Art Chameleons

I'm easily distracted when I'm home and on a loose schedule, so I centered myself by painting this mandala. Let me know if you want me to send you one of our mandalas. I'd love to see how each of you interpret the mandala image. The best part is you'll feel relaxed once you're done.

Do you remember the mandala that Art Chameleons designed from someone's tattoo? Here it is all painted. The time spent on painting this mandala is a great mindfulness exercise. Coloring is inherently meditative, there are no mental demands, and the brain relaxes.

Now that's a mural! Thank you, Loyola, for having Art Chameleons lead this wonderful team-building event. Each participant painted out the cityscape that Art Chameleons created. When the canvases are joined together a beautiful mural is created. It reminds me of the patched worked for a quilt. Great Job!!

Team-building events can be tiring, but painting an image is a fun and not a time-consuming event. Tell us what you want to depict, maybe it's a corporate logo, or your business purpose, product, and values. Art Chameleons will print whatever image that you decide, and all you have to do is paint it. It's an easy and fun way to spend time with your boss!

My crusade to have mindfulness in schools has gone unheard, perhaps these experts can provoke at least some conversation on the need to bring this skill set to all schools.
If this rings true to you, then as a parent, teacher, school administrator, or anyone who can attest to this research, please reach out to Art Chameleons. We bring mindfulness training to the classroom.

Research links social media use to mental distress in teens Are more and more teens experiencing the negative effects of social media? Dr. Gillian Galen and Cosmopolitan's Jessica Pels discuss.

Art Chameleons created this cityscape mandala at the request of Loyola University. This event closed out a consortium of Jesuit leaders in education all over the USA. The client wanted an event that was quiet and yet a team effort. The results were amazing-post to follow.

Here is one of the original tattoo that inspired our heart mandala. Art Chameleons can personalize mandalas at your next mindfulness event. While painting a beautifully crafted mandala, the mind becomes more focused on an activity without demands. This event brings balance to the brain, which is the inherent nature of a mandala. Please contact us to book your next event with Art Chameleons, [email protected]

Art Chameleons, LLC. provides art-based events that bring people together. Visit our website at www.artchameleons.com.

ART CHAMELEONS

Mindfulness
Woo-Woo or Science?

With the development of technology and the availability of the internet, workdays are longer. We are always available! Those of us who walk, talk and text at the same time are now labeled, The Always on Culture. This affects the way we live, and work. As a result, our brains have little time to process the continuous stream of information. Unfortunately, this inhibits our ability to listen or communicate effectively. Don't despair. There is a new trend toward mind/body connection, and it's called mindfulness. What is mindfulness? In short, it's a form of mediation. Specifically, mindfulness is the skill of focusing on the present without internal judgment. Can you recall an activity that focused your complete attention? For example, sudoku or crossword puzzles, model airplane building, a sport, are mindfulness exercises. This type of intense focus without inner judgment is mindfulness. Your mind is calm, you have set aside the judgments and focus on the task set before you.
Dr. Sarah Lazar, an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and an associate researcher in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, studied the effects of mindfulness and meditation on the human brain. Her decision to study the claims that meditation offers behavioral changes came after a knee injury. Her physical therapist recommended that she start yoga to help her stretch. She jeered when the yoga teacher told her that yoga will open her heart and mind. Subsequentially, she discovered that she was calmer and better able to cope with difficult situations. She became a more compassionate and better empathic listener and communicator.

Dr. Lazar, with the help of other leading researchers, decided to investigate if there is any science to back up her experience with mediation. The research produced quantifiable results showing that meditation changes the human brain- for the better. This physical change that occurs in the human brain is neuroplasticity. For example, individuals who speak more than one language have a more developed part of the brain that controls language. Equally, physical changes in the brain occurred for those who regularly practice meditation. In a controlled study, she found that those who practiced meditation had more gray matter in specific parts of the brain associated with sensory experience, executive decision making, and memory. As we age, muscles atrophy, skin loses elasticity and our cortex shrinks. Remarkably, Dr. Lazar found the pre-frontal cortex of a 50-year-old meditator had the same amount of gray matter as a 25-year-old. Further finding from this research show the amygdala- the flight, fight or freeze center of the brain- became smaller in those who practiced Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.

In short, turning to mindfulness meditation will help when dealing with the stress from daily living, increases the region of the brain that corresponds to memory, decision making, and sensory experience. It's your choice. Do you choose to respond to daily stressor in the same ineffective manner, or do you take control by practicing mindfulness? It seems like a no brainer!

For further details on Dr. Lazar's findings:

How Meditation Can Reshape Our Brains: Sara Lazar at TEDxCambridge 2011 Neuroscientist Sara Lazar's amazing brain scans show meditation can actually change the size of key regions of our brain, improving our memory and making us ...

Mindfulness
Woo-Woo or Science?

With the development of technology and the availability of the internet, workdays are longer. We are always available! Those of us who walk, talk and text at the same time are now labeled, The Always on Culture. This affects the way we live, and work. As a result, our brains have little time to process the continuous stream of information. Unfortunately, this inhibits our ability to listen or communicate effectively. Don't despair. There is a new trend toward mind/body connection, and it's called mindfulness. What is mindfulness? In short, it's a form of mediation. Specifically, mindfulness is the skill of focusing on the present without internal judgment. Can you recall an activity that focused your complete attention? For example, sudoku or crossword puzzles, model airplane building, a sport, are mindfulness exercises. This type of intense focus without inner judgment is mindfulness. Your mind is calm, you have set aside the judgments and focus on the task set before you.
Dr. Sarah Lazar, an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and an associate researcher in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, studied the effects of mindfulness and meditation on the human brain. Her decision to study the claims that meditation offers behavioral changes came after a knee injury. Her physical therapist recommended that she start yoga to help her stretch. She jeered when the yoga teacher told her that yoga will open her heart and mind. Subsequentially, she discovered that she was calmer and better able to cope with difficult situations. She became a more compassionate and better empathic listener and communicator.

Dr. Lazar, with the help of other leading researchers, decided to investigate if there is any science to back up her experience with mediation. The research produced quantifiable results showing that meditation changes the human brain- for the better. This physical change that occurs in the human brain is neuroplasticity. For example, individuals who speak more than one language have a more developed part of the brain that controls language. Equally, physical changes in the brain occurred for those who regularly practice meditation. In a controlled study, she found that those who practiced meditation had more gray matter in specific parts of the brain associated with sensory experience, executive decision making, and memory. As we age, muscles atrophy, skin loses elasticity and our cortex shrinks. Remarkably, Dr. Lazar found the pre-frontal cortex of a 50-year-old meditator had the same amount of gray matter as a 25-year-old. Further finding from this research show the amygdala- the flight, fight or freeze center of the brain- became smaller in those who practiced Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.

In short, turning to mindfulness meditation will help when dealing with the stress from daily living, increases the region of the brain that corresponds to memory, decision making, and sensory experience. It's your choice. Do you choose to respond to a daily stressor in the same ineffective manner, or do you take control by practicing mindfulness? It seems like a no brainer!

For further details on Dr. Lazar's findings:

How Meditation Can Reshape Our Brains: Sara Lazar at TEDxCambridge 2011 Neuroscientist Sara Lazar's amazing brain scans show meditation can actually change the size of key regions of our brain, improving our memory and making us ...