Category: Research related to Mindfulness

Healthy Minds

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I have already written about the work of Richard Davidson Ph.D on the effects of meditation on the shape and function of the brain. He is now the Director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is learning that the brain can be trained and shaped to be more positive and resilient.

On May 16th, the Dalai Lama will inaugurate there the Centre for Investigating Healthy Minds, which has as its focus contempklative neuroscience – “the study of healthy qualities of mind“. It aims to study how meditation practices can play a role in changing the mind in a positive manner.

Learning to understand how positive qualities such as attention, concentration, clarity, cooperation and kindness can affect the brain will allow scientists to develop interventions to nurture these capacities in children and adults so that they can be more attentive, focused, loving, forgiving and compassionate.

Check out their website: http://www.investigatinghealthyminds.org/index.html

More effects of MBSR

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The MBSR Programme and Mindfulness practice seems to promote a “left-shift” in the brain. This means that there is increased activity in the left frontal activity of the brain after MBSR training. This change in function seems to reflect the development of an “approach state,” in which we move towards, rather than away from, a difficult external event or difficult internal thoughts and emotions. The development of this approach mentality, or an openenss to be aware of difficult emotions, seems to be related to emotional strength and resilience.

A second effect which is being noticed is an improvement in immune function. Not only is general resilience developed, but the body’s ability to fight infection is improved. I have already written about the studies which have seen this in HIV cases.

Thirdly, the MBSR Programme is related to participants expressing a greater internal sense of stability and clarity. This is certainly my experience in the Programees we have run here in Geneva. However, it has been studied in a pilot study at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center by Daniel Siegal. He found that adults and adolescents with attentional problems achieved more executive function improvements sustaining attention, diminishing distractibility) than are accomplished with justmedications for this condition. This research links in with the work done by Alan Wallace, Richie Davidson and Amiji Jha who have also found significant improvements in attentional regulation in those who have had mindfulness meditation training, such as enhanced focus.

Wider applications of mindfulness

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The preventative effect of mindfulness training for individuals who face extreme stress, such as firemen, soldiers and trauma surgeons, has been examined in a recent study by cognitive neuroscientist Amishi Jha of Penn University and Elizabeth A. Stanley of Georgetown University.

They provided mindfulness training to U.S. Marines before deployment to Iraq in a training program called Mindfulness-based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT™), which aimed to cultivate greater psychological resilience or “mental armor” by bolstering mindfulness. The study found that the more time participants spent doing daily mindfulness exercises, the better their mood and working memory – the cognitive term for complex thought, problem solving and cognitive control of emotions.

The study also seems to point towards the fact that sufficient Mindfulness practice may protect against high-stress challenges that require a tremendous amount of cognitive control, self-awareness, situational awareness and emotional regulation.

Our findings suggest that, just as daily physical exercise leads to physical fitness, engaging in mindfulness exercises on a regular basis may improve mind-fitness,” Jha said.

“Working memory is an important feature of mind-fitness. Not only does it safeguard against distraction and emotional reactivity, but it also provides a mental workspace to ensure quick-and-considered decisions and action plans. Building mind-fitness with mindfulness training may help anyone who must maintain peak performance in the face of extremely stressful circumstances, from first responders, relief workers and trauma surgeons, to professional and Olympic athletes.”

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/179294.php

Types of insecurity in relationships

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In our early years we lay down a pattern for later relationships. We construct our inner psyche out of the materials that are at our disposal in those first experiences. If some of those experiences are less than optimal, and the person’s early life is lacking in adequate consistent responses, the person’s relating style in later years can reflect that. From my work I am always interested to see how adults have taken into their own inner selves characteristics of their caregivers – which may have been exaggerated or inadequate – and then defend these defective structures as their own self.

For example, a parent can use the child for its own emotional needs by holding on to the child to compensate for lacks in the relationship with the partner. This can produce in the child – and later in the adult – a reduced capacity for real relationships. We might see this as a need to contol in relationships, in an attempt to gain back the security of that first closeness. On the other hand, a parent who is inconsistent in their affection can give rise to an insecurity in the child who draws conlusions about future relationships based on what they see in the parent.

Dan Siegel, in his book The Developing Brain writes about the desired “attunement” between the caregiver and child, which allows the child to “feel felt.” This attuned state shapes the young brain. It builds neuronal patterns that underpin the child’s resilience and grounds the ability to connect in meaningful relationships later in life.

However, all is not lost. What science is discovering recently is that the brain can be re-shaped later in life. So, even if we grew up with an insecure attachment pattern, we can grow in our security later in life, reducing our need for control or withdrawal. In other words, we can retrain the brain, which shapes our emotional security or felt sense in relationships. One way to do this is through sitting meditation which seems to work on the same part of the brain that is shaped in those early months. We rest in silence and that calms gradually the anxious messages remembered deep in our unconscious.

A mindfulness and Tai Chi project in a Boston school

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There are not too many studies which look at the effect of mindfulness on young children in a school setting. Therefore it is interesting to read about a Boston School which designed a clinical project that used Tai Chi and mindfulness-based stress reduction as an educational program.

The 5-week successfully showed that sustained interest in this material in young boys and girls is possible, even though it may have been presumed beforehand that children would find the requisite capacity for sustained concentration, precision, mechanical exactness, and the essential slow execution of movements in Tai Chi find less interesting once the novelty wore off. However, statements made by the boys and girls in the process suggested that they experienced well-being, calmness, relaxation, improved sleep, less reactivity, increased self-care, self-awareness, and a sense of interconnection or interdependence with nature.

As a result of their work, the reserarchers state that Tai Chi and mindfulness-based stress reduction may be transformational tools that can be used in educational programs appropriate for school–aged children.

Wall, Robert, “Tai Chi and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in a Boston Public Middle School” Journal of Pediatric Health Care Volume 19, Number 4, July/August 2005

Mindfulness meditation and alcoholism

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A new report suggests that mindfulness meditation may be a useful tool that helps alcoholics in their fight against addiction.

Dr. Aleksandra Zgierska, assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, led a 16-week pilot clinical trial with 19 participants recruited from addiction treatment clinics. He initially met with some scepticism as to the possibility of people in recovery from recent addiction being able to meditate

“When we started the project, it was met with some concern,” she says. “Some people said ‘You’re going to have alcoholics meditate?’ That’s why we did the pilot study—to show that it could be possible and helpful for them. We thought meditation could teach people new skills to cope with life challenges and create an emotional and intellectual “platform” to tackle not just drinking by itself, but also other problems that may increase relapse risk.”

The trial showed that meditation was possible and could be a useful supplemetary tool for people alongside conventional treatments. Because of the trial results she is now conducting a larger study.

Her work was supported by Michael Waupoose, program manager for Gateway Recovery, an addiction treatment center, who suggests that meditation may assist in those moments of increased anxiety which would normally trigger the urge to drink:

“Mindfulness meditation would teach that person how to be present in that situation, how to be conscious of what’s happening to their body, and how to deal with it without reacting to it automatically. It teaches people how to be conscious of their feelings or thoughts without having to follow them all the way through.”