self-control

Study finds that playing videogames may be more cognitively beneficial for children than other forms of screentime (social media, watching videos/ TV)

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Many par­ents feel guilty when their chil­dren play video games for hours on end. Some even wor­ry it could make their chil­dren less clever. And, indeed, that’s a top­ic sci­en­tists have clashed over for years.

In our new study, we inves­ti­gat­ed how video games affect the minds of chil­dren, inter­view­ing and test­ing more than 5,000 chil­dren aged ten to 12. And the results, pub­lished in Sci­en­tif­ic Reports, will be sur­pris­ing to some. [Read more…] about Study finds that play­ing videogames may be more cog­ni­tive­ly ben­e­fi­cial for chil­dren than oth­er forms of screen­time (social media, watch­ing videos/ TV)

Marshmallow Test with a twist: 3- and 4‑year-olds kids display more self-control when their reputation is at stake

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Chil­dren Will Wait to Impress Others—Another Twist on the Clas­sic Marsh­mal­low Test (Asso­ci­a­tion for Psy­cho­log­i­cal Science):

If you asked peo­ple to name a famous psy­chol­o­gy study, the “marsh­mal­low test” would prob­a­bly come out near the top of the list. In this task, young chil­dren are told they can imme­di­ate­ly get a small reward (one marsh­mal­low) or wait to get a big­ger reward (two marsh­mal­lows) [Read more…] about Marsh­mal­low Test with a twist: 3- and 4‑year-olds kids dis­play more self-con­trol when their rep­u­ta­tion is at stake

Seven evidence-based reasons to start meditating yesterday

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Yes, start­ing today is OK too.

I start­ed med­i­tat­ing soon after 9/11. I was liv­ing in Man­hat­tan, an already chaot­ic place, at an extreme­ly chaot­ic time. I real­ized I had no con­trol over my exter­nal envi­ron­ment. But the one place I did have a say over was my mind, through med­i­ta­tion. When I start­ed med­i­tat­ing, I did not real­ize it would also make me health­i­er, hap­pi­er, and more resilient.

Hav­ing wit­nessed the ben­e­fits, I devot­ed my PhD research at Stan­ford to study­ing the impact of med­i­ta­tion. I saw peo­ple from diverse back­grounds from col­lege stu­dents to com­bat vet­er­ans ben­e­fit. In the last 10 years, hun­dreds of stud­ies have been released.

Here are sev­en evi­dence-based rea­sons you might want to get on the band­wag­on as soon as you can: [Read more…] about Sev­en evi­dence-based rea­sons to start med­i­tat­ing yesterday

Best predictor of sustained weight-loss? Prefrontal cortex activation

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Fig­ure 3. Weight Loss at Month 1 Cor­re­lat­ed with Changes in BOLD in Regions Asso­ci­at­ed with Cog­ni­tive Con­trol. Cred­it: Selin Neselil­er et al

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New research sug­gests that high­er-lev­el brain func­tions have a major role in los­ing weight. In a study among 24 par­tic­i­pants at a weight-loss clin­ic, those who achieved great­est suc­cess in terms of weight loss demon­strat­ed more activ­i­ty in the brain regions of the lat­er­al pre­frontal cor­tex asso­ci­at­ed with self-con­trol. [Read more…] about Best pre­dic­tor of sus­tained weight-loss? Pre­frontal cor­tex activation

Mindfulness or Mind Control at Work?

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Richard Davidson at the Mindfulness & Well-Being at Work conference on November 13-14, 2015, in Berkeley, California. Photo: Auey Santos
–Richard David­son at the Mind­ful­ness & Well-Being at Work con­fer­ence on Novem­ber 13–14, 2015, in Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia. Pho­to: Auey Santos

 

There’s a back­lash brew­ing against mind­ful­ness at work.

“Cor­po­ra­tions have jumped on the mind­ful­ness band­wag­on because it con­ve­nient­ly shifts the bur­den onto the indi­vid­ual employ­ee,” write Ron Purs­er and David Loy in the Huff­in­g­ton Post. “Stress is framed as a per­son­al prob­lem, and mind­ful­ness is offered as just the right med­i­cine to help employ­ees work more effi­cient­ly and calm­ly with­in tox­ic envi­ron­ments.” [Read more…] about Mind­ful­ness or Mind Con­trol at Work?

Neuroimaging study: Unregulated stress can sabotage your self-control and your diet

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Prefrontal_cortex_left_-_lateral_view

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Brain scans show how every­day stress can sab­o­tage your diet (CBS News):

“As any­one who’s ever downed a pint of ice cream after a bad day at the office knows, the stress­es of every­day life can sab­o­tage self-con­trol when it comes to diet. But why? [Read more…] about Neu­roimag­ing study: Unreg­u­lat­ed stress can sab­o­tage your self-con­trol and your diet