Improve Responses to Negative Emotions with Meditation
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“Stress and anxiety can cause any number of mental health issues, which can in turn lead to physical health issues (substance abuse springs immediately to mind). We’ve known for some time that meditation can help with many of these problems.” – Anne Green
Mindfulness practice has been shown to produce improved emotion regulation. Practitioners demonstrate the ability to fully sense and experience emotions, but respond to them in more appropriate and adaptive ways. In other words, mindful people are better able to experience yet control emotions. This is a very important consequence of mindfulness. Humans are very emotional creatures and these emotions can be very pleasant, providing the spice of life. But, when they get extreme they can produce misery and even mental illness. The ability of mindfulness training to improve emotion regulation is thought to be the basis for a wide variety of benefits that mindfulness provides to mental health and the treatment of mental illness especially depression and anxiety disorders.
The nervous system is a dynamic entity, constantly changing and adapting to the environment. It will change size, activity, and connectivity in response to experience. These changes in the brain are called neuroplasticity. Over the last decade neuroscience has been studying the effects of contemplative practices on the brain and has identified neuroplastic changes in widespread areas. In other words, meditation practice appears to mold and change the brain, producing psychological, physical, and spiritual benefits. Hence, the ability of mindfulness practices to improve emotional regulation should be reflected in relatively permanent changes in the nervous system that should become evident in the responses of the nervous system to emotional stimuli.
Emotions are usually measured by self-report. But, because emotional reactivity includes physiological reactions, emotional responses can be measured with these reactions. An interesting index is the response of the pupil of the eye. The dilation (enlargement) of the pupil is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system, while its constriction (narrowing) is controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system. Since, sympathetic response reflects activation while the parasympathetic response reflects relaxation, the dilation and constriction of the pupil can provide a measure of the individual’s nervous system response to the immediate situation.
In today’s Research News article “Pupillary Response to Negative Emotional Stimuli Is Differentially Affected in Meditation Practitioners.” See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5413546/, Vasquez-Rosati and colleagues employ the pupillary response to gauge the nervous system response to emotional stimuli and how than may be modified in people who meditate. They compared meditators to non-meditators in their emotional ratings, heart rate, and pupillary response to pictures whose content was either emotionally positive, negative, or neutral.
They found that the meditators had a lower overall heart rate and rated all images as more positive than the non-meditators. In addition, the meditators rated the negative images as less activating. These results suggest that the meditators are more relaxed, generally respond more positively to everything, and are less reactive to negative situations. This was reflected in the pupillary response to negative images where the meditators showed initially a stronger constriction of the pupil followed by a weaker dilation than the non-meditators. This suggests that the meditators had a greater parasympathetic response and a diminished sympathetic response to negative stimuli than the non-meditators.
These results suggest that meditation practice alters the nervous system to produce greater relaxation and more positive responses to the world in general. This can be seen in the lower stress levels and better overall moods observed in meditators. Meditation also appears to alter the brains response to negative emotions, emphasizing parasympathetic responding, making it less responsive and activating. These are interesting results that suggest how mindfulness training may be altering nervous system responses to improve emotion regulation.
So, improve responses to negative emotions with meditation.
“there is viable evidence that practicing mindfulness meditation helps boost our defense against disease, and fosters wellness. —this research paves the way for the addition of a new wellness adage: “Meditation each day keeps the doctor away.” – Jennifer Wolkin
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Vasquez-Rosati, A., Brunetti, E. P., Cordero, C., & Maldonado, P. E. (2017). Pupillary Response to Negative Emotional Stimuli Is Differentially Affected in Meditation Practitioners. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 11, 209. http://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00209
Abstract
Clinically, meditative practices have become increasingly relevant, decreasing anxiety in patients and increasing antibody production. However, few studies have examined the physiological correlates, or effects of the incorporation of meditative practices. Because pupillary reactivity is a marker for autonomic changes and emotional processing, we hypothesized that the pupillary responses of mindfulness meditation practitioners (MP) and subjects without such practices (non-meditators (NM)) differ, reflecting different emotional processing. In a group of 11 MP and 9 NM, we recorded the pupil diameter using video-oculography while subjects explored images with emotional contents. Although both groups showed a similar pupillary response for positive and neutral images, negative images evoked a greater pupillary contraction and a weaker dilation in the MP group. Also, this group had faster physiological recovery to baseline levels. These results suggest that mindfulness meditation practices modulate the response of the autonomic nervous system, reflected in the pupillary response to negative images and faster physiological recovery to baseline levels, suggesting that pupillometry could be used to assess the potential health benefits of these practices in patients.