Meditation & Brain

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Therapy (MBSR) is a meditation program developed by John Kabat-Zinn and researchers at Harvard Medical School to help people living with chronic pain. Central to this form of meditation is a focus on the breath to bring the mind back to the present moment when it wanders off. Over time, this leads to greater conscious control over attentional focus, such that more primitive alarm responses are less able to control our thoughts and behaviors.The final goal of the meditation training is to integrate present-moment awareness into every aspect of daily life.

Research over the past 10 years or so has begun to show how meditation may change the brain and improve mental and physical well being.

Improved Immune Response

A 2003 study by Richard Davidson and colleagues, with healthy employees, showed that 8 weeks of meditation practice changed the pattern of electrical activity in the brain. There was greater activation in the left hemisphere among meditators than people assessed at the same time who did not have meditation training (control group). The researchers also looked at immune response to an influenza vaccine and found that the meditator group had more antibody titers to the vaccine than the control group, indicating better immune functioning. These benefits lasted for months after the intervention.

Changes in the Brain's Grey Matter

A more recent controlled study showed that meditation was associated with increased grey matter in the hippocampus, which is responsible for learning and memory, and decreased grey matter in the amygdala, which is the initiator of the brain's pre-cortical alarm system. These physiological changes parallel the theory that meditation increases conscious control over emotional, behavioral, and attentional response to threat.

Reduced Pain Sensitivity

Researchers are also beginning to show that meditation can change the way we experience pain. Chris Brown and colleagues at the University of Manchester showed that a Mindfulness Meditation course led to less unusual activity in areas of the prefrontal cortex when subjects expected to receive a painful stimulus (such as a small elecric shock or contact with a hot object). Those who meditated reported finding the pain less unpleasant as well.

Shift From Negative to Positive Affect

Patients in another mindfulness study demonstrated significantly greater changes in brain electrical activity from activation in the right to the left cortical  hemisphere, from before to immediately following meditation and several months later, compared to a control group. This pattern of brain activity is associated with a shift away from negative and towards more positive emotional experience. In other words, mindfulness meditation regimen appeared to help people to experience more positive emotions such as love, compassion, or contentment.

Does a Briefer Intervention Work?

One reason why people resist meditating is the time it takes. The original protocol involved eight weeks of mindfulness training sessions plus 45 minutes a day of at-home practice. At the beginning, many people find it difficult to sustain attention on the breath for that length of time. Logistical and time considerations make patients more hesitant to sign up or result in dropout. A briefer intervention that could be used more widely in hospital, employee wellness, and outpatient mental health settings might be more cost-effective and palatable to patients.

A very recent study published in the journal Psychological Science shows that a briefer meditation protocol cal produce similar changes in cortical activity. Researcher Christopher Moyer and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Stout assigned subjects at random to either a 5-week Mindfulness Meditation group or to a group put on a waiting list for services. Data showed people in the meditation group practiced at home a couple of times a week for about 25 minutes each time, on average. These meditation subjects showed the same changes in cortical activity as those who got the full intervention in earlier studies; that is, a significant increase in left hemisphere cortical activation. The waiting list group did not demonstrate these changes. This is an exciting finding, since it suggests even shorter meditation periods can significantly increase positive emotional experience in the brain.

Below are some instructions for a basic breath awareness meditation. Do this once or twice a day for 2 weeks and observe what happens. There is no right or wrong way to do it. Try to accept whatever your individual experience is.

Simple Breath Awareness Meditation Instructions

• Pick a comfortable, quiet place where you will not be disturbed
• Sit with the spine upright on a cushion on the floor or a chair. If you use a chair, make sure your feet are touching the ground.
• Begin to notice your breathing. Try to maintain an open and curious attitude. Notice where the breath goes when it enters and leaves your body.
• Do not try to change the breath in any way. It may change naturally as you observe it.
• If your mind wanders away, note what it is doing, than gently bring your attention back to the breath.
•  Continue observing the breath for 15-20 minutes.

Quieting the Monkey Mind with Meditation

In meditation circles you'll often hear the term "monkey mind." The "monkey" refers to how our primate relatives are able to swing from one branch to another with awe-inspiring skill. Similarly, our minds bounce from one idea to another, but rather than inspire awe, the activity often fills us with anxiety. Our thoughts sway from fear on one end to desire on the other, and we can rarely focus on either for very long.

Meditation quiets the monkey mind. While there are probably as many types of meditation as there are things to fear and wish for, all techniques are based on a system of repetition and focus. In this post, I'll provide simple steps to start a meditative practice right away.

The Set-up

Although some meditative traditions have very strict rules regarding how your posture should appear, what you should wear, and what your environment should look like, I like to keep things simple. In my private therapy practice and in mindfulness workshops, I teach participants that their meditative environment and their bodily alignment should support their ability to maintain focus. How that appears is different for every individual. But if you're looking for guidelines, I recommend that you find a comfortable space where you can relax. Quiet places are best for beginners. Next, sit in a chair or on a cushion and maintain an upright position that keeps your spine straight. If you sit in a chair, using a back support is fine if you need it.

Meditation Two-Step

The first technique is what I call the, "I am peaceful" meditation. Here you'll repeat a mantra, which is a word or phrase that follows your breathing patterns. By paying attention to your inhales and exhales, your breathing naturally slows down.

The "I am peaceful" practice is as follows:

1. While inhaling, say to yourself "I am" 
2. While exhaling, say to yourself "peaceful"

If you've never done this before, you'll quickly realize that focusing on "I am peaceful" is easier said than done. You'll find your thoughts headed down memory lane or shifting into the future. Your body may fidget as if a can of worms suddenly opened up in your back pocket. When this happens, which is inevitable, just return to your mantra. When the monkey mind distracts you, use both your breath and the "I am peaceful" phrase as anchors to draw you back to the present practice.

Take the Kind and Gentle Approach

Remember,meditation is a practice that develops focus and it does this through relaxing the body and mind. If your mind wanders, don't be critical of yourself. Harsh words are anything but relaxing, which defeats the purpose of this act of self-care. Even if your mind wanders, you'll still feel the effects of meditation. It takes time and patience, but with consistency, staying focused will become easier and easier. Over time, you'll be rewarded with a peace that surpasses all understanding.

Mindfulness & Physical Suffering

We'd like to be forever free from physical discomfort, but we're in bodies and they get injured, sick, and old. The good news is that the Buddha prescribed some medicine—mindfulness—to help ease that physical discomfort. Mindfulness is not a miracle pill, but it is a miracle practice, meaning that, over time, we can learn to respond skillfully to the inevitable physical suffering that comes with being in bodies.

Bodily discomfort has three components:

1.       The unpleasant physical sensation itself (pain, aching muscles, fatigue).

2.       Our emotional reaction to that discomfort (anger, frustration, fear).

3.       The thoughts that are triggered by the discomfort (the stress-filled stories we spin that have little basis in reality, such as, "This pain will never go away," "I'll never be happy again," "I've ruined my partner's life").

Note that two of the three components that make up our experience of bodily discomfort are mental in origin! These two mental components are often referred to as "mental suffering." They can make our physical suffering worse because mental reactions are felt in the body.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the practice of paying careful attention to what is happening in the present moment, whether it be a sight, a sound, a taste, a smell, a sensation in the body, or mental cognition (this latter includes emotions and thoughts). Mindfulness is called a practice because it takes practice: our minds tend to dwell in the past and the future.

You don't need to be meditating to practice mindfulness. Right now, stop and take three or four conscious breaths, feeling the physical sensation of the breath as it comes in and goes out of your body. There. You've just practiced mindfulness!

Notice that while you were engaging in this conscious breathing, your mind wasn't dwelling in the past or the future. You may have been aware of a sound, a smell, a bodily sensation other than the breath, an emotion, a thought. Meticulous attention to whatever is happening in the present moment is the essence of mindfulness. The sensation of the breath is often used as an anchor because breathing is always present in the moment.

How can mindfulness help ease physical suffering?

With practice, mindfulness calms and steadies the mind. This is beneficial because when we're experiencing physical discomfort, our minds often churn with stressful emotions and thoughts, but they're a muddy blur—we can't sort them out. With mindfulness, the "mud" settles so we can see more clearly which allows us to identify what emotions and thoughts are present in our minds at the moment. "Ah, this is anger." "This is fear." "This is a worry-filled thought about the future." With this clearer view, we can make skillful choices about how to respond to these emotions and thoughts—choices that will lessen our overall suffering.

Stressful emotions. Our habitual reaction to physical discomfort is some form of resistance and aversion, such as frustration or anger. By practicing mindfulness, we can counter that habitual response with one that's more skillful.

For example, if we're in pain, aversion in the form of frustration may arise. We have two choices. We can let that habitual response brew and get stronger; this not only increases our mental suffering, but it often increases our physical pain because the muscles surrounding the pain tighten in response to our frustration. Or, we can respond to our frustration by mindfully acknowledging it and beginning to incline our minds toward kindness and compassion for ourselves. (After all, who doesn't get frustrated at times?)

Once we begin to treat ourselves with kindness, we can calmly and gently examine the actual physical sensation. It's not a solid block of discomfort. We may feel waves of sensations, some of which may even be pleasant. We may notice some heat, some pulsating, some tingling. Using mindfulness to examine physical sensations reveals their ever-changing nature. This helps break up the sense that our whole being is only the discomfort.

Having noticed that the physical sensation keeps changing, we can reflect that our frustration is impermanent too. It arose but it will pass. This recognition alone weakens its grip on us.

Stressful thought patterns. At a meditation retreat in the 1990s, the Buddhist nun, Ayya Khema, told us, "Most thoughts are just rubbish, but we believe them anyway." Becoming mindfully aware of the stories we spin about our physical discomfort quiets and steadies the mind so that the "mud" settles and we can see the thoughts more clearly. Then we have a choice. We can continue to blindly believe them or we can calmly assess their validity. Are you absolutely sure you'll never be happy again or that you've ruined your partner's life? Early on in my own illness, I believed both these thoughts, neither of which turned out to be true.

Letting go of stress-filled stories that have little or no basis in fact is a tremendous relief. A smile might even appear on your face as you acknowledge the convoluted stories the mind can spin. As Buddhist teacher, Jack Kornfield, likes to say, "The mind has no shame."

Mindfulness calms and steadies the mind so we can respond more skillfully to stressful emotions and thoughts. This, in turn, eases our physical suffering because we're not adding mental suffering to it. As the wonderfully blunt Zen teacher, Joko Beck, said: "What makes life so frightening is that we let ourselves be carried away in the garbage of our whirling minds. We don't have to do that."

Mindfulness is the best medicine for not doing that.

Body Sense

What is Body Sense?    

Did you ever feel as if you lost touch with your body? Perhaps you developed a pain in your lower back or neck but you could not remember that you did anything that might have caused it. Maybe you started feeling ill at ease in situations that before felt comfortable. Or you gained weight without really noticing the increase until your clothes didn't fit.

These and other physical and mental afflictions - headaches, digestive troubles, depressive symptoms, lethargic feelings, aching joints, frequent colds and flus - are particularly annoying because they appear to creep up on us without prior warning. One day we are just fine and the next day, or so it seems, we don't feel so good.

The biological truth is that all of these things take a while, sometimes months or years, to grow within our bodies. The cells of the immune, digestive, muscular, metabolic, and nervous systems have to grow in ways that lead to these symptoms and biological growth takes time. The psychological truth is that we failed to notice these physiological changes in our bodies until they reached a level of damage to our systems that sent off the red flags of pain, distress, and discomfort. By that time, it might be too late to avoid medical intervention or other costly treatments. And the medical truth is that many of these ailments can't be easily or readily treated.

Our bodies, however, have the capability to sense potentially harmful physiological growth processes long before they reach these critical and dangerous levels. Not only that, research shows that people who pick up on and respond to these early warning signals from their bodies are considerably less likely to develop the debilitating physical and mental health conditions mentioned above. This research also shows that the common underlying cause of many of these conditions is a lack of body sense.

Body sense is the ability to pay attention to ourselves, to feel our sensations, emotions, and movements on-line, in the present moment, without the mediating influence of judgmental thoughts. In fact, whenever those thoughts come into our awareness - thoughts like: Am I sick or just lazy? How did I get so fat? Does my life really matter to anyone? - we immediately go off line from our body sense.

Both the body sense and thoughts about ourselves are forms of self-awareness but they are fundamentally different. The body sense is more technically called embodied self-awareness. It is composed of sensations like warm, tingly, soft, nauseated, dizzy; emotions such as happy, sad, threatened; and other body senses like feeling the coordination (or lack of coordination) between the arms and legs while swimming, or sensing our shape and size (fat or thin), and sensing our location relative to objects and other people. Thoughts about the self are called conceptual self-awareness. The table below gives a summary of the differences.

Conceptual Self-Awareness         Embodied Self-Awareness

Based in language                           Based in sensing, feeling, and acting

Rational, explanatory                        Spontaneous, open to change

Abstract                                             Concrete, in the moment

Notice that embodied self-awareness occurs in the "present moment" while conceptual self-awareness is abstract and distant from the present moment. You can experience the difference by taking a few minutes right now. First, think about how you feel and have been feeling today and the past few days. What thoughts come to mind? You'll find it is fairly easy to generate a long list of self-descriptions in conceptual self-awareness.

Instead of trying to think about yourself, accessing embodied self-awareness is a bit like meditating on yourself. Sit or lie down in a comfortable place, remove any distractions that might disturb you. This works best if there is relative silence. Close your eyes. Here it starts to get more difficult. See if you can slow your thoughts long enough to feel something concrete right in the present moment. It doesn't really matter what you feel, so long as it captures your attention long enough for you to feel it: the hardness or softness of the surface on which you are lying or sitting, the texture of your clothing, a smell, a sound, or even an emotion that wants to surface. See how long you can stay with that sensation and see if you can "go into" it to explore how it makes you feel. Notice what else happens in your body. See how long you can follow these sensations and feelings and where they lead you.

6 Other Reasons to Meditate

Meditation isn't just for relaxing. Here are six other benefits.

Why meditate? Outside of religious contexts, the most common reason is stress management. But as these latest research findings demonstrate, meditation is much more than just a relaxation technique. Here are a half-dozen more good reasons to take up meditation.

To enhance concentration

Meditation has an undeserved reputation for being esoteric and difficult to learn. In truth, it's really nothing more than the practice of focusing the mind intently on a particular thing or activity. It seems logical that regular meditation would hone a person's powers of concentration, and a recent study in the Journal of Neuroscience found just that. In the study, three months of intensive meditation training led to improvements in attentional stability - the ability to sustain attention without frequent lapses.

To lower blood pressure

Research suggests that meditation may help lower blood pressure. In a study published in the American Journal of Hypertension, 298 college students were randomly assigned to either a Transcendental Meditation (TM) group or a waiting list (control) group. The study found that TM helped the students decrease psychological distress and increase coping ability. More interestingly, in a subgroup of students at risk for high blood pressure later in life, these changes were associated with a reduction in blood pressure. That's heartening news, because young adults with even slight elevations in blood pressure have a three times greater risk of developing full-blown high blood pressure within the next 30 years.

To improve Sleep

Research indicates that meditation may help fight insomnia. In a study from India's National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, researchers looked at how sleep was affected by vipassana meditation. This form of meditation involves focusing the mind on mental and physical processes in order to develop insight. The study included 105 healthy men between the ages of 30 and 60. Half were experienced vipassana meditators, and half had no experience with any type of meditation. The meditators showed enhanced slow wave (deep) sleep and REM sleep across all age groups. In contrast, the non-meditators showed a pronounced decline in slow wave sleep with age, a sign of declining sleep quality in the older men.

To manage pain

One of the best-studied medical uses of meditation is for helping manage chronic pain. The form of meditation often employed for this purpose is mindfulness meditation, which involves fully focusing on whatever is being experienced from moment to moment. The idea is to take note of the here-and-now experience without judging or reacting to it. For chronic pain sufferers, mindfulness may help them notice and accept their pain without becoming anxious and panicky, which just makes the pain worse. However, a study from the University of Montreal suggests that long-term practice of mindfulness meditation may also lead to physical changes in the brain that directly affect pain perception. The study matched 17 expert meditators with non-meditators of the same age and gender. Structural MRI brain scans showed that the meditators had a thicker cortex in certain pain-related areas of the brain. This cortical thickening was associated with lower pain sensitivity.

To live longer

Meditation may influence not only quality of life, but also quantity. Three converging lines of research explain why. One, meditation may help counter the body's stress response and all the physical wear and tear that goes along with chronic stress. Two, meditation may help slow aging by decreasing oxidative stress - cellular damage caused by highly reactive molecules known as free radicals. Several studies have linked meditation to reductions in various measures of oxidative stress. There is also evidence of enhanced activity by antioxidants - molecules that defend the body against free radicals - during meditation. Three, meditation may help fight chronic inflammation throughout the body, which contributes to diseases as diverse as obesity, atherosclerosis, diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer's disease. Research indicates that meditation can dampen several inflammatory processes.

To connect with others

Meditation might seem like the ultimate in self-absorption. But at least one form of meditation, known as loving-kindness meditation, also seems to help build a sense of social connectedness. In loving-kindness meditation, the mind is sharply focused on compassionate feelings and well wishes that are directed toward real or imagined others. A study in the journalEmotion found that just a few minutes of this form of meditation practice increased positive, connected feelings toward strangers.

 

Meditation & Sleep

It is a known fact that lack of sleep makes us feel fatigued and tired.  If you don’t sleep or have enough sleep, you will eventually see yourself feeling easily irritated, your mind will not be clear and you can suffer from insomnia. With inadequate sleep your health will gradually fail and your productivity will be low. Stress, worry and depression are the main causes of sleeplessness. If you find yourself experiencing any of these then you need meditation for sleep.

Sleeping well will help your cells repair and reproduce themselves, your aging process will slow down and your body will heal itself automatically from conditions that will break you down if not attended to. Meditation is a great tool for better sleep and there are many different ways to meditate for sleep. You can use guided meditation, breathing meditation, mindfulness meditation and progressive muscle relaxation. There are many other types you may use but these are the commonly practiced ones. Keep reading to find out more about meditation and sleep.

Does Guided Meditation for Sleep Get Results?

Many people have reported that guided meditation brings them great results. With guided meditation you should feel relaxed, peaceful and less judgmental of yourself and your situations. The best guided meditation types that will give you the desired results include the following.

1.) Spoken meditations that are done by someone else which you can listen to with a headphone or speakers.

2.) Spoken meditations that you record yourself or that you asked a friend to record for you if you don’t like hearing your voice.

3.) Subliminal recordings without narration, that influences you on the subconscious level and induces sleep.

4.) Calm soothing music that you can listen to when you are trying to sleep.

To really get the best results from guided meditation for sleep you need to practice it when trying to sleep or lying quietly in bed. The final outcome is that you will get into a deep sleep that will make your body receive all the benefits of meditation and sleep joined together. Now that you know what meditation for sleep is all about, let’s try to answer the question about whether self hypnosis is a type of meditation for sleep.

Is Self Hypnosis a Type of Mediation for Sleep?

Before answering the question of whether self hypnosis is a type of meditation for sleep lets first understand what self hypnosis is. Self hypnosis is a method where you put yourself into a trance like situation. In this case, you are not fully awake and you are not fully asleep. Your conscious mind is tucked away and your subconscious mind is made to be more active. You already know that in meditating to sleep you can use meditating techniques that enable you to relax and sleep. Some of these techniques are guided meditation and meditation techniques that enable you to totally ignore negative thoughts. By deliberately ignoring them, you will find yourself getting relaxed and falling asleep. This is how to use self hypnosis to sleep.

The best way to answer the question is by illustrating with the following self hypnosis example;

1.      Close your eyes and rest your back

2.      Make your arms lie freely on both sides of your body

3.      Begin taking deep breaths drawn from the diaphragm.

4.      Use progressive muscle relaxation technique to tense and relax every muscle group in your body beginning from your toes.

5.      Let your main thought and focus be on relaxation and the feelings you have in your muscles. If your mind starts to wander, identify the thought, put it out of your mind and begin focusing on relaxing once again.

6.      Begin a countdown from 10-9-8-7-6-etc and imagine yourself descending gracefully from a high point to a lower one as you count each figure. As you reach each level, mentally envision a deeper state of relaxation.

7.      Once you reach the count of “one,” let your mind drift.

You should feel completely relaxed, if not asleep, at this stage in self hypnosis. As time goes on, you will find yourself doing this with very little effort. This example proves that the answer to our question is; “Yes, self hypnosis is a type of meditation for sleep.”

Meditation for sleep is one of the easiest and least expensive ways of inducing sleep and enjoying the benefits that come from meditation. You have seen how guided meditation for sleep gets results and how self hypnosis is a type of meditation for sleep. You can use this information to have deeper sleep each time you feel that you are not being able to sleep.

Meditation and Healing

Meditation has had a significant impact on many types of topics related to health. Numerous scientific studies and medical records of long-term meditators showed that meditation for healing can be a powerful tool in solving many health problems. This is why many people are now embracing meditation as a means of improving the health and life. Thousands of  patients have overcome their illness through meditation.Here you will discover the first three types of meditations that are used for healing and the five main benefits of meditation in a healing practice.

Top 3 Types of meditation used for healing


There are many different meditations for healing. However, the first three are  Chakras healing meditation,Transcendental meditation and Buddhist meditation. 


Chakra Meditation


Many people believe that when the chakras are not aligned properly or are blocked, the blockage is evident in the physical body as disease. The health problem is seen in the area of ​​the body where the chakra is blocked which controls the area. Chakra Meditation is used to align and clean up any chakra is blocked. A chakra meditation can unlock the chakras & start white light flowing through your body. You see into your body, energizing and balancing each chakra and each chakra healing. After chakra meditation, many people find that their symptoms of ill health usually disappears after a time of constant practice.


Transcendental meditation


Transcendental Meditation has been practiced by many people and is said to provide many health benefits according to established practice. People who want to practice transcendental meditation enroll in a seven-step tours. This is basically to sit quietly and bring thoughts that cause stress and anxiety under control. Transcendental meditation can tolerate frustration and have more tolerance for the daily challenges. Some health problems that have been taken care of Transcendental Meditation include high blood pressure, stress, anxiety, cardiovascular disease and cancer.


Buddhist Meditation


Buddhist meditation is also a significant health benefits when used for healing. Sitting quietly in the correct position your body is aligned properly. When you concentrate and stay focused on the breath, a mantra, or light take your mind off the disease and focus in your meditation and positive thinking. When it is done on a regular basis, in practice, will help to heal you from health problems you may have.


Now that you've seen the first three meditation for healing, explore the top five benefits of meditation for healing.


Top 5 benefits of the healing practice of meditation


Healing, meditation has many health benefits to those who practice them. The top five benefits include better overall health, lower medical costs, chakra balancing, longer life and greater success in life. Examine how each of these advantages can help you.


Better overall health


Stress, anxiety and blood pressure are health problems that have been known to lead to many health problems. Meditation and directly influence the sales of these conditions. In a state of deep meditation, your brainwaves are in Alpha. This condition affects the nervous system and other body functions and helps the body system to rejuvenate and reduce the negative effects of your body. Regular meditation will lead to better health because stress, anxiety, panic and high blood pressure is associated with you again.


Chakra balancing


Most experienced meditators know that a balanced chakra system will always affect your overall quality of life. This is because your health, your relationships with others, your feelings and your relationship with God always be at the top when your chakras are in balance. Chakra Healing Meditation will help you achieve a total balance in all aspects of your life.


Reduce medical costs


Everyone knows that when you're sick, you will not pay medical expenses. When you do not pay the medical expenses you save money and use it for something better to help you. This is one reason that meditation healing is very useful.


Longer Life


A disease that is not well maintained in the long term can cause the disease, which may eventually kill anyone. This means that people who should have lived longer to die prematurely if not properly manage their health. Healing, meditation has been known to help people live longer, because meditation helps the body heal faster. When combined with the results of medical care are better and longer.


Better results in life


Most people have dreams for the future, but most people can not achieve their dreams because of a health problem or the other. Once the healing practice meditation regularly, you will be healthier and you will be able to achieve what you want in life.


Meditation can really help to achieve better health. You've seen the first three types of meditation used for healing and the top five benefits of meditation for healing. This knowledge will help you make meditation more seriously from now.