Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness.
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have shown that mindfulness states can accelerate the development of self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence by reducing negativity and increasing positive, pro-social behaviors. Mindfulness is possible when we stay present for, attentive to, and aware of how we are relating to our baby and their needs and actions. Caregiving is a process perfectly suited for the practice of mindfulness. Indeed, caring for a baby moment-by-moment, day-by-day, year-by-year allows us the profound opportunity to nurture empathy and compassion in us and our baby. Mindfulness is a bona fide stress reducer. Dancing with your baby, as a mindfulness intervention, works well for both you and your baby.
What these researchers discovered is how exactly mindfulness states arise and their underlying mechanisms. They set out to explain how the practice “reduces biases related to self-processing and creates a sustainable healthy mind.” What occurs with mindfulness is the training of one’s mind that develops self-awareness. This arises as a result of becoming ever more aware of the conditions that cause biases or negative actions, followed by self-regulation of the behavior by their elimination. And finally we reach a state characterized by, as the researchers found: “a positive relationship between self and other that transcends self-focused needs and increases prosocial characteristics (self-transcendence).”
David R. Vago and David A. Silbersweig
http://www.frontiersin.org/Human_Neuroscience/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00296/abstract