More Than a Decade After Greater Good
this finding held in a real-life cafeteria setting: The mindful participants chose lower-calorie meals and more salads than the non-mindful participants, who preferred cheese puff pastries and donuts.
Mindfulness—in this case, a mere 12-minute exercise that involved no meditation—seems to allow us to disengage from our problematic cravings and thus make healthier choices. The researchers found a similar dynamic with the desire for casual sex, and speculate that it could apply in many other domains, as well—wherever a little distance from our urges or phobias might improve behavior.
“Mindful attention offers a promising and novel strategy for self-control,” they conclude.
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I am one of those older Americans who are less happy with the direction our society/culture has gone. Yes, we have to deal with many problems just as other generations have, but the pace of change toward individualism and interruptive technologies is outpacing the ability of the human mind to adapt. We simply were not cut out for this pace, nor for this culture.
Mindfulness certainly helps (as many sages have shown), but as another article highlighted in Daily Good shows, human connections are the most basic thing that we need in order to have meaningful and healthy lives.
Can we slow the rate of "progress?" Maybe not for now, but I strongly believe that our culture is headed for a forced reset that, while difficult, may be just what we need to in order to live more meaningful, healthy, and happy lives. Not "going back to the good ol' days," but going forward to a more meaningful and humane way of living - less materialistic and more inter-connected.
Peace, and Happy New Year!
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