How Meditation Reshapes Our Brains
BRAIN SCANS SHOW MEDITATION ACTUALLY CHANGES THE SIZE OF KEY REGIONS OF THE BRAIN. Meditation increases grey matter in areas of the brain which improve memory, empathy, compassion and resilience under stress.
NEUROPLASTICITY. Your brain is able to rewire from cradle to grave; engaging in repeat behaviour or using visualisation and meditation leads to changes in the brain. Neurons actually changing how they link and communicate with each other with experiences, either real or imagined.
MEDITATION SLOWS AGING. Meditation slows down the usual aging process of the brain. MRI scans show 50 year old meditators retain the same amount of frontal lobe grey matter as 25 year olds.
The benefits of 8 weeks of meditating for 30 minutes per day were studied by comparing MRI scans of meditators with non-meditators.
THE RESULTS
Areas of Meditators Brains That Changed After 8 Weeks
MEMORY AND LEARNING.
1. The Hippocampus increased, an area which assists with learning, and converting short term memory to long term memory. (The Hippocampus grey matter is reduced in people with depression or PTS (Post- traumatic stress.)
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
2. The Temporo-Parietal Junction grey matter is thickened. This area is responsible for perspective taking, empathy and compassion.
RESILIENCE
3. The Amygdala became smaller, this is the centre for activating stress responses, ‘fight or flight’. Meditators decreased the size of their amygdalae, not because of reducing stress in their lives, but because they deal with stress differently.
"Meditators feel better, not just as a mood change, but because there is actual neurological change in their brains that makes them feel better." Sara Lazar, Neuroscientist
RODENT EXPERIMENT — ENLARGEMENT OF THE AMYGDALA IN RESPONSE TO STRESS, Chattarji et al.
Rats were exposed to stress for 2 hours a day for 10 days, afterwards, the size of their amygdalae were found to be substantially increased; with increased abilities to produce the stress response. The rodents were then treated well for 21 days in a non-stressful environment. And here’s the really interesting part, 3 weeks after the stressful stimulae their amygdalae were still enlarged.
WE DON’T NOTICE INCREASING STRESS, BECAUSE WE SIMPLY GET USED TO IT.
Stress doesn’t naturally settle down once exposure stops and may rack up through our lives. As each small increase in stress exposure is maintained we get used to it as a new normal.
In meditators amygdalae shrinkage allows increased stress resilience taking individuals further & further away from feelings of overwhelm.
AND WHO WOULDN’T WANT THAT?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thoughtwavespro
https://itunes.apple.com/ph/app/thoughtwaves-pro/id1114514007?mt=8
https://thoughtwavespro.com/
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This is my first app
TakeBreak is a stretching and eye exercises app which notifies you when you need to take a break. Taking breaks at least every 45 minutes is very important to your health. The stretch exercises will help you to lower or even eliminate your neck, back, waist or shoulder pains and eye exercises will make your eyes stronger and your vision better. The program has 15 exercises and takes approximately 3-4 minutes to finish.
The Benefits of Stretching
• Improves circulation and boosts your immunity
• Improves balance and coordination
• Helps alleviate or even eliminate neck, back, waist and shoulder pains
• Helps you lose weight by burning fats
• Makes you feel more energized and relaxed
The Benefits of Eye Exercises
Our eyes need regular exercise to keep them healthy. Especially if you spend lots of time in front of computer or TV. Regularly exercising your eyes will naturally improve your vision and prevent you from wearing glasses.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.tom4sM.TakeBreakFree
Any reviews maybe?
Hello fellow Developers, I am currently developing a TD game for WP7 and would like to ask you what kind of features you expect form such game the most? We're still at a point , where we can add some features so we are curious what non-obvious features( for the genere) we could add
a cheat mode! theres nothing like haveing an infinite amount of money to bulid whatever you like and stack it up against never ending waves enemy units that get larger and more numerious to see how long you can last
i like to see stff blow up
Challenge modes, where you replay the level but it's harder in some way, are a great way to add replayability to a game without substantially increasing the development cost. A few examples of challenge modes for a TD:
Not allowed to build tower <X>.
No tower upgrades (or not past a given level).
No selling towers.
Enemies have 10% more health.
Enemies move 10% faster.
Enemies give 10% less money (or towers and upgrades cost more).
When an enemy dies, it heals the ones around it (favors single-target high-damage attacks vs. splash or attrition).
When an enemy takes damage, it instead takes half that much damage and other adgacent enemies take the rest (favors splash).
Enemies move slower but are far more tough.
Enemies move much faster but are weak.
Enemies regenerate health slowly.
More enemies per wave (with or without the usual extra money from more kills).
Waves come closer together, possibly as a continuous stream.
Strengthen one tower type (possibly not the obvious one to use on a level) and weaken the rest.
Force people to buy upgraded towers (i.e. you build level 2 towers, at the full combined cost, instead of lev1 at the basic cost).
Run the overall game faster (force the player to think and react quicker).
Money slowly drains when not being used.
You start with less money.
You start with a few pre-built towers, but very little (or no) money.
Give no money for kills within a wave until the whole wave is dead (or reaches the exit).
Have enemies that reach the exit cost the player some money.
Towers build and upgrade slower.
Most of these are pretty easy to implement, code-wise. They could be done individually or in combos. There could be extra perks for completing them (for example, you might get more points if there's a leaderboard or something). You can eaither add pre-designed challenges for each level, or allow players to select their own challenges. Challanges don't even have to actually be harder, just different. In fact, some of the things I've suggested would be perfectly reasonable core game mechanics, helping to separate your TD game from the rest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSpj9FC8Eio
Cheerful Skipjack-Extreme travels the dark dungeons, where there are a large number of very dangerous things for him.
********One touch of the macabre spikes - and he will die. Each subsequent jump Jumping lower than the previous. So he jumped above indicate compression of the spring on the right.
********The greater the compression of the spring, the higher will be the next jump. For each passed the screen Your rating increases by 1 every 10 screens add a new "life"
********which will be used after Jumping face spike. Can not accumulate more than 5 lives.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gameclubsite.skipjackfree
Hello everyone!
We developed fancy app, that will help you watch your lifestyle and day-to-day activities. You may prolong or shred your healthy life.
Chronic lifestyle risks are hard to grasp. That's where microlives comes to play. Keep an eye on healthy overall lifestyle and track how much longer can you live if you keep your discipline.
Why should I care?
Microlives helps you to put all these risks into a chart, which makes them comparable. This chart will show you how these affect our lives, “how much life we are losing in average”.
Each Microlife equals to 30 minutes of your expected lifespan. For example smoking 2 cigarettes or drinking 2 beers or eating a portion of red meat costs you one Microlife. If you keep all these habits it stacks up. Smoking 2 cigarettes every day for a whole life statistically shortens it by almost 2 and a half year.
Of course, this is just a statistic and everyone is unique. The aim of the app is to help you to keep up with healthy lifestyle based on most recent studies and improve the quality of your life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For more information visit App page:
http://microlives.smartbase.sk
Downloads:
Say goodbye to your weight problems and lose weight effectively through a tested diet. This application is based on the 90 Day Diet and will organize the way you eat so you can achieve your long term weight goals. The main idea of the diet is the selective/separate eating, which means not mixing different kind of food (proteins, starches, carbohydrates and fruits).
IMPROVE YOUR METABOLISM
The 90 Day Diet managed to convince people that metabolism is very important part of our health and controlling the body weight. Improper metabolism is a major cause of weight loss or excessive weight gain.
That’s why the goal of the app is to learn you how to establish a better metabolism with controlling what you eat. On of the main advantages of the 90 Day Diet is that it changes your metabolism in direction, where you can get rid of overweight and also you will be able to control your weight at desired level.
OTHER HEALTH BENEFTS TOO
The goal of the app is not only to help you lose weight, but also to improve your overall health. Thus, In addition, the 90 day Diet is extremely beneficial for people with high blood pressure. If you follow this diet you will find out that in fact its meals contain all the vitamins and minerals that your body needs. Accompanied by slight exercises, the 90 Day Diet can radically change you life for better.
PLAN YOUR DIET
The 90 Day Diet mobile application is designed to assist you during the diet. Use it when planning a diet and creating or implementing a healthy eating plan. This is an effective and trustful diet plan to lose weight. Along with the great tracking features like the diet tracker, weight tracker and the meal plan, you will get to your goals much faster.
90 DAY DIET FEATURES:
- Ability to create a flexible schedule for the diet - start it today, start it in
the future or if you have already started it you can pick up your start
date without problems.
- Detailed information about every single day - what exactly you can eat
and recommended sample meals.
- Statistics - how many days you've passed, how many kilograms you've
been when you started the diet and how many you are now.
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See why 90 Day Diet app is mentioned as one of the best weight loss tips.
Lose weight with planning a diet and implementing the features given in the 90 Day Plan app.
Get it for FREE!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dmbteam.ninetydaydiet
I should say, your words sound persuasively! Everyone who has been struggling with overweight will be happy to lose weight in 90 days. I've been working on losing weight and gaining muscles for several months already. I was lucky to find a great source that helps me to choose a proper nutrition and exercises. I've never been on any strict diet, but I've become interested in your suggestion. Thanks for sharing, I'll check it out!