Jumping on the Mindfulness train...

June 2021

Presenting a different kind of Neuro Bloom to the collection: “Mindfulness!” Mindfulness is not a condition or diagnosis per say, but an attention to what you are thinking, sensing and feeling in the moment, without judgement or interpretation. Practicing mindfulness involves various techniques which can include meditation, guided imagery, breathing methods, yoga and others. It’s a term that gets thrown around a lot these days. Maybe it’s overused, but as someone who has recently started using it in a deliberate way to manage anxiety (thank you disaster that was 2020), I am loving all the readily available information about it, as well as the recognition of its powerful role in recovery from mental health conditions.

This Neuro Bloom design is based on a PET scan of a meditating brain. What I find fascinating about this design is the range of the activity represented. Each color represents a level of activity in the brain. In general the warmer colors represent more activity and the cooler ones reflect less activity. This scan includes all the colors of the rainbow! There’s a misconception about meditation and other mindfulness practices that they are about emptying your brain of thoughts and achieving total stillness. But in fact it is quite an active experience of noticing thoughts and sensations as they come and go, being present for them without forcing them away.

But also, check out how BEAUTIFUL this design is! As always, thank you so much to my extremely talented friend and artist, Julia Walther of Shiny Apple Studio, for hitting this one out of the park!