Stress
SCIENTISTS CONFIRM THAT EXCESSIVE WORRY SHRINKS YOUR BRAIN
While there is no such thing as “the lawyer personality,” many lawyers are tense, moody, irritable and engage in frequent worry at work. Scientific research has now confirmed that personality type affects the tissue volume of key brain structures as we age. It turns out that conscientiousness (a positive quality which can make you a better lawyer and enhance many aspects of your life) preserves brain volume, while neuroticism measurably decreases it as early as middle age. We all know that worrying can’t help you protect the people you care about or solve any problems, but now we know it can shrink your brain as you age. Lawyers who worry all the time need to heed these findings and initiate changes in their attitude before it’s too late.
Relax Your Belly, Breathe Slower and Deeper and Become a Happier Lawyer
Why Breathing Matters – Getting the Facts
Although we take approximately 20,000 breaths per day, breathing requires no conscious input and so most people pay no attention to it. Once you learn the huge extent to which breathing influences your overall physical health, energy level, mood, and quality of life, you are likely to start paying very close attention to it.
Mindfulness Meditation and the Use of Taoist Concepts and Practices to Help Lawyers Relieve Chronic Stress
Mindfulness meditation has gone mainstream in medical treatment. It benefits patients by reducing their stress level and by improving some of the medical symptoms of stress-related disorders. These include psychiatric conditions like anxiety and depression, skin rashes, high blood pressure, heart disease and chronic pain. Lawyers are extremely stressed. They manifest their stress in their high rates of depression (19% of all lawyers), alcoholism (20% of all lawyers) and suicide (double the general population rate).
Heart 2.0 In An Era of Greater Chaos
Some time ago, we entered a new era of “accelerating acceleration.” It is an era that allows humans to provide a higher standard of living for everyone on the planet than ever before. It is also a time when things are being shaken up for purposes of being reordered – a time of greater chaos. It’s happening on a global stage: witness the world economy. It may not be so much a disaster, as a revelation of what’s really of value, and what wasn’t working. That gives us clear indications of what needs to be done differently.