Improve Seeing Others as Like the Self with Loving Kindness Meditation

January 4, 2017 psyjdc Leave a comment

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“Loving-kindness meditation does far more than produce momentary good feelings. . . . this type of meditation increased people’s experiences of positive emotions. . . . it actually puts people on “trajectories of growth,” leaving them better able to ward off depression and “become ever more satisfied with life.”” – Christine Carter

Humans are social animals. This is a great asset for the species as the effort of the individual is amplified by cooperation. In primitive times, this cooperation was essential for survival. But in modern times it is also essential, not for survival but rather for making a living and for the happiness of the individual. This ability to cooperate is so essential to human flourishing that it is built deep into our DNA and is reflected in the structure of the human nervous system. Empathy and compassion are essential for appropriate social engagement and cooperation. In order for these abilities to emerge and strengthen, individuals must be able to see that other people are very much like themselves.

Unfortunately, there is very little understanding of the factors that lead to and improve empathy and compassion. One method that appears to be able to increase these capacities is Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM). It has been shown to amplify positive emotions, altruism, and compassion. This suggests that LKM may reduce the perceived difference between the self and other people. This is difficult to study, however, as these capacities are not easily measured and require length, indirect, paper and pencil, tests for assessment.

An alternative assessment technique is to measure the electrical response of the brain (electroencephalogram, EEG) as an indicator of empathy and compassion. This can be done by investigating differences in the brains processing of stimuli related to the self, relative to those related to other people. Upon presentation of these stimuli differences in the brain’s response can be seen called the evoked potential (ERP). The P300 response in the evoked potential (ERP) occurs between 3 to 6-tenths of a second following the stimulus presentation. It is a positive change that is maximally measured over the central frontal lobe. The P300 response has been associated with self-processing. It is larger in response to stimuli such as one’s own name, face, or information about the person’s history. So, the P300 response is often used as a measure of the processing of information about the self, with the larger the positive change the greater the self-processing.

In today’s Research News article “Decentering the self? Preliminary evidence for changes in self- vs. other related processing as a long-term outcome of loving-kindness meditation.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1441662135857708/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01785/full?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Psychology-w48-2016

Trautwein and colleagues employ the P300 response in the evoked potential (ERP) in response to pictures of the self or a close friend to investigate the effectiveness of Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) to improve empathy and compassion in humans. They recruited adult long-term practitioners of LKM and a group of age, gender, handedness, and education matched non-meditators. The participants were asked to press a button every time a picture of either themselves of their friend was presented amid a series of other stimuli. This occurred on 20% of the time. They measured performed this task while wearing scalp electrodes to measure the EEG and the P300 response to these stimuli was recorded.

They found that, as expected, the LKM practitioners reported experiencing more compassionate love for strangers and all of humanity than control participants. They also found that, as expected, the P300 response in the parietal lobe of the brain was greater to the picture of the self than the friend. As a measure of the degree to which the participant viewed the self and other as similar, they measured the difference in the ERP response to the self vs. friend picture. They found that the smaller the difference between the self vs. friend P300 response the greater the levels of self-reported compassion. Importantly, they also found that the greater the amount of LKM practice the smaller the difference in the P300 response to self and friend.

These results are interesting and suggest that Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) improves empathy and compassion by altering the brain’s response to self vs. others. In this way, individuals perceive other people as more like themselves, making them more compassionate and empathetic. It should be noted, however, that there was not a comparison group of meditators who did not practice LKM. So, it cannot be concluded that the effects were due to LKM practice specifically. It could be that any form of meditation practice would have similar effects. But, it is clear that meditation alters the brain’s response to self vs. others.

So, improve seeing others as like the self with Loving Kindness Meditation.

“The practice of LKM led to shifts in people’s daily experiences of a wide range of positive emotions, including love, joy, gratitude, contentment, hope, pride, interest, amusement, and awe. These shifts in positive emotions took time to appear and were not large in magnitude, but over the course of 9 weeks, they were linked to increases in a variety of personal resources, including mindful attention, self-acceptance, positive relationships with others, and good physical health…They enabled people to become more satisfied with their lives and to experience fewer symptoms of depression.” – Barbara Fredrickson

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

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

Study Summary

Fynn-Mathis Trautwein, José Raúl Naranjo, and Stefan Schmidt Decentering the self? Preliminary evidence for changes in self- vs. other related processing as a long-term outcome of loving-kindness meditation. Front. Psychol., 21 November 2016 | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01785

Research in social neuroscience provides increasing evidence that self and other are interconnected, both on a conceptual and on an affective representational level. Moreover, the ability to recognize the other as “like the self” is thought to be essential for social phenomena like empathy and compassion. Meditation practices such as loving-kindness meditation (LKM) have been found to enhance these capacities. Therefore, we investigated whether LKM is associated to an increased integration of self–other-representations. As an indicator, we assessed the P300 event-related potential elicited by oddball stimuli of the self-face and a close other’s face in 12 long-term practitioners of LKM and 12 matched controls. In line with previous studies, the self elicited larger P300 amplitudes than close other. This effect was reduced in the meditation sample at parietal but not frontal midline sites. Within this group, smaller differences between self- and other-related P300 were associated with increasing meditation practice. Across groups, smaller P300 differences correlated with self-reported compassion. In meditators, we also investigated the effect of a short LKM compared to a control priming procedure in order to test whether the state induction would additionally modulate self- vs. other-related P300. However, no effect of the priming conditions was observed. Overall, our findings provide preliminary evidence that prolonged meditation practice may modulate self- vs. other-related processing, accompanied by an increase in compassion. Further evidence is needed, however, to show if this is a direct outcome of loving-kindness meditation.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01785/full?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Psychology-w48-2016

Pay Attention with Mindfulness

December 26, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“The quality of your attention determines whether you are present and alert, or mentally and/or emotionally distracted. The good news is that it’s possible to train your attention and gain the associated benefits, and practicing mindfulness offers one of the most accessible and effective approaches.” – Deborah David

One of the primary effects of mindfulness training is an improvement in the ability to pay attention to the task at hand and ignore interfering stimuli. This is an important consequence of mindfulness training and produces improvements in thinking, reasoning, and creativity. The importance of heightened attentional ability to the individual’s ability to navigate the demands of complex modern life cannot be overstated. It helps at work, in relationships, or simply driving a car. Being effective socially demands accurately assessing the emotional states of other people. This requires attention to the non-verbal subtle signals of facial expression, body posture, and gestures. In this context, attention to these subtleties is a prerequisite for appropriate interactions. As a result, mindfulness improves social interactions.

There is evidence that mindfulness training improves attention by altering the brain. It appears That mindfulness training increases the size, connectivity, and activity of areas of the brain that are involved in paying attention. A common method to study the activity of the nervous system is to measure the electrical signal at the scalp above brain regions. Changes in this activity are measurable with mindfulness training. One method to observe information processing in the brain is to measure the changes in the electrical activity that occur in response to specific stimuli. These are called evoked potentials or ERPs. The signal following a stimulus changes over time. The fluctuations of the signal after specific periods of time are thought to measure different aspects of the nervous system’s processing of the stimulus.

The N100 response in the evoked potential (ERP) is a negative going response occurring around a tenth of a second following a visual stimulus presentation. The N100 response has been associated with the engagement of visual attention. So, the N100 response is often used as a measure of brain attentional engagement with the larger the negative change the greater the attentional focus. The N200 response in the evoked potential (ERP) generally follows shortly after the N100 response. It is a negative change that is maximally measured over the frontal lobe. The N200 response has been associated with the resolution of conflicting response expectations. The P300 response occurs around a quarter of a second following the stimulus presentation. It is a positive change that is maximally measured over the central frontal lobe. The P300 response has been associated with holding back expected actions (response inhibition).

The relationship of mindfulness to the brain’s processing of social/emotional stimuli was investigated in today’s Research News article “Trait Mindfulness Predicts Efficient Top-Down Attention to and Discrimination of Facial Expressions.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1433674869989768/?type=3&theater

or see summary below. Quaglia and colleagues recruited college students and measured their levels of mindfulness, social anxiety, and attentional control. The participants’ EEG was measured while performing a go/no-go task in which they were asked to press a button to a picture of a face if it expressed a target emotion (happy, neutral, or fearful) and refrain from responding if a different emotion was being portrayed.

They found that the higher the levels of the students’ mindfulness the faster they responded to the faces. In addition, they found that the higher the levels of mindfulness the larger the N100 and N200 responses. With the P300 response, high levels of mindfulness were only found to be associated with larger responses on no-go trials, when they withheld a response to a non-target emotion. There was no difference in the P300 response to go trials.

These results suggest that mindfulness improves attention to emotionally significant stimuli and does so by heightening the brain’s response to these stimuli.. This is supported by the faster response times by highly mindful participants. In, addition, the neural responses indicate better processing with the heightened N100 and N200 responses indicating greater attention and better decision processes while the heightened P300 response indicating better ability to withhold responses to stimuli when appropriate. Hence, the results suggest that attention to and responding to emotionally significant stimuli is improved with mindfulness. This may be one of the mechanisms by which mindfulness improves emotion regulation in general.

So, pay attention with mindfulness.

“Mindfulness refines our attention so that we can connect more fully and directly with whatever life brings. So many times our perception of what is happening is distorted by bias, habits, fears, or desires. Mindfulness helps us see through these and be much more aware of what actually is.” – Sharon Salzberg

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

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

Study Summary

Jordan T. Quaglia, Robert J. Goodman, Kirk Warren Brown. Trait Mindfulness Predicts Efficient Top-Down Attention to and Discrimination of Facial Expressions. J. Pers. Volume 84, Issue 3, June 2016, Pages 393–404

Abstract

In social situations, skillful regulation of emotion and behavior depends on efficiently discerning others’ emotions. Identifying factors that promote timely and accurate discernment of facial expressions can therefore advance understanding of social emotion regulation and behavior. The present research examined whether trait mindfulness predicts neural and behavioral markers of early top-down attention to, and efficient discrimination of, socioemotional stimuli. Attention-based event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral responses were recorded while participants (N = 62; White; 67% female; Mage= 19.09 years, SD = 2.14 years) completed an emotional go/no-go task involving happy, neutral, and fearful facial expressions. Mindfulness predicted larger (more negative) N100 and N200 ERP amplitudes to both go and no-go stimuli. Mindfulness also predicted faster response time that was not attributable to a speed-accuracy trade-off. Significant relations held after accounting for attentional control or social anxiety. This study adds neurophysiological support for foundational accounts that mindfulness entails moment-to-moment attention with lower tendencies toward habitual patterns of responding. Mindfulness may enhance the quality of social behavior in socioemotional contexts by promoting efficient top-down attention to and discrimination of others’ emotions, alongside greater monitoring and inhibition of automatic response tendencies.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.shsu.edu/doi/10.1111/jopy.12167/full

Improve Control of Emotions with Meditation Practice

November 17, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

Improve Control of Emotions with Meditation Practice

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“meditation may result in enduring, beneficial changes in brain function, especially in the area of emotional processing.” – Gaëlle Desbordes

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 immediate state of mindfulness has been shown to produce positive consequences but the development of long-term (trait) mindfulness has enduring benefits. It appears to do so, by producing relatively permanent changes to the nervous system, increasing the activity, size, and connectivity of some structures while decreasing it for others in a process known as neuroplasticity. So, mindfulness practice appears to affect emotion regulation by producing neuroplastic changes to the structures of the nervous system that underlie emotion.

One way to investigate the changes in the brain’s processing of emotions is to measure the nervous systems electrical responses to emotional stimuli, known as event related potentials (ERP). In today’s Research News article “Deconstructing the Emotion Regulatory Properties of Mindfulness: An Electrophysiological Investigation.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1383896588300930/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5013076/

Lin and colleagues investigate the effects of short-term mindfulness vs. long-term mindfulness practice on the electrical response to the nervous system to emotional stimuli (ERP) called the late positive potential (LPP). It is recorded from the Parietal Lobe of the cortex and is a positive voltage occurring 300–800 milliseconds after the presentation of emotionally evocative stimuli and lasts for several seconds. The LPP is greater with more emotionally evocative stimuli. So, the LPP can index the magnitude of individual’s emotional responding. Lin and colleagues randomly assigned female college students who had not previously meditated to either receive a 20-minute guided meditation or a lecture on learning a second language. They were further randomly subdivided to view pictures either mindfully or “naturally.” There were three kinds of pictures presented, emotionally negative high arousing, negative low arousing, or neutral. Participants were also measured for trait mindfulness.

They found that the late positive potential (LPP) was sensitive to the stimuli with greater positive LPP to the emotionally negative high arousing than the negative low arousing, or neutral stimuli. The brief meditation and trait mindfulness, but not the mindfulness instruction, reduced the magnitude of the response to the emotionally negative high arousing stimuli. They also found that the higher the level of trait mindfulness in the participants the greater the reduction in the response to the emotionally negative high arousing stimuli. These results suggest that mindfulness can reduce neural responses to emotional stimuli and that the greatest responses occur to people high in trait mindfulness. This further suggests that the more the practice, the greater the mindfulness, and the greater the reduction in emotional responding.

These findings help us to better understand the processes that result in mindfulness training’s ability to improve emotion regulation. Long-term mindfulness, trait mindfulness, has the most powerful effects while simple one-time meditation practices can produce effects, albeit smaller. All of this suggests that the brain adapts to mindfulness training by altering its responsiveness to emotional stimuli and events making the individual better at regulating their emotions, with the greater the mindfulness produced the greater the improvement.

So, improve control of emotions with meditation practice.

“As with all emotion, the practice of meditation can stabilize us enough in the midst of fear to help us see more clearly—to distinguish a false threat from a real threat that needs to be acted upon. The type of fear meditation can have the most effect on is the fear (and fears) that we continually generate in our own minds, the product of our rich imagination and our desire to control everything, rather than be tossed around in the risky and stormy world.” – Mindful Staff

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

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

Study Summary

Lin, Y., Fisher, M. E., Roberts, S. M. M., & Moser, J. S. (2016). Deconstructing the Emotion Regulatory Properties of Mindfulness: An Electrophysiological Investigation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10, 451. http://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00451

Abstract

The present study sought to uncover the emotion regulatory properties of mindfulness by examining its effects—differentiated as a meditative practice, state of mind and dispositional trait—on the late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potentials (ERPs) indexing emotional processing. Results revealed that mindfulness as a meditative practice produced a reduction in the difference between the LPP response to negative high arousing and neutral stimuli across time. In contrast, a state mindfulness induction (i.e., instructions to attend to the stimuli mindfully) failed to modulate the LPP. Dispositional mindfulness, however, was related to modulation of the LPP as a function of meditation practice. Dispositional mindfulness was associated with a reduction of the LPP response to negative high arousal stimuli and the difference between negative high arousal and neutral stimuli in participants who listened to a control audio recording but not for those who engaged in the guided meditation practice. Together, these findings provide experimental evidence demonstrating that brief mindfulness meditation, but not deliberate engagement in state mindfulness, produces demonstrable changes in emotional processing indicative of reduced emotional reactivity. Importantly, these effects are akin to those observed in individuals with naturally high dispositional mindfulness, suggesting that the benefits of mindfulness can be cultivated through practice.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5013076/

Awakening-like Experiences Occur with Epilepsy in the Insula

July 24, 2016 psyjdc 5 Comments

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“Dostoevsky described his seizures in a letter to a friend: “I feel entirely in harmony with myself and the whole world, and this feeling is so strong and so delightful that for a few seconds of such bliss one would gladly give up 10 years of one’s life, if not one’s whole life.”” – Anil Ananthaswamy

Millions of people worldwide perform practices, such as meditation, yoga, and prayer, to achieve a spiritual awakening. Others use drugs such as peyote, ayahuasca and psilocybin to induce spiritual awakenings. If successful, these people report unique profound experiences that permanently alter their lives and the way they perceive the world. These experiences have many characteristics many of which are unique to the experiencer, their religious context, and their present situation. They include a state of ecstasy, bliss, love and joy, a sense of ultimate freedom and belonging, a transcendence of space and time, a sense of lacking control over the event, a greater sense of meaning and purpose of life, a sense of timelessness, a sense of having encountered ultimate reality, a sense of sacredness, a sense that one cannot adequately describe the richness of this experience. But, the common, central feature of all of these experiences is a sense on oneness, that all things are contained in a single thing, a sense of union with the universe and/or God and everything in existence.

The fact that these experiences can be induced by drugs and that drugs have their effects by altering the chemistry of the nervous system, has led to the notion that perhaps these experiences are not actually spiritual but rather simply an altered state of the brain produced by drugs or intense spiritual practices. An important observation in this regard is that alterations of the brain can make it more likely that an individual will have a spiritual experience. Spiritual experiences can occur occasionally with epileptic seizures. This may provide clues as to what neural structures are involved in spiritual experiences.

In today’s Research News article “Ecstatic Epileptic Seizures: A Glimpse into the Multiple Roles of the Insula.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1278188525538404/?type=3&theater

or below or view the full text of the study at:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4756129/

Gschwind and Picard review published cases of individuals who report spiritual experiences with the onset of an epileptic seizure. Their review led them to hypothesize that the focal area for the production of spiritual experiences is the insular cortex. This is a large piece pf cerebral cortex that has been enfolded with growth of the cortex and does not appear on the surface. It has been covered and is buried deep inside at the juncture of the parietal, temporal, and frontal lobes. The insula is highly interconnected with a wide variety of other cortical and subcortical areas of the brain. It has been implicated in consciousness and appears to play a role in diverse functions usually linked to emotion or the regulation of the body’s homeostasis. These functions include perception, motor control, self-awareness, cognitive functioning, and interpersonal experience. So, the insula would appear to be well situated to produce and affect higher level experiences.

Gschwind and Picard review cases of spiritual (ecstatic) experiences that occur with epileptic seizures either located in or affecting the activity of the insula. In addition, they review cases where direct electrical stimulation of the insula produce reports of spiritual-like experiences in awake humans. This together with the widespread interconnectivity of the insula and its suspected role in higher conscious experience, makes a case that the insula is the area of the brain that is central to spiritual (ecstatic) experiences.

The reviewed information is highly complex and the conclusions are speculative. They are far from proving the case that the insula is responsible for spiritual (ecstatic) experiences. But, it provides sufficient enticing evidence that further scrutiny of this area and its association to these experiences should be undertaken. It should be mentioned that no area in the brain works alone. Rather complex behaviors and experiences are produced by the joint action of large numbers of areas throughout the brain. So, pointing to the insula only suggests that it may be central to the disparate neural system underlying spiritual (ecstatic) experiences.

That spiritual (ecstatic) experiences can be produced by epileptic seizures and by electrical stimulation of the brain, combined with the fact that drugs that alter brain chemistry can also produce these experiences, suggests that neural systems may underlie all spiritual experiences. This should not be surprising as the experiences are physical in nature, very unusual sensory experiences, but physical experiences nonetheless. So, it should be as no surprise that a physical entity, the brain, may underlie them. It has yet to be conclusively shown, however, the experiences produced by epilepsy, stimulation, or drugs is the same as that reported by mystics and spiritual seekers. This also leaves open the question as to what it is that’s registering and aware of. these experiences. It appears that regardless of what produces them, the underlying awareness registering them is unchanged.

“The anterior insula may be where all manner of feelings, including bodily pleasures and pains; sights, sounds and smells; emotions, expectations and intentions; and even the sense of one’s physical surroundings are integrated into a unified sense of a “self” moving through time.

If this hypothesis is true, then disturbances to the anterior insula would likely cause disturbances to the usual sense of self-awareness.” – Jim Schnabel

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/

Study Summary

Gschwind, M., & Picard, F. (2016). Ecstatic Epileptic Seizures: A Glimpse into the Multiple Roles of the Insula. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 10, 21. http://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00021

Abstract

Ecstatic epileptic seizures are a rare but compelling epileptic entity. During the first seconds of these seizures, ecstatic auras provoke feelings of well-being, intense serenity, bliss, and “enhanced self-awareness.” They are associated with the impression of time dilation, and can be described as a mystic experience by some patients. The functional neuroanatomy of ecstatic seizures is still debated. During recent years several patients presenting with ecstatic auras have been reported by others and us (in total n = 52); a few of them in the setting of presurgical evaluation including electrical brain stimulation. According to the recently recognized functions of the insula, and the results of nuclear brain imaging and electrical stimulation, the ecstatic symptoms in these patients seem to localize to a functional network centered around the anterior insular cortex, where we thus propose to locate this rare ictal phenomenon. Here we summarize the role of the multiple sensory, autonomic, affective, and cognitive functions of the insular cortex, which are integrated into the creation of self-awareness, and we suggest how this system may become dysfunctional on several levels during ecstatic aura.

Adapt to Emotions with Mindfulness

June 29, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“Through mindfulness you can learn to turn your difficult emotions into your greatest teachers and sources of strength. How? Instead of ‘turning away’ from pain in avoidance we can learn to gently ‘turn towards’ what we’re experiencing. We can bring a caring open attention toward the wounded parts of ourselves and make wise choices about how to respond to ourselves and to life.” – Melissa O’Brien

One of the most important effects of mindfulness training is improving emotion regulation. Its importance arises out of the fact that we’re very emotional creatures. Without emotion, life is flat and uninteresting. Emotions provide the spice of life. We are constantly having or reacting to emotions. We often go to great lengths in an attempt to create or keep positive emotions and conversely to avoid, mitigate, or get rid of negative emotions. They are so important to us that they affect mostly everything that we do and say and can even be determinants of life or death. Anger, fear, and hate can lead to murderous consequences. Anxiety and depression can lead to suicide. At the same time love, joy, and happiness can make life worth living. Our emotions also affect us physically with positive emotions associated with health, well-being, and longevity and negative emotions associated with stress, disease, and shorter life spans.

The importance of emotions is only surpassed by our ignorance of them. Our rational side tries to downplay their significance and as a result research studies of emotions are fairly sparse and often ridiculed by politicians. So there is a great need for research on the nature of emotions, their effects, how they are regulated or not, and what factors affect them. One important factor is mindfulness. Research has demonstrated that people either spontaneously high in mindfulness or trained in mindfulness are better able to be completely in touch with their emotions and feel them completely, while being able to respond to them more appropriately and adaptively. In other words, mindful people are better able to experience yet control emotions.

In today’s Research News article “Mechanisms of mindfulness: the dynamics of affective adaptation during open monitoring.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1261033743920549/?type=3&theater

or below.

Uusberg and colleagues investigate the development of emotion regulation with mindfulness practice. It is difficult to measure emotion regulation directly while meditating. But, it can be measured indirectly by recording the electrical responses of the brain to emotional stimuli. In particular, the Late Positive Potential (LPP) has been shown to be sensitive to the intensity of emotional responses. It is a positive going waveform recorded from the brain that occurs between half a second to a second and a half after a picture is presented.

Uusberg and colleagues recruited meditation naïve participants and asked them to view either pictures that were neutral (everyday urban scenes) or that evoked negative emotional reactions (accidents or attacks). They viewed the pictures under three different conditions, an attention condition, where they were asked to pay attention to the details of the pictures, a mindful viewing condition where they were asked to experience “all arising thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations in an accepting manner without trying to change them”, or a distraction condition where they were asked to count backward while viewing the pictures. They then measured the Late Positive Potential (LPP) and how it changed as practice continued.

They found that during mindful viewing the amplitude of the LPP was initially significantly larger than the other conditions when negative images were viewed, suggesting that initially mindful viewing evokes strong emotional responses. But then the response disappeared and the LPP for the neutral and the negative images were equivalent for the mindfulness condition. This elimination of the emotional response in later trials did not occur in the other conditions. This suggests that the mindfulness condition produces an eventual loss of emotional responding.

These results are interesting and suggest that mindfulness meditation initially makes the meditator more sensitive to emotions but with practice becomes insensitive. Since mindfulness meditation requests that the meditator pay attention to their own internal reactions, it is reasonable that the emotional responses would be more vigorous. Over time however, the attention to the emotion responses appear to result in their extinction. This could be seen as simply getting used to it and not responding as before, sometimes called habituation. All of this suggests that the improvement in emotion regulation resulting from meditation is due to an enhancement of the extinction process produced by paying attention to the feelings.

These results also demonstrate how quickly the blunted emotional response occurs, within a brief time at the beginning of meditation practice for beginning meditators. As such, emotion regulation may be one of the earliest effects of mindfulness training. Hence, emotion regulation may make be the basis for later effects such as stress reduction or decreased inflammatory responses. Regardless, the results suggest that you can adapt to emotions with mindfulness and we know that this has profound effects on the health and well-being of the individual.

“This is just what the practice of mindfulness helps us remember. Working with emotions during our meditation sessions sharpens our ability to recognize a feeling just as it begins, not 15 consequential actions later. We can then go on to develop a more balanced relationship with it—neither letting it overwhelm us so we lash out rashly nor ignoring it because we’re afraid or ashamed of it.” – Sharon Salzberg

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

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

Study Summary

Uusberg, Helen, Uusberg, Andero, Talpsep, Teri, Paaver, Marika, Mechanisms of mindfulness: the dynamics of affective adaptation during open monitoring. Biological Psychology http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.05.004

Highlights

Mindfulnessinitially increases and then reduces affective LPP amplification.
There is no affective amplification during re-exposure to mindfully viewed images.
These effects are milder in distraction and attentive-viewing control conditions.
In novices a 3-phase emotional adaptation may account for mindfulness effectiveness.

Abstract

Mindfulness − the nonjudgmental awareness of the present experience − is thought to facilitate affective adaptation through increased exposure to emotions and faster extinction of habitual responses. To test this framework, the amplification of the LatePositive Potential (LPP) by negative relative to neutral images was analyzed across stimulus repetitions while 37 novices performed an open monitoring mindfulness exercise. Compared to two active control conditions where attention was either diverted to a distracting task or the stimuli were attended without mindfulness instructions, open monitoring enhanced the initial LPP response to negative stimuli, indicating increased emotional exposure. Across successive repetitions, mindfulness reduced and ultimately removed the affective LPP amplification, suggesting extinction of habitual emotional reactions. This effect arose from reduced negative as well enlarged neutral LPPs. Unlike stimuli from control conditions, the images previously viewed with mindfulness instructions did not elicit affective LPP amplification during subsequent re-exposure, suggesting reconsolidation of stimulus meaning.

Relieve Depression with Meditation and Exercise

April 27, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“Studies have already suggested that physical activity can play a powerful role in reducing depression; newer, separate research is showing that meditation does, too. Now some exercise scientists and neuroscientists believe there may be a uniquely powerful benefit in combining the two.” – Melissa Dahl

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a severe mood disorder that includes mood dysregulation and cognitive impairment. It is estimated that 16 million adults in the U.S. (6.9% of the population suffered from major depression in the past year and affects females (8.4%) to a great extent than males (5.2%). It is second-leading cause of disability in the world following heart disease. The usual treatment of choice for MDD is drug treatment. In fact, it is estimated that 10% of the U.S. population is taking some form of antidepressant medication. But a substantial proportion of patients (~40%) do not respond to drug treatment. In addition, the drugs can have nasty side effects. So, there is need to explore other treatment options.

It has been shown that aerobic exercise can help to relieve depression. But, depressed individuals lack energy and motivation and it is difficult to get them to exercise regularly. As a result, aerobic exercise has not been used very often as a treatment. Recently, it has become clear that mindfulness practices are effective for the relief of major depressive disorder and as a preventative measure to discourage relapses. Mindfulness can be used as a stand-alone treatment or in combination with drugs. It is even effective when drugs fail to relieve the depression.

As yet there has been no attempt to combine aerobic exercise and mindfulness training for major depressive disorder. It is possible that mindfulness practice may improve depression sufficiently to energize the individual to engage in aerobic exercise. So, the combination may be uniquely beneficial. In today’s Research News article “MAP training: combining meditation and aerobic exercise reduces depression and rumination while enhancing synchronized brain activity”

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http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v6/n2/full/tp2015225a.html

Alderman and colleagues employ a combination of 20 minutes of minutes of sitting meditation followed immediately by 10 minutes of walking meditation with 30 minutes of aerobic exercise either on a treadmill or stationary bicycle. They tested the impact of this combination on a group of adults with major depressive disorder and a group of healthy non-depressed individuals.

They found that the treatment reduced depression in both groups but to a much greater extent with the depressed patients, reducing it by 40%. The treatment also reduced ruminative thinking in both groups. They also found that the combined aerobic exercise and mindfulness training changed the brains response to a cognitive task. After training there was a larger N2 (negative response) observed in the brains evoked electrical activity (ERP) and a larger P3 (positive response) in the ERP in response to the cognitive task.

The P3 response in the evoked potential (ERP) occurs around a quarter of a second following the stimulus presentation. It is a positive change that is maximally measured over the central frontal lobe. The P3 response has been associated with the engagement of attention. So, the P3 response is often used as a measure of brain attentional processing with the larger the positive change the greater the attentional focus. The N2 response in the evoked potential (ERP) generally precedes the P3 response. It is a negative change that is maximally measured over the frontal lobe. The N2 response has been associated with the engagement of attention to a new or novel stimulus. So, the N2 response is often used as a measure of brain attentional processing with the large the negative changes an indication of greater discrimination of new stimuli.

The findings indicate that the combination training improves brain electrical activity indicators of attention and stimulus discrimination during a cognitive task. It was also found that the size of the N2 response was negatively related to the amount of decrease in ruminative thought. Ruminative thought which requires attention to memories of the past and attention to the present cannot occur at the same time. So, by improving attention the training appeared to improve attention to the present and thereby decrease rumination which is a major contributor to the depressed state.

These are interesting and exciting results that suggest that the combination of mindfulness and aerobic exercise training may be a potent and effective treatment for major depressive disorder. This is particularly important as aerobic exercise and mindfulness training both have many other physical and psychological benefits and have minimal side effects. They may, in part, be effective by improving attention and thereby decreasing rumination in depressed patients. Given the design of the present study it is not possible to determine if the combination is more effective the either component alone or the sum of their independent effectiveness. Future research should address this issue.

So, relieve depression with meditation and exercise.

“We know these therapies can be practiced over a lifetime and that they will be effective in improving mental and cognitive health. The good news is that this intervention can be practiced by anyone at any time and at no cost.” – Brandon Alderman

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Study Summary

B L Alderman, R L Olson, C J Brush and T J Shors. MAP training: combining meditation and aerobic exercise reduces depression and rumination while enhancing synchronized brain activity. Translational Psychiatry (2016) 6, e726; doi:10.1038/tp.2015.225. Published online 2 February 2016

Abstract

Mental and physical (MAP) training is a novel clinical intervention that combines mental training through meditation and physical training through aerobic exercise. The intervention was translated from neuroscientific studies indicating that MAP training increases neurogenesis in the adult brain. Each session consisted of 30 min of focused-attention (FA) meditation and 30 min of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise. Fifty-two participants completed the 8-week intervention, which consisted of two sessions per week. Following the intervention, individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD; n=22) reported significantly less depressive symptoms and ruminative thoughts. Typical healthy individuals (n=30) also reported less depressive symptoms at follow-up. Behavioral and event-related potential indices of cognitive control were collected at baseline and follow-up during a modified flanker task. Following MAP training, N2 and P3 component amplitudes increased relative to baseline, especially among individuals with MDD. These data indicate enhanced neural responses during the detection and resolution of conflicting stimuli. Although previous research has supported the individual beneficial effects of aerobic exercise and meditation for depression, these findings indicate that a combination of the two may be particularly effective in increasing cognitive control processes and decreasing ruminative thought patterns.

http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v6/n2/full/tp2015225a.html

Alter the Sleeping Brain with Meditation

April 5, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“A simple meditation for sleep . . . is to focus on the breath while lying in bed as you are preparing to go to sleep. Follow the breath moving into and out of the body. As you are being aware of the breath just allow yourself to sink into the bed with each breath. . . . By taking this mindful attitude, sleep is facilitated by simply being aware of the moment-to-moment experience of relaxing into the bed, without judging or being critical of that experience, so that the mind can gently slip into sleep.” – John Cline

We spend about a third of our lives in sleep, but, we know very little about it. It is known that sleep is not a unitary phenomenon. Rather, it involves several different states that can be characterized by differences in physiological activation, neural activity, and subjective experiences. In the waking state the nervous system shows EEG activity that is termed low voltage fast activity. The electrical activity recorded from the scalp is rapidly changing but only with very small size waves. When we close our eyes and relax the heart rate and blood pressure decline and muscles relax. In this state the EEG shows a characteristic waveform known as the alpha rhythm, which is a large change in voltage recorded that oscillates at a rate of 8 to 12 cycles per second. Subjectively, the mind slows down and often day dreaming occurs.

When sleep first occurs, the individual enters into a stage called slow-wave sleep, sometimes called non-REM sleep. The heart rate and blood pressure decline even further and the muscles become very soft and relaxed. In this state the EEG shows a characteristic waveform known as the theta rhythm, which is a large change in voltage recorded that oscillates at a rate of 4 to 8 cycles per second. Subjectively, the mind enters into a state of slow and distorted experiences. It is here that nightmares can occur. As the individual goes even deeper into sleep something remarkable happens as the individual enters into rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep). Here the muscles become extremely inhibited and flaccid, but the eyes move rapidly under the closed eyelids as if the individual was looking around. At the same time the heart rate and blood pressure increase and become very variable and sometimes very high. Subjectively this is where elaborate dreams occur.

It has been shown that mindfulness training, including meditation practice, affects sleep and tends to improve sleep and reduce insomnia. In today’s Research News article “Short Meditation Trainings Enhance Non-REM Sleep Low-Frequency Oscillations”

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Or see below or see full text at:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0148961

Dentico and colleagues investigate the effects of long-term meditation on the electrical activity of the brain (EEG) during sleep. They recorded the EEG during sleep before and after 2-days of intensive meditation. They found that after meditation, the EEG activity over the frontal and parietal cortical areas increased in power in the alpha and theta rhythm range of 1-12 cycles per second (Hertz). The more experience that the participants had with meditation the larger the increase in the EEG power during sleep following the meditation. These results suggest that long-term meditation practice changes the nervous system making it more sensitive to the effects of meditation on sleep.

Other research has demonstrated that long-term meditation practice produces increases in the size, activity, and connectivity of the frontal and parietal regions. So, the finding that EEG power increases during sleep in these areas as a result of long-term meditation makes sense. It is not known, however, exactly what the increased EEG power indicates. But, it can be speculated that is may indicate deeper sleep in non-REM, slow-wave, sleep. Perhaps enhancing subjective experiences during this phase of sleep. This would fit with the improvements in sleep seen in meditators. It remains for future research to test these speculations and determine exactly what meditation does to the sleeping brain and the subjective experiences of the dreamer.

Regardless of the merits of this speculation, it is clear that meditation alters the sleeping brain.

“there are whole-health benefits to the practice of mindfulness, wherein every aspect of health stands to gain. A healthier you is likely to sleep better, and a better-sleeping you is likely to be healthier.” – Michael Breus

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Study Summary

Dentico D, Ferrarelli F, Riedner BA, Smith R, Zennig C, Lutz A, et al. (2016) Short Meditation Trainings Enhance Non-REM Sleep Low-Frequency Oscillations. PLoS ONE 11(2): e0148961. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0148961

Abstract

STUDY OBJECTIVES: We have recently shown higher parietal-occipital EEG gamma activity during sleep in long-term meditators compared to meditation-naive individuals. This gamma increase was specific for NREM sleep, was present throughout the entire night and correlated with meditation expertise, thus suggesting underlying long-lasting neuroplastic changes induced through prolonged training. The aim of this study was to explore the neuroplastic changes acutely induced by 2 intensive days of different meditation practices in the same group of practitioners. We also repeated baseline recordings in a meditation-naive cohort to account for time effects on sleep EEG activity.

DESIGN: High-density EEG recordings of human brain activity were acquired over the course of whole sleep nights following intervention.

SETTING: Sound-attenuated sleep research room.

PATIENTS OR PARTICIPANTS: Twenty-four long-term meditators and twenty-four meditation-naïve controls.

INTERVENTIONS: Two 8-h sessions of either a mindfulness-based meditation or a form of meditation designed to cultivate compassion and loving kindness, hereafter referred to as compassion meditation.

MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: We found an increase in EEG low-frequency oscillatory activities (1-12 Hz, centered around 7-8 Hz) over prefrontal and left parietal electrodes across whole night NREM cycles. This power increase peaked early in the night and extended during the third cycle to high-frequencies up to the gamma range (25-40 Hz). There was no difference in sleep EEG activity between meditation styles in long-term meditators nor in the meditation naïve group across different time points. Furthermore, the prefrontal-parietal changes were dependent on meditation life experience.

CONCLUSIONS: This low-frequency prefrontal-parietal activation likely reflects acute, meditation-related plastic changes occurring during wakefulness, and may underlie a top-down regulation from frontal and anterior parietal areas to the posterior parietal and occipital regions showing chronic, long-lasting plastic changes in long-term meditators.

Improve Mind-Body Connection with Mindfulness

March 17, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life.” – Sarah Lazar

The mind and body are intrinsically intertwined. The old distinction between mind and body has been shown to be a false distinction. The brain, the organ of the mind, also controls the physiology, while the activity of the physiology affects the brain. So, mind and body are interconnected. Hence, mind practices should also affect the physiology just as physiological changes affect the mind.

Contemplative practices have been shown to influence both the mind, brain, and the physiology. Among the many physiological effects of contemplative practices are alterations of the cardiovascular system, producing reductions in heart rate, heart rate variability, and blood pressure. Contemplative practices have also been shown to alter the nervous system changing the size, activity, and connectivity of brain structures. These changes can be measured in many ways, but a convenient and inexpensive non-invasive method to document changes in brain activity is by recording the electrical activity of the nervous system from the scalp, known as the electroencephalograph or EEG. Indeed, the changes in brain activity produced by contemplative practices can be seen in the EEG.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was one of the first contemplative practices to be applied to improving human well-being. It is an amalgam of practices, including meditation, yoga, and body scan. It has been shown to be beneficial for cardiovascular function and to change neural activity. One way to look at the integration of mind-body activity is to measure the relationship between brain activity and cardiovascular activity over time. In today’s Research News article “Entrainment of chaotic activities in brain and heart during MBSR meditation”

Harvard neuroscientist: Meditation not only reduces stress, here’s how it changes your brain

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/05/26/harvard-neuroscientist-meditation-not-only-reduces-stress-it-literally-changes-your-brain/

Gao and colleagues investigated the effects of an 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training program on the coordination of electrical activity from the nervous system (EEG) with the electrical activity from the heart (Electrocardiogram, ECG). The EEG and ECG were recorded during 10-minutes of mindful breathing both before and after MBSR training.

They measured the chaotic nature of the activity in both the EEG and ECG employing a measure of wavelet entropy. This measure documents the unpredictability and random nature of the signals. They found that after MBSR training there was a reduction in the entropy of both the brain waves, EEG, and the heart electrical activity, ECG. This demonstrates that MBSR training results in reduced variability and randomness of the electrical activities of both the heart and brain. Significantly, they found that the entropy of the EEG and EKG were highly correlated as a result of MBSR training. That is, the lower the entropy of the EEG, the lower the entropy of that ECG. In other words, as the brain activity became less chaotic, so did the activity of the heart. They were coordinated.

One way that Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training might produce these effects on the level of entropy and its coordination of the heart and brain activities is by its effects on the autonomic nervous system. This system has two roughly opposing systems, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Sympathetic activation tends in activate the heart and brain while parasympathetic activity tends to reduce activation of both. If these two systems oppose one another instead of acting in a coordinated fashion, then greater variability of the EEG and ECG would be expected. MBSR has been shown to reduce the activity of the sympathetic nervous system both centrally and peripherally and increase parasympathetic activity. The current results, then, could well have occurred by MBSR producing better coordination of the balance of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) appears to improve the coordination between the mind and body. This is emphasized in the body scan and yoga components of MBSR where attention to sensations from the body is emphasized. It is also emphasized during meditation as a result of learning to attend to the sensations associated with breathing. So, MBSR would seem well suited to increasing the coordination of mind and body. Today’s Research News results support this idea.

So, improve mind-body connection with mindfulness.

“We can intentionally shape the direction of plasticity changes in our brain. By focusing on wholesome thoughts, for example, and directing our intentions in those ways, we can potentially influence the plasticity of our brains and shape them in ways that can be beneficial.” – Richie Davidson

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Change Brain Activity in Depression with Mindfulness

March 16, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“Skeptics, of course, may ask what good are a few brain changes if the psychological effects aren’t simultaneously being illustrated? Luckily, there’s good evidence for those as well, with studies reporting that meditation helps relieve our subjective levels of anxiety and depression, and improve attention, concentration, and overall psychological well-being.” – Alice Walton

In the last few decades, scientists have discovered that the brain is far more malleable than previously thought. Areas in the brain can change, either increase or decrease in size, connectivity, and activity in response to changes in our environment or the behaviors we engage in. This process is referred to as neuroplasticity. The nervous system is constantly changing and adapting to the environment. For example, the brain area that controls the right index finger has been found to be larger in blind subjects who use braille than in sighted individuals. Similarly, cab drivers in London who navigate the twisting streets of the city, have a larger hippocampus, which is involved in spatial navigation, than predefined route bus drivers. Hence experience changes size, activity, and connectivity of the brain. These changes in the brain are called neuroplasticity.

Over the last decade neuroscience has studied the effects of contemplative practices on the brain and has demonstrated that these practices produce neuroplastic changes in widespread areas. Indeed, mindfulness practices have been shown to not only alter how we think and feel but also to alter the nervous system, producing changes in the size, activity, and connectivity of specific structures and systems in the nervous system. Depression has been shown to also involve changes to the nervous system and is significantly improved by mindfulness practices. As a result of mindfulness practices’ ability to alter the brain and relieve depression, these practices have been incorporated into various psychotherapies for depression.

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) was specifically developed to treat depression. It has been shown to be remarkably effective. Putting all these pieces together, it would seem likely that MBCT relieves depression by altering neural systems. In today’s Research News article “Multi-dimensional modulations of α and γ cortical dynamics following mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in Major Depressive Disorder”

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4454126/

Schoenberg and Speckens investigated changes in brain activity produced by MBCT using sophisticated techniques to explore the electrical activity that can be recorded from various regions of the scalp (Electroencephalogram, EEG). They compared patients with major depressive disorder who were randomly assigned to receive 8-weeks of group Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) or treatment as usual, waitlist control. They found that MBCT treatment produced clinically significant improvements in depressive symptoms, self-compassion, over identification with painful thoughts and feelings, and mindfulness. This is not surprising, and replicates the well-established finding that MBCT is highly effective in treating depression.

They recorded the EEG of both groups while they performed a Go/NoGo task. Performance on this task has been shown to be deficient in depressed patients and indicates deficient executive function. They found that MBCT significantly downregulated α and γ power in the electrical activity of the brain. This indicates that there was and increase the excitability of the cerebral cortex. This is generally associated with greater positive mood and decreased negative emotions. This suggests that MBCT may relive depression by its effects on the neural systems underlying the depressed mood.

They also found an enhancement of the α-desynchronisation occurring in response to the Go/NoGo task when negative material was presented, but decreased α-desynchronisation when positive material was presented. This suggests that MBCT activates the neural networks underlying positive emotion. These are the systems that are usually relatively inactive in depression. This again suggests that MBCT may relieve depression by enhancing the activity of neural systems responsible for positive mood, thus working in opposition to the negative mood so characteristic of depression.

Finally, they found that MBCT increased intra-hemispheric α-coherence of the fronto-parietal circuit. This coherence has been shown to be related to improved attention and reduced mind wandering. In depression, mind wandering is highly related to rumination which tends to reinforce and support the depressed state. This suggests that MBCT may relive depression by enhancing the coherence of neural systems responsible for attention, thus inhibiting the mind wandering and rumination so characteristic of depression.

Hence the present study found evidence for changed electrical dynamics in the cortex of depressed patients following Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). The changes that were observed reflect changed processing of emotional information and attention, such that positive mood was enhanced, negative mood was reduced, and mind wandering and rumination decreased. All of these processes tend to counteract depression and may at least in part be responsible for the effectiveness of MBCT in treating depression.

So, change brain activity in depression with mindfulness.

“Being in the present moment, accepting what is, without wanting to change or interpret it, will greatly enhance emotional well-being, leading to healthier thinking patterns that will touch and better every other aspects of your life.” – Jonathan Banks

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Shape the Brain to Improve Attention with Meditation

March 10, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“Regular meditators activated fewer brain regions than non-meditators in order to achieve the same performance during an attentional task. This is evidence that meditation training can increase brain efficiency in attention and impulse control.” – Elisa Kozasa

One of the primary effects of meditation training is an improvement in the ability to pay attention to the task at hand and ignore interfering stimuli. This is an important consequence of meditation training and produces improvements in thinking, reasoning, and creativity. These improvements are known to occur due to the effects of meditation training on the brain. It appears That meditation increases the size, connectivity, and activity of areas of the brain that are involved in paying attention.

A common method to study the activity of the nervous system is to measure the electrical signal at the scalp above brain regions. Changes in this activity are measurable with mindfulness training. One method to observe information processing in the brain is to measure the changes in the electrical activity that occur in response to specific stimuli. These are called evoked potentials or ERPs. The signal following a stimulus changes over time. The fluctuations of the signal after specific periods of time are thought to measure different aspects of the nervous system’s processing of the stimulus.

In today’s Research News article “Event-related potential correlates of mindfulness meditation competence”

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Atchley and colleagues measure the P3 and N2 responses in naive, novice (less than 1000 hours of experience), or experienced (more than 5000 hours of experience) meditators in an attempt to measure the effects of amount of meditation practice on brain function. The participants listened to a series of tones. ERPs were measured under two conditions. In the first condition they were asked to push a button whenever and infrequent high-pitched tome occurred. In the second condition they meditated by counting breaths and were asked to ignore the tones.

They found that all groups had lower P3 responses in the breath counting condition, but both groups of meditators had greater reductions in the response than the naïve participants. This suggested that meditation training improves the ability to screen out distracting or irrelevant stimuli. Meditators also had a greater reduction in N2 amplitude than the naïve group in the breath counting condition. This suggests that meditation training improves the ability to react less to new stimuli and thereby have an improved ability to ignore new stimuli and not react to novelty.

It is interesting that no differences were found between novice and experienced meditators. But, their definition of a novice meditator as having less than 1000 hours of experience may actually have produced a group of fairly experienced meditators as the novice group averaged 2.4 years of meditation experience. Perhaps with a less experienced group, differences with experienced meditators may have been seen.

Regardless, the results demonstrate that meditation reshapes the brain to improve the ability to pay attention to the task at hand and ignore irrelevant and/or distracting information. So, shape the brain to improve attention with meditation.

“To cultivate attention, it is sufficient to rely on one basic principle: return again and again to what is already there. Our body knows how to sit straight. Our breath knows how to flow naturally. Our mind and our hearts already know how to rest. In this practice, we simply allow them to do that. Whenever there is a disturbance, we return to what is already there.” – Ken McLeod

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies