Meditation can improve ability to attend

The NLP dictum is that we have 7 units of attention plus or minus 2. And the NLP practitioner I was studying with when I was told that seemed to opine that meditation could improve ones score. Well, it looks like she was right.

attention does not have a fixed capacity - and that it can be improved by directed mental training, such as meditation.

Volunteers had a three month meditation training and were retested at the end regarding ability to attend to a second target half a second after a first was presented.

the mental training reduced the amount of brain activity associated with seeing the first target. "The decrease [of brain activity associated with the first target] strongly predicted the accuracy of their ability to detect the second target,"

The implications are not just for executives wanting an edge

"The conventional view is that attentional resources are limited. This shows that attention capabilities can be enhanced through learning." The finding that attention is a flexible skill opens up many possibilities, says Davidson. For example, he suggests, "Attention training is worth examining for disorders with attentional components, like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder."

But it does give us reason to get out there in the market place of training alongside the Human Potentialites and new age quackery and offer meditation from a 'safe' base in Christian community and thinking.
ScienceDaily: Meditation May Fine-tune Control Over Attention

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