In a number of posts we’ve presented evidence and discussed the very positive effects of mindfulness on thinking, emotions, health and general well-being. The accumulated evidence makes a compelling case that mindfulness has a myriad of positive effects promoting physical and mental well-being.
It has also been demonstrated with neuroimaging studies that mindfulness training produces enlargement and increased connectivity of the frontal lobes of the brain. This area of the cortex has long been known to underlie executive function and emotional regulation. Executive function regulates cognitive processes, including attention, working memory, reasoning, task flexibility, and problem solving as well as planning and execution. Emotional regulation involves regulation of our experience of emotions, fully experiencing them yet preventing them from spiraling out of control and adversely affecting behavioral responses to the emotions.
It can be speculated that the effectiveness of mindfulness in promoting well-being results from the changes in the frontal lobes producing higher levels of executive function and emotional regulation and theses in turn produce the positive effects of mindfulness. In today’s Research News article “Trait Mindfulness in Relation to Emotional Self-Regulation and Executive Function.”
Lyvers and colleagues address this very question. They measured indicators of frontal lobe function; prefrontal cortex dysfunction, impulsivity, and alexithymia and correlate them to a measure of trait mindfulness. They find that the higher the mindfulness the lower the levels of prefrontal cortex dysfunction, impulsivity, and alexithymia, clearly suggesting that mindfulness is associated with heightened frontal lobe function.
Prefrontal cortex dysfunction indicates an impairment of attention and planning, impulsivity indicates impairments in controlling and restraining behavior, while alexithymia indicates an inability to identify and describe emotions, lack of emotional awareness, and difficulty with social attachment and interpersonal relationships. In other words, these are measures of the problems that arise with impaired executive function and emotion regulation.
Lyvers and colleagues further show that mindfulness is inversely related to negative moods, depression, anxiety and stress scores. This suggests that mindfulness improves well-being by promoting frontal lobe activity. This results in improved executive function and thereby improves attention and ability to analyze experience and realistically plan for the future, improving our ability to effectively deal with whatever experience we’re having.
The facilitated frontal lobe activity also produces improved emotion regulation with its consequent facilitation of the ability to identify and regulate emotions. Hence, all other factors being equal, negative moods are experienced less often or less intensely and responded to more appropriately compared to someone who has low levels of that emotion regulation.
So, practice mindfulness and improve your frontal lobe function and general well-being.
CMCS