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Meditation I The Laker's Meditate?
  
 

MEDITATION

Business Week Online
August 30, 2004

 

New research shows that meditation changes the brain in ways that alleviate stress. In 1999 a Harvard University Magna Cum Laude named Kaleil Isaza Tuzman quit his job as a French-cuffed arbitrageur at Goldman Sachs (GS ) to found a startup called govWorks with his childhood best friend, an experience that was captured in the riveting documentary Startup.com. As the company unwinds, we see the once-smooth Tuzman kick furniture, burn through girlfriends (not to mention $60 million), and, in the company's last gasps, send a two-sentence letter of termination to the best friend -- all before he was 30.


What we don't see, however, is that Tuzman had let his longtime meditation practice slide. When he was at Goldman, Tuzman often closed his eyes on the trading floor to meditate -- a Zen man in Zegna. But when he plunged into govWorks and its 20-hour days, he slacked off. "I have regretted letting it lag for years," says Tuzman. "Because if I had stayed disciplined, I have a feeling I would have been able to see some of the harbingers and perils that I didn't see at the time." Today, Tuzman, now CEO of Recognition Group, is back at his 20-minute-a-day practice, sometimes shutting his office door and sitting ballet-dancer straight in his leather swivel chair.


For decades, researchers at the National Institutes of Health, the University of Massachusetts, and the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Harvard University have sought to document how meditation enhances the qualities companies need in their human capital: sharpened intuition, steely concentration, and plummeting stress levels. What's different today is groundbreaking research showing that when people such as Tuzman meditate, they alter the biochemistry of their brains. The evolution of powerful mind-monitoring technologies has also enabled scientists to scan the minds of meditators on a microscopic scale, revealing fascinating insights about the plasticity of the mind and meditation's ability to sculpt it.


Some of those insights have emerged in the lab of Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Throughout his career, Davidson has pondered why people react so differently to the same stressful situations, and for the past 20 years he has been conducting experiments to find out. With the blessing of the Dalai Lama, who is supporting U.S. neuroscientists in their quest to crack the mysteries of meditation, Davidson has been placing electrodes on meditating Buddhist monks as they sit on his lab floor watching different visual stimuli -- including disturbing images of war -- flash on a screen. Davidson and his team then observe the monks as they meditate while ensconced in the clanking, coffin-like tubes of MRI machines.


What the researchers see are brains unlike any they have observed elsewhere. The monks' left prefrontal cortexes -- the area associated with positive emotion -- are far more active than in nonmeditators' brains. In other words, he says, the monks' meditation practice, which changes their neural physiology, enables them to respond with equanimity to sources of stress. Meditation doesn't lobotomize meditators; it simply allows them to detach from their emotional reactions so they can respond appropriately."


In our country, people are very involved in the physical-fitness craze, working out several times a week," says Davidson. "But we don't pay that kind of attention to our minds. Modern neuroscience is showing that our minds are as plastic as our bodies. Meditation can help you train your mind in the same way exercise can train your body."


Davidson's research didn't stop with the monks. To find out whether meditation could have lasting, beneficial effects in the workplace, he performed a study at Madison (Wis.) biotech company Promega. Four dozen employees met once a week for eight weeks to practice mindfulness meditation for three hours. The result, published last year in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, showed that the employees' left prefontal cortexes were enlarged, just like those of the monks. "We took typical, middle-class Americans trying to cope with the demands of an active work life and active family life who reported being relatively stressed out," says Davidson. "And what we found out is that after a short time meditating, meditation had profound effects not just on how they felt but on their brains and bodies."


These results matter at a time when companies lose an estimated $200 billion annually in absenteeism, subpar performance, tardiness, and workers' compensation claims related to stress. In fact, stress-related ailments account for upwards of 60% of all doctor visits, according to the Mind/Body Medical Institute. President Herbert Benson, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, notes that stress does amp up performance to a certain level. But sustained too long, it erodes productivity. "If businesses were clever, what they would do is simply put time aside [and have] a quiet room for people to carry out a meditative behavior of their choice," says Benson.


Some are already doing so. AOL (TWX ), Raytheon (RTN ), Nortel Networks (NT ), and even ultra-staid law firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton offer their employees meditation classes. At some companies, the practice gets advocacy from the top. Medtronic's (MDT ) former CEO, Bill George, who has meditated twice a day for 20 minutes for the past 30 years, says: "Out of anything, it has had the greatest impact on my career." (Life offers many opportunities: George meditates from the time his plane taxis to when the steward offers him a Diet Coke (KO ).)


Former Aetna International Chairman Michael Stephen also started meditating in 1974 and says it helped transform him from an impatient, demanding know-it-all into a more effective leader. Ex-Monsanto (MON ) CEO Robert Shapiro is such a devotee that he brought in teachers to help his execs learn the practice. And McKinsey Managing Partner Michael Rennie, an avid meditator, has studied the beneficial effects of meditation in corporations. Health insurers are starting to realize that meditation, like preventive health and exercise programs, may help them control costs. Cigna (CI ) is so intrigued with the new meditation findings that it has hired Davidson's partner, Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, to study the ways in which meditation may be able to reduce costs for everything from chronic fatigue to irritable bowel syndrome.


Of course, as with exercise, it's natural to face difficulties adhering to a schedule or to go through periods when you question the payoff. That's why it's important to find a teacher, a Zen center, or some other authority to turn to in such moments, much as one turns to a personal trainer to help maintain or heighten the challenge of an exercise regimen.


The point is: Don't just do something -- sit there.

 

 



The LAKERS Meditate? 17 May 2006
An Interview on Meditation, Basketball, and Responsibility with George Mumford

George Mumford is a meditation teacher, consultant, and sports psychologist. For five years he worked with an NBA Championship team, the Chicago Bulls during the Jordan years. He currently is a sports psychologist and meditation teacher to many athletes and sports teams, including the Los Angeles Lakers. In the interview he talks about how he uses meditation with professional athletes. He also recently visited one of the classes conducted by our sister organization, Lineage Project East, at a juvenile hall in Brooklyn, where he was interviewed by Soren Gordhamer.


Soren Gordhamer: When you teach mindfulness to the Chicago Bulls or the Los Angeles Lakers, what do you feel that you are offering?


George Mumford: The opportunity to be in the moment. In sports, what gets people’s attention is this idea of being in the zone, or playing in the zone. When they are playing their best, they can do no wrong, and no matter what happens they are always a step quicker, a step ahead. That happens when we are in the moment, when we are mindful of what is going on. There’s a lack of self-consciousness, there’s a relaxed concentration, and there’s this sense of effortlessness, of being in the flow. We have that experience in other parts of our life, but we equate it with sports because there are rules and guidelines, and it is a situation where you get immediate feedback. When we are in the moment and absorbed with the activity, we play our best. That happens once and awhile, but it happens more often if we learn how to be more mindful. By mindful, I mean being aware, being engaged with the present moment. Mindfulness is useful because it is through this that we can see what is going on. It means knowing what needs to happen and doing it.


SG: Do you encourage the players you work with to do meditation practice?


GM: Oh, you can’t do it without the meditation practice. This is not just about being good in sports, this is warrior training. You can’t just be focused in a basketball game; it’s a full-time job. Warriors have known this for a long time. When you go into combat, you cannot be afraid. You have to be able to deal with your emotions and be clear about what you are attempting to do and how you’re going to do it. A lot of people go out and play basketball and don’t think much about it. That’s fine, but when you get into organized basketball and other team sports, you’ve got to know what your teammates are doing. Mindfulness teaches you how to develop certain skills and possibilities. When it comes to sports, you’ve got to know what you are doing and its impact. So you can look at a basketball game as just going out there and playing or you can look at it as understanding the science of basketball, understanding how to be the most effective basketball team. On one level, you have to bring in your personal skills, but on the other hand, you have to blend your skills with your teammates’ skills.


For example, if you are in a game and shooting a free throw, you have to pay attention. If it is short, you need to shoot longer next time. If it goes straight and hits the front rim, you need to get more of an arc on the shot. Now, what informs you to do that? A lot of this stuff we do automatically, but there is a process to it. Do you go in and say, “I’m going to make this shot”? No, ideally, you have practiced so much that all you have to do is step up to the line without thinking about it, and shoot.


SG: Without self-consciousness?


GM: Yes, without self-consciousness. Sometimes you can do that, sometimes you can’t. If the person fouls you pretty hard or if the official missed three other fouls or if you just had a shot blocked or if your girlfriend or boyfriend is in the stands, it might be harder. But the bottom line is that when you go to the line, you cannot have distractions. One of the main abilities to playing well is concentration or focus.


SG: Do some of the players give you a hard time when you come in and have them meditate?

GM: No, they don’t give me a hard time because I come with an impressive resume. I’ve worked with MJ (Michael Jordan), the Bulls, and Phil Jackson. I come in and I’m supported by the power structure. I first just get them to the table. I try to get them interested. I have got about ten seconds to get their attention. Once I get their attention, I tell them the benefits. When I talk about being in the zone, they understand that. After that, I have them try it. I tell them that if they try to get in the zone, they can’t. But if they pay attention, the zone will happen as a by-product. There are other elements involved, but that is the main part. It’s about the ability to be both relaxed and alert.


SG: Do you have athletes who do meditation before a game?


GM: I encourage them to do meditation all the time. This may include before a game but is not limited to this.


SG: How long a meditation do you do?


GM: It depends on the team. I find the balance that is right for the group. The amount of time is not as important as the quality.


SG: And the response?


GM: Some are into it, others are not. But even if they don’t like it, they will benefit from it. So the real question is, are they teachable? I get resistance from some people, but I never got any overt resistance from the Bulls. When you are a team, you do what is good for the team.


SG: We have kids who often relate the mindfulness meditation practice to drug experiences, that the feeling of being relaxed and peaceful is similar to what they seek in drugs.


GM: You don’t have to explain it to me. I was a heroin addict for a long time, so I know. It’s a similar kind of high, but different. When you first meditate, you may feel good but it is not likely going to give you the same experience as certain drugs. When you take drugs, the drugs have an impact on your receptors and your endorphins. They are helping you experience something that you already have. They ignite and sensitize you to feeling your own endorphins. It’s internal. So the question is, how to develop that so you have other ways to access it? That’s when you have the experience of being in the zone.


However, some people try to get a certain high as a means of getting away from their current emotional state. Mindfulness teaches you that it is by opening to your experience that you get freedom from it. It does not work to try to get away from a particular experience. It is about opening rather than pushing away.


SG: For a young person who is in a situation where they have done a lot of harm both to themselves and others, and they are wanting to change from a more violent warrior to a spiritual warrior, what do you think can help bring that about?


GM: Oh, very simple. You have to understand that your actions have consequences. It’s important to notice your intention. Sometimes we do not know that we intend to hurt people until afterwards. If you realize that you have hurt people, this is a spiritual undertaking. All the spiritual traditions talk about this. You have to take personal responsibility, and not say the drugs made me do it or my friend made me do it. Then you have to make amends. But the main thing is to learn from your mistakes and not do it again.


You can say that my friend made me do it or the person pissed me off, but you made a choice to act in a certain way. You can make another choice. You can walk away next time. But you think, “I’ll be a chump if I walk away.” Well, that’s an idea you have. You do the act so you will not be thought of as a chump but then you are a jailbird. Would you rather be a chump or a jailbird? It takes more courage to walk away than to stay and get involved. If you shoot someone, that person has relatives, they have homies. Actions always have consequences.


You have got to focus on yourself. It is a lot harder to conquer yourself than it is to conquer others. This is the hardest thing we have to do, but it is also the most beneficial. And it all happens in the present moment. This moment is all we’ve got. It is only in the present moment that we can make changes. And you are not just making these changes for yourself; you are doing it for everyone. Everyone will benefit.

For more information about the Mind, Body, Awareness Project go to www.mbaproject.org.

 

 

 
KIM CRESSE, MA, LPC ~ 678- 467- 0518 ~ kim@waysofawareness.com ~ Counseling: Meditation ~ DBT ~ EMDR

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