BEING SKILLS PRELIM EXAMINATION REVIEWER
UNDERSTANDING AND ACKNOWLEDGING
EMOTIONS.
Emotions are a product of thinking, they’re feelings brought about
our interpretation of a thought, a situation or a person.
All kinds of emotions are valid, but some emotions, when we're not
mindful, can lead to negative behavior and outcomes.
Now, for example, imagine yourself walking down the hallway to your
next class when suddenly someone from behind you walks past hurriedly
and in doing so bumps your shoulder, making you lose your balance a
bit.
Now this person, a boy from the upper class whom you recognize as the
basketball varsity captain whom you heard isn't such a nice person,
pauses to look back at you and shout out, “sorry!” and continues his way
still rushing.
Now you could either think that he was a bad person based on rumors
that you heard about him and feel irritated and annoyed or you could
think that he was just rushing to something very important considering
that he did look back and say sorry and then feel that there's no need to
act or react at all.
The same situation can have different interpretations, and
depending on how we choose to react, one moment can either ruin
the rest of our day or just allow us to go on peacefully.
Now this is the power of meditation and mindfulness. When you
train your brain to pause and be aware of your thoughts and
emotions you can change your perspective and you can truly
empower yourself.
Your facilitator will now guide you through the Journal of being aware
and the journal of being present.
The emotion wheel and the SPIES technique are great tools to help you
label and identify your emotions because when you are able to put a
name to what you're feeling, the better you'll be able to deal with it.
Now use these tools as often as you can, and in any situation.
FOUNDATIONS OF MEDITATION
When people hear the word meditation, several ideas come to mind.
Such as it'll make your mind empty, it's about telling the mind to be quiet
that it's related to specific religion, that unwanted spirits will enter you,
that you will levitate and go out of this world you'll see spirits, you'll
hear spirits, nothing could be further from the truth.
Cognitive neuroscience has proven that meditating can relieve stress,
can help boost your immune system it can help you learn better, and
that is just a fraction of benefits of meditation.
WHAT IS MEDITATION? (History of meditation)
It all started with this prince named Gautama Siddhartha who was born
and raised in the palace in Nepal. This was 2500 years ago. when he was
in his late 20s he went outside the palace gates for the first time and saw
so many of his countrymen that's either in poverty begging for food,
being sick, being helpless and some of them are even dying.
So what he saw was people suffering. After that he left the palace and
renounced his title and his riches to live among his people so he studied
how to alleviate suffering because of his self-study from years of
meditating he achieved nirvana or enlightenment and became the
buddha.
His teachings are the foundations of what we call mindfulness. One of
the major roadblocks of self-development in today's world is stress,
stress comes in various forms like when you're taking a quiz and you
don't know the answer and the time is up, when you don't have any
enough allowance to go to school, when you want to hang out with
friends and you have to go home because your parents won't let you go
out, you know when your parents are having some arguments, when you
don't have money when you're late for school due of traffic. So when we
encounter a stressful event and this stressful event differs from person to
person because what may be stressful for me may not be stressful for
you. Our brain interprets that as a signal to protect the body from harm.
This comes from the way that the body is built and that hasn't changed
for thousands of years. The most stressful thing in prehistoric man's life
was a saber-toothed tiger so but today, our saber-toothed tigers all came
from the form of an alarm clock that didn't go off, your reaction paper
that is due, all the things that make your heart rate go up, your low
battery when you're trying to get in touch with your parents or your
friends that makes us forget to eat and to lose sleep.
So stress isn't the enemy and stress aren’t going away anytime soon but
we can train our minds so that we don't stress out when stressful events
happen to us so to speak. So the key is rewiring your brain to be more
resilient to the stress of life itself.
THE SCIENTIFIC POWER OF MEDITATION
For thousands of years people have practiced meditation for spiritual,
emotional, and physical well-being. But from a scientific perspective,
how exactly does meditating affect your body? Does it really do
anything?
It all starts in the brain! During meditation, brain-scans see increased
activity in regions directly correlated with decreased anxiety and
depression, along with increased pain tolerance. The Default Mode
Network, in particular, is activated when one’s mind is at rest and not
focusing on the outside world, and has been found to improve memory,
self-awareness and goal setting.
Want to be more caring to your friends and family? When scientists
compared the brains of Buddhist monks to new meditators, they found
the region of the brain associated with empathy to be much more
pronounced in the monks. It also literally changes your brain waves - and
we can measure these frequencies.
Meditators have higher levels of Alpha waves, which have been shown
to reduce feelings of negative mood, tension, sadness and anger.
And if that wasn’t enough, it also physically changes our brain shape and
size. Studies found that after 8 weeks of a meditation program, gray
matter was denser in areas associated with learning, memory processing,
and emotion regulation. And yet the amygdala, which deals with stress,
blood pressure and fear, had decreased gray matter!
When we look at the entire body, not only do we see decreased blood
pressure, but it can also increase the variability of your heart rate. While
this may sound harmful, it actually plays a critical role in properly
transporting Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide throughout your body.
Think you’re getting sick?
In a study where both meditators and non-mediators were given the flu
virus, meditators were able to produce a greater number of antibodies
and had increased immune function.
If we go a little deeper, we can even see changes on a cellular level. Your
chromosomes have protective protein complexes called telomeres,
which help reduce damage to your DNA and lower cell death. And a
shortened telomere length has been linked to several disease such as
cardiovascular disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and cancer.
Amazingly, when cancer survivors completed a meditation program,
their bodies showed significant increases in telomere length. It’s
believed that psychological intervention, particularly decreasing stress,
has a direct effect on the enzyme telomerase, which has been shown to
counteract shortening by adding DNA to the shrinking telomeres.
Of course, meditation is not a substitute for other medical advice or a
healthy lifestyle. But much like hitting the gym can grow your muscles
and increase your overall health, it seems that meditation may be a way
of ‘working out’ your brain with extra health benefits. And since your
brain controls, well...all of you, why not relax and say ‘om’ every once in
a while.
NEUROSCIENCE OF MINDFULNESS
MEDITATION
What if you could know how to mind worked so that you could make it
work even better with a simple brain training exercise. The exercise is
mindfulness meditation, and the following video will explain simply, the
current neuroscience research on how the brain works normally and how
you can have the power to change it with mindfulness meditation.
There is emerging evidence that mindfulness meditation causes changes
in the structure and function of brain regions involved in the regulation
of attention, emotion, and self-awareness. Functional MRI studies of the
brain show that when someone is daydreaming or just not doing
anything, our brains show consistent activity in certain regions. Some
studies suggest as much as 45 percent of our time is spent day-dreaming.
These areas together are called the Default Mode Network or DMN, the
interesting thing about the Default Mode Network is that it involves
parts of the brain responsible for thinking about yourself and
rumination - areas which are correlated with some mental illnesses
such as depression and anxiety.
One of the interesting brain areas making up the default mode network is
the amygdala the region of the brain largely responsible for the fight-or-
flight response and is seen to be more active when people are stressed.
Just as the brain has a Default Mode Network when we are daydreaming
or not thinking about anything in particular, it has an opposite network of
brain activity known as the Task Positive Network or TPN that is
active during attention demanding tasks. Only one network can be
active at any one time. So in summary, the Default Mode Network can
be said to be a ruminative network - it directs our awareness to the
past and future while largely ignoring the present and while the DMN
can be used responsibly for planning and organizing, we must be
wary of the negative aspects of it. The Task Positive Network can be
said to be responsible for present moment awareness, being in the
here and now. It is the Action Network. When the TPN is activated and
we are in the present, there is no rumination, there is no worry, there is
no past, there is no future because the DMN is inactivated and again,
only one system can be active at any one time. By activating the TPN we
deactivate the DMN. So the next time you feel down or ruminating on
the events of the past, or worrying about the future, remind yourself of
the power of the Task Positive Network (the TPN). All you have to do is
bring attention for example to your breath, or a sound, or a sensation
such as the warmth of the Sun on your skin. Then if you find that your
mind wanders as the DMN begins to take over, activate your TPN again
by bringing your attention back to your breath or sound, or sensation.
DID YOU KNOW?
Experienced meditators have been found to have smaller amygdalas
(responsible for stress). And so, this change in structure of their brains
means that they are able to react differently to the stresses and strains of
everyday life. Research also shows that the more you practice
mindfulness meditation, the easier it is for you to activate your TPN
and deactivate your DMN .With what you've learned now, you can
begin to enjoy being in the present, and begin changing your brain, and
your life for the better.
HOW STRESS AFFECTS YOUR BODY
Cramming for a test? Trying to get more done than you have time to do?
Stress is a feeling we all experience when we are challenged or
overwhelmed. But more than just an emotion, stress is a hardwired
physical response that travels throughout your entire body. In the
short term, stress can be advantageous, but when activated too often or
too long, your primitive fight or flight stress response not only
changes your brain but also damages many of the other organs and
cells throughout your body. Your adrenal gland releases the stress
hormones cortisol, epinephrine, also known as adrenaline, and
norepinephrine. As these hormones travel through your blood stream,
they easily reach your blood vessels and heart. Adrenaline causes your
heart to beat faster and raises your blood pressure, over time
causing hypertension. Cortisol can also cause the endothelium, or
inner lining of blood vessels, to not function normally.
Scientists now know that this is an early step in triggering the process of
atherosclerosis or cholesterol plaque buildup in your arteries. Together,
these changes increase your chances of a heart attack or stroke. When
your brain senses stress, it activates your autonomic nervous system.
Through this network of nerve connections, your big brain
communicates stress to your enteric, or intestinal nervous system.
Besides causing butterflies in your stomach, this brain-gut connection
can disturb the natural rhythmic contractions that move food
through your gut, leading to irritable bowel syndrome, and can
increase your gut sensitivity to acid, making you more likely to feel
heartburn. Via the gut's nervous system, stress can also change the
composition and function of your gut bacteria, which may affect your
digestive and overall health.
Speaking of digestion, does chronic stress affect your waistline? Well,
yes. Cortisol can increase your appetite. It tells your body to replenish
your energy stores with energy dense foods and carbs, causing you to
crave comfort foods. High levels of cortisol can also cause you to put
on those extra calories as visceral or deep belly fat. This type of fat
doesn't just make it harder to button your pants. It is an organ that
actively releases hormones and immune system chemicals called
cytokines that can increase your risk of developing chronic diseases,
such as heart disease and insulin resistance.
Meanwhile, stress hormones affect immune cells in a variety of ways.
Initially, they help prepare to fight invaders and heal after injury, but
chronic stress can dampen function of some immune cells, make you
more susceptible to infections, and slow the rate you heal.
Want to live a long life? You may have to curb your chronic stress.
That's because it has even been associated with shortened telomeres, the
shoelace tip ends of chromosomes that measure a cell's age. Telomeres
cap chromosomes to allow DNA to get copied every time a cell
divides without damaging the cell's genetic code, and they shorten
with each cell division. When telomeres become too short, a cell can no
longer divide and it dies. As if all that weren't enough, chronic stress
has even more ways it can sabotage your health, including acne, hair
loss, sexual dysfunction, headaches, muscle tension, difficulty
concentrating, fatigue, and irritability.
So, what does all this mean for you?
Your life will always be filled with stressful situations. But what matters
to your brain and entire body is how you respond to that stress. If you
can view those situations as challenges you can control and master,
rather than as threats that are insurmountable, you will perform better in
the short run and stay healthy in the long run.
HOW TO MAKE STRESS YOUR FRIEND
Can changing how you think about stress make you healthier? And here
the science says yes.
When you change your mind about stress, you can change your body's
response to stress.
If you were actually in this study, you'd probably be a little stressed out.
Your heart might be pounding, you might be breathing faster, maybe
breaking out into a sweat. And normally, we interpret these physical
changes as anxiety or signs that we aren't coping very well with the
pressure.
But what if you viewed them instead as signs that your body was
energized, was preparing you to meet this challenge?
Now that is exactly what participants were told in a study conducted at
Harvard University. Before they went through the social stress test, they
were taught to rethink their stress response as helpful. That pounding
heart is preparing you for action. If you're breathing faster, it's no
problem. It's getting more oxygen to your brain. And participants who
learned to view the stress response as helpful for their performance, well,
they were less stressed out, less anxious, more confident, but the most
fascinating finding to me was how their physical stress response
changed.
Now, in a typical stress response, your heart rate goes up, and your blood
vessels constrict. And this is one of the reasons that chronic stress is
sometimes associated with cardiovascular disease. It's not really healthy
to be in this state all the time.
But in the study, when participants viewed their stress response as
helpful, their blood vessels stayed relaxed. Their heart was still
pounding, but this is a much healthier cardiovascular profile. It actually
looks a lot like what happens in moments of joy and courage.
Over a lifetime of stressful experiences, this one biological change could
be the difference between a stress-induced heart attack at age 50 and
living well into your 90s. And this is really what the new science of
stress reveals, that how you think about stress matters.
One of the most under-appreciated aspects of the stress response is
that, Stress makes you social. To understand this side of stress, we need
to talk about a hormone, oxytocin, and I know oxytocin has already
gotten as much hype as a hormone can get. It even has its own cute
nickname, the cuddle hormone, because it's released when you hug
someone. But this is a very small part of what oxytocin is involved in.
Oxytocin is a neuro-hormone. It fine-tunes your brain's social
instincts. It primes you to do things that strengthen close relationships.
Oxytocin makes you crave physical contact with your friends and
family. It enhances your empathy. It even makes you more willing to
help and support the people you care about.
Some people have even suggested we should snort oxytocin to become
more compassionate and caring. But here's what most people don't
understand about oxytocin.
It's a stress hormone. Your pituitary gland pumps this stuff out as part
of the stress response. It's as much a part of your stress response as the
adrenaline that makes your heart pound. And when oxytocin is released
in the stress response, it is motivating you to seek support. Your
biological stress response is nudging you to tell someone how you feel,
instead of bottling it up. Your stress response wants to make sure you
notice when someone else in your life is struggling so that you can
support each other. When life is difficult, your stress response wants you
to be surrounded by people who care about you.
Okay, so how is knowing this side of stress going to make you healthier?
Well, oxytocin doesn't only act on your brain. It also acts on your
body, and one of its main roles in your body is to protect your
cardiovascular system from the effects of stress. It's a natural anti-
inflammatory. It also helps your blood vessels stay relaxed during
stress. But my favorite effect on the body is actually on the heart. Your
heart has receptors for this hormone, and oxytocin helps heart cells
regenerate and heal from any stress-induced damage. This stress
hormone strengthens your heart. And the cool thing is that all of these
physical benefits of oxytocin are enhanced by social contact and social
support. So when you reach out to others under stress, either to seek
support or to help someone else, you release more of this hormone, your
stress response becomes healthier, and you actually recover faster from
stress. I find this amazing, that your stress response has a built-in
mechanism for stress resilience, and that mechanism is human
connection.
I want to finish by telling you about one more study. This study tracked
about 1,000 adults in the United States, and they ranged in age from 34
to 93, and they started the study by asking, "How much stress have you
experienced in the last year?" They also asked, "How much time have
you spent helping out friends, neighbors, people in your community?"
And then they used public records for the next five years to find out who
died.
For every major stressful life experience, like financial difficulties or
family crisis, that increased the risk of dying by 30 percent. but that
wasn't true for everyone. People who spent time caring for others showed
absolutely no stress-related increase in dying. Zero.
Caring created resilience. And so we see once again that the harmful
effects of stress on your health are not inevitable.
How you think and how you act can transform your experience of stress.
When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create the
biology of courage. And when you choose to connect with others under
stress, you can create resilience.
Stress gives us access to our hearts. The compassionate heart that finds
joy and meaning in connecting with others, and yes, your pounding
physical heart, working so hard to give you strength and energy. And
when you choose to view stress in this way, you're not just getting better
at stress, you're actually making a pretty profound statement. You're
saying that you can trust yourself to handle life's challenges. And you're
remembering that you don't have to face them alone.
THE YAMAS AND NIYAMAS
There are five Yama's which can be defined as guidelines and five knee
Yama's which are defined as observances.
1. The first Yama is non-violence and it serves as a foundation to
all the other guidelines it's about establishing a non-violent
relationship with others and with yourself Adele says how we
treat ourselves is how we treat those around us we must look into
our own lives and become aware of the subtle ways in which we
are violent with ourselves through harmful thoughts and habits
this awareness will increase our capacity to be nonviolent
towards others practicing gratitude trust in the moment and
thinking about others can help shift us into a state of non-
violence.
2. the second Yama is truthfulness truth demands integrity to our
life into our own self truthfulness keeps non-violence from
becoming open the excuse on non-violence keeps truthfulness
from becoming a brutal weapon Adel says that we can begin to
understand the deeper dynamics of truthfulness when we are
real rather than nice when we choose self-expression over self-
indulgence and when we choose growth over the need to
belong truth has a boldness to it and it leads us to freedom carl
jung once said a lie would make no sense unless the truth was
felt to be dangerous.
3. the next Yama is non-stealing Adel says this yama guides our
tendencies to look outward for satisfaction not only to be steal
from others and from the earth we steal from our own lives as
well all self-sabotage lack of belief in ourselves low self-esteem
judgements criticisms and demands for perfection our forms of
self-abuse - practiced on stealing we must learn to value
ourselves.
4. the fourth yama is non excess which is often interpreted to mean
celibacy or abstinence however its literal meaning is walking
with God which implies an awareness of sacredness and all
our actions and an attentiveness to each moment which
moves us into a stance of holiness it’s about letting go of
excess and living within the limits of enough whether we find
ourselves overdoing food work exercise or sleep excess is often a
result of forgetting the sacredness of life the skyline reminds us
to enter each day in each action with a sense of holiness rather
than indulgence so that our days may be lived in the wonder of
sacredness rather than the misery of excess.
5. The last yama is non possessiveness which liberates us from
greed it's about non attachment non clinging and non-
grasping it means being able to let go this guideline invites us
to experience full intimacy and contact with the moment and
then let go so the next thing can come it doesn't mean that we
don't care that we somehow shut ourselves off from the pleasures
and joy of life and each other non-attachment frees us up to be
emerged in the appreciation of life and one another we are asked
to let go of the clinging to things not the enjoyment of the thing
itself.
1. the first Niyama is purity and it refers to cleansing our bodies
minds and actions Adel says that there is a great energy that lies
mostly dormant within each of us this is the energy of
consciousness or awakening. cleansing strengthens the body
and mind preparing us for the awakening of that energy
within we can practice purity through simple things like exercise
drinking more water fasting or cleaning out our closets being
 pure with ourselves means we're not afraid of our thoughts or also think of the yamas as behaviors that we should avoid doing and
feelings and we don't have to hide anything from ourselves. the niyamas are behaviors that we should work on these behaviors or
2. the second Niyama is contentment and it can only be found in guidelines for living can be interpreted in various ways and it will be
acceptance and appreciation of what is in the moment Adel good for you to discuss with your group mates your own interpretation of
writes that as long as we think satisfaction comes from an the yamas and niyamas and your own ways and how you can live this out
external source we can never be content practicing gratitude whether in university in your work or in your personal lives you will not
helps to keep us centered in joy and abundance it's also be graded in memorizing the yamas and niyamas however these concepts
important to learn to be content with our discontentment can be used to help us understand behaviors and the impact on ourselves
and that itself is a gateway to the calm depths within. and others in practicing social connection during your discussions please
3. Next is self-discipline and its literal translation is heat it's remember to be kind because you may not agree with everyone and nor
anything that impacts us to change it carries the sense of will they always agree with you and you may even point out how you
cooking ourselves in the fire of discipline to transform can already apply the yamas and niyamas during the activity itself learn
ourselves in the heat we have two choices to break down or something new and get tips from others that may work for you.
break open.
4. The fourth niyama is self-study which is the pursuit of knowing THE VIA CHARACTER STRENGTHS
ourselves, studying what drives us and what shapes us, it's
about knowing our true identity as divine. meditation is an
important aspect of self-study it helps us to witness our
thoughts and enhanced our ability to watch ourselves act and
respond the more aware we are of our emotional disturbances
the better suited we are to deal with them.
5. the final Niyama is surrender and it reminds us that life knows
what to do better than we do it presupposes that there is a
divine force at work in our lives surrender invites us to be
active participants in our life totally present and fluid with
each moment while appreciating the magnitude and mystery
of what we are participating in if we trust this hidden purpose
life will always surpass our own expectations.
Centuries ago, a sage named Patanjali laid out some guidelines and
observances for humans to achieve happiness and contentment he
understood that aside from moving the body like doing yoga for example
and doing meditation we also need to have the right attitudes and
behaviors in your journal you have the yamas and the niyamas with a
brief description the yamas are about restraining behaviors that are
motivated by aversion hatred and delusion while the niyamas are
designed to create well-being for ourselves and for others you can
Emotions neither good nor bad. They simply are.
Emotions are a result of our thoughts and how we think about things and
people. Therefore, if we do not like how we are feeling at any given time
(SPIES), we have the power to change the way we feel by changing the
way we think.