Transcendental Meditation reduces the brain's reaction to pain/Angry people enjoy provoking others/Why we read what we read when angry

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Therapeutic value of meditation unproven, says study Pain Relief No Pain with tramadol Meditation May Reduce Heart Disease Risk

 

Transcendental Meditation reduces the brain's reaction to pain

(There are some negative comments about the source of this post, but it's only common sense that if you relax and let loose endorphins, which lessen pain, you will feel better. Meditating should give 8hz brainwaves. It all helps. Laughter also increases endophins and I've heard white blood cells, but the latter needs verification as I've forgotten the source now. N)

 

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/transcendental-meditation-reduces-the-brains-reaction-to-pain-11239.html

Twelve healthy long-term meditators who had been practicing Transcendental Meditation for 30 years showed a 40-50% lower brain response to pain compared to 12 healthy controls, reported by a latest NeuroReport journal article, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (Vol.17 No.12; 21 August 2006:1359-1363). Further, when the 12 controls then learned and practiced Transcendental Meditation for 5 months, their brain responses to pain also decreased by a comparable 40-50%. www.neuroreport.com Current issue (Aug 9)

Transcendental Meditation could reduce the brain's response to pain because neuroimaging and autonomic studies indicate that it produces a physiological state capable of modifying various kinds of pain. In time it reduces trait anxiety, improves stress reactivity and decreases distress from acute pain.

According to Orme-Johnson, lead author of this research, "Prior research indicates that Transcendental Meditation creates a more balanced outlook on life and greater equanimity in reacting to stress. This study suggests that this is not just an attitudinal change, but a fundamental change in how the brain functions".

Pain is part of everyone's experience and 50 million people worldwide suffer from chronic pain. Transcendental Meditation would have a long term effect in reducing responses in the affective component of the pain matrix. Future research could focus on other areas of the pain matrix and the possible effects of other meditation techniques to relieve pain.

From Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention

 

 

Angry people enjoy provoking others

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/angry-people-enjoy-provoking-others-12866.html

 

Most people don't appreciate an angry look, but a new University of Michigan psychology study found that some people find angry expressions so rewarding that they will readily learn ways to encourage them.

"It's kind of striking that an angry facial expression is consciously valued as a very negative signal by almost everyone, yet at a non-conscious level can be like a tasty morsel that some people will vigorously work for," said Oliver Schultheiss, co-author of the study and a U-M associate professor of psychology.

The findings may explain why some people like to tease each other so much, he added.

"Perhaps teasers are reinforced by that fleeting 'annoyed look' on someone else's face and therefore will continue to heckle that person to get that look again and again," he said. "As long as it does not stay there for long, it's not perceived as a threat, but as a reward."

U-M psychology researchers Michelle Wirth and Schultheiss, the authors of the study, published their findings in the journal Physiology and Behavior. They took saliva samples from participants to measure testosterone, a hormone that has been associated with dominance motivation.

Participants then worked on a "learning task" in which one complex sequence of keypresses was followed by an angry face on the screen, another sequence was followed by a neutral face, and a third sequence was followed by no face.

Participants who were high in testosterone relative to other members of their sex learned the sequence that was followed by an angry face better than the other sequences, while participants low in testosterone did not show this learning advantage for sequences that were reinforced by an angry face.

Notably, this effect emerged more strongly in response to faces that were presented subliminally, that is, too fast to allow conscious identification. Perhaps just as noteworthy, participants were not aware of the patterns in the sequences of keypresses as they learned them.

While high-testosterone participants showed better learning in response to anger faces, they were unaware of the fact that they learned anything in the first place and unaware of what kind of faces had reinforced their learning.

Wirth, the lead author of the study and now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added: "Better learning of a task associated with anger faces indicates that the anger faces were rewarding, as in a rat that learns to press a lever in order to receive a tasty treat. In that sense, anger faces seemed to be rewarding for high-testosterone people, but aversive for low-testosterone people."

She said the findings contribute to a body of research suggesting that perceived emotional facial expressions are important signals to help guide human behavior, even if people are not aware that they do so.

"The human brain may have built-in mechanisms to detect and respond to emotions perceived in others," she said. "However, what an emotional facial expression, such as anger, 'means' to a given individual—whether it is something to pursue or avoid, for example—can vary."

Source University of Michigan

Why we read what we read when angry

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/why_we_read_what_we_read_when_angry_10300.html

When men and women are angry, they both choose the news media articles they read with the goal of regulating their moods, a new study suggests.

But, in some circumstances, men choose to read articles that will fuel their anger, while women choose articles that will dissipate it.

Researchers found that when men were angered and anticipate the chance to retaliate, they chose to read negative online news stories, presumably to sustain their anger until their opportunity to get even.

Women faced with the same situation, however, chose to read more positive news to help dissipate their anger before a possible confrontation.

“For women, it is not seen as appropriate for them to retaliate when they're angry, but it is OK for men. And that's reflected in their selection of media content,” said Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.

“This shows that even our news consumption is not motivated just by information concerns. We use news to regulate our moods.”

Knobloch-Westerwick conducted the study with Scott Alter of the University of Michigan. Their results were published in a recent issue of the journal Human Communication Research.

The study involved 86 college students. Participants thought they were participating in two unrelated experiments.

In the first experiment, the students sat in front of a computer screen and given an impossible task: to evaluate photos of people with neutral expressions on their faces. They were asked to select which one of six emotions – anger, fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, and surprise – each face represented. They were shown 20 faces, each for just two seconds.

“There was really no way to tell which emotions the people in the photos were feeling,” Knobloch-Westerwick said.

Their answers were really irrelevant anyway, she said. The person supervising the experiment gave each participant one of two standard responses after the experiment: one designed to provoke low levels of anger, and one to provoke high levels.

Depending on the anger level selected, the supervisor told the participants they got 45 or 85 percent of the answers wrong, and that this reflects either their “fairly weak” or “unusable” social skills.

In one more twist, half the people were told before they began the experiment that they would have the opportunity to evaluate the supervisor of the experiment, and recommend whether this person should keep his job. This was the opportunity some participants had for retaliation against the person who angered them.

Next, participants were told they would begin the second study, in which they evaluated an experimental online magazine. They saw a contents screen that showed 12 stories, all from real magazines. Half were pre-selected as positive stories, and half were negative. The students were told they would not have time to read them all, and to choose the ones that most interested them.

Software logged the time that the participants spent reading each article.

After this experiment, those who were promised the opportunity to evaluate the supervisor were given the chance to do so.

Results showed that men given the chance to retaliate against the supervisor were more likely to choose negative news over positive news, while women chose the positive news.

But for participants who were not given the opportunity to retaliate against the supervisor, there was not as much difference between men and women's media choices. In this case, men were much more likely to read positive news than those who had the chance to retaliate.

That's because these participants didn't have to “manage” their mood in preparation for a chance to retaliate, Knobloch-Westerwick said. That meant men didn't have to use their news reading to sustain their anger, and women didn't have to dissipate their anger.

The results didn't show any difference in those provoked to low anger versus those provoked to high anger, she said.

Overall, the findings suggest people may sometimes use their media choices to put them in the right frame of mind for upcoming events.

“You want to make sure your mood fits whatever situation you're in,” Knobloch-Westerwick said. “Media choices can help you do that.”

For example, commuters facing a stressful drive home from work may choose calming, relaxing music on the radio.

“Our media use is not just for entertainment or information. It can also be functional, helping us to regulate our moods for what we're doing.”

From Ohio State

[Guest guest]

In reference to meditation, you might want to take a look at Qigong Breathing:http://www.weebooklets.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=7 If you have a moment, click this link for a terrific one-page newsletter:http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs005/1102000765898/archive/1102011498441.htmlweebooklets.com has short ebooks on various topics, including Golf, Natural Healing, Stress Relief, Pain Reduction, and more. Please visit: www.weebooklets.comIf you have a business, take a look at: http://ListJoe.com/j/billfillk----- Original Message ----Misty <misty3Health and Healing <health_and_healing >; Armageddon or New Age <armageddon-or-newage >Saturday, March 15, 2008 7:16:59 AM Transcendental Meditation reduces the brain's reaction to pain/Angry people enjoy provoking others/Why we read what we read when angry

 

 

 

 

Similar entries

 

 

 

Therapeutic value of meditation unproven, says study Pain Relief No Pain with tramadol Meditation May Reduce Heart Disease Risk

 

Transcendental Meditation reduces the brain's reaction to pain

(There are some negative comments about the source of this post, but it's only common sense that if you relax and let loose endorphins, which lessen pain, you will feel better. Meditating should give 8hz brainwaves. It all helps. Laughter also increases endophins and I've heard white blood cells, but the latter needs verification as I've forgotten the source now. N)

 

http://www.scienceb log.com/cms/ transcendental- meditation- reduces-the- brains-reaction- to-pain-11239. html

Twelve healthy long-term meditators who had been practicing Transcendental Meditation for 30 years showed a 40-50% lower brain response to pain compared to 12 healthy controls, reported by a latest NeuroReport journal article, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (Vol.17 No.12; 21 August 2006:1359-1363) . Further, when the 12 controls then learned and practiced Transcendental Meditation for 5 months, their brain responses to pain also decreased by a comparable 40-50%. www.neuroreport. com Current issue (Aug 9)

Transcendental Meditation could reduce the brain's response to pain because neuroimaging and autonomic studies indicate that it produces a physiological state capable of modifying various kinds of pain. In time it reduces trait anxiety, improves stress reactivity and decreases distress from acute pain.

According to Orme-Johnson, lead author of this research, "Prior research indicates that Transcendental Meditation creates a more balanced outlook on life and greater equanimity in reacting to stress. This study suggests that this is not just an attitudinal change, but a fundamental change in how the brain functions".

Pain is part of everyone's experience and 50 million people worldwide suffer from chronic pain. Transcendental Meditation would have a long term effect in reducing responses in the affective component of the pain matrix. Future research could focus on other areas of the pain matrix and the possible effects of other meditation techniques to relieve pain.

From Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention

 

 

Angry people enjoy provoking others

http://www.scienceb log.com/cms/ angry-people- enjoy-provoking- others-12866. html

 

Most people don't appreciate an angry look, but a new University of Michigan psychology study found that some people find angry expressions so rewarding that they will readily learn ways to encourage them.

"It's kind of striking that an angry facial expression is consciously valued as a very negative signal by almost everyone, yet at a non-conscious level can be like a tasty morsel that some people will vigorously work for," said Oliver Schultheiss, co-author of the study and a U-M associate professor of psychology.

The findings may explain why some people like to tease each other so much, he added.

"Perhaps teasers are reinforced by that fleeting 'annoyed look' on someone else's face and therefore will continue to heckle that person to get that look again and again," he said. "As long as it does not stay there for long, it's not perceived as a threat, but as a reward."

U-M psychology researchers Michelle Wirth and Schultheiss, the authors of the study, published their findings in the journal Physiology and Behavior. They took saliva samples from participants to measure testosterone, a hormone that has been associated with dominance motivation.

Participants then worked on a "learning task" in which one complex sequence of keypresses was followed by an angry face on the screen, another sequence was followed by a neutral face, and a third sequence was followed by no face.

Participants who were high in testosterone relative to other members of their sex learned the sequence that was followed by an angry face better than the other sequences, while participants low in testosterone did not show this learning advantage for sequences that were reinforced by an angry face.

Notably, this effect emerged more strongly in response to faces that were presented subliminally, that is, too fast to allow conscious identification. Perhaps just as noteworthy, participants were not aware of the patterns in the sequences of keypresses as they learned them.

While high-testosterone participants showed better learning in response to anger faces, they were unaware of the fact that they learned anything in the first place and unaware of what kind of faces had reinforced their learning.

Wirth, the lead author of the study and now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added: "Better learning of a task associated with anger faces indicates that the anger faces were rewarding, as in a rat that learns to press a lever in order to receive a tasty treat. In that sense, anger faces seemed to be rewarding for high-testosterone people, but aversive for low-testosterone people."

She said the findings contribute to a body of research suggesting that perceived emotional facial expressions are important signals to help guide human behavior, even if people are not aware that they do so.

"The human brain may have built-in mechanisms to detect and respond to emotions perceived in others," she said. "However, what an emotional facial expression, such as anger, 'means' to a given individual—whether it is something to pursue or avoid, for example—can vary."

Source University of Michigan

Why we read what we read when angry

http://www.scienceb log.com/cms/ why_we_read_ what_we_read_ when_angry_ 10300.html

When men and women are angry, they both choose the news media articles they read with the goal of regulating their moods, a new study suggests.

But, in some circumstances, men choose to read articles that will fuel their anger, while women choose articles that will dissipate it.

Researchers found that when men were angered and anticipate the chance to retaliate, they chose to read negative online news stories, presumably to sustain their anger until their opportunity to get even.

Women faced with the same situation, however, chose to read more positive news to help dissipate their anger before a possible confrontation.

“For women, it is not seen as appropriate for them to retaliate when they're angry, but it is OK for men. And that's reflected in their selection of media content,” said Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick , co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.

“This shows that even our news consumption is not motivated just by information concerns. We use news to regulate our moods.”

Knobloch-Westerwick conducted the study with Scott Alter of the University of Michigan. Their results were published in a recent issue of the journal Human Communication Research.

The study involved 86 college students. Participants thought they were participating in two unrelated experiments.

In the first experiment, the students sat in front of a computer screen and given an impossible task: to evaluate photos of people with neutral expressions on their faces. They were asked to select which one of six emotions – anger, fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, and surprise – each face represented. They were shown 20 faces, each for just two seconds.

“There was really no way to tell which emotions the people in the photos were feeling,” Knobloch-Westerwick said.

Their answers were really irrelevant anyway, she said. The person supervising the experiment gave each participant one of two standard responses after the experiment: one designed to provoke low levels of anger, and one to provoke high levels.

Depending on the anger level selected, the supervisor told the participants they got 45 or 85 percent of the answers wrong, and that this reflects either their “fairly weak” or “unusable” social skills.

In one more twist, half the people were told before they began the experiment that they would have the opportunity to evaluate the supervisor of the experiment, and recommend whether this person should keep his job. This was the opportunity some participants had for retaliation against the person who angered them.

Next, participants were told they would begin the second study, in which they evaluated an experimental online magazine. They saw a contents screen that showed 12 stories, all from real magazines. Half were pre-selected as positive stories, and half were negative. The students were told they would not have time to read them all, and to choose the ones that most interested them.

Software logged the time that the participants spent reading each article.

After this experiment, those who were promised the opportunity to evaluate the supervisor were given the chance to do so.

Results showed that men given the chance to retaliate against the supervisor were more likely to choose negative news over positive news, while women chose the positive news.

But for participants who were not given the opportunity to retaliate against the supervisor, there was not as much difference between men and women's media choices. In this case, men were much more likely to read positive news than those who had the chance to retaliate.

That's because these participants didn't have to “manage” their mood in preparation for a chance to retaliate, Knobloch-Westerwick said. That meant men didn't have to use their news reading to sustain their anger, and women didn't have to dissipate their anger.

The results didn't show any difference in those provoked to low anger versus those provoked to high anger, she said.

Overall, the findings suggest people may sometimes use their media choices to put them in the right frame of mind for upcoming events.

“You want to make sure your mood fits whatever situation you're in,” Knobloch-Westerwick said. “Media choices can help you do that.”

For example, commuters facing a stressful drive home from work may choose calming, relaxing music on the radio.

“Our media use is not just for entertainment or information. It can also be functional, helping us to regulate our moods for what we're doing.”

From Ohio State

 

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