Neuroscience of Awareness.
Would you like more of these in your life?
1. Emotional Balance
2. The ability to pause before you act
3. Insight
4. Empathy
5. Fear modulation
6. Intuition – the ability to listen to your body
7. The ability to act according to the greater good.
8. Body regulation – balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system
9. The ability to resonate with others, being open to their communication.
Well, turns out that science is now providing us with a pretty clear picture about these qualities of Emotional Intelligence.
I’ve been listening to Dr. Daniel Siegal’s audiobook on The Mindful Brain, and am inspired by his presentation of the correlations between mindfulness, neuroscience and these 9 qualities.
Turns out that “paying attention on purpose to the present moment, letting go of judgement” aka Mindfulness, promotes greater wellbeing, enhanced relationships, immunity and deeper meaning in our lives – science is proving this.
And, the really interesting part is that the practice of mindfulness correlates with actual change in brain structure in a specific area, called the middle prefrontal cortex. It’s this middle prefrontal cortex that is involved in all of the nine qualities.
Daily mindfulness practice brings double benefits – you feel calmer in the moment and increase your wellbeing, AND you are actively changing the structure of the brain towards living with more of these qualities as a default state of being.
I’ll write more about this over the next weeks and offer some tips on how to make this a daily practice. There is so much interesting science about Mindfulness now – it’s so worth your time to make it a priority every day.