The term "mindfulness" is now familiar to many people, including those who have never been interested in meditation and Eastern religions. Recent experimental studies have helped to open up new opportunities for this practice. Scientists have studied various techniques of awareness and found that these skills can help get rid of many bad habits.
According to the University of London, craving is a conscious strong desire to perform certain actions, for example, smoking, drinking alcohol or eating too much. In many cases, such an obsession requires intervention, and this intervention may be awareness.
A conscious meditation for a long time helps in the fight against addictions. Even in the ancient Buddhist texts it is said that any kind of dependence leads to suffering, but they can be avoided through meditative meditation. And now, in our days, conscious meditation makes it possible to purposefully influence various aspects of behavior.
Awareness helps to achieve a variety of goals. With its help, a person can concentrate on bodily sensations and spiritual experiences, develop stability in front of uncomfortable circumstances or immerse themselves in, throwing aside thoughts and emotions. But until now it was not clear how different types of conscious meditation could help people with addictions. Therefore, in the new study, scientists have paid special attention to the study of aspects of awareness that can influence the manifestation of excessive craving for anything.
After about 30 experiments, researchers came to the following conclusion: the practice of mindfulness loads the working memory of a person, which leads to a significant reduction or complete cessation of addictions. Working memory (also called RAM) is a type of human memory that provides storage of small amounts of information needed to solve current problems right now.
According to scientists, the practice of awareness occupies that part of the mind that is responsible for pathological predilections. This method can help to prevent the occurrence of excessive traction, as well as to save a person from existing predilections. Now researchers plan to compare the effectiveness of awareness with other types of healing practices, for example, visualization.