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Showing posts with label Research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Research. Show all posts

Friday, February 3, 2023

The Healthy Minds Meditation App - Designed by Neuroscience and Tibetan Buddhism

I have tried several meditation apps and online meditation programs. I started out reluctantly because I didn't think the electronic format would be that appropriate, as I was used to practicing meditation by way of instructions from traditional meditation teachers. The apps that I have tried - I have stayed away from many so can't provide a wide ranging assessment - have been excellent additional supports to my main practice. I refer mostly  to the Healthy Minds program app, developed by a group of scientists and Tibetan meditation experts inspired by the neuroscience meets meditation research of Dr. Richard Davidson. Dr. Davidson, or "Richie" as he is known, is famous for conducting fMRI research on Tibetan Buddhist monk, Matthieu Ricard, dubbed the "happiest man in the world" by science,.  Richie is one of the leading research scientists in the Mind and Life Institute, a group of scientists who have been meeting annually with His Holiness the Dalai Lama to discuss science and contemplative practices, "in order to bring about positive change in the world". 

This "happiest man in the world" thing has to do with EEG brain recordings of areas of the brain when an advanced meditation practitioner is contemplating compassion. Happiness is not pleasure seeking. It is giving to others. It is wishing or acting for the benefit of others. ;

I wrote an article before about how I found the MUSE head band meditation technology that tracks EEG readings in the brain, and I have also discussed the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction 9 week online course designed at Palouse Mindfulness, modeled after the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn.  One more app that I have not discussed, but which I heartily recommend, is the Imagine Clarity app, hosted by said Tibetan monk Matthieu Ricard and his organization based in France and Nepal. It too is inspired and based on Tibetan Buddhist meditation practices. 

Meditation apps to me are just vitamins in the diet, and not the main course. I suppose then you'd call them supplements. But I am speaking as a person who was initiated into meditation practices by bona fide spiritual masters or teachers, many decades ago. I don't know how anyone with no teachers or guides would get by just using the app itself. I suspect however, that the Healthy Minds app would be a great support for those new to the practices. I will go out on a limb here and also say I suspect it might be excellent for those dealing with mental health issues who need more mental fortification. The Healthy Minds app is free (or by donation), as is the Palouse mindfulness mediation course. Imagine Clarity has free lessons, but to go deeper, for example to get the brilliant sessions with Tibetan Buddhist meditation master and scholar Allan B. Wallace, you have to pay for the premium version. I paid several years for the premium version and felt better for the altruism behind the Karuna Shechen program that Matthieu Ricard oversees and supports with those donations.

In a way all three of these programs just washed over me, bathing me with their enlightened words, logic, spaces, and images. I mostly put to the side my own meditation practice, which is based on Tibetan Buddhist practices, in order to concentrate just on the app offerings. I am still doing the Healthy Minds app every morning and it has been almost 5 months of daily practices since I started! There is a lot of programming that goes into it. Initially I was doing a half hour every day per lesson. Each session gives you a choice of not only how much time  you want spend on the meditation, varying from 5 to 10, to 20 to 30 minutes, but for many of the sessions, you also get to choose which instructor voice you want to listen to - there are five - which also gives you more of a sense of choice for inclusion or identification with different genders or ethnicity. At least, you don't have to listen to Cortland Dahl all the time, the chief "contemplative instructor", though he is the main instructor and the default voice on my many modules, when only one voice is needed.  Lately I am only doing the shorter versions of the meditations as I have reverted back to my main practice. But when I say these programs just wash over me, looking back, not just to yesterday, but to the nine years ago when I did the Palouse course - what did I really remember or integrate into daily use? Though, I do remember I took the nine week course during the time when my father had passed away and it helped me a lot with the way I was daily grieving that loss.

I wonder why the Healthy Minds app is so loaded with meditation sessions? It could be that to complete it is to really do a house cleaning on your mind, emotions, and over all state of well being. All these lessons and meditations are based on research on the psychology of the mind. I would like to stress this - every session almost has a reference to a research study about the mind, from the research of Richie, or from a host of other scientific studies, references to which are often given in text at the end of the session. In that regard, this is kind of the university level meditation app, non-secular and based on real evidence of how our minds actually work. Since the foundation of all these is thousands of years of meditation practice, it looks like science is finally catching up to Buddhism. Many Tibetan Buddhist practices are meant to be purification practices, and it takes a long time to purify our karma before we become enlightened. I remember I was on an 11 day Vipassana meditation retreat, 12 hours a day sitting, vow of silence, and S. N. Goenka, the videotape recorded meditation instructor said something like "now we are going to preform a surgical operation on your mind", in other words, the methodology of the Vipassana meditation was a proven scientific method of gaining insight into the mind. 

I won't go into specific lessons in the Healthy Minds app but will say it is divided into five main sections:

  1. Foundations: Learn the foundational skills of training your mind - 10 Lessons / 14 Meditations
  2. Awareness: Learn to be more present in your daily life - 22 Lessons / 27 Meditations
  3. Connection: Practice the skills of appreciation 18 Lesson  / 27 Meditations
  4. Insight: Examine how your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs shape the way you see the world 18  Lessons  / 27 Meditations
  5. Purpose: Connect with your deeper motivations and core values 18 Lessons / and 27 Meditations

The app tracks your progress, or you path through the course. There are also areas to "Explore" off the path including a recently added Dalai Lama's Guide to Happiness, which looks like it is chock full of happiness meditation vitamins, or,  as advertised "Join His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Dr. Richie Davidson, Dan Harris, and Roshi Joan Halifax to unlock a happier life".  You only learn by doing and not all the life lessons you will learn in this program will be relevant, but you will learn to relax your mind, become self-aware, learn to breath, and when it all comes down to it - just to let yourself be. But they call these "practices" for a reason. It is mind training, and that takes practice. There is a neuroplastic science of entraining brain cells in order to change behaviour. It can happen.

Meditation apps that are any good (and there are probably so many apps now  (not all good probably) that it would be difficult to track them all, if not impossible, or maybe only if doing a deep research project on the phenomenon ) are also the ones that bring a sense of community. In these Covid times where people are living more in isolation, the sense of community is vital. It is the Buddhist idea of "sangha" or community of practitioners (sometimes organized as monasteries). Of course, the online community should not be a replacement for the actual physical community, but I don't think that matters in some cases. A feeling of belonging is the same. It is in that spirit that I say I am very grateful to the Healthy Minds program and wish it will continue to inspire and serve all those who are searching inner well being. And trust the science - it works! 




Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Business Insider Intelligence - repost - Digital Health Briefing Iphone Research Kit

BI Intelligence
DIGITAL HEALTH BRIEFING

Apple builds out iPhone as a clinical tool — China's largest insurer touts digital health as the future — Automated claims present $11 billion savings opportunity - CLONE

Nicky Lineaweaver | June 18, 2018
Good morning! DIGITAL HEALTH BRIEFING is delivered first thing every morning exclusively to Business Insider Intelligence members and BRIEFING subscribers.
Have feedback? We'd like to hear from you. Write me at: lbeaver@businessinsider.com

APPLE TRANSFORMS IPHONE INTO CLINICAL-GRADE TOOL WITH RESEARCHKIT UPDATES: A host of new functions in Apple’s ResearchKit 2.0 update point to an iPhone that could serve as a digital medical assistant. The new version of ResearchKit — Apple’s developer framework that allows researchers to build and maintain apps that track health data — includes features that can collect data from speech, hearing, and vision tests. The latest updates are a part of Apple’s efforts to turn the iPhone and Apple Watch into invaluable devices for the medical community.
For the healthcare community, the ResearchKit framework presents an opportunity to greatly improve clinical trial participation and, therefore, the validity of the results.Developing new treatments is an expensive and lengthy process, with a high failure rate. The average development time for a new drug is 12 years and costs in excess of $2.5 billion, for example. Further, around 90% of medicines in human studies fail. Apps using ResearchKit could help to reduce barriers for participants by adapting the design of clinical trials to suit the daily routine of patients, leading to a more nuanced understanding of the disease being tested and potentially higher success rates in medical studies. One of the biggest benefits of ResearchKit is that mobile apps can provide more accurate data for clinical studies. Typically, patients in clinical trials have to self-report historical health data over a specific time in a diary. However, self-reporting has not been an effective way to track events like seizures — for example, over 40% of generalized tonic-clonic seizures are not reported by patients. Apps built using ResearchKit can more effectively track events during clinical studies.
As Apple expands the capabilities of ResearchKit, it opens the door for a wider variety of experiments to be run, further entrenching the company within the healthcare landscape. For example, in April 2018, pharma giant Novartis launched a new product on Apple’s ResearchKit platform to validate whether iPhones could be used in eye studies. The company hopes the offering will broaden its reach of participants, increasing the validity of the clinical trial.

bii apple researchkit 2.0 update
TOP CHINESE INSURER TOUTS DIGITAL HEALTH ECOSYSTEM AS WAY OF THE FUTURE: China-based Ping An Group, one of the largest insurers in the world, views an ecosystem of digital services as integral to the company’s vision of health, CIO Jonathan Larsen told digital health hub StartUp Health last week. Ping An is looking to expand its telemedicine platform, Ping An Good Doctor, beyond the 192 million registered users it currently serves into new international markets. The company’s also looking at how investing in new tech can add value to its services — like mobile health (mHealth) services that put more patient data in the hands of its telemedicine providers, and AI-enabled diagnostic imaging for use in Ping An clinics. Expanding these digital offerings could help attract more patients to Ping An's services. Moreover, offering patients more digital tools means Ping An can potentially capture more patient data, which it can use to encourage health-improving behaviors that help to cut reimbursement costs.

Sunday, October 8, 2017

the world is (still) better than you think - reposted from Peter Diamandis

Your mindset matters — now more than ever.
We are in the midst of a drug epidemic.

The drug? Negative news. The drug pushers? The media.

As I wrote in Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, we pay 10x more attention to negative news than positive news.

We are being barraged with negative news on every device. This constant onslaught distorts your perspective on the future, and inhibits your ability to make a positive impact.

In this blog, I’ll share new “evidence for abundance” -- charts and data that show the world is getting better. I’ll also share positive news and technological breakthroughs, all of which occurred in 2017 so far.

Note: This isn’t about ignoring or minimizing the major issues we still face around the world. It’s about countering our romanticized views of the world in centuries past with data.

My hope is that you’re able to see the world as it is — a world that is still getting better. My goal here is to help you protect your abundance mindset despite this barrage of negative news.

If you have a negative-minded person in your life, forward this blog to them so they can look at the actual data.

Let’s dive in...

1. Global Economy

The first area to explore is our global economy. Over the last 200 years, the world’s GDP has *skyrocketed* 100-fold. Humankind has never been more prosperous and productive.
World GDP Over the Last Two Millennia
world-gdp-over-the-last-two-millennia.png
The graph above depicts the economic output per person around the world over the last 2,000 years. Here we see exponential growth independent of war, famine or disease.
Technology drove much of this economic growth, and there’s no signs of slowing.

Banking the Unbanked: One especially promising area of economic growth involves empowering the “unbanked” — the 2 billion people worldwide who lack access to a bank account or financial institution via a digital device. In September 2017, the government of Finland announced a partnership with MONI to create a digital money system for refugees.
The system effectively eliminates some of the logistical barriers to financial transactions, enabling displaced people to participate in the economy and rebuild their lives.
Refugees will be able to loan money to friends, receive paychecks and access funds using prepaid debit cards linked to digital identities on the blockchain -- without a bank.
Blockchain & Government: Governments are investing aggressively in digitization themselves. The small country of Estonia, for example, already has an e-Residency program. The digital citizenship lets residents get government services and even start companies in the EU without ever traveling or living there.

In late August 2017, Kaspar Korjus, who heads up that e-Residency program, revealed the Estonian government’s exploration of creating an initial coin offering (ICO) and issuing crypto tokens to citizens to raise government funds.

That same month, the Chinese government announced its intent to use blockchain technology for collecting taxes and issuing invoices. This builds on previous experiments China’s central bank is conducting with its own cryptocurrency.

2. Health

No matter where in the world you are, mortality rates have dropped precipitously over the last 300 years.
The following chart shows life expectancy at birth in various countries. Just 100 years ago, a child born in India or South Korea was only expected to live to 23. Fast forward to today, and India’s life expectancy has tripled. South Korea’s life expectancy has quadrupled, and now is higher than in the U.K.
Global Life Expectancy
Life-Expectancy.png
Plummeting Teen Births: Another measure of a nation’s health is how it responds to preventable public health issues. Here in the U.S., teen births are down an impressive 51 percent over the last decade, going from from 41.5 births per 1,000 teenage girls in 2007 to 20.3 births per 1,000 teenage girls in 2016.

I share the following graph because, by the numbers, teen girls who have babies will have a harder life than their peers who delay motherhood.

As the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services notes, they’re more likely to drop out of high school, rely on public assistance, and have children with “poorer educational, behavioral and health outcomes over the course of their life than kids born to older parents.”
Since these statistics were first compiled in 1991, teen births have dropped 67 percent.
U.S. Birth Rates, by Age Group (1991 - 2015)
Teen-Births.jpeg
As exponential technologies continue to advance, we’ll see even more healthcare breakthroughs. Here’s a sampling from this year:

Exponential Tech Impact on Health:
 Most exciting these days is the tremendous impact that exponential technologies are having on Health.
  • Robotics: Last month, a robot dentist in China successfully implanted 3D-printed teeth into a female patient’s mouth with “high precision.” The only human medical staff involvement was to conduct light setup and a pre-test. Imagine when such robots are in every healthcare facility on the planet, delivering service for the cost of electricity.
  • Virtual Reality: VR is also entering the operating room. In July 2017, University of Minnesota doctors used VR to prepare for a challenging non-routine surgery -- separating a pair of twins conjoined at the heart. Not only was the life-saving surgery a success, the VR prep gave doctors unforeseen insights that prompted them to accelerate the surgery by several months. It won’t be long until we refuse to have surgery completed by any human who hasn’t prepared in virtual reality using a personalized 3D model.
  • CRISPR/Gene Editing: Finally, in August 2017, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first-ever treatment that uses gene editing to transform a patient’s own cells into a “living drug.” Kymriah, a one-time treatment made by Novartis, was approved to treat B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia -- an aggressive form of leukemia that the FDA calls “devastating and deadly.” The FDA is currently considering over 550 additional experimental gene therapies. What happens to our healthy human lifespan as these life-saving treatments demonetize and become universally accessible?

3. Environment

Thirty years ago, the world signed the Montreal Protocol to prevent the depletion of the Ozone Layer. Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) credits that agreement with preventing an estimated 280 million additional cases of skin cancer, 45 million cataracts, and 1.5 million skin cancer deaths between its signing in 1987 and the year 2050. Without the Montreal Protocol, the planet would have been about 4 degrees warmer by 2050 (...resulting in more extreme weather events like droughts, floods and hurricanes).

As the graph below clearly depicts, the global annual death rate from natural disasters has plummeted over the past century.
Global Annual Death Rate From Natural Disasters
Death-rates-from-natural-catastrophes-Final.png
Why has this happened?  It’s the impact of exponential technologies (satellites, sensors, networks, machine learning), which enable humans to better image, predict and model disasters. These models provide early warning systems, enabling citizens to flee to safety and for first responders to send supplies and food to remote areas in time.

Drones & the Environment: Previously, animals were counted manually by researchers who had to spot them from helicopter or prepositioned camera footage. Now, a drone captures footage, the machine learning system counts different types of animals, and human volunteers help train the algorithm by verifying detections.

Faster, cheaper, easier, and more accurate.

And in Bengaluru, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science are fighting deforestation with camera-equipped drones that drop seeds in areas they otherwise wouldn’t be able to explore. Their goal is to seed 10,000 acres in the region.

What becomes possible when thousands of teams — not simply individuals and a handful of research teams — leverage these tools to protect the environment?

4. Energy

A key measure of economic growth, living standards and poverty alleviation is access to electricity.

This graph uses data from the World Bank and the International Energy Agency’s definition of electricity access, which is delivery and use of at least 250 kilowatt-hours per year in rural households and 500 kilowatt-hours per year in rural households.

Simply put, more people around the world have access to electricity than ever, and the absolute number of those without access to electricity is dropping (despite population growth).

Take a look at the chart below to see how various regions of the world are meeting their energy needs.
Share of the Population With Access to Electricity
share-of-the-population-with-access-to-electricity.png
As you see above, India has gone from 45 percent access to electricity in 1990 to nearly 80 percent in 2014.
Afghanistan has seen an even more dramatic improvement, going from 0.16 percent of the population in 2000 to 89.5 percent of the population in 2014.
As renewable energy sources become cheaper and more accessible, we’ll reach total electrification.
Here too, we’re making great progress. In 2016, solar power grew faster than any other fuel source for the first time ever. Around the world, solar prices are still dropping.

The latest forecast from GTM Research reports prices of $2.07 per watt in Japan to $.65 per watt in India, with prices dropping across hard and soft costs.
Historical and Forecasted Utility PV System Pricing, 2013 - 2022E
Global_installed_solar_prices_2034_1230_80.jpg
In 2017 alone, we saw wind power become cheaper than nuclear in the U.K., with the cost of subsidies slashed in half since 2015.

As the BBC reports, during the U.K.’s 2015 subsidy auction, “offshore wind farm projects won subsidies between £114 and £120 per megawatt hour.” Just two years later, two firms committed to a guaranteed price of £57.50 per megawatt hour.

Looking stateside, the U.S. Department of Energy announced in September 2017 that utility-scale solar has officially hit its 2020 cost targets three years early — with generation costs of $1 per watt and energy consumption costs of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour.
US Commercial & Residential Solar Costs
solar-usa-costs.png

5. Food

Despite the headlines, we’re making steady progress in the realm of food scarcity and hunger.

This graph features World Bank data on the percentage of the population that has an inadequate caloric intake. Globally, 18.6 percent of the population was undernourished in 1991; by 2015, it dropped to 10.8 percent.
Prevalence of Undernourishment in Developing Countries
prevalence-of-undernourishment.png
Time and again, technology is making scarce resources abundant. I’ve written about bioprinted meat, genetically engineered crops, vertical farming, and agriculture robots and drones. Two more examples from 2017 so far:
  • Human-Free Farms: In a 1.5-acre remote farm in the U.K., Harper Adams University and Precision Decisions recently harvested their first crop of barley. The twist? The farm is run autonomously. Instead of human farm workers, Hands Free Hectare uses autonomous vehicles, machine learning algorithms and drones to plant, tend and harvest.  
  • Food From Electricity: Another big idea in the fight against food scarcity and undernourishment comes out of Finland, where researchers are creating food from electricity. The team, formed of researchers from the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, have created a machine that runs on renewable energy to produce nutritious, single-cell proteins. The system is deployable in a variety of environments hostile to traditional agriculture, and future iterations will be able to produce food anywhere, from famine-stricken deserts to space.
Looking at the data, we truly live in the most exciting time to be alive.
And if your mindset enables you to see problems as opportunities, the future is even more exciting than the present.

Join Me

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.
Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.
2. Abundance-Digital Online Community: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance-Digital.
Abundance-Digital is my ‘onramp’ for exponential entrepreneurs – those who want to get involved and play at a higher level. Click here to learn more.

Resources

  • U.S.: More wealthy people, fewer poor people. (Axiom)
  • Economic output per person around the world over the last 2,000 years (Our World in Data)
  • Finland: Digital money system for refugees (Medium)
  • China to experiment with collecting taxes via blockchain (MIT Technology Review)
  • Estonia considers ICO (Medium)
  • Mortality inequality by nation (inequality of life expectancy) drops (Sam Peltzman)
  • Teen births down 51% over last 10 years (Vox)
  • Vital Statistics - Teen Births, 2016 (CDC)
  • Teen pregnancy and childbearing (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services)
  • First robot dental surgery (Engadget)
  • FDA-Approved Gene Altering Treatment (NYTimes)
  • Doctors use VR in life-saving treatment for conjoined twins (Washington Post)
  • The Montreal Protocol is working (National Geographic)
  • Impact of the Montreal Protocol (EPA)
  • Annual number of deaths from natural disasters (Our World in Data)
  • Wildlife - Drones used to track wild animal populations (MIT Technology Review)
  • Reforestation - Bengaluru: Using Drones to plant forests (Your Story)
  • Share of the population with access to electricity (Our World in Data)
  • UK: Wind power cheaper than nuclear (BBC)
  • US: Solar costs beat government goals by three years (Quartz)
  • Solar costs are hitting jaw-dropping lows in every region of the world (Green Tech Media)
  • Prevalence of undernourishment in developing countries (Our World in Data)
  • Scientists make food from electricity (Futurism)
  • UK: “Hands-Free Hectare” robot farm plants, oversees harvests barley without humans (Digital Trends)

Friday, September 1, 2017

NIH’s All of Us Research Issues Initial Research Protocol

NIH’s All of Us Research Issues Initial Research Protocol

August 8, 2017
by Heather Landi
The National Institute of Health’s All of Us Research Program, previously called the Precision Medicine Initiative, released its initial research protocol, or research plan.
The All of Us Research Program’s 61-page protocol includes information on consent forms, the ethical issues associated with the project and explanations for how participants will be able to provide secure access to their electronic health records (EHRs).

The goal of the All of Us Research Program is to gather health-related information from one million or more diverse participants to detect association between genetic and environmental exposures and a wide variety of health outcomes.

The NIH states that longitudinal tracking of health outcomes through EHRs is an important component of the program. Through a consenting process, participants will be asked to authorize linkage of their EHR information. EHR data may be sent directly by the participant’s health care providers to the DRC or sent by the participant to the program through Sync for Science.

Access to EHR data will be repeated regularly throughout the life of the program. The initial data types to be included are demographics, visits, diagnoses, procedures, medications, laboratory tests, and vital signs, but may be expanded to all parts of the EHR, including health care provider notes. The feed may include mental health data, HIV status, substance abuse and alcohol data, and genomic information stored in the EHR

Participants may need to complete and sign a separate informed consent module to authorize access to their complete EHRs.

“We will create an informatics infrastructure to clean and standardize data from disparate EHR systems across the United States; this broadly applicable system will be a key contribution of the All of Us Research Program to health informatics research efforts nationwide. For participants enrolled by their health care provider organization, the site will extract data from the participant’s EHR, format it according to the DRC’s data model (based on the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership [OMOP] Common Data Model version 5, and transfer it to the DRC using secure protocols,” NIH stated in a press release.
And, the NIH states that although obtaining EHR data from direct volunteers presents unique challenges, early pilot studies have demonstrated feasibility of such an approach. “For example, the Sync for Science (S4S) project launched by NIH and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is creating a technology that aims to make it easy and safe for people to securely share their EHR data for research. S4S has been adopted by the All of Us Research Program and initially will be enabled in a small pilot for DV participants at S4S-enabled direct volunteer sites,” the NIH states.

All of Us Research Program direct volunteer participants who have enrolled at one of these pilot sites will be able to sign into their healthcare provider’s patient portal using the S4S workflow and authorize sharing their EHR data with the program. Their health care provider’s system will provide a secure application program interface (API), which is used by the research program, rather than the provider sending out data, and transmitted to the Us of All Research program.

And, NIH notes that this is just the first version of its protocol. In future versions, NIH intends to include plans to pilot test wearable devices for real-time data collection.
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