Just what is mindfulness meditation, anyway? Perhaps you think of it as some kind of new-agey, feel-good relaxation technique. Or perhaps you think of it as sitting still and trying to clear your mind of all thoughts. These are typical misconceptions of what mindfulness really is.


 
In a nutshell, mindfulness is the antidote to our hyper-connected, frenetic, distracting electronic world. We’re used to letting our thoughts and our attention jump from one subject to another, responding to whatever stimulus comes along. Mindfulness meditation is active training in the discipline of focus. While meditation has roots in Buddhism and Hinduism, you don’t need to follow a religious tradition to give it a try.
 
Mindfulness is a practice, a state, and a trait. The "practice" is regularly taking time, as little as 5 minutes a day, to actively focus on a point of awareness. This is often the breath, but it can also be alert listening to the sounds happening in the moment, observing visual details, or simply noticing feelings and thoughts as they come and go. When these moments of awareness happen more and more in our lives, it becomes a “state” of being. And with continued, deliberate practice, mindfulness can also become a “trait”, as meditation starts to rewire the brain. Mindfulness practice physically changes how various brain regions communicate, and therefore, how we think. In fact, there is scientific evidence to back this up.
 
One 2012 study[1] used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study people with no previous mindfulness training, comparing scans before and after they took part in an 8-week meditation intervention. The scans were conducted while subjects were in an ordinary, non-meditative state. Researchers found that after 8 weeks, the amygdala, that region of the brain associated with the "fight or flight" stress response, appeared less reactive compared to a control group. This shows that brain changes persisted even when not meditating. A 2011 study[2] showed that mindfulness practice resulted in growth in brain regions involved in learning and memory, emotional regulation, and perspective taking.
 
There are many other studies suggesting mindfulness meditation training can improve attention and emotional regulation, reduce anxiety, and diminish physical reactions to stress. It can help us to keep our attention on the things that matter, cultivating the ability to discern what to respond to, and what to simply watch pass by.
 
Mindfulness meditation is simple, although that doesn't mean it's easy. At its core, the practice can be reduced to two simple questions:

1. Where is my attention now?
2. Where do I want my attention to be?

 
To begin, sit comfortably and choose a point of focus, such as the feeling of your breath in your nostrils. Concentrate on the sensation of the breath as it comes and goes. When you notice your thoughts have wandered (and they will!), gently, and without judgment bring your attention back to the breath. The whole practice is about repeatedly "failing" and bringing attention back to the breath, "failing" (where is my attention now?), and returning (where do I want my attention to be?).  The success is the instant you notice that your mind has wandered, so expect many successes! 
 
If you're ready to give it a try, there are many resources, from local meditation classes to websites and even apps for your phone. It's easy to start. Why not give it a try?

In 1987, four researchers[1] identified the "Baker-baker" paradox. In their experiment, subjects were asked to learn the names and occupations belonging to unfamiliar faces. The result? The researchers found recalling names was much harder than recalling occupations. In fact, people found it easier to remember that a person was a baker, than it was to remember that a person's name was Baker, even though it's the same word.

In further experiments, the researchers showed that occupations are easier to remember because we can associate them with ideas or memories that are meaningful to us. When you hear that a man is a baker, you associate him with all kinds of ideas about what that means: he bakes bread, his workplace smells fantastic, maybe he even wears a funny white hat. 

But the name Baker isn't really associated with anything except with the stranger's face, which isn't particularly meaningful to you.

How can we use this information? If you want to get better at remembering names, you need to add meaning.

Here are four simple steps to getting better at remembering names.

1. Pay attention
First, remember to be mindful and pay attention. If you're thinking about what you're going to say next in the conversation, the person's name won't even enter your short-term memory. Focus and repeat the name back. Ask for the spelling or for a last name if that helps you to focus.

2. Add meaning
In your mind, add meaning to the name. You can think of an object that sounds similar (a garden for Gordon, a stove for Steve). You can think of someone else you know who has the same name (like your brother John, or your best friend Angela). Or find a rhyme for the name (Jane rhymes with chain, Leigh rhymes with flea). Turning the name into something visual can be especially powerful. (Garden, stove, your brother, chain, flea are all things that you can visualize.)

If you yourself have an unusual name, you can help others by adding meaning for them. Actress Soairse Ronan helps people to remember the pronunciation of her unusual name by saying, "SIR-shah, like 'inertia'". I often help people to remember my name by providing the visual: "Fawn, like the baby deer."

3. Pick out a distinctive feature
What is an interesting feature of the other person? Does he have large ears? Does she have a streak of white in her hair? Do they have big dimples?

Now attach that meaningful name to that visual cue. Mike with big ears could have microphones in his ears. Jane might have a chain in her white streak. Gordon's big dimples might have flower gardens growing in them. The more ridiculous the better; your brain loves to remember novel images.

4. Review
In our last blog post, we described how effortful retrieval is key to remembering in the long term. At the end of an event or at the end of the day, ask yourself, "Who did I meet today?" Take the time to revisualize the name and the key feature of the person to anchor them in your mind.


Does this sound like a lot of work? It certainly does take more effort than forgetting! But let this thought encourage you: unlike your shoe size, your memory is not fixed. Memory is something you can grow. So while this is more work, remember that you are training to get a better and more powerful brain. The steps above take just a few extra seconds. Get into the habit, and you'll be on your way to growing your brain and your memory, not to mention impressing everyone you meet when you remember their name.


[1] McWeeny, Young, Hay, & Ellis, Putting names to faces, British Journal of Psychology, 1987

It’s one of life’s most frustrating experiences: that feeling that you know something – or at least that you used to know something – and now you can’t quite call it up. It might be a person’s name, or where you last put down your keys or your glasses, but any way you slice it, the result is frustration or even embarrassment.
 
In those moments, it might also be hard to remember that it’s actually good for your brain to forget things.
 
Why? Well, there are at least two reasons.
 
First, you encounter so much information every day, it’s not useful to remember it all. Temporarily remembering today’s weather forecast, or the room number for that appointment, is relevant only for a short time, so it’s useful to retain it for that short period, and then throw it out.
 
Second, your brain’s natural forgetfulness helps you to train it to distinguish between what is important and what isn’t.
 
When you are learning something new, the new information first goes into your short-term memory. Think of your short-term memory as a small basket that can hold only a handful of items. As you go about your day, you need to keep putting new things into your basket, so you take some things out to make room.
 
Uh-oh! You’ve started to forget that new thing you’ve learned! So you retrace your steps to go pick it back up again. When you do that, you start to carve a path in your brain to that piece of information. In brain science terms, this effortful retrieval helps to strengthen the neural pathways to that piece of information. Regularly engaging in effortful retrieval of a particular piece of information strengthens your ability to recall it, and gradually moves it into long-term memory.
 
It’s not as effective to retrieve or repeat information that is still in your short-term memory (which is like putting something into your basket, pulling it back out, putting it back in again) because even though it feels like you know it, it hasn’t been moved into your long-term memory and the learning is superficial. It's soon going to get crowded out of your basket as you move onto some other activity.
 
To really get something into your long-term memory, you need spaced repetition. You need to practice retrieving that piece of information over time, forgetting it just enough between retrievals that it takes a little bit of work, so you can strengthen that neural pathway. This is like creating a trail through the bush. You have to keep walking that path and clearing the weeds and branches out of the way to get the trail clear.
 
Over time, your brain also combines related bits of information together into more complex structures so that you can access those chunks as a whole rather than as separate things. Now you are becoming an expert!
 
Knowing all this might help you to understand why practice and study affect your brain, but how does it help you remember names or where you put your glasses? In our next blog post, we’ll look at some strategies for improving memory.