The Mindfulness Blog

I've been intrigued by the Prevagen commercials that keep playing on television--must be the computer-generated depiction of the brain that catches my attention. So, I decided to listen as well as look--and what I heard (after all the jellyfish stuff) was the hook: "Healthier Brain, Better Life". Oh, to have a budget for a national television ad campaign, and a snappy line to promote my ideas!

Granted, neither mindfulness nor meditation have anything to do with drugs or jellyfish, but they do have a lot to do with our brains. So, I'm asking myself, why would I (or anyone ) engage in a rigorous practice to improve myself, when I can buy some of that same improvement at the local pharmacy?

Why work for something, when I can just buy it at the local pharmacy? Well, the answer is pretty obvious--just as is the case with physical fitness, the only sustainable mental or emotional fitness, is the fitness that we actually work for. As opposed to the kinds of "fitness" that we can buy.

The idea behind neuroplasticity (as I understand it) is that, if we put in the necessary work, we can continue to build new neural pathways in our brains, long after we are toddlers--even into our so-called "golden years". But we have to do the work--and I'm not talking about Sudoku or cross-word puzzles. I'm talking about the hard work that mindfulness and meditation require.

If you're a pill kind of a person, then by all means give Prevagen or one of the other brain enhancement products, a try. Just know there is an alternative-- it isn't as easy as swallowing a pill, and it won't likely be advertised on television anytime soon, but it can be a lot more effective (and, at least for me) more gratifying.

Either way, there is one thing we can probably all agree upon: "Healthier Brain, Better Life"!