Improve Working Memory and Increase Brain Activity with a Single Focused Meditation in Novice Meditators

December 20, 2021 psyjdc Leave a comment

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“Regular meditation increases blood flow to the brain, which leads to a stronger network of blood vessels in the cerebral cortex and reinforces memory capacity.” – Mindworks

Humans have both an amazing capacity to remember and a tremendously limited capacity depending upon which phase of the memory process. Our long-term store of information is virtually unlimited. On the other hand, short-term memory is extremely limited. This is called our working memory and it can contain only about 5 to 9 pieces of information at a time. This fact of a limited working memory store shapes a great deal about how we think, summarize, and categorize our world.

Memory ability is so important to everyday human functioning that it is important to study ways to maintain or improve it. Mindfulness has been shown to improve working memory capacity. Since the brain is responsible for working memory, the effects of mindfulness training on working memory must in some way be altering the brain. One way to observe the effects of meditation on the nervous system is to measure changes in the functional near‐infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which measures blood flow to brain areas. Hence, it makes sense to observe the effects of meditation on working memory and its association with cerebral flows.

In today’s Research News article “Effect of one-session focused attention meditation on the working memory capacity of meditation novices: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8413779/ ) Yamaya and colleagues recruited adult meditation naïve university students and randomly assigned them to practice for 15 minutes focused breath following meditation or listen to disconnected random conversations. During the 15-minute intervention period cerebral blood flow was measured with functional near‐infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). They were also measured 5 minutes before and 5 minutes after the 15-minute intervention period for working (short-term) memory.

They found that in comparison to baseline and the random thinking control group, the group that performed focused meditation had a significant increase in working memory capacity and a significant increase in cerebral blood flow to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. They found that the working memory change and the cerebral blood flow change were significantly correlated such that the greater the increase in cerebral blood flow, the greater the increase in working memory.

The results are interesting that a single 15-minute meditation by meditation naïve participants immediately increases working memory. The results further suggest that this memory improvement is associated with an increase in the flow of blood to a particular brain area, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, that has been shown to be involved in focused attention. This suggests that focused meditation activates the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which improves working memory.

The very short-term nature of the study precludes any neuroplastic changes in the brain. But previous research has found that longer-term meditation produces long-term changes in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. It is unfortunate that in the present study there wasn’t a follow up to determine if the effects of the single 15-minute meditation were immediate and transitory or persisted for a period of time. Regardless, the results may provide a glimpse as to how meditation changes brain systems and in turn memory.

So, improve working memory and increase brain activity with a single focused meditation in novice meditators.

“the mindfulness group had significantly less proactive interference during the memory test compared to the writing group, indicating an improvement in short-term memory.” – Jill Suttie

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

Study Summary

Yamaya, N., Tsuchiya, K., Takizawa, I., Shimoda, K., Kitazawa, K., & Tozato, F. (2021). Effect of one-session focused attention meditation on the working memory capacity of meditation novices: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study. Brain and behavior, 11(8), e2288. https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.2288

Abstract

Introduction

Previous studies have revealed that one‐session focused attention meditation (FAM) can improve top‐down attention control, which is one of the factors of working memory capacity (WMC). In addition, FAM shares various neural substrates, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), with WMC. Thus, we hypothesized that one‐session FAM would improve WMC by activating the DLPFC evoked by the top‐down attention control. In this study, we examined whether FAM modified WMC in individuals with little to no meditation experience.

Methods

The participants were randomly assigned to either the FAM group (N = 13) or the control group (N = 17) who engaged in random thinking (i.e., mind‐wandering). Before and after each 15‐min intervention, the participants’ WMC was measured according to the total number of correct answers in the Reading Span Test. During each intervention, functional near‐infrared spectroscopy was employed to measure the blood flow in the participants’ DLPFC and determine the top‐down attention control effect.

Results

In the FAM group, WMC increased, and the bilateral DLPFC was activated during the intervention. As for the control group, WMC decreased after the intervention, and the bilateral DLPFC was not activated during the intervention. A correlation was also found among all participants between the increase in WMC and the activation of the bilateral DLPFC.

Conclusion

The study findings suggest that top‐down attention control during FAM can activate the bilateral DLPFC and increase WMC among meditation novices.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8413779/

Combined Meditation, Yoga, and Ethical Education have Additive Effects on Well-Being

December 19, 2021 psyjdc Leave a comment

Combined Meditation, Yoga, and Ethical Education have Additive Effects on Well-Being

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“When practiced together, yoga and meditation strengthen the connection between mind and body, thereby improving overall fitness and wellbeing.” – Peaceful Dragon

Mindfulness training has been shown to improve health and well-being in healthy individuals and those with medical and psychiatric conditions, Similarly, yoga practice has been shown to improve health and well-being in healthy individuals and those with medical and psychiatric conditions. Meditation practice is known to decrease the psychological and physical responses to stress. Similarly, yoga practice has been shown to decrease the psychological and physical responses to stress. But there has been little research of the impact of combining meditation and yoga practices.

In today’s Research News article “Differential Effects of Ethical Education, Physical Hatha Yoga, and Mantra Meditation on Well-Being and Stress in Healthy Participants-An Experimental Single-Case Study.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8375679/ ) Matko and colleagues recruited healthy adult participants who did not practice meditation or yoga and randomly assigned them to one of 4 treatment conditions once a week for 8 weeks; mantra meditation alone, mantra meditation plus physical yoga, mantra meditation plus ethical education, and mantra meditation plus physical yoga and ethical education. They were also instructed to practice daily at home. They were measured weekly before and after training and 8 weeks and 12 months later for well-being, perceived stress, and life satisfaction and a daily home practice questionnaire.

They found that all conditions produced significant improvements in well-being, but the combined treatments produced greater improvements than mantra meditation alone with those that contained ethical education having the greatest benefits. All conditions produced equivalent significant increases in life satisfaction.

The results suggest that engaging in mindfulness practices produce lasting improvements in the well-being and life satisfaction of the participants. This improved well-being and life satisfaction produced by mindfulness practices have been well documented in prior research studies. In addition, the findings suggest that adding yoga and especially ethical education to meditation amplifies the improvements in well-being. Ethical education in the present study included training and discussion of non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, self-restraint, non-hoarding, cleanliness, contentment, and transcendence. This appeared to have an additive effect on well-being.

There was, however, a confounding variable which is the duration of practice. Whereas the weekly trainings for mantra meditation practice took 60 minutes, mantra meditation plus physical yoga took 105 minutes, mantra meditation plus ethical education took 135 minutes, and mantra meditation plus physical yoga and ethical education took 180 minutes. In addition, each practice was practiced daily for 20 minutes with the combined conditions being practiced for 40 and 60 minutes respectively. So, the more practice the greater the improvement in well-being. Future research needs to fix the amount of practice so that the total is the same for all conditions and their combinations.

So, combined meditation, yoga, and ethical education have additive effects on well-being.

“The beauty of Yoga and Meditation, when they are merged together, helps one relish each and every moment of life. There is no place for stress and anxiety in a mind that enjoys Yoga. While Yoga poses promote blood circulation in the brain, Meditation makes sure it stays calm and composed to feel complete serenity.” – Manmohan Singhis

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

Study Summary

Matko, K., Sedlmeier, P., & Bringmann, H. C. (2021). Differential Effects of Ethical Education, Physical Hatha Yoga, and Mantra Meditation on Well-Being and Stress in Healthy Participants-An Experimental Single-Case Study. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 672301. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.672301

Abstract

Traditionally, yoga is a multicomponent practice consisting of postures, breathing techniques, meditation, mantras, and ethics. To date, only a few studies have tried to dismantle the effects of each of these components and their combinations. To fill this gap, we examined the incremental effects of ethical education and physical Hatha yoga on mantra meditation using a single-case multiple-baseline design. This study was part of a project evaluating the new mind–body program Meditation-Based Lifestyle Modification. Fifty-seven healthy participants with no regular yoga or meditation practice were randomly assigned to three baselines (7, 14, and 21 days) and four conditions using a random number generator. The conditions were mantra meditation alone (MA), meditation plus physical yoga (MY), meditation plus ethical education (ME), and meditation plus yoga and ethical education (MYE). All the interventions lasted for 8 weeks and were run consecutively according to baseline length. During the baseline and treatment phases, participants received daily questionnaires measuring their well-being (WHO-5 Well-Being Index), stress (Perceived Stress Scale), and subjective experiences. Forty-two participants completed the treatment and were entered in the analyses. We analyzed our data using visual inspection, effect size estimation (Tau-U), and multilevel modeling. Almost all participants showed a longitudinal increase in well-being. Regarding between-group differences, participants who received ethical education exhibited the largest increases in well-being (Tau-U = 0.30/0.23 for ME/MYE), followed by participants in the MY condition (Tau-U = 0.12). Conversely, participants in the MA condition showed no change (Tau-U = 0.07). There was a tendency for the combined treatments to decrease stress. This tendency was strongest in the MY condition (Tau-U = –0.40) and reversed in the MA condition (Tau-U = 0.17). These results emphasize the incremental and differential effects of practicing meditation in combination with other practices from the eight-fold yoga path. This approach is valuable for better understanding the multifaceted practice of yoga.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8375679/

Meditation Alters the Brain in Conjunction with Alterations of Awareness

December 14, 2021 psyjdc Leave a comment

Meditation Alters the Brain in Conjunction with Alterations of Awareness

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“meditation nurtures the parts of the brain that contribute to well-being. Furthermore, it seems that a regular practice deprives the stress and anxiety-related parts of the brain of their nourishment.” – Mindworks

Mindfulness training has been shown through extensive research to be effective in improving physical and psychological health and particularly with reducing the physical and psychological reactions to stress. There are a number of ways that meditation practices produce these benefits, including changes to the brain and physiology. The nervous system changes in response to how it is used and how it is stimulated in a process called neuroplasticity. Highly used areas grow in size, metabolism, activity, and connectivity. Mindfulness practices in general are known to produce these kinds of changes in the structure and activity of the brain. In addition, meditation practice has been shown to result in attentiveness and serenity. There is little research, however, on how these changes in the brain produced by meditation are related to the changes in awareness in the practitioners.

In today’s Research News article “Meditation training modulates brain electric microstates and felt states of awareness.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8193519/) Zanesco and colleagues recruited healthy adults who had meditation experience and randomly assigned them to a wait-list control condition or to attend a 3-month Shambala residential meditation retreat with over 6 hours of meditation daily. They completed a daily experience questionnaire of positive and negative emotions and meditation experience. Before, in the middle and after the retreat the participants had their brain activity measured with electroencephalography (EEG).

They found that over the retreat there were continuous significant increases in attentiveness and serenity and the meditation qualities of physical relaxation, mental relaxation, attentional stability, and attentional vividness. In addition, the greater the increases in the meditation qualities the greater the increases in attentiveness and serenity. The analysis of the EEG data revealed that the retreat group had significant reductions in EEG Global Field Power and microstate durations and microstate occurrence frequency over the course of the retreat. Correlational analysis revealed that the greater the reductions over the retreat in the EEG Global Field Power and microstate durations the greater the increases in attentiveness and serenity.

These results document the increase in attentiveness and serenity and the quality of meditation that have been reported to occur over a meditation retreat. Significantly, they demonstrate that simultaneously there are changes in brain activity including a reduction in overall electrical activity and transient changes in electrical microstates in the brain over 40-120 microsecond intervals. Further the results demonstrate that reductions in these measures of brain electrical activity are correlated with improvements in attentiveness and serenity over the course of the retreat. This suggests that during a meditation retreat the brain becomes calmer and this is reflected in changes in subjective experience.

These results document that changes in the brain’s activities occur along with change in subjective experiences. The fact that they are correlated does no prove causation but is evidence in favor of causation. They suggest that during a meditation retreat there are changes produced in brain activity that produce greater attentiveness and serenity.

So, meditation alters the brain in conjunction with alterations of awareness.

““I think most people would agree their minds are just as important as their teeth. If we spent such a short time on our mind as we do on brushing our teeth, this world would be a different place,” Ritchie Davidson

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

Study Summary

Zanesco, A. P., Skwara, A. C., King, B. G., Powers, C., Wineberg, K., & Saron, C. D. (2021). Meditation training modulates brain electric microstates and felt states of awareness. Human brain mapping, 42(10), 3228–3252. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.25430

Abstract

Meditation practice is believed to foster states of mindful awareness and mental quiescence in everyday life. If so, then the cultivation of these qualities with training ought to leave its imprint on the activity of intrinsic functional brain networks. In an intensive longitudinal study, we investigated associations between meditation practitioners’ experiences of felt mindful awareness and changes in the spontaneous electrophysiological dynamics of functional brain networks. Experienced meditators were randomly assigned to complete 3 months of full‐time training in focused‐attention meditation (during an initial intervention) or to serve as waiting‐list controls and receive training second (during a later intervention). We collected broadband electroencephalogram (EEG) during rest at the beginning, middle, and end of the two training periods. Using a data‐driven approach, we segmented the EEG into a time series of transient microstate intervals based on clustering of topographic voltage patterns. Participants also provided daily reports of felt mindful awareness and mental quiescence, and reported daily on four experiential qualities of their meditation practice during training. We found that meditation training led to increases in mindful qualities of awareness, which corroborate contemplative accounts of deepening mental calm and attentional focus. We also observed reductions in the strength and duration of EEG microstates across both interventions. Importantly, changes in the dynamic sequencing of microstates were associated with daily increases in felt attentiveness and serenity during training. Our results connect shifts in subjective qualities of meditative experience with the large‐scale dynamics of whole brain functional EEG networks at rest.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8193519/

Meditation Alters Sense Boundaries

November 27, 2021 psyjdc Leave a comment

Meditation Alters Sense Boundaries

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“higher states of consciousness are a natural development of long-term meditation practice facilitated by regular daily experience of transcendental consciousness.” – Ravinder Jerath

Millions of people worldwide seek out transcendent experiences by engaging in practices, such as meditation, yoga, and prayer. Transcendent experiences have many characteristics which are unique to the experiencer, their religious context, and their present situation. But, the common, central feature of transcendence is a sense of oneness, that all things are contained in a single thing, a sense of union with the universe and/or God and everything in existence. This includes a loss of the personal self. What they used to refer to as the self is experienced as just a part of an integrated whole. People who have had these experiences report feeling interconnected with everything else in a sense of oneness with all things. Although transcendent experiences can vary widely, they all contain this experience of oneness. Unfortunately, there has not been a great deal of systematic research on the alteration of the self, produced in meditation practice.

In today’s Research News article “Self-Boundary Dissolution in Meditation: A Phenomenological Investigation.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8235013/ ) Nave and colleagues recruited healthy adults who were experienced meditators and provided them a 3-day intensive meditation training. They had brain activity measured with magnetoencephalography (MEG) while performing 2 meditation tasks, the first to envision the boundaries between self and the external world, the second to envision a loss of those boundaries. Before and after the meditations they completed several tasks and questionnaires and a phenomenological interview regarding their experiences during meditation.

They found that the participants were able to produce altered states of self-awareness during the meditations. Analysis of the interviews yielded 6 categories of alterations; sense of agency, self-location, first-person perspective, attentional disposition, affective valence, and body sensations. They report that during the loss of boundaries meditation the participants reported lower levels of self-location, loss of body sensations, and greater experience of space. They report that participants “letting go” was the most effective technique producing a dissolution of self-boundaries. “Letting go” reduced attentional disposition and the sense of agency, that is a loss of attentional focus and sense of control of experience.

This study demonstrates that it is possible to experimentally investigate phenomenological states experienced during meditation. In particular, it demonstrates that a dissolution of body boundaries can be produced and studied in the lab. These kinds of investigations are important as a loss of boundaries is essential for the oneness experience and oneness is central to spiritual awakening. So, the study of this dissolution should help in understanding the most profound experiences of meditation.

So, meditation alters sense boundaries.

“mindfulness training alters practitioners’ experience of self, relaxing the boundaries of the self and extending the spatial frame of reference further beyond the physical body.” – Adam W Hanley

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

Study Summary

Nave, O., Trautwein, F. M., Ataria, Y., Dor-Ziderman, Y., Schweitzer, Y., Fulder, S., & Berkovich-Ohana, A. (2021). Self-Boundary Dissolution in Meditation: A Phenomenological Investigation. Brain sciences, 11(6), 819. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11060819

Abstract

A fundamental aspect of the sense of self is its pre-reflective dimension specifying the self as a bounded and embodied knower and agent. Being a constant and tacit feature structuring consciousness, it eludes robust empirical exploration. Recently, deep meditative states involving global dissolution of the sense of self have been suggested as a promising path for advancing such an investigation. To that end, we conducted a comprehensive phenomenological inquiry into meditative self-boundary alteration. The induced states were systematically characterized by changes in six experiential features including the sense of location, agency, first-person perspective, attention, body sensations, and affective valence, as well as their interaction with meditative technique and overall degree of dissolution. Quantitative analyses of the relationships between these phenomenological categories highlighted a unitary dimension of boundary dissolution. Notably, passive meditative gestures of “letting go”, which reduce attentional engagement and sense of agency, emerged as driving the depth of dissolution. These findings are aligned with an enactive approach to the pre-reflective sense of self, linking its generation to sensorimotor activity and attention-demanding processes. Moreover, they set the stage for future phenomenologically informed analyses of neurophysiological data and highlight the utility of combining phenomenology and intense contemplative training for a scientific characterization of processes giving rise to the basic sense of being a bounded self.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8235013/

Enhance Spatial Cognition in Younger Children with Movement Meditation and Creativity with Sitting Meditation in Older Children

November 26, 2021 psyjdc Leave a comment

Enhance Spatial Cognition in Younger Children with Movement Meditation and Creativity with Sitting Meditation in Older Children

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“mindfulness as a powerful new skill to offer students, not just to manage stress but also to keep them from acting out. Its appeal: one simple, centralized intervention with effects that potentially stretch beyond the classroom.” – Brian Resnick

Childhood is a miraculous period during which the child is dynamically absorbing information from every aspect of its environment. This is particularly evident during the elementary school years. Mindfulness training in school has been shown to have very positive effects. These include improvements in the academic, cognitive, psychological, and social domains. Training early in childhood has the potential of jump-starting the child’s academic performance. It is not known, however, what form of meditation training works best for children of different ages.

In today’s Research News article “Age-Related Differential Effects of School-Based Sitting and Movement Meditation on Creativity and Spatial Cognition: A Pilot Study.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8303844/ ) Marson and colleagues recruited children 10 to 13 years of age in the 5^th through 8^th grades and had them perform two practices in counterbalanced order for 10 weeks; a 5-minute sensorimotor task (mindful movements) and a 5-monute sitting meditation (Open monitoring). Before and after each training the children were measured for cognitive performance with a hidden figures test and for creativity with an alternative uses test.

They found that the younger children were most affected by the meditative movement training while the older children were affected more by the sitting meditation, In particular, younger children had significant increases in spatial cognition (hidden figures task), and the number of uses (fluency) and the number of categories of uses (flexibility) in the alternative uses task after meditative movement training. On the other hand, the older children had significantly greater improvements in creativity (unusual, divergent uses in the alternative uses task) after the sitting meditation.

Hence, meditative movement training improved younger children’s’ spatial cognition, fluency, and flexibility while sitting meditation improved older children’s creativity. These are interesting findings that suggest that different kinds of mindfulness trainings are most effective at different ages of children. Movement based training are most effective with younger children while sitting meditation id most effective with older children. It has been shown that mindfulness training has many benefits for children. In the present study, the benefits involve improvements in spatial cognition and creativity. The present research suggests that the type of training that is most effective is age dependent.

So, enhance spatial cognition in younger children with movement meditation and creativity with sitting meditation in older children.

“The simple act of teaching children how to stop, focus, and just breathe could be one of the greatest gifts you give them.” – Healthy Children

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

Study Summary

Marson, F., Fano, A., Pellegrino, M., Pesce, C., Glicksohn, J., & Ben-Soussan, T. D. (2021). Age-Related Differential Effects of School-Based Sitting and Movement Meditation on Creativity and Spatial Cognition: A Pilot Study. Children (Basel, Switzerland), 8(7), 583. https://doi.org/10.3390/children8070583

Abstract

Psychophysical well-being can be supported during development by the integration of extra-curricular activities in scholastic settings. These activities can be implemented in different forms, ranging from physical activities to sitting meditation practices. Considering that both such activities are thought to affect children’s psychophysical development, a movement-based meditation that combines the two approaches−in the form of a short daily activity−could represent a powerful tool to promote healthy physical and mental development. Consequently, the current pilot study aimed to examine the effect of short daily school-based sitting and movement meditation trainings on creativity and spatial cognition. Utilizing a crossover design, we evaluated their feasibility and efficacy at different ages among children (n = 50) in 5th to 8th grade. We observed that 5 weeks of daily training in sitting and movement meditation techniques improved children’s cognition differently. Specifically, younger children showed greater creativity and better spatial cognition following the movement-based meditation, while older children showed greater enhancement in these areas following sitting meditation training. This suggests that training can affect children’s cognition differently depending on their developmental stage. We discuss these results within the framework of embodied and grounded cognition theories. Information on feasibility and age-related effect sizes derived from the current study paves the way for future well-powered larger-scale efficacy studies on different forms of school-based interventions to cognitive development promotion.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8303844/

Different Meditation Types Alter Brain Connectivity Patterns Differently Over the Long Term

November 24, 2021August 12, 2022 psyjdc Leave a comment

Different Meditation Types Alter Brain Connectivity Patters Differently Over the Long Term

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“[Meditation], regardless of each individual’s chosen object of attention, increases functional connectivity within attentional networks as well as increases connectivity across distributed brain regions serving attention, self-referential, and visual processes.” – Zongpai Zhang

There has accumulated a large amount of research demonstrating that meditation practice has significant benefits for psychological, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. One way that meditation practices may produce these benefits is by altering the brain. 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.

In today’s Research News article “Neuroplasticity within and between Functional Brain Networks in Mental Training Based on Long-Term Meditation.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8393942/ ) Guidotti and colleagues recruited Buddhist monks highly experienced with both focused and open monitoring meditation (average of 16.4 years of practice with an average of 1200 hours of practice per year). They underwent functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) brain scans during 6-minute meditations with focused and with open monitoring techniques.

They found that connectivity patterns were associated with the age of the participants during both meditation techniques. On the other hand, connectivity patterns were associated with years of meditation experience differently during focused versus open monitoring meditation. During both meditation types the functional connectivity within the Salience Network of the brain was reduced. During focused meditation there was increased connectivity within the Visual Network. During open monitoring meditation there was increase connectivity within the Executive Network and between the Executive and Language Networks. During open monitoring meditation there was also increase connectivity with Sensorimotor Network and its connections with the Default Mode Network.

These results are complicated and involve only experienced meditators. So, it is unknown whether the findings apply to novice or less experienced meditators and it cannot be determined what the differences might be in the brains of these highly experience meditators compared to non-meditators. But the results suggest that during focused and open monitoring meditation types have the same relationships with age related connectivity patterns in the brain while they have different associations with connectivity patterns in association with experience. This suggests that the two meditation types produce different neuroplastic changes in the brain as experience accumulates.

So, different meditation types alter brain connectivity patters differently over the long term.

“people who meditate may actually have quicker brains than the rest of us. . . meditation can improve your brain’s ability to quickly switch between two main states of consciousness.” – Katie Spalding

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

Study Summary

Guidotti, R., Del Gratta, C., Perrucci, M. G., Romani, G. L., & Raffone, A. (2021). Neuroplasticity within and between Functional Brain Networks in Mental Training Based on Long-Term Meditation. Brain sciences, 11(8), 1086. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11081086

Abstract

(1) The effects of intensive mental training based on meditation on the functional and structural organization of the human brain have been addressed by several neuroscientific studies. However, how large-scale connectivity patterns are affected by long-term practice of the main forms of meditation, Focused Attention (FA) and Open Monitoring (OM), as well as by aging, has not yet been elucidated. (2) Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and multivariate pattern analysis, we investigated the impact of meditation expertise and age on functional connectivity patterns in large-scale brain networks during different meditation styles in long-term meditators. (3) The results show that fMRI connectivity patterns in multiple key brain networks can differentially predict the meditation expertise and age of long-term meditators. Expertise-predictive patterns are differently affected by FA and OM, while age-predictive patterns are not influenced by the meditation form. The FA meditation connectivity pattern modulated by expertise included nodes and connections implicated in focusing, sustaining and monitoring attention, while OM patterns included nodes associated with cognitive control and emotion regulation. (4) The study highlights a long-term effect of meditation practice on multivariate patterns of functional brain connectivity and suggests that meditation expertise is associated with specific neuroplastic changes in connectivity patterns within and between multiple brain networks.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8393942/

Improve Decision Making with a Brief Mindfulness Training

November 15, 2021 psyjdc Leave a comment

Improve Decision Making with a Brief Mindfulness Training

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“With mindfulness, the decision-making process becomes a thoughtful, cognitive exercise, rather than an impulsive reaction to immediate needs.” – Insead

We are confronted daily with a myriad of decisions, many small of little importance; chocolate or strawberry, pass or follow, do the dishes or empty the trash, watch a movie or sports, etc. But some have a major impact on ourselves and others; take a new job, get married, buy a home, retire or stay working, exercise or not, etc. The problem is that humans are not always good decision makers.

We often make decisions for emotional reasons; buying a new car, not because we need one but because it makes us feel like a race car driver, selling a stock out of fear of losses, marrying someone out of fear of being alone, etc. We also have a tendency to make decisions based upon how we’ve made them in the past regardless of whether that strategy is still appropriate. Having decided to finish high school, get a college degree, and going back to school to get an MBA may have helped our careers, but then going back to school again may not.

So, decisions are not always logical or optimal. Mindfulness has been shown to help with decision making. One problem, though, with mindfulness training is that it can take a great deal of time. This is not always possible when decisions must be made quickly. It is unclear if a very brief instruction in mindfulness may help individuals in making better decisions.

In today’s Research News article “The Effect of a 3-Minute Mindfulness Intervention, and the Mediating Role of Maximization, on Critical Incident Decision-Making.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.674694/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1651992_69_Psycho_20210603_arts_A ) Shortland and colleagues recruited adult participants online and randomly assigned them to a 3 minute meditation or story listening. The participants completed a measure of maximization of decision making. They them completed their 3-minute meditation or listening followed by a decision-making task with presented audio scenarios that had approach or avoidance solutions. They then measured situational awareness time, choice time, decision time, commitment time, decision difficulty, and approach/avoidance decision.

They found that the meditation group had significantly faster reaction times on all measures and higher decision difficulty. In addition, the mindfulness group were significantly more approach oriented rather than avoidance oriented in their decisions. But decisions became more avoidant after mindfulness training in participants who scored high in maximization of decision making. So, mindfulness training improved decision making by individuals who tend to find optimal solutions rather than acceptable solutions and find decisions less difficult to make.

The results are interesting and demonstrate that even a very brief exposure to mindfulness has positive effects on decision making. This suggests that prior to making complex difficult decision a brief period of meditation might be helpful, but particularly in individuals who look for optimal solutions.

So, improve decision making with a brief mindfulness training.

“If we are mindful of how we feel, we can more consciously include this in the decision-making process.” – Applied Attention

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

Study Summary

Shortland ND, McGarry P, Thompson L, Stevens C and Alison LJ (2021) The Effect of a 3-Minute Mindfulness Intervention, and the Mediating Role of Maximization, on Critical Incident Decision-Making. Front. Psychol. 12:674694. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.674694

Objective: In this study, we extend the impact of mindfulness to the concept of least-worst decision-making. Least-worst decisions involve high-uncertainty and require the individual to choose between a number of potentially negative courses of action. Research is increasingly exploring least-worst decisions, and real-world events (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) show the need for individuals to overcome uncertainty and commit to a least-worst course of action. From sports to business, researchers are increasingly showing that “being mindful” has a range of positive performance-related benefits. We hypothesized that mindfulness would improve least-worst decision-making because it would increase self-reflection and value identification. However, we also hypothesized that trait maximization (the tendency to attempt to choose the “best” course of action) would negatively interact with mindfulness.

Methods: Three hundred and ninety-eight participants were recruited using Amazon MTurk and exposed to a brief mindfulness intervention or a control intervention (listening to an audiobook). After this intervention, participants completed the Least-Worst Uncertain Choice Inventory for Emergency Responders (LUCIFER).

Results: As hypothesized, mindfulness increased decision-making speed and approach-tendencies. Conversely, for high-maximizers, increased mindfulness caused a slowing of the decision-making process and led to more avoidant choices.

Conclusions: This study shows the potential positive and negative consequences of mindfulness for least-worst decision-making, emphasizing the critical importance of individual differences when considering both the effect of mindfulness and interventions aimed at improving decision-making.

“In the NBA, mindfulness is important because the game is chaotically fast and the pressures on players are extreme. In real life, it’s important because the practice can help us get a handle on ourselves and stop going into a tailspin or endless series of tangents.”

Sirk (Zen and the Art of Winning: Phil Jackson’s Team Leadership, 2020).

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.674694/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1651992_69_Psycho_20210603_arts_A

Improvements in Migraine Headaches Require Active Meditation and not Cognitive Distraction

November 9, 2021 psyjdc Leave a comment

Improvements in Migraine Headaches Require Active Meditation and not Cognitive Distraction

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“Mindfulness is a simple, effective method for managing migraines and reducing potential triggers.” – American Migraine Foundation

Migraine headaches are a torment far beyond the suffering of a common headache. It is an intense throbbing pain usually unilateral, focused on only one side of the head and lasts from 4 hours to 3 days. They involve a collection of neurological symptoms, including visual disturbances, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, extreme sensitivity to sound, light, touch and smell, and tingling or numbness in the extremities or face. Migraines are the 8th most disabling illness in the world. While most sufferers experience attacks once or twice a month, about 4% have chronic daily headaches. Migraines are very disruptive to the sufferer’s personal and work lives as most people are unable to work or function normally when experiencing a migraine.

There is no known cure for migraine headaches. Treatments are targeted at managing the symptoms. Prescription and over-the-counter pain relievers are frequently used. There are a number of drug and drug combinations that appear to reduce the frequency of migraine attacks. These vary in effectiveness but unfortunately can have troubling side effects and some are addictive. Behaviorally, relaxation and sleep appear to help lower the frequency of migraines. Mindfulness practices have been shown to reduce stress and improve relaxation. So, they may be useful in preventing migraines. Indeed, it has been shown that mindfulness practice can reduce headache pain. It is not known how the pain relief develops over time and whether meditation benefits simply occur due to distraction from the pain.

In today’s Research News article “A reanalysis of a randomized trial on meditation for migraine headaches: Distraction is not enough but meditation takes time.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8091992/ ) Wachholtz and colleagues recruited otherwise healthy adults who experience at least 2 migraine headaches a month. They were randomly assigned to meditate for 30 minutes per day for 30 days with 1 of 3 specific phrases that was to form their meditation focus. The phrases were spiritual (e.g. God is Peace), positive self-reinforcement (e.g. I am joyful), or cognitive distraction (e.g. Grass is Green). A fourth group practiced systematic muscle relaxation over the same period. They maintained daily logs of headaches and emotions for the 30 days.

They found that over the 30-day practice period participants happiness significantly increased, while pain ratings and anger significantly decreased for all groups except the cognitive distraction group. The spiritual meditation, positive self-reinforcement meditation, and relaxation groups did not show significant improvements in headache pain over the first 20 days of practice. Significant reductions in pain occurred only during the last 10 days.

These are interesting results that replicate previous findings that mindfulness practices produce improvements in emotions , including happiness and anger, and decreases in headache pain. What is new here is the finding that these benefits require over 20 days of practice to develop. The fact that the cognitive distraction group did not decrease in anger or headache pain is important. It suggests that improvements require specific meditation focuses and that a focus on an external characteristic (e.g. Sand is Soft) is not sufficient. So, the process of meditation, sitting down and focusing for 30 minutes per day, isn’t sufficient to produce benefits. The focus during the meditation must be on spiritual, self-reinforcement, or muscle relaxation targets. The benefits are not the result of distraction from the headache pain.

So, improvements in migraine headaches require active meditation and not cognitive distraction.

“Mindfulness may be something that specifically helps people with migraines because it can teach new ways to respond to stress, which is the most commonly reported migraine trigger.” – Judy George

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

Study Summary

Wachholtz, A., Vohra, R., & Metzger, A. (2019). A reanalysis of a randomized trial on meditation for migraine headaches: Distraction is not enough but meditation takes time. Complementary therapies in medicine, 46, 136–143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2019.08.011

Highlights

There are many studies examining a single form of meditation, but few examine multiple meditation techniques to compare key ingredients that make a technique “successful” for patient’s pain management
In a longitudinal assessment, we found that meditative techniques integrating active cognitive controls work better to reduce migraine frequency, severity, and negative mood compared to passive or distraction techniques
Across active engagement meditation types, 30 minutes of daily practice for 20 days appeared necessary to reach efficacy

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

Migraine headaches affect about approximately 15% of the population and some notable efforts have been made to develop meditation interventions to address pain and mood among this population. However, key active ingredients and the necessary duration of meditation interventions to produce an effect are still unknown. The purpose of this study is to assess key meditation ingredients that positively impact mood and headache factors across different meditation techniques and to establish an initial time or ”dose” needed to reach proactive treatment efficacy.

METHOD:

In this longitudinal study, three active management forms of meditation were compared to a cognitive distraction meditation to assess the effects on migraine headaches and emotions over a 30 day period when practiced 20 minutes per day.

RESULTS:

The active group showed significant decreases in anger (p=.005) and migraine pain (p=.002) over time. Further analysis showed that the bulk of the change for the active management group occurred in the final 10 days, after 20 days of practice of the technique (p<.05).

CONCLUSION:

This suggests that cognitively active forms of meditation are more effective in reducing migraine headache pain and negative mood than distraction techniques. However, individuals engaging in these strategies need to consistently practice these techniques for approximately 20 days to proactively reduce migraine headache pain and negative mood.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8091992/

Improve Doctors’ Empathy and Communication Skills with Loving-Kindness Meditation

November 8, 2021 psyjdc Leave a comment

Improve Doctors’ Empathy and Communication Skills with Loving-Kindness Meditation

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“Medicine and meditation, etymologically, come from the same root: to consider, advise, reflect, to take appropriate measures,” – Ronald Epstein

Stress is epidemic in the western workplace with almost two thirds of workers reporting high levels of stress at work. In high stress occupations, like healthcare, the stress can produce fatigue, cynicism, emotional exhaustion, sleep disruption, and professional inefficacy. This not only affects the healthcare providers personally, but also the patients, as it produces a loss of empathy and compassion.

Loving Kindness Meditation is designed to develop kindness and compassion to oneself and others. The individual systematically pictures different individuals from self, to close friends, to enemies and wishes them happiness, well-being, safety, peace, and ease of well-being. It is possible that Loving Kindness Meditation can help to reverse the effects of stress on medical providers and increase their levels of empathy and compassion for their patients and improve their communications with their patients.

In today’s Research News article “Effects of Loving-Kindness Meditation on Doctors’ Mindfulness, Empathy, and Communication Skills.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8069630/ ) Chen and colleagues recruited doctors at a hospital in China who had practiced for at least 3 years and randomly assigned them to receive either a 90-minute Loving Kindness Meditation practice 3 times per week for 8 weeks or to be in a wait-list control condition. They were measured before and after training for mindfulness, empathy, and communication skills.

They found that in comparison to baseline and the wait-list control group, the doctors who received Loving Kindness Meditation had significant increases in empathy and communications skills, but not mindfulness. These results replicate previous findings that Loving Kindness Meditation produces significant improvements in empathy.

This study used a passive control condition (wait-list) which makes the interpretation of results subject to possible confounding explanations such as placebo effects, experimenter bias, Hawthorne effects, etc. Future studies should include an active control condition, e.g. exercise. Nevertheless, the results suggest that practicing Loving Kindness Meditation may improve a physicians ability to understand the emotions of their patients and be better able to communicate with them. This would make them much better doctors and improve patient care and clinical outcomes. It remains for future research to examine if this outcome occurs in actual clinical practice.

So, improve doctors’ empathy and communication skills with Loving-Kindness Meditation.

“Clear communication from doctors may have a healing effect. Studies on pain perception find that, similar to the placebo effect, thoughtfully walking a patient through a procedure that is being administered, or one that will occur in the future, can make them less anxious and more optimistic, leading to less pain.” – Deborah Wip

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

Study Summary

Chen, H., Liu, C., Cao, X., Hong, B., Huang, D. H., Liu, C. Y., & Chiou, W. K. (2021). Effects of Loving-Kindness Meditation on Doctors’ Mindfulness, Empathy, and Communication Skills. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(8), 4033. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18084033

Abstract

Background: In the context of increasing doctor–patient tensions in China, the objective of this study was to explore and examine the effects of loving-kindness meditation (LKM) on doctors’ mindfulness, empathy, and communication skills. Methods: A total of 106 doctors were recruited from a hospital in China, and randomly divided into an LKM training group (n = 53) and waiting control group (n = 53). The LKM training group received 8 weeks of LKM training intervention, whereas the control group received no intervention. Three major variables (mindfulness, empathy, and communication skills) were measured before (pre-test) and after (post-test) the LKM training intervention. Results: The empathy and communication skills of the LKM group were significantly improved compared with those of the control group, but the level of mindfulness did not significantly change. Conclusions: The results suggested that LKM may contribute to improving physicians’ empathy and communication skills. However, the mechanisms that underlie the effects of the LKM on mindfulness, empathy, and communication skills and other psychological constructs needs further elucidation.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8069630/

wkchiu@mail.cgu.edu.tw

Alter the Genes for Better Health with Meditation

November 6, 2021 psyjdc Leave a comment

Alter the Genes for Better Health with Meditation

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“meditation practices seem . . . promote endocrinal, neuronal, and behavioral functions. This suggests that the achievement of a state of inner silence through the practice of meditation can prevent or reverse the detrimental effects of a stressful environment.“ – Sabrina Venditti

Over the last several decades, research and anecdotal experiences have accumulated an impressive evidential case that the development of mindfulness has positive benefits for the individual’s mental, physical, and spiritual life. Mindfulness appears to be beneficial both for healthy people and for people suffering from a myriad of illnesses. It appears to be beneficial across ages, from children to the elderly. And it appears to be beneficial across genders, personalities, race, and ethnicity. The breadth and depth of benefits is unprecedented.

Meditation practice has been shown to improve health and longevity. One way it appears to act is by altering the genes which govern cellular processes in our bodies. The genes dictate all of the chemical processes in our bodies including immune and inflammatory responses. The ability of outside influences to affect gene expression is known as epigenetics. Hence, it is important to study the epigenetic alterations in gene expressions produced by meditation practice to determine if these effects are the intermediary between meditation and health.

In today’s Research News article “Transcriptomics of Long-Term Meditation Practice: Evidence for Prevention or Reversal of Stress Effects Harmful to Health.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8001870/ ) Wenuganen and colleagues recruited older (> 60 years of age) healthy adult experienced practitioners of Transcendental Meditation and matched non-practitioners. Blood was drawn and analyzed for gene expression with microarrays and polymerase chain reaction.

They found that the genes of the Transcendental Meditation practitioners were in general significantly downregulated (lower expression) than the non-practitioners. “Sixty-two genes were related to hematologic diseases, 26 to coronary artery disease, 34 to diabetes complications, 49 to inflammation, and 64 to CVD. All these disease-related genes were downregulated in the TM group relative to the control group.” The genes found to have lower expression in the Transcendental Meditation practitioners were related to inflammatory responses and suppressed energy efficiency, while those upregulated (higher expression) were related to immune system function.

These epigenetic findings suggest that Transcendental Meditation practice over years of practice improve the immune system and energy efficiency while reducing inflammation in older individuals. These epigenetic changes suggest that Transcendental Meditation practice improves the physiology’s ability to maintain health by being better prepared to respond to disease and stress. This suggests a mechanism by which meditation practice improves health and longevity.

So, alter the genes for better health with meditation.

“meditation, yoga, and Tai Chi . . . all seem to have a beneficial effect on the expression of a slew of different genes. And, as you might expect, the affected genes are generally those involved in stress and inflammation.” – Alice Walton

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are a

Alter the Genes for Better Health with Meditation

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

So, alter the genes for better health with meditation.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are available at the Contemplative Studies Blog http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/

They are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

Study Summary

Wenuganen, S., Walton, K. G., Katta, S., Dalgard, C. L., Sukumar, G., Starr, J., Travis, F. T., Wallace, R. K., Morehead, P., Lonsdorf, N. K., Srivastava, M., & Fagan, J. (2021). Transcriptomics of Long-Term Meditation Practice: Evidence for Prevention or Reversal of Stress Effects Harmful to Health. Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania), 57(3), 218. https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina57030218

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Stress can overload adaptive mechanisms, leading to epigenetic effects harmful to health. Research on the reversal of these effects is in its infancy. Early results suggest some meditation techniques have health benefits that grow with repeated practice. This study focused on possible transcriptomic effects of 38 years of twice-daily Transcendental Meditation® (TM®) practice. Materials and Methods: First, using Illumina® BeadChip microarray technology, differences in global gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were sought between healthy practitioners and tightly matched controls (n = 12, age 65). Second, these microarray results were verified on a subset of genes using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and were validated using qPCR in larger TM and control groups (n = 45, age 63). Bioinformatics investigation employed Ingenuity® Pathway Analysis (IPA®), DAVID, Genomatix, and R packages. Results: The 200 genes and loci found to meet strict criteria for differential expression in the microarray experiment showed contrasting patterns of expression that distinguished the two groups. Differential expression relating to immune function and energy efficiency were most apparent. In the TM group, relative to the control, all 49 genes associated with inflammation were downregulated, while genes associated with antiviral and antibody components of the defense response were upregulated. The largest expression differences were shown by six genes related to erythrocyte function that appeared to reflect a condition of lower energy efficiency in the control group. Results supporting these gene expression differences were obtained with qPCR-measured expression both in the well-matched microarray groups and in the larger, less well-matched groups. Conclusions: These findings are consistent with predictions based on results from earlier randomized trials of meditation and may provide evidence for stress-related molecular mechanisms underlying reductions in anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cardiovascular disease (CVD), and other chronic disorders and diseases.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8001870/

re also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

Study Summary

Abstract

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8001870/