Do you find yourself zoning out during meetings at work? letting your mind wander during conversations with family members? checking e-mail during professional lectures?
We all do it, thanks to an increasing number of sensory and emotional distractions in our world.
But psychologist Daniel Goleman, the Emotional Intelligence guru, says focus is more important to success than social background or IQ.
In his new book Focus, Goleman tells how we need "inner, outer and other" focus for a well-lived life. Inner focus puts us in touch with our intuition and values and helps us make better decisions. Other focus helps us get along with people, and outer focus helps us navigate the world.
Ideal, he says, is the dual ability to pay sharp attention to important matters and to let our minds wander in creative, problem-solving romps. Among the focusing strategies he recommends are mindfulness and meditation.
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Meditation: What's the Right Kind for You?
 Not all kinds of meditation have the same results, according to long-time meditation expert Jeanne Ball. Meditation that's effective for stress relief may not help focus you. And vice versa. Ball describes three basic types of meditation: controlled focus, open monitoring, and automatic self-transcending. Each affects brain waves differently, and each has a different effect. You may want to choose your meditation mode based on what's going on in your life. Controlled focus includes practices such as Zen, Tibetan, Buddhism, Qigone, Yoga and Vendanta. They may be most helpful when you want to increase your ability to focus. Open monitoring includes mindfulness practices such as Vipassana and Zazen. This type of meditation involves non-judgmental observation and is said to work well with reducing pain and negative rumination. For a more exhaustive discussion of meditation choices, check out her Huff Post Healthy Living article here and her meditation blog. |
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Shop Till You ...?
We often joke about "retail therapy" as a quick mood-lifter when we're in a slump. But what happens when our priorities begin to shift toward acquiring more and more? A new study by Knox College psychology professor Tim Kasser suggests that when our materialism focus goes up, our well-being shoots down, and vice versa. Unlike most materialism studies, which focus on cross-sections of the population at any one time, Kasser's recent work is based on experiments that tracked individuals over time, ranging from six months to 12 years. This way, he was able to correlate shifts in their thinking about "stuff" and shifts in mood. As part of the recent study, Kasser tested whether adolescents might become less focused on materialism after receiving information that encouraged sharing and saving. They did. And their well-being levels increased, compared to those who did not receive the information. . Copyright 2014 Pat Snyder
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