Business of Meditation

It’s Thursday at the Student Health Center at the University of Missouri, which means it is time for the weekly staff meeting. Everyone shuffles into the meeting room from all the different departments as they prepare to discuss the issues of the Center. The meeting is about to start and a quiet rushes over the room. Not a sound can be heard. Every person is meditating.

This meeting scene is one that is happening more and more frequently across the country. Companies, universities, and businesses of all sorts are encouraging the practice of meditation because of its effect on the brain.

 “We begin each staff meeting with ten minutes of meditation led by our stress management director and health and wellness program coordinator.” Bev Kreul works at the Student Health Center.

“My office chose to incorporate meditation into our weekly meetings because of its mental effects.” said Kreul.

But what has changed? Even ten years ago it would be hard to imagine anyone in corporate America turning to the practice of meditation. Did they not care about their brains? No the issue was, that before the early 1990’s scientist thought we couldn’t generate any new brain neurons after we reached age six.

 Now scientists know that is completely false. 

“Neuroplasticity refers to the brains capacity to change,” said Richie Davidson, Director for the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds. 

Our brains are like play-doh, when they are not challenged or used they sit idle. But apply a little pressure or examine your thoughts and you begin to mold a new structure.

“We are exposed to all kinds of influences and they are effecting our brains,” said Davidson. “We think that what meditation does is train certain regions of the brain.”

Meditation has certainly been having an effect at the Student Health Center. 

“Meditation allows for us to bring a diverse group of personalities together who work in a stressful environment with conflicting personalities together and solve the problems that ultimately effect us all. This calming experience has allowed for greater open mindedness, more cooperation, and better problem solving,” said Kreul.

If the benefits are so great then why is it that more people do not practice meditation? 

One reason suggests Leo Babauta, creator of zenhabits.net, is “Because it puts us in the middle of ourselves, which is not always where we want to be. Often, we want to fix things rather than accept them the way they are. Many of us feel as though we can't afford the time and energy to meditate, when in fact we can't afford not to."

“For me it was hard to like it because I'm always stressed about all the work that needs to be done. I find it really hard to make time in my day for meditating,” said Amber Swenor. She started meditating four times a week regularly for about eight weeks before falling off of the wagon.

“Now that I don't meditate, I do feel guilty because I have this idea in my head that's it's good for me and necessary for the soul,” said Swenor.

“I enjoy the meditation very much even though it was outside of my comfort zone the first few times I experienced it. It was like nothing I have ever done before. I am so used to just being busy working and now they wanted me to sit and do nothing. It was just odd,” said Kreul.

Davidson’s lab is continuing to explore the effects of meditation on both neuroplasticity and on our mood. One way they are doing this is by studying Buddhist monks with thousands of hours of meditation training. They are finding changes in the brain wave activity when the monks enter meditation that remains even after the meditation session is over. This could very well be the state of clarity that is so often referred to.

The office is not the only place meditation is used. Dr. Aleksandra Zgierska, assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin, recently conducted a study showing that meditation could help alcoholics avoid relapse. One method used in the study was a type of meditation called “urge surfing.” 

"While meditating, one visualizes a craving or urge as an ocean wave that begins small and gradually builds to a large cresting wave," she explains. "Using the awareness of one's breath as a 'surfboard,' the goal is to 'surf the urge' by allowing it to first rise and then fall without being 'wiped out' by giving in to it. Successfully 'surfing the urge' can weaken addictive conditioning and enhance healthy coping skills."

Is it possible that meditation practices like “urge surfing” could help us avoid conflicts at the office?

“I have noticed that meditation has had a very positive impact on my mood and my performance. Meditating, even though it is only for ten minutes a week, is something I look forward to, often because I know that it is a method that allows me to relieve my stress and rejuvenate myself. My work is affected comparative to my mood. I am more efficient when I am calming approaching a task and I produce a higher quality product when I am not overwhelmed,” said Kreul. 

“If we take the responsibility of our own minds we can produce happier, more well adjusted people,” said Davidson.

Viral Hunting

“I’ve been hunting since I was about six years old. I started with chipmunk and squirrel and worked my way up. Now I'm hunting turkey, pheasant and deer.” said Karie Curtis a senior at Winneconne High school. 

“Deer hunting has been in our family for as long as I can remember, so it was a tradition for me to start as well.” Curtis said. Curtis’s family, is like many Wisconsin families, with a long tradition of deer hunting but it appears that tradition is withering away.

The percentage of hunters in Wisconsin and nationwide has been declining due to urbanization, an aging population, competing demands, and changing views of hunting. This concerns the state Department of Natural Resources, because hunting license fees help support conservation efforts and hunting is a key part of the state's wildlife management strategy.

“You don’t protect what you don’t love.” said Bret Shaw, a UW-Madison Environmental Communication Specialist. Shaw is leading a study that partners UW-Madison’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. 

Shaw and his team are exploring how using social networking technology can help with hunter retention and recruitment. 

“Pretty much everyone is Wisconsin likes hunting.” said Beth Ryan, a Life Science Communication doctoral student and the graduate assistant in charge of the day to day operation of this project.

“From our research, 86% of people in Wisconsin approve of hunting.” Ryan said, according to the Hunting and Conservation Organization Survey conducted by Ryan and Shaw.  

“The first phase of this project consisted of gathering information to portray a more realistic picture of a hunter. In the media hunters are talked about as violent and not well educated. We found that most hunters make a good living, are well educated and simply like being outdoors.” said Ryan

The next big phase is outreaching to veteran hunters, like Curtis and her family, and connecting them with people who haven’t grown up with a tradition of hunting. As part of this project the Hunters Network of Wisconsin was created. This is an online network designed to connect new and experienced hunters, discover reasons why people hunt and give hunters a chance to share their stories. 

“Most new hunters start when they are teenagers because their families are hunters but there is also a big group that start after college. These are people who are open to hunting but not socialized into it.” Shaw said. This is the group that the Hunters Network of Wisconsin is being designed to reach. Connecting the new and potential hunters with the seasoned and experienced.

“We want to build champions, people who will serve in that role and show why hunting is important and needed.” said Shaw.

New News

The news finds you now. Gone are the days of having to sit and wait for the morning paper or even the 10 o’clock news. Now you can have it on demand as it happens.

According to Nick Heynen, social media coordinator for The Capital Times and the Wisconsin State Journal, the face of the news is changing.

“People are falling out of the habit of reading the newspaper.” said Heynen. “We are losing people.”

The loss of newspaper subscribers is leading to tough times in the industry. However, that doesn’t mean that people are no longer interested in hearing the news. 

“More people ever are reading more news then ever.” said Heynen, But less money is being made on it. “We’re not really in the news industry, we are in the advertising industry.” According to Heynen print ads make significantly more money compared to internet ads.

With the new emergence of social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook people aren’t just simply fed the news as they were with a paper copy. They now have the opportunity to talk back. 

Some journalists are even going as far as to let their followers provide suggestions on early drafts of stories. Even a few years ago that was simply unheard of. Social media is here to stay.

Now, the question is are the newspapers?

Presidential Driving

     On Tuesday, President Obama gave a driving lesson to audience members. “You put it in D to go forward, to go backwards you put it in R.” 

     During his speech on Library Mall, which drew a crowd of 26,500, the President drew an elaborate analogy of America as a car stuck in a ditch as the Democrats get down to work pushing the car out and the Republicans are peering from above “sucking down slurpees.”

      “We finally get it out of the ditch and the Republicans are asking for the keys back, you have to tell them you can’t have them because you don’t know how to drive.” said the President.

     The President’s forty-minute speech was especially geared towards getting students fired up and getting them to the voting booths on November 2^nd. These students helped elect him two years ago, but many have lost enthusiasm after the changes the President promised seemed to have eluded him during the first half of his term.

     “We didn’t get everything done,” said the President, “I’ve only been here two years. If you look at the checklist I’ve covered seventy percent. Figured I needed something to do for the next two years.”

      That doesn’t seem to be enough to give Democrats confidence in this mid-term election, as there is the potential for a loss of Democratic control of the House and Senate. 

Immortal Consent

     Who has the right to your body? This question was raised by author and science writer Rebecca Skloot at her talk Monday night at the Kohl Center.

     Skloot’s presentation was the highlight of this years UW-Madison’s Go Big Read program which featured her first book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” More than 5,000 UW students read the book, which tells the story of the person and family behind the first ever immortal human cell line, HeLa cells.

     “My goal was to put a face on human biological research” Skloot said. 


     Very little was known about Henrietta Lacks, the woman from whom the worlds most famous and widely used cells were taken. Her cells were harvested without her or her family's knowledge when she checked into John Hopkin's then "colored only" ward for cervical cancer back in 1951.

     HeLa cells have been essential to science. They were the first ever cloned and the first to be genetically mapped. The cells helped create the polio vaccine, went up into space and have been used in countless other research experiments, all without the knowledge or consent of the Lacks family.

     The issue of informed consent for tissue research is only one of many raised in Skloot’s book, 


     “I don’t take a stand on issues, just throw them out and say discuss.” She has spent much of the past four months traveling around to speak with students, scientist and the public about this issue.

     Tissue research has now become an interracial and important part of science. Currently, researchers have the ability to study biological samples patients supply, a blood test for example, without the consent of that patient. 

     Many worry that requiring informed consent for every biological sample with bring tissue research to a screeching halt. With cell lines like HeLa worth millions of dollars and the sometimes controversial nature of tissue research, scientist are worried people will want to play a role in how their tissue is used. 

     “People don’t really want one,” Skloot said, “Most of the people I have talked to say if they just asked us we would of said, yes.”