Mindful June 2015

you posted I agree with Congressman Tim Ryan’s points in “Does Fast Food Really Cost Less?” (April 2015). However, when you see a woman with her three kids unable to feed them any other way than by the McDonald’s dollar menu or the Big K kids meals, you can see that the problem isn’t just food—it’s education and how much we care for those in need. Gail Lehmann Facebook Is this article a joke? (“Have a Drink and Pay Attention,” April 2015). What’s next, mindful cigar smoking? Mindfulness faces the possibility of going the way yoga has gone in the US, becoming trivialized by market forces to the point where it looks faintly absurd. I think there are articles in this magazine that could be published elsewhere. This is one…

What makes you feel fulfilled: 74% FIND FULFILLMENT IN APPRECIATING WHAT THEY HAVE, and 64% in a job well done. Meanwhile notoriety makes 4% feel fulfilled—twice as many as tequila (2%). SOME FUN ANSWERS: • Doing the right thing • Seeing that I put a smile on another person’s face • My dream man • Good coffee • Getting what I want Is there such a thing as “happiness”: 99.67% SAY “OF COURSE!” MUST BE TRUE! How often you feel happy: 82% CLAIM “MORE OFTEN THAN NOT.” Wow. What’s your secret, Mindful readers? Rating their happiness on a scale from 1 to 10, our readers answered an average: 7.5 HAPPINESS—NOT BAD! What qualifies as a “good day”: • My wife has a smile on her face. • Being able to…

Our must-read story this issue: For more on fitting into the wrong size of bed, see our story on what it’s like to live in a tiny house on page 50 In ancient Greece, or so the story goes, there was an innkeeper named Procrustes. His slogan: No person is too tall or too short for the beds at Procrustes’. He made good on his claim by cutting off the legs of the tall people and putting short people on the rack to stretch them out. Everyone “fit” but there was a lot of pain involved, and so was born the notion of a Procrustean Bed: a norm that we try to fit everyone into. Every era has its brand of conformity. In the Information Age, where measurement is rampant…

CRAZE ORCRAZY Sometimes you just can’t decide if something’s groundbreaking or totally bonkers. Our jury’s out. What’s your verdict? MEDITATION SELFIES They’ve taken celebrity Instagrams by storm, and they’re as unusual as they sound. MINDFULNESS OPERA The world’s first “mindfulness opera” kicks off in September in London. Ditch your evening gown for some stretchy pants—there’ll be yoga, meditation, even communal eating at this “opera.” MEDITATION NIGHTCLUB It’s like clubbing, only you meditate as your thoughts appear as light and color. There’s only been one—will it catch on? A New (Nursing) Home What if having dementia or Alzheimer’s didn’t signify the end of life, but the start of a new one? De Hogeweyk, a small gated village in the Netherlands, is revolutionizing memory-loss care. Complete with amenities such as a town…

LEARNING MATTERS Can mindfulness help kids do better in school? A recent study published in Mindfulness found that exposing school kids to an audio-guided mindful awareness training program for 10 minutes a day significantly increased their performance in reading and science—without disrupting teaching. NOT A PANACEA A growing body of research shows that meditation and mindfulness can do a lot of good. But you need perspective, too—or so suggests a recent one-week National Institutes of Health study that looked at whether mindfulness meditation improves working memory or decreases mind wandering. The study did not find evidence for that, but it did find that meditation eases stress-related memory impairments. Less Stress for Nurses More and more studies are showing that mindfulness can help health-care workers reduce job-related stress and burnout. A…

mindful Get a quality education to accompany your nausea when you fly with JetBlue: The airline has added full college lectures to its in-flight entertainment. When a snowstorm hit Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, 82-year-old Bud Caldwell couldn’t make his daily visit to the bench he’d bought and dedicated to his wife. So two park workers shoveled him a path and promised to do so every day, in the name of love. Knitting isn’t just for grandmas anymore: One Maryland prison offers weekly knitting classes to male inmates to teach them discipline, work ethic, and patience—stitch by stitch by stitch. As of January, Kopplin’s Coffee in St. Paul, Minnesota, gives its baristas a living wage—starting at $4.50 above the state minimum—and tips go to a local food bank. Forget Internet trolls…