Mindfulness For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 17

Ten Ways Mindfulness Can Really Help You

In This Chapter

Dealing with pain and stress

Improving relationships – including with yourself

Feeling happier and more creative

Mindfulness provides a plethora of pleasures that I hope you’ll experience for yourself. As soon as you start being mindful on a regular basis you’ll find mindfulness quite addictive! In this chapter I give you a snapshot of the benefits of mindfulness, many of which are backed up by scientific research.

Training the Brain

Until fairly recently, scientists thought that the connections and structure of the adult brain were fixed, because changing the brain’s connections would be far too complex.

Now we know the truth: your brain can change! Scientists looked at violinists’ brains and found that the part of the brain responsible for finger dexterity was much bigger for violinists compared with non-violinists. They also studied London taxi drivers, who need to know all the complex road networks and 10,000 different streets in London (‘the knowledge’). When scientists compared the cabbies’ brains with ‘normal’ brains, they found that the part responsible for location was significantly bigger. The longer ...