Category: Research related to Mindfulness

Meditation is pointless

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

A friend of mine – who ironically is starting a meditation retreat this week in the US – expressed the opinion not so long ago that sitting meditation was just pointless. I knew what she meant at the time, but knew also that she had to discover its real value for herself.  In one sense she was right – sitting practice is waste of time because it is a dedicated period of non-doing. On an outward level it appears to achieve nothing. Another aspect which she drew attention to was the fact that nothing really changes day to day: you sit, you get distracted, you return to the breath, you get distracted, day after day.

One difficulty in meditation is the the results are not immediately tangible while the actual practice can be difficult. The point to meditation, however, is precisely by doing “nothing” and slowing down, gaps are created between activities and we work on our capacity to be aware of what is going on. And it seems that when one is aware, things tend to fall as they should.

However, we can probably find scientific backing for stating that this “pointless” activity is, in fact, achieving something simply while we are sitting. It has been shown that people who meditate activate a different part of their brain that is associated with less anxiety and a better outlook on life. By not activating the anxious parts of the for dedicated periods of each day, our bodies are less likely to be tense, less likely to trigger well-conditioned patterns when faced with difficulties.

Daniel Goleman & Tara Bennett-Goleman*, suggest that meditation works because of the relationship between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. Simply put, the amygdala is the part of the brain that decides, among other things, if we should get angry or anxious, and the pre-frontal cortex is the part that makes us stop and think about things. However, the amygdala is prone to error, such as seeing danger or exaggerating anxiety where there is none. Because there is roughly a quarter of a second gap between the time an event occurs and the time it takes the amygdala to react, the slowing down practicing in meditation may allow us be able to intervene before an automatic response takes over, and perhaps even redirect it into more constructive or positive feelings. In other words, meditation seems to develop emotional brain fitness and therefore this pointless activity may not be pointless after all.

Bennett-Goleman, Tara, 2001. Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind can Heal the Heart, Harmony, (2001).

Yoga fights off depression, better than some other exercises

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and McLean Hospital have found that practicing yoga may increase the levels of  gamma-aminobutyric (GABA) in the brain, a   neurotransmitter associated with calming anxiety. It was found that three sessions of yoga a week can help fight off depression because by boosting GABA, it stimulates the function of brain and central nervous system and helps promote a state of calm within the body.

The research was published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, and found that the levels of  GABA are much higher in those that do yoga than those do the equivalent of a similarly strenuous exercise such as walking. Using magnetic resonance spectroscopic (MRS) imaging, the researchers compared the GABA levels of eight subjects prior to and after one hour of yoga.  The study also involved questions about their psychological wellbeing throughout the study. The finding were that those who did yoga reported lower levels of anxiety and higher increases in their mood than the walkers.

“Our findings clearly demonstrate that in experienced yoga practitioners, brain GABA levels increase after a session of yoga,” said lead author Chris Streeter, MD,  assistant professor of psychiatry and neurology at BUSM and a research associate at McLean Hospital. These finding support the use of yoga-based exercises in the 8 week MBSR Programme.

Meditation improves capacity for attention

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The longest and most complex study of meditation ever undertaken is beginning to publish its first results after more than two years spent analyzing the significant amount of data it gathered. This research, called the Shamata Project, began in 2007 at the University of California, Davis, and uses methods drawn from fields as diverse as molecular biology, neuroscience, and anthropology. It advertised for participants via word of mouth and advertisements in meditation-themed magazines. About 140 people applied to participate, of whom 60 were selected to take part in several experiments.

The first official findings released from the Project provide evidence to support the notion that the practice of meditation improves perception. An article published last month online in Psychological Science reports that those who participated in the study became better at making fine visual distinctions and sustaining attention during a 30-minute test. This test, derived from those used to assess vigilance in radar operators,  involved the participants  watching a screen intently as lines flashed on it; most were of the same length, but every now and then a shorter one would appear, and the volunteer had to click the mouse in response when recognizing it. It was found that meditators were able to sustain their attention for longer periods without getting bored or distracted. Meditation seems to increase the capacity to be mindful, or pay attention, even to the small details happenig before us.

“Because this task is so boring and yet is also very neutral, it’s kind of a perfect index of meditation training,” says Katherine MacLean, the graduate student involved in the Project.  “People may think meditation is something that makes you feel good and going on a meditation retreat is like going on vacation, and you get to be at peace with yourself. That’s what people think until they try it. Then you realize how challenging it is to just sit and observe something without being distracted.”

Katherine MacLean, Clifford Saron, B. Alan Wallace et al. Intensive Meditation Training Improves Perceptual Discrimination and Sustained Attention. Psychological Science, (in press)

For more details check out the press release: http://news.ucdavis.edu/in_the_news/

Or the website : http://mindbrain.ucdavis.edu/

Meditation reduces the perception of pain.

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

A recent study, conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford,  has found that our physical experience of pain is influenced by the mood we are in at that moment. In other words,  our brain influences how we perceive and deal with the pain we are going through, as a low or anxious mood  disrupts a portion of our neurocircuitry related to regulating emotion, causing an enhanced perception of pain. The low mood may go as far as to drive the pain and make it feel worse. Mind and body are intimately linked when it comes to health and wellness.

Mindfulness meditation has been shown to affect the way we attend to what is happening in our lives at any moment,  and can impact upon mood in a positive manner. Therefore it is probably not surprising to read that a 2010 University of Manchester study, to be published in the Journal Pain,  noted that experienced meditators found pain  less unpleasant than did non-meditators. It seems that regular meditation can train the brain to anticipate pain less and reduce its emotional impact.

Dr Christopher Brown, who led the research,  stated “Meditation is becoming increasingly popular as a way to treat chronic illness such as the pain caused by arthritis. Recently, a mental health charity called for meditation to be routinely available on the NHS (the National Health Service)  to treat depression, which occurs in up to 50% of people with chronic pain.”

The finding is a potential boon to the estimated 40% of people who are unable to adequately manage their chronic pain. Dr Brown suggests that the reason meditation works  is due to the fact that it is a training in remaining focused on the present moment and not anticipating future problems: “The results of the study confirm how we suspected meditation might affect the brain. Meditation trains the brain to be more present-focused and therefore to spend less time anticipating future negative events. This may be why meditation is effective at reducing the recurrence of depression, which makes chronic pain considerably worse.”

You can read more on the University’s website: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=5801

Exercise combats low mood

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Mindfulness Stress Reduction encourages a mind-body approach to health. It is part of a growing field of integrative medical care that combines the best scientific medicine with evidence-based  therapies from complementary traditions. Recent research – which we have written about on this blog – has found that it has beneficial effects on stress as well  as changing the function and maybe even the structure of the brain,.

It would seem that physical exercise and aerobic workouts have a similar effect. Indeed, molecular scientists and neurologists have suggested that physical exercise may alter brain chemistry by working on the key neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine. In fact, exercise seems to work in much the same way that antidepressant drugs do. One researcher working in this area is Professor Philip Holmes at the University of Georgia, who has focused on the neurobiological effects of exercise. He has found that, over the course of several weeks, exercise affects certain genes that increase the brain’s level of galanin, a neurotransmitter that appears to tone down the body’s stress response by regulating another brain chemical, norepinephrine. His current work focuses on the link between stress and different addictions, and how exercise can reduce stress which leads to addictive behaviours: “Stress turns on norepinephrine,” says Holmes, “which turns on dopamine, which induces craving. Galanin decreases norepinephrine, so someone with high levels of galanin should experience reduced cravings.”

Researchers at Duke University support these findings. In a randomized controlled trial they found that depressed adults who participated in an aerobic-exercise plan improved as much as those treated with sertraline, the drug which,  marketed as Zoloft,  is one of the most prescribed anti-depressants.

You can find more on this subject in TIME Magazine: : http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1998021,00.html#ixzz0rgWOWgm0

Patience

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

In a sense,  sitting practice is waste of time because it is a dedicated period of non-doing. On an outward level it appears to achieve nothing. To make things even worse, nothing really seems to change from day to day: you sit, you get distracted, you return to the breath, you get distracted…. It may seem pointless. It feels hard to presevere because the results are not immediately tangible while the actual practice can be difficult.

However, the “point” to meditation,  is precisely by doing “nothing” and slowing down, gaps are created between activities and we develop our capacity to be aware of what is going on. And it seems that when one is aware, things have a greater tendency to fall as they should, in harmony with our deepest self.

There is increasing scientific backing showing that this “pointless” activity is, in fact, achieving something simply while we are sitting. It has been found that people who meditate activate the part of their brain that is associated with less anxiety and a better outlook on life. By not activating the anxious parts of the brain  for certain periods of each day, our bodies are less likely to be tense, and our minds less likely to trigger well-conditioned patterns when faced with difficulties.

Tara Bennett-Goleman  suggests that meditation works because it changes the relationship between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. The amygdala is the part of the brain that decides, among other things, if we should get angry or anxious. The pre-frontal cortex is the part that makes us stop and think about things. However, the amygdala can be over-cautious and makes mistakes, such as seeing problems or exaggerating anxiety where there is none. It can make us anxious even when there is no real danger present.  Because there is a time gap between the time an event occurs and the reaction of the amygdala, the slowing down we practice in meditation may allow the pre-frontal contex intervene before an automatic reaction takes over. We can redirect it into more constructive or positive feelings. In other words, meditation develops emotional brain fitness and therefore this pointless activity may not be pointless after all.

In the case of meditaton, your goal is to transform yourself over the course of months and years. The progress you make is usually hardly noticeable from day to day
like the hands of a clock you hardly see moving.

Haste and meditation do not go together ; Any profound transformation is bound to take time.

Matthieu Ricard,  The Art of Meditation