The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation

• Yi-Yuan Tang,
• Britta K. Hölzel
• & Michael I. Posner

• Affiliations
• Corresponding author

Nature Reviews Neuroscience

16,

213–225

(2015)

doi:10.1038/nrn3916

Published online

18 March 2015

• Erratum (May, 2015)

Abstract

Research over the past two decades broadly supports the claim that mindfulness meditation — practiced widely for the reduction of stress and promotion of health — exerts beneficial effects on physical and mental health, and cognitive performance. Recent neuroimaging studies have begun to uncover the brain areas and networks that mediate these positive effects. However, the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear, and it is apparent that more methodologically rigorous studies are required if we are to gain a full understanding of the neuronal and molecular bases of the changes in the brain that accompany mindfulness meditation.

Mindfulness means to quietly observe & become aware of your habitual thinking patterns, not blindly accept them.
When we see those patterns we automatically begin to let go of of the negative stuff that is counterproductive.

Chuang Tzu and Confucius, were nearly opposites philosophically.

Published on Apr 16, 2016
Asian philosophies have proven extremely influential in the United States, but are they being interpreted correctly? Frequently not, says Harvard China historian Michael Puett, who focuses on two main ideas in this video: one transported relatively recently to the United States, and another that sheds new light on the so-called naturalistic fallacy.

First up is mindfulness meditation: a practice that has become all the rage for anyone looking to live calmer, more focussed lives. It sounds innocent enough, says Puett, but the goal of distancing yourself from negative emotion presents real risks. If you find a way to cope with negative emotion without changing the material circumstances around you — focusing on internal sources of stress to the exclusion of external ones — you may begin to accept harmful treatment.

This is likewise the case with “finding your true self,” which Puett claims is little more than accepting your circumstances and normalizing potentially destructive patterns of behavior. When we search for ourselves, we search for some authentic, natural self. But putting nature on a pedestal ignores the very real call to action that Chinese philosophy presents.

Puett’s latest book is “The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life”

Some thirty-five years ago, Herbert Benson, M.D., sought a blending of sound scientific data and ancient teachings from both Eastern and Western traditions, what he called the relaxation response, which is innate within all humans and can be evoked through several different techniques.

The elements required to meditate are a quiet environment, a comfortable position, a passive attitude, and a mental device. Of course, there are any number of ways to practice. In fact, for some spiritual teachers, meditation is practicing mindfulness about whatever it is you are doing in any given moment.

Mindfulness is the practice of bringing one’s attention to the internal and external experiences occurring in the present moment,^[1] which can be developed through the practice of meditation.^[1] The term “mindfulness” is a translation of the Pali-term sati,^[2] which is a significant element of some Buddhist traditions. The popular mindfulness movement was initiated by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Large population-based research studies have indicated that the practice of mindfulness is strongly correlated with well-being and perceived health.^[3][4] Studies have also shown that rumination and worry contribute to mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety,^[5][6] and that mindfulness-based interventions are effective in the reduction of both rumination and worry.^[5][7]

Clinical psychology and psychiatry since the 1970s have developed a number of therapeutic applications based on mindfulness for helping people who are experiencing a variety of psychological conditions.^[8] Mindfulness practice is being employed in psychology to alleviate a variety of mental and physical conditions, such as bringing about reductions in depression symptoms,^[9][10][11] reducing stress,^[10][12][13]anxiety,^[9][10][13] and in the treatment of drug addiction.^[14][15][16] It has gained worldwide popularity as a distinctive method to handle emotions.

Clinical studies have documented the physical and mental health benefits of mindfulness in general, and MBSR in particular.^[17][18][19]Programs based on MBSR and similar models have been widely adapted in schools, prisons, hospitals, veterans centers, and other environments.

Georges Dreyfus has expressed unease with the definition of mindfulness as “bare attention” or “nonelaborative, nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness”, stressing that mindfulness in Buddhist context means also “remembering”, which indicates that the function of mindfulness also includes the retention of information. Robert H. Sharf notes that Buddhist practice is aimed at the attainment of “correct view”, not just “bare attention”. Jay Garfield, quoting Shantideva and other sources, stresses that mindfulness is constituted by the union of two functions, calling to mind and vigilantly retaining in mind. He demonstrates that there is a direct connection between the practice of mindfulness and the cultivation of morality – at least in the context of Buddhism from which modern interpretations of mindfulness are stemming.^[87]

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• Published: March 26, 2008
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001897

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Study reveals gene expression changes with meditation

Date:

December 8, 2013

Source:

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Summary:

With evidence growing that meditation can have beneficial health effects, scientists have sought to understand how these practices physically affect the body. A new study reports the first evidence of specific molecular changes in the body following a period of mindfulness meditation.

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Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation.

Meditation and its effect on brain activity and the central nervous system became a focus of collaborative research in neuroscience,psychology and neurobiology during the latter half of the 20th century. Research on meditation sought to define and characterize various practices. Meditation’s effect on the brain can be broken up into two categories: state changes and trait changes, respectively alterations in brain activities during the act of meditating and changes that are the outcome of long-term practice.

Mindfulness meditation is frequently studied, a Buddhist meditation approach found in Zen and Vipassana.^[1][2] Jon Kabat-Zinn describes mindfulness meditation as a complete, unbiased attention to the current moment.^[3]

Brain trait changes have also been observed in neuroimaging studies, most often employing fMRI. In a meta-analysis of 21 neuroimaging studies, eight brain regions were found to be consistently altered, including areas key to meta-awareness (frontopolar cortex/Brodmann area 10), exteroceptive and interoceptive body awareness (sensory cortex and insular cortex), memory consolidation and reconsolidation (hippocampus), self and emotion regulation (anterior cingulate cortex and orbitofrontal cortex), and intra- and interhemispheric communication (superior longitudinal fasciculus; corpus callosum)^[13] These changes were distinguished by density increases in grey matter regions and white matter pathways in the brains of individuals who meditate in comparison to individuals who do not. Of all areas with reported findings, a greater number of structural changes were found in the left hemisphere.

There is also evidence to suggest meditation plays a protective role against the natural reduction in grey matter volume associated with aging. One study found evidence that Zen meditators experienced a slower age related decline rate for cerebral gray matter volume in the putamen which plays a role in learning, cognitive flexibility and attentional processing ^[14] This could suggest a better attentiveness in aging meditators versus non-meditators.

Long-term meditation practitioners have also shown to have a higher tolerance for pain.^[15] This effect has been correlated to altered function and structure in somatosensory cortices and an increased ability to decouple regions in the brain associated with the cognitive appraisal of pain (anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex).^[16]

The brain state changes found in meditators are almost exclusively found in higher-order executive and association cortices.^[13] This supports the notion that meditation increases self-regulation and attentiveness. Recent studies have also investigated how these changes may alter the functionality and connectivity of the default mode network, which is a hypothesized network of brain regions that are active when an individual is engaged in internal tasks such as daydreaming.

Besides scientific literature, some authors have written of the promising research on meditation in books targeted for general audiences. One such book, Buddha’s Brain by Rick Hanson, PhD shares the current scientific research and investigations into meditation.^[19] Hanson, a neuroscientist and researcher, explains to readers the scientific studies in plain language and discuss the impact of the results. Hanson’s main argument is that positive emotions, like love can be strengthened through meditation in a neuroplastic manner, citing dozens of scientific studies to support this claim.^[19] Hanson’s viewpoint is representative of a larger popular movement to study and embrace Eastern phenomena including meditation in the Western world.

Critics, like Owen Flanagan, PhD, believe that Hanson, and those like him, are overextending the results of current scientific studies. In his book Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized, Flanagan presents a more conservative viewpoint of current scientific research and cautions readers against the seemingly exciting results of recent studies.^[20] Flanagan does not believe current science supports the idea that positive emotion can be strengthened in the same way that stroke victims can recover use of limbs with use.^[20] Flanagan does acknowledge that meditation may be beneficial in some way, but the mechanism of how meditation affects the brain is still clouded.^[20] Flanagan and Hanson use many of the same scientific studies to attempt to support their differing viewpoint, but both authors identify the need and importance of future studies investigating meditation.

Mindfulness is the practice of bringing one’s attention to the internal and external experiences occurring in the present moment,^[1] which can be developed through the practice of meditation.^[1] The term “mindfulness” is a translation of the Pali-term sati,^[2] which is a significant element of some Buddhist traditions. The popular mindfulness movement was initiated by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Large population-based research studies have indicated that the practice of mindfulness is strongly correlated with well-being and perceived health.^[3][4] Studies have also shown that rumination and worry contribute to mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety,^[5][6] and that mindfulness-based interventions are effective in the reduction of both rumination and worry.^[5][7]

Clinical psychology and psychiatry since the 1970s have developed a number of therapeutic applications based on mindfulness for helping people who are experiencing a variety of psychological conditions.^[8] Mindfulness practice is being employed in psychology to alleviate a variety of mental and physical conditions, such as bringing about reductions in depression symptoms,^[9][10][11] reducing stress,^[10][12][13]anxiety,^[9][10][13] and in the treatment of drug addiction.^[14][15][16] It has gained worldwide popularity as a distinctive method to handle emotions.

Clinical studies have documented the physical and mental health benefits of mindfulness in general, and MBSR in particular.^[17][18][19]Programs based on MBSR and similar models have been widely adapted in schools, prisons, hospitals, veterans centers, and other environments.

Various scholars have criticized how mindfulness has been defined or represented in recent western psychology publications.^[56][128] These modern understandings depart significantly from the accounts of mindfulness in early Buddhist texts and authoritative commentaries in the Theravada and Indian Mahayana traditions.^{[128]:62[129]} Adam Valerio has introduced the idea that conflict between academic disciplines over how mindfulness is defined, understood, and popularly presented may be indicative of a personal, institutional, or paradigmatic battle for ownership over mindfulness, one where academics, researchers, and other writers are invested as individuals in much the same way as religious communities.^[130]

The popularization of mindfulness as a “commodity”^[131] has been criticized, being termed “McMindfulness” by some critics.^{[web 8][web 9][132]} According to Safran, the popularity of mindfulness is the result of a marketing strategy:^[131] “McMindfulness is the marketing of a constructed dream; an idealized lifestyle; an identity makeover.”^{[131][133][134]}

According to Purser and Loy, mindfulness is not being used as a means to awaken to insight in the “unwholesome roots of greed, ill will and delusion,”^{[web 8]} but reshaped into a “banal, therapeutic, self-help technique” that has the opposite effect of reinforcing those passions.^{[web 8]} While mindfulness is marketed as a means to reduce stress, in a Buddhist context it is part of an all-embracing ethical program to foster “wise action, social harmony, and compassion.”^{[web 8]} The privatization of mindfulness neglects the societal and organizational causes of stress and discomfort, instead propagating adaptation to these circumstances.^{[web 8]} According to Bhikkhu Bodhi, “[A]bsent a sharp social critique, Buddhist practices could easily be used to justify and stabilize the status quo, becoming a reinforcement of consumer capitalism.”^{[web 8]} The popularity of this new brand of mindfulness has resulted in the commercialization of meditation through self-help books, guided meditation classes, and mindfulness retreats.

Buddhist commentators have criticized the movement as being presented as equivalent to Buddhists practice; however, possibly denatured with undesirable consequences, such as being ungrounded in the traditional reflective morality and, as astray from traditional buddhists ethics. Criticisms suggest it to be de-moralized or, re-moralized Buddhism into clinically based ethics. The conflict is often presented in concern to the teacher’s credentials and qualifications, rather than the student’s actual practice. Reformed Buddhist influenced practices are being standardized and manualized in a clearly distinct separation from Buddhism seen as a religion based in monastic temples; and, as mindfulness in a new psychology ethic practiced in modern meditation centers.^[135]

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Short-term autonomic and cardiovascular effects of mindfulness body scan meditation.