This is one
of the best ever articles on the physical and psychological effects of
meditation that I've found. The included links are to other excellent articles
by her. Read it if you dare, you may find power within…
Thank you
Rebecca Gladding, MD!
Cherie
This Is Your Brain on Meditation
The science explaining why you should
meditate every day
I realized today that in all my posts
regarding the brain and how to sculpt it
with mindfulness, I’ve never
actually explained how and why meditation works.
Specifically, the science behind how your brain changes the longer you
meditate. I think this is important for many reasons, but one of the most
salient is that this information serves as a great motivator to keep up a daily
practice (or start one).
I’m sure you’ve heard people extol the
virtues of meditation. You may be skeptical of the claims that it helps with
all aspects of life. But, the truth is, it does. Sitting every day, for at
least 15-30 minutes, makes a huge difference in how you approach life, how
personally you take things and how you interact with others. It enhances
compassion, allows you to see things more clearly (including yourself) and
creates a sense of calm and centeredness that is indescribable. There really is
no substitute.s
Related
Articles
For those of you who are curious as to
how meditation changes the brain, this is for you. Although this may be
slightly technical, bear with me because it’s really interesting. The brain,
and how we are able to mold it, is fascinating and nothing short of amazing.
Here are the brain areas you need to know:
- Lateral prefrontal cortex: the part of the brain that
allows you to look at things from a more rational, logical and balanced
perspective. In the book, we call it the Assessment Center.
It is involved in modulating emotional responses (originating from the fear center or other parts of
the brain), overriding automatic behaviors/habits and decreasing the
brain’s tendency to take things personally (by modulating the Me Center of
the brain, see below).
- Medial prefrontal cortex: the part of the brain that
constantly references back to you, your perspective and experiences. Many
people call this the “Me Center” of the brain because it processes
information related to you, including when you are daydreaming, thinking
about the future, reflecting on yourself, engaging in social interactions,
inferring other people’s state of mind or feeling empathy for others. We call
it the Self-Referencing Center.
What’s interesting about the Medial
PreFrontal Cortex (mPFC) is that it actually has two sections:
· Ventromedial medial prefrontal cortex
(vmPFC) – involved in processing information related to you and people that you
view as similar to you. This is the part of the brain that can cause you
to end up taking things too personally, which is why we referred to it as the
unhelpful aspect of the Self-Referencing Center in the book. (In reality, this
brain area has many important and helpful functions – since we were focusing on
overcoming anxiety, depression and habits you want to change, we referred to it
as unhelpful because it often causes increases in rumination/worry and
exacerbates anxious or depressive thoughts/states/feelings.)
· Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex (dmPFC) –
involved in processing information related to people who you perceive as being dissimilar
from you. This very important part of the brain is involved in feeling empathy
(especially for people who we perceive of as not being like us) and maintaining
social connections.
- Insula: the part of the brain that monitors bodily
sensations and is involved in experiencing “gut-level” feelings. Along
with other brain areas, it helps “guide” how strongly you will respond to
what you sense in your body (i.e., is this sensation something dangerous
or benign?). It is also heavily involved in experiencing/feeling empathy.
- Amygdala: the alarm system of the brain, what most
refer to as the “Fear
Center.” It's a
part of the brain that is responsible for many of our initial emotional
responses and reactions, including the “fight-or-flight” response. (Along
with the Insula, this is what we referred to as the Uh Oh Center.)
The
Brain without Meditation – Stuck on Me
If you were to look at people’s brains
before they began a meditation practice, you would likely see strong neural
connections within the Me Center and between the Me Center and
the bodily sensation/fear centers of the brain. This means that whenever you
feel anxious, scared or have a sensation in your body (e.g., a tingling, pain,
itching, whatever), you are far more likely to assume that there is a problem
(related to you or your safety). This is precisely because the Me Center is
processing the bulk of the information. What's more, this over-reliance on the
Me Center explains how it is that we often get stuck in repeating loops of
thought about our life, mistakes we made, how people feel about us, our bodies
(e.g., “I’ve had this pain before, does this mean something serious is going
on?) and so on.
Why is the Me Center allowed to process
information this way, essentially unabated? The reason this happens, in part,
is because the Assessment
Center’s connection to
the Me Center is relatively weak. If the Assessment Center
was working at a higher capacity, it would modulate the excessive activity of
the vmPFC (the part that takes things personally) and enhance the activity of
the dmPFC (the part involved in understanding other’s thoughts and feelings).
This would lead us to take in all the relevant information, discard erroneous
data (that the Me Center might want to focus on exclusively) and view whatever
is happening from a more balanced perspective – essentially decreasing the
overthinking, ruminating and worrying that the Me Center is famous for
promulgating. One helpful way to think of the Assessment Center
is as a sort of “brake” for the unhelpful parts of the Me Center.
The
Brain on Meditation – I Can See Clearly Now
In contrast, if you meditate on a regular
basis, several positive things happen. First, the strong, tightly held
connection between the Me Center (specifically the unhelpful vmPFC) and the
bodily sensation/fear centers begins to break down. As this connection withers,
you will no longer assume that a bodily sensation or momentary feeling of fear
means something is wrong with you or that you are the problem! This explains,
in part, why anxiety decreases the more you meditate – it’s because the neural
paths that link those upsetting sensations to the Me Center are decreasing.
Said another way, your ability to ignore sensations of anxiety is enhanced as
you begin to break that connection between the unhelpful parts of the Me Center
and the bodily sensation/fear centers. As a result, you are more readily able
to see those sensations for what they are and not respond as strongly to them
(thanks to your strengthened Assessment
Center).
Second, a heftier, healthier connection
forms between the Assessment
Center and bodily
sensation/fear centers. This means that when you experience a bodily sensation
or something potentially dangerous or upsetting, you are able to look at it
from a more rational perspective (rather than automatically reacting and
assuming it has something to do with you). For example, when you experience
pain, rather than becoming anxious and assuming it means something is wrong
with you, you can watch the pain rise and fall without becoming ensnared in a
story about what it might mean.
Finally, an added bonus of meditating is
that the connection between the helpful aspects of the Me Center (i.e.
dorsomedial prefrontal cortex) – the part involved in processing information
related to people we perceive as being not like us – and the bodily
sensation center – involved in empathy – becomes stronger. This healthy
connection enhances your capacity to understand where another person is coming
from, especially those who you cannot intuitively understand because you think
or perceive things differently from them (i.e., dissimilar others). This
increased connection explains why meditation enhances empathy – it helps us use
the part of the brain that infers other people’s states of mind, their
motivations, desires, dreams and so on, while
simultaneously activating the part of the brain involved in the actual
experience of empathy (insula). The end result is that we are more able to put
ourselves in another person’s shoes (especially those not like us), thereby
increasing our ability to feel empathy and compassion for everyone.
Daily
Practice is Important
Essentially, the science “proves” what we
know to be true from the actual experience of meditating. What the data
demonstrate is that meditation facilitates strengthening the Assessment Center,
weakening the unhelpful aspects of the Me Center (that can cause you to take
things personally), strengthening the helpful parts of the Me Center (involved
with empathy and understanding others) and changing the connections to/from the
bodily sensation/fear centers such that you experience sensations in a less
reactive, more balanced and holistic way. In a very real way, you literally are
changing your brain for the better when you meditate.
In the end, this means that you are able
to see yourself and everyone around you from a clearer perspective, while
simultaneously being more present, compassionate and empathetic with people no
matter the situation. With time and practice, people do truly become calmer,
have a greater capacity for empathy and find they tend to respond in a more
balanced way to things, people or events in their lives.
However, to maintain your gains, you have
to keep meditating. Why? Because the brain can very easily revert back to its
old ways if you are not vigilant (I’m referencing the idea of neuroplasticity
here). This means you have to keep meditating to ensure that the new neural
pathways you worked so hard to form stay strong.
To me, this amazing brain science and the
very real rewards gained from meditation combine to form a compelling argument
for developing and/or maintaining a daily practice. It definitely motivates me
on those days I don’t “feel” like sitting. So, try to remind yourself that
meditating every day, even if it’s only 15 minutes, will keep those newly
formed connections strong and those unhelpful ones of the past at bay.
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