"We hear it all the time: Meditation can improve our creative thinking, our energy, stress levels and even our success. Prominent artists, businessmen and politicians cop to the practice. Would it work for you?

"It did to my mind what going to the gym did to my body -- it made it both stronger and more flexible," said Dr. Hedy Kober, a neuroscientist who who studies the effects of mindfulness meditation, which she has practiced for 10 years, at her lab at Yale University. She admitted during a TED Talk that she started meditating to deal with a break up, but found that it helped her handle stress and unpleasant feelings in all areas of her life.

Studies show that meditation is associated with improvement in a variety of psychological areas, including stress, anxiety, addiction, depression, eating disorders and cognitive function, among others. There's also research to suggest that meditation can reduce blood pressure, pain response, stress hormone levels and even cellular health. But what does it actually do to the body?"

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"It's a piece of advice yogis have given for thousands of years: take a deep breath and relax. Watch the tension melt from your muscles and all your niggling worries vanish. Somehow we all know that relaxation is good for us.

Now the hard science has caught up: a comprehensive scientific study showing that deep relaxation changes our bodies on a genetic level has just been published. What researchers at Harvard Medical School discovered is that, in long-term practitioners of relaxation methods such as yoga and meditation, far more ''disease-fighting genes'' were active, compared to those who practised no form of relaxation.

In particular, they found genes that protect from disorders such as pain, infertility, high blood pressure and even rheumatoid arthritis were switched on. The changes, say the researchers, were induced by what they call ''the relaxation effect'', a phenomenon that could be just as powerful as any medical drug but without the side effects. ''We found a range of disease-fighting genes were active in the relaxation practitioners that were not active in the control group,'' Dr Herbert Benson, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who led the research, says. The good news for the control group with the less-healthy genes is that the research didn't stop there."

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"The alarm sounds and you're off: Onto checking emails, finding car keys and, if you're lucky, brushing your hair.

The madness, the rush of it all -- it's got to stop. Adding intention into your morning routine is in your best interest: It sets the tone for the rest of your day, and may ultimately reflect how productive, happy and calm you'll be for your following waking hours.

You have the power to wake up on the right side of the bed every single morning for the rest of your life.

"If the first thing you do in the morning isn’t 100 percent for you, selfishly, then the rest of your day will be spent not doing anything for you," writes Micah Baldwin, founder and CEO of Graphicly. "Find something that is yours, and yours alone," Baldwin advises. He personally sets two alarms separated by 30 minutes and gets out of bed at the sound of the second. The ritual has him appreciating sleep.

Take a cue from Baldwin. There are several things you can do, without leaving your bed, that'll ensure a fantastic day ahead. So before you roll out of the comfort of your warm, cozy nest, consider these eight rituals below."

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All UMBC Students, Faculty, Staff, and RAC Members:

PLEASE PARDON OUR PROGRESS WHILE WE RENOVATE THE RAC WEIGHT ROOM!

The
UMBC NCAA Division-I Athletics Program is allowing
students/faculty/staff and patrons of the RAC to utilize the Michael S.
Knapp Training Center on the RAC Arena Track level for the following
hours while renovations are completed in the Recreation Weight Room in
October:


Monday 9/30
8am-10am
2pm-3pm
8pm-10pm

Tuesday 10/1
8am-10:30am
11am-12pm
1pm-2pm
3pm-4pm
8pm-10pm

Wednesday 10/2
9am-10am
2pm-3pm
8pm-10pm

Thursday 10/3
8am-10:30am
11am-12pm
1pm-3pm
8pm-10pm

Friday 10/4
9am-10am
1pm-9pm

Saturday 10/5
1pm-7pm

Sunday 10/6
12pm-7pm

Thank you for your patience,

RAC Staff

SkillSoft Topic of the Month: Performance Management Series

This series of courses outlines the five phases of a performance management system: planning, monitoring, improving, reviewing, and rewarding. You will also learn how to monitor and improve your employees' performance using a four-step process that covers setting targets, collecting the necessary information, analyzing that information, and responding to performance gaps that appear, and how to rate employee performance objectively by applying a five-category rating scale. The series provides strategies to prepare yourself and your employee for an annual appraisal meeting, instructs you in how to conduct such a meeting, and gives you an opportunity to practice. Finally, it outlines some principles for developing effective rewards and presents a technique you can use to link compensation to different levels of performance.

• Planning for Performance: mgmt_37_a01_bs_enus
• Monitoring and Improving Performance: mgmt_37_a02_bs_enus
• Reviewing and Rewarding Performance: mgmt_37_a03_bs_enus
Visit the UMBC SkillSoft website for a Quick Start Guide, FAQs, and the link to log in to SkillPort.

For more information about the Business Exploration Series courseware, click here.

To schedule a department presentation about using SkillSoft for professional development, call ext. 5-6262 or hrtraining@umbc.edu.

Happiness is so interesting, because we all have different ideas about what it is and how to get it. It’s also no surprise that it’s the Nr.1 value for Buffer’s culture, if you see our slidedeck about it. So naturally we are obsessed with it.

I would love to be happier, as I’m sure most people would, so I thought it would be interesting to find some ways to become a happier person that are actually backed up by science. Here are ten of the best ones I found.

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