therefore, which regions are more active.

Ironically, the brain-scanning sessions could provoke anxiety even in the calmest of people. Participants must lie immobilized on their back with their head held in the brain scanner. They rest their teeth on dental wax to prevent any head movement or talking. They are then asked to reflect on different statements about themselves that appear on a screen in front of their face. Some of the statements are positive, but many of them are not, such as “I’m not OK the way I am,” or “Something’s wrong with me.” These are exactly the kinds of thoughts that plague people with anxiety.

The brain scans in Goldin’s studies show a surprising pattern. After the mindfulness intervention, participants have greater activity in a brain network associated with processing information when they reflect on negative self-statements. In other words, they pay more attention to the negative statements than they did before the intervention. And yet, they also show decreased activation in the amygdala—a region associated with stress and anxiety. Most important, the participants suffered less. “They reported less anxiety and worrying,” Goldin says. “They put themselves down less, and their self-esteem improved.”

Goldin’s interpretation of the findings is that mindfulness meditation teaches people with anxiety how to handle distressing thoughts and emotions without being overpowered by them. Most people either push away unpleasant thoughts or obsess over them—both of which give anxiety more power. “The goal of meditation is not to get rid of thoughts or emotions. The goal is to become more aware of your thoughts and emotions and learn how to move through them without getting stuck.” The brain scans suggest that the anxiety sufferers were learning to witness negative thoughts without going into a full-blown anxiety response. Research from other laboratories is confirming that mindfulness meditation can lead to lasting positive changes in the brain. For example, a recent study by Massachusetts General -Hospital and Harvard University put 26 highly stressed adults through an eight-week mindfulness-based course in stress reduction that followed the same basic format as Goldin’s study. Brain scans were taken before and after the intervention, along with participants’ own reports of stress. The participants who reported decreased stress also showed decreases in gray -matter density in the amygdala. Previous research had revealed that trauma and chronic stress can enlarge the amygdala and make it more reactive and more connected to other areas of the brain, leading to greater stress and anxiety. This study is one of the first documented cases showing change ocurring in the opposite direction—with the brain instead becoming less reactive and more resilient.

Together, these studies provide exciting evidence that small doses of mental training, such as an eight-week mindfulness course, can create important changes in one’s mental well-being.

Zen Meditation Timers and Clocks - Boulder, CO

adapted from Yoga Journal, by Kelly McGonigal

meditation tools and gentle alarm clocks

Now & Zen’s Meditation Timer & Alarm Clock Shop

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

meditation

Put it into practice.

Sit comfortably in a place where you won’t be disturbed. Take three to five quiet breaths. Gently close your eyes.

Imagine the horizon spanning through your chest with a radiant sun rising in your innermost center—your heart. As though being melted by the solar warmth, release tension in your shoulders and across your throat. Soften your forehead and rest your attention inward on the light deep within. Take 
7 to 10 smooth, even breaths.  Set your Zen Meditation Timer to repeat and chime every 10 seconds to help you time your breathing.

As you inhale, invite the glow from your heart to expand toward the inner surface of the body. With each exhale, let the light recede. Take another 7 to 10 peaceful breaths. Inhaling, invite the light to touch the parts of you that interact with the world—your eyes and ears, the voice center in your throat, the palms 
of your hands, the soles of your feet. Exhaling, feel your light shine more clearly. As you continue to inhale and exhale, silently say: “I radiate friendliness for those who are happy, com-passion for those who are unhappy, equanimity toward all.” Continue until your attention wavers. Then, sit quietly for several minutes.

When you feel complete, place your palms together in front of your heart and bow your head. Release the backs of your hands to your thighs and lift your head. Gently open your eyes to return to the horizon of the world.

adapted from Yoga Journal by Kate Vogt

Zen timers for meditation and yoga

Now & Zen – The Zen Meditation Timer Shop

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(800) 779-6383

mediation

As the evidence for the benefits of meditation grows, one of the most important outstanding questions is, How much is enough? Or, from the perspective of most beginning meditators, How little is enough to see positive change?

Researchers agree that many of the benefits happen early on. “Changes in the brain take place at the very beginning of learning,” Luders says. And many studies show change in a matter of weeks, or even minutes, among inexperienced meditators. But other studies suggest that experience matters. More practice leads to greater changes, both in the brain and in a meditator’s mental states. So while a minimal investment in meditation can pay off for your well-being and mental clarity, committing to the practice is the best way to experience the full benefits.

Luders, who was a lapsed meditator when she started her research, had such a positive experience being around seasoned meditators that she was motivated to come back to the practice. “It’s never too late,” Luders says. She suggests starting small and making meditation a regular habit. “The norm in our study was daily sessions, 10 to 90 minutes. Start with 10.”

If you do, you may discover that meditation has benefits beyond what science has revealed. Indeed, it will take time for science to catch up to the wisdom of the great meditation teachers. And even with the advances in brain technology, there are changes both subtle and profound transmitted only through direct experience. Fortunately, all you need to get started is the willingness to sit and be with your own body, breath, and mind.

adapted from Yoga Journal, by Kelly McGonigal

Bamboo Meditation Timer & Gentle Alarm Clock - Boulder, CO

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.

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.”

Meditation Clocks and Timers from Now & Zen

Now & Zen’s Meditation Timer & Alarm Clock Shop

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Meditation

Using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, Eileen Luders, a re-searcher in the Department of Neurology at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, looks for evidence that meditation changes the physical structure of the brain. Until recently, this idea would have seemed absurd. “Scientists used to believe that the brain reaches its peak in adulthood and doesn’t change—until it starts to decrease in late adulthood,” Luders says. “Today we know that everything we do, and every experience we have, actually changes the brain.” Indeed, Luders finds several differences between the brains of meditators and nonmeditators. In a study published in the journal NeuroImage in 2009, Luders and her colleagues compared the brains of 22 meditators and 22 age-matched nonmeditators and found that the meditators (who practiced a wide range of traditions and had between 5 and 46 years of meditation experience) had more gray matter in re-gions of the brain that are important for attention, emotion regulation, and mental flexibility. Increased gray matter typically makes an area of the brain more efficient or powerful at processing information. Luders believes that the increased gray matter in the meditators’ brains should make them better at controlling their attention, managing their emotions, and making mindful choices.

Why are there differences between the brains of meditators and nonmeditators? It’s a simple matter of training. Neuroscientists now know that the brain you have today is, in part, a reflection of the demands you have placed on it. People learning to juggle, for example, develop more connections in areas of the brain that anticipate moving objects. Medical students undergoing periods of intense learning show similar changes in the hippocampus, an area of the brain important for memory. And mathematicians have more gray matter in regions important for arithmetic and spatial reasoning.

Meditation Timers and Alarm Clocks - Boulder, CO

More and more neuroscientists, like Luders, have started to think that learning to meditate is no different from learning mental skills such as music or math. Like anything else that requires practice, meditation is a training program for the brain. “Regular use may strengthen the connections between neurons and can also make new connections,” Luders explains. “These tiny changes, in thousands of connections, can lead to visible changes in the structure of the brain.” Those structural changes, in turn, create a brain that is better at doing whatever you’ve asked it to do. Musicians’ brains could get better at analyzing and creating music. Mathematicians’ brains may get better at solving problems. What do meditators’ brains get better at doing? This is where it gets interesting: It depends on what kind of meditation they do.

Over the past decade, researchers have found that if you practice focusing attention on your breath or a mantra, the brain will restructure itself to make concentration easier. If you practice calm acceptance during meditation, you will develop a brain that is more resilient to stress. And if you meditate while cultivating feelings of love and compassion, your brain will develop in such a way that you spontaneously feel more connected to others.

Improve Your 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.

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.

Time Your Meditation With A Zen Timepiece with Tibetan Singing Bowl

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.

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.

adapted from Yoga Journal, by Kelly McGonigal

enjoy a meditative cup of tea

A meditative act

Many tea drinkers say that drinking tea is not the sole purpose for the ceremony. At the Rocky Mountain Tea Festival, an annual summer event hosted by the Dushanbe Teahouse in Boulder, Colorado, tea professionals from around the country impart information on ceremonies and tea varieties. At the heart of every presentation is the message that the spirit of tea (chado) is intricately linked with simplicity and calmness.

Fellman, a busy woman who values the sense of well-being she derives from tea, strikes a happy medium between a to-go mentality and a traditional tea ceremony by preparing two spots in her home with an electric kettle, canisters of loose tea, and a cup or teapot. Selecting her spots carefully to provide “something nice to rest my eyes on that feels nourishing to me,” Fellman can enjoy a good cup of tea in twenty minutes. When brewing tea, Fellman listens to the water bubble and watches for steam. She looks carefully at the amount of tea used, breathes in the gentle fragrance of the leaves, and waits for the warmth of the teacup to pull the tension from her shoulders. “The mindful process of making a good cup of tea,” she says, “helps me take time to stop and focus.”

It’s no coincidence that elements of tea preparation are reminiscent of meditation. Buddhist monks served tea in places where a rogi, or path, had to be crossed in order to reach the tearoom and, in essence, leave the cares of the world behind. Today, tea drinkers focus on the art of brewing tea to separate themselves from daily concerns.

time for a meditative cup of tea

Tea professionals suggest taking classes to learn the basic elements and history of the tea ceremony. “You can’t read a book and understand it,” says Austin Babcock, a member of the Washington, D.C., branch of the Urasenke Foundation, who likens tea ceremony education to mastering a martial art or learning to play an instrument. “It’s about getting it with your body. It’s an experience.” The Urasenke Foundation, a school of tea that offers classes worldwide, was founded by sixteenth-century tea master Sen no Rikyu, who is credited with establishing tea as a social and spiritual practice.

“There is a Zen quality” to tea ceremony, says Babcock. It creates “a calming, meditative space that allows you to open up your heart to another person. It is a powerful act of sharing . . . and of savoring the moment.”

adapted from Natural Home Magazine, September/October 2002 by Heather Grimshaw

a Tibetan bowl/gong timer for timing tea

Now & Zen’s Mindfulness Clock & Timer Store

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How to meditate

Some traditions believe that, to truly practice meditation, you must turn your back on the world: Monks in Thailand live in the woods, hundreds of miles from civilization. Other traditions emphatically state that you must engage in the whole of life, as Buddhist meditation teacher Jack Kornfield attests: “We may start by practicing meditation much like practicing piano. Eventually, when we become proficient, we will not need to practice anymore. Just as playing becomes practice, everything we do will become meditation. In the end, meditation techniques transcend even themselves. Then, there will be neither meditation or non-meditation. Just what is.”

Those disinclined to move into the deep woods, or not far enough along the woodsy path to make every moment a meditation, can create a proscribed area for meditation. While doing this, pay attention to Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki’s advice in his classic treatise, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (Weatherill, 1990): Try to see the space without preconceptions or expectations. As Suzuki puts it,”In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind, there are few.” Keep it simple, and make it real.

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

Meditation Timers and Alarm Clocks for a Peaceful End to Your Mindfulness Practice

adapted from Natural Home Magazine, November/December 2000 by Kelly Smith

Singing Bowl Meditation Timer from Now & Zen, Inc. - Boulder, CO

Now & Zen’s Meditation Timer & Alarm Clock Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

walking in waves, a mindfulness meditation

There is nothing more soul-renewing than a very long, meandering, aimless walk. And I do mean aimless — as in, “I’m heading out! I have no idea how long I’ll be or where I’m going!”

I started walking this way quite by accident, in the midst of recovering from the heartache and confusion of losing my job. I had been slothful through winter, alternating between insomnia and sleeps so deep I wasn’t sure what day it was when I woke. But with the changing light of spring, I was beckoned out of doors.

Finding Peace Amidst the Chaos
I was in Manhattan, and cities are excellent places for meditative walks. They’re full of interruptions and distractions, but there is always a bus stop or a person with directions within easy distance. So you can suspend the anxiety about getting lost or getting home.

And all that noise does for humans what shape does for bats: Even if we aren’t tuning into it, it guides our steps and signals danger or direction.

A city walk also delivers the pleasure of unexpected architectural discoveries: trolls clinging to the corners of buildings, swags of flowers carved into stone friezes.

These days I’m walking in the country, in coastal Rhode Island, where the blackbirds and foxes keep me company.

“Exploring the world is one of the best ways of exploring the mind,” writes Rebecca Solnit in “Wanderlust: A History of Walking.” The mind eventually begins to follow the feet, and a logjam of anxiety starts to come loose.

Soul-Renewing Walking Meditation

From Type A to Point Be
Long walks are the cure for writer’s block, lover’s block, mother’s block, friendship block, and any other kind of obstacle that we try to deliberately gnaw our way through, worrying over the problem and getting nowhere.

Better to let yourself really go nowhere and experience the delicious paradox of losing yourself to find yourself.

Walking with indirection has, at heart, a paradoxical benefit. When you stop making decisions for a little while, before you know it, you are filled with purpose, and the goals and paths of your life take on a new clarity.

It is by such grace that life unfolds; how lovely to suspend disbelief (I will never feel good again) and arrive at conviction: Life is wonderful! What a joy to be moving!

How-To: Walking as Meditation

1. Focus on your breathing. Paul Smith, walking-meditation instructor at Lake Austin Spa Resort in Austin, Texas, recommends inhaling slowly through your nose for 4 steps, keeping your breath in for 2 steps, exhaling for 4 steps, then waiting 2 steps before inhaling again.

2. Gently corral your wandering mind. Try repeating an affirmation in time with your breathing and steps. Smith recommends phrases such as “My life is a pleasure,” “I speak the truth and listen without judging,” or “I see all things in clarity.” Another trick: Visualize putting your worrisome thoughts in a balloon and letting go of the string.

3. Hold one hand behind your back. This will help slow you down. “Don’t let yourself get into race-walking mode,” Smith says.

4. Pay attention to your senses. Focus on vision first, which is easiest. Notice a plane overhead, leaves in the trees. Then notice sounds around you, the sun on your face, the smell of cut grass. Smith says, “These are ways to stay in the present.”

5. On a practical note: If you’re walking for distance, carry a little “mad money” in case you tucker out miles away. But no cell phone — or turn it off if you must have it on you.

adapted from Wholeliving.com, September 2010 by Dominique Browning

Singing Bowl Meditation Timer & Alarm Clock

Our Zen Timepiece’s – (a Singing Bowl Meditation Timer) acoustic 6-inch brass bowl-gong clock is the world’s ultimate alarm clock, practice timer, and “mindfulness bell.”

Hokusai Wave Zen Meditation Timer and Alarm Clock

Now & Zen – The Meditation Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383