How does meditation affect a person? Studies continue, but it is already clear that meditation is able to radically rebuild all organism systems and prevent the most serious diseases.
State of "not mind"
To explain the concept of "meditation" is not easy. There are such characteristics of meditation as relaxing, cleansing the mind, change in consciousness, concentration, knowledge of themselves, enlightenment.
Each invests in this word its presentation. "Meditation is a realization that I am not a mind," wrote Osho. Mystic noted the most important rule of meditation - the achievement of pure consciousness, without any content.
Today there are many types and techniques of meditation, but there is a general link inherent in all meditative practices - an object intended to concentrate attention.
It may be mantra, breathing, sky or, like Buddhists, "Nothing." The role of the object is to allow the inesentric type of thinking to take a dominant position in human consciousness.
According to scientists, the object for concentration provides the possibility of such a shift by monopolizing the nervous activity of the left hemisphere, involving it in monotonous activity, which allows the right hemisphere to become dominant. So the rational mind is inferior to intuitive insight.
Brain and meditation
It has been established that meditation causes changes in the activities of the human brain, adjusting its biorhythms. The meditative states are characterized by alpha-waves (8-14 hertz frequency) and theta waves (4-7 hertz).
Interestingly, in the usual condition, the brain biorhythms are a chaotic picture of the waves.
Meditation makes the waves move evenly. Graphs show that in all parts of the cranial box, the uniformity of frequencies and amplitudes reigns.
A number of Western specialists (Livevin, Banquet, Walls) have established various forms of agreed activity of the brainwave: the integration of the left and right hemispheres, the occipital and frontal parts, as well as surface and deep sections of the brain.
The first form of integration is used to harmonize intuition and imagination, the second form ensures consistency between mental activity and movements, the third form leads to the uninterrupted interaction of the body and thought.
In 2005, in the Massachusetts Hospital of Boston, scientists with the help of MRI tracked all changes taking place in the brain of the meditating. They selected 15 people with meditation experience and 15 people who never practiced meditation.
After analyzing a huge array of information, scientists concluded that meditation increases the thickness of those departments of the cerebral cortex, which are responsible for attention, RAM and sensory processing of information.
"You train the brain during meditation, so he grows," the results of Sarah Lazar research leader is commented.
"It's like a muscle that can be used in different ways," Catherine McLell ends to her from Jones Hopkins University Medical School. - As soon as perception is facilitated, the brain can redirect its resources to the concentration. "
Extreme relaxation
In 1935, the French Cardiologist Teresa Treaves went to India to explore the influence of yoga on the human body. She noted that experienced Indian yogis during meditation slows down the work of the heart.
In the 1950s and 1950, scientists continued to work in this direction, exploring the monks of Japanese Zen Buddhism.
It turned out that meditative practices accompanied by specific brain biofursions significantly slows the metabolism.
According to scientists, meditation is a special state, differing in its parameters from the wakefulness, sleep or conventional seating with closed eyes.
Relaxation during meditation is more fully than in a dream, but consciousness remains vigorous and clear. At the same time, the body reaches the state of full relaxation in a matter of minutes, while in a dream it takes several hours.
Especially the researchers impressed the fact that breathing during the phases of deep meditation spontaneously stops. Such pauses can last from 20 seconds to 1 minute, which indicates the state of extreme relaxation.
The work of the heart is subjected to similar changes. Cardiac rhythm slows down per minute by an average of 3-10 shots, and the amount of blood pumped blood is reduced by about 25%.
Psyche and meditation
Humanistic psychology in the study of meditative states pays special attention to the utmost sensations that experience practitioners.
The American psychologist Abraham Masu noted that meditating internal powers are combined in the most efficient way: a person becomes less scattered, more susceptible, it increases performance, ingenuity, and even a sense of humor.
And yet, as the oil notes, he ceases to be a slave of low-lying needs.
Australian psychologist Ken Rigby is trying to explain the inner state when meditating in the language of transcendental psychology. At first, according to Rigby, consciousness is in the cheerful condition, but gradual focus allows you to switch to a less active level, where "verbal thinking fade in front of thin, mobile spiritual activity."
A number of experiments confirms that meditation leads to peace of mind and harmonizes a person with the surrounding world.
Researchers from Yale University noted that meditation can act as an effective prophylactic agent of a number of psychoneurological disorders.
Scientists with MRI follow the activity of a brain of several volunteers. Their conclusion is: meditation slows down the work of the neural brain network responsible for self-consciousness and self-analysis, which protects the psyche from excessive immersion in the debris of his own "I". It is "care to itself" is characteristic of such mental disorders as autism and schizophrenia.
Healing meditation
More recently, meditation was the practice of individual religious schools and trends, and today the doctors of the Great Britain's state health care system are seriously thinking to prescribe meditation to people who suffer from depressions.
At least such an initiative was the British Mental Health Fund.
The head of the Andrew Makovov Foundation emphasizes that according to statistics ¾, physicians are discharged by patients with pills, being not confident in their benefits, and meditation, he said, has already proven its effectiveness in the fight against depression.
Meditation is becoming increasingly popular in Western medical circles. Sheron Salzberg and John Cabath Zinn from Massachusetts University in the weight loss clinic use some techniques of Buddhist meditation of awareness. Doctors teach their patients to observe changes in the mind and openly perceive everything that arises in it. Breathing is used as an object of concentration.
Research results show that after passing the 8-week anti-stress program of meditation meditations in the body, the number of CD4-T-lymphocytes increases. It is known that CD4-T cells are primarily subject to attacks of the immunodeficiency virus.
Science has already proven that meditation due to the restructuring of brain activity allows us to normalize many physiological processes: digestion, sleep, nervous and cardiovascular operation.
Meditation is a natural preventive tool from many heavy diseases, including cancer.
Harvard scientists found out that daily meditations for 8 weeks activate the genes responsible for recovery and depress genes leading to diseases. And the studies of the American Cardiology Association, conducted in 2005 showed that meditation prolongs life by activating the telomerase in the body, which is called the key to cellular immortality.
Hello, dear friends! Never thought about how meditation affects our body. And yesterday I read an interesting study that was conducted for 4,000 participants in the Massachusetts Hospital. They determined that in just 8 weeks, the meditation literally rebuilds the gray substance in the brain. Such a big study was held for the first time. It recorded changes in the areas of the brain associated with memory, sensations and empathy ( 1 ).
Under meditation, there is a simple technique from yoga, prayer or just sitting in silence with himself.
Scientists have proven that well-being affects our bodies. When a person feels good, he is full of positive emotions (love, gratitude or appreciation). Our heart begins to beat a specific message that is encoded in its electromagnetic field. In turn, it has a positive effect on body health in general. It turns out, emotions affect our physical condition.
Positive aspects of meditation, yoga, prayers and other relax technicians are now clearly proved by research. Regular practitioner, such techniques affect our physiological factors, such as:
- heart rate,
- arterial pressure,
- stress, anxiety,
- oxygen consumption and other.
Scientists have found that people participating in the "relax programs" are much less accepted for medical services. Compared with how much they appealed in the previous year.
In the study, about 4,000 participants were involved. Comparing their indicators with the control group, the participants stated that they became less likely to contact the hospital.
The sedative response of our body to such techniques reduce the need for medical services by 43%. If you do only 8 weeks.
Personally, I consider a common misconception about meditation lies in the fact that it should be done in a special way. Or you need to sit in an inconvenient position for several hours.
All you need to do is take a convenient position for you and focus on your breath. Inhale-exhale. Do not try to free your mind from thoughts. Empty they come and go. How will they pass, start to focus on the breath again. When you say "not to think", it is the opposite, it produces an opposite effect. You can choose how to feel and react to coming thoughts.
You do not need to spend half a day to such a simple meditation. Enough to start 20 minutes.
Recently read an interesting article about who wants to change the scope of activities. And what to do. So, one of the lessons was just sitting 1 hour in silence. Listen to yourself what the body says and calm down.
After all, it surrounds so much "excess emotional noise", which has a strong influence on us. Raising oil prices, buckwheat, salt. Or flooding in a distant country, which for the first time you only hear from this news. And we begin to hear yourself when the body is simply screaming from pain and immediately rush to the hospital. To give something painkiller.
At first, I also skeptically treated such advice. Type "Siding quietly, listen, what thoughts are spinning." Miss them through yourself. Even the worst and terrible. First noticed that it became easier for me and calmer when I stopped watching TV. For whom it is not clear - removed the remote from the TV and already 2 years I do not turn on. And you know, it began to hear completely different and noticing the surrounding people. Even the husband began to say that I began to feel calmer to many things. And this is the highest praise from the native person 🙂
There is even a practice such Vipasana - 10 days are silent. Even you are not talking to participants. Only listen to yourself. You sit in a comfortable posture or chair, you close your eyes and listen. Those who passed, say that the first 3 days were hard. Immediately I was started to hide somewhere, to annoy something. And then let go. Last year it did not work out. But I will definitely try this technique.
Therefore, try turning off the computer, phone and TV. Take a convenient pose for you. You can sit down or lie down. Put the timer for 20 minutes. And listen, what thoughts are spinning in your head. Then you can leave feedback that heard. May the strength come with you! 🙂
Is it possible to scientifically check the effect of meditation on the brain? Why do we need this ability to look inside yourself? What actually happens with the famous alpha rhythm during meditation and how is the meditation with the ability to manage physical objects by the power of thought? About all this in the framework of a public lecture "How does a human brain work during meditation?" He tells the doctor of biological sciences Alexander Kaplan.
Scientific research meditation and studying its influence on a person in the West began in the 70s when the cardiologist Herbert Bensoniz Harvard Medical School discovered that even a simplified form of meditation has a steady positive impact on physiology and is expressed in changing the rhythm of the heart, respiratory rhythm and improvement. metabolism. But the real boom study of this phenomenon falls over the past 15 years - time when achievements in the field of functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRT) allowed us to collect objective data on the work of the human brain. During this time, it was possible to find out that meditation affects social relations, the ability to overcome anxiety, abstract from unnecessary information (1) - and a lot of things.
Messages about the beneficial effects of meditation coincide with the studies of neurochenic, according to which the human brain is able to change under the influence of the experience of a certain experience. These studies show that, for example, when we learn to play on a musical instrument, changes occur in the brain - this process is called neuroplasticity. As skill acquired, the brain section, controlling the movements of the cellular fingers, increases. The same process occurs in the brain when we meditate. Although no changes occur in the environment, meditation affects the human brain, causing changes in its physical structure. Meditation is able to "reflash" the brain, providing a beneficial effect not only to the organ itself, but also on the whole body of a person (2).
In Russia, with this question, things are worse. The phenomenon itself got spread from us not so long ago, what to talk about serious research. Nevertheless, we have no meditation left without the attention of scientists: for several years, the influence of meditation to the brain explores Alexander Kaplan, psycho-physician, doctor of biological sciences, head of the laboratory of neurophysiology and neurointerfaces at the Biology Faculty of Moscow State University. Lomonosov. True, in the early stages of its research, he ran into one problem: studying the encephalograms of people practicing meditation in Moscow, he found that their meditations have a very distant attitude towards these Eastern practices and more remind autotraining. However, the scientist did not stop at this and went to India - to study the brain of yogis, where the real discoveries were waiting for him.
In his lecture, "As a man's brain works, Alexander Kaplan talks about the history of studying meditation, on scientific works that have become a real breakthrough in this area and on the results that he independently managed to get during the study of the electrical cerebral activity of meditating properties. In particular, he tells what is the process of meditation from a scientific point of view, what myths regarding meditation exist today, as in fact, meditation affects the brain and that we can give this ability to look inside yourself. Everything is strictly, scientifically, evidence. And let him not frighten the retreat at the end of the opportunity to manage physical objects by the power of thought, because it is also science - science of the XXI century (3).
When in 2005, the neurobiological society called the Tenzin of Gyzo (14-Ro Dalai Lama) to his annual meeting in Washington, among 35 thousand people present several hundred people demanded and cancel the invitation. They believed that at the Scientific Assembly there was no place for religious leaders. But it turned out that it was he who asked the gathered provocative and useful question. Tenzin Gyzo asked: "What could be the connection between Buddhism, the Ancient Indian and religious and philosophical traditions and modern science?"
Before starting the conversation, Dalai Lama has already managed to do something to find a response to this question. In the 1980s. He initiated a discussion of the prospects for cooperation between science and Buddhism, which led to the creation of the Institute "Mind and Life", aimed at studying meditative sciences. In 2000, he set a new goal before the project, organizing the direction "Meditative Neurobiology", and invited scientists to study the activity of the brain from Buddhists, seriously engaged in meditation and having more than 10 thousand hours of practice. Over the past 15 years, more than 100 Buddhists, monks and laitys, as well as a large number of people who have recently begun to engage in meditation, took part in scientific experiments at Wisconsin University in Madison and 19 other universities. The article you are currently reading is the result of cooperation between the two neurobiologists and the Buddhist monk, originally learning on a biologist. By comparing the paintings of the brain activity in people who meditating tens of thousands of hours, and those who do this recently, we began to understand why such methods of consciousness training can give large cognitive advantages.
The main provisions of the article:
- Meditation is found in the spiritual practices of almost all major religions. In recent years, it began to be used in a secular society to calm and improve well-being.
- Three main forms of meditation - the concentration of attention, awareness and compassion - are used now everywhere, starting with hospitals and ending with schools, and increasingly becoming subject to research in scientific laboratories around the world.
- In the time of meditation in the brain, physiological changes occur - the activity of some areas. In addition, meditation has a good psychological impact: the reaction rate increases and susceptibility to various forms of stress is reduced.
The objectives of meditation intersect with many tasks of clinical psychology, preventive medicine and education. An increasing number of studies suggests that meditation can be effective in treating depression, chronic pains and to form a general sense of well-being.
The opening of the advantages of meditation is consistent with the deposited, which were recently obtained by neurobiologists, that the adult brain retains the ability to significantly change under the influence of experience. It was shown that changes occur in the brain when we, for example, learn to juggle or play on a musical instrument, and such a phenomenon is called neuroplasticity. As skill increases, the violinist increases the brain areas controlling the movements of the fingers. Apparently, similar processes occur during meditation. In the environment, nothing changes, but the meditative regulates its mental state, creating an internal experience that affects the work and structure of the brain. As a result of the conductive research, evidence is accumulated by the positive impact of meditation to the brain, thinking and even on the whole body as a whole.
What is meditation?
Meditation is found in the spiritual practices of almost all major religions, the media. Mentioning about meditation uses this word in different values. We will talk about meditation as a method of the development of basic human qualities, such as the sustainability and clarity of mind, mental balance and even love and compassion - those qualities that sleep while a person does not make efforts to develop them. In addition, meditation is a process of acquaintance with a calmer and flexible way of life.
Meditation is quite a simple lesson, and it can be done anywhere. This requires special equipment or shape of clothing. To start a "training", a person must take a comfortable posture, not very tense, but not too relaxed, and wish changes in herself, well-being and facilitating suffering to other people. Then it is necessary to stabilize consciousness, which is often unordered and filled with a flow of inner noise. To control consciousness, it must be rid of automatic mental associations and internal scattered.
Types of meditation
Meditation concentration of attention. At the same time, the type of meditation is usually required to focus on the rhythm of their own breaths and exhalations. Even experienced meditating attention can escape, and then it must be returned back. At the University of Emory, various areas involved in the process of switching attention during this type of meditation were identified as a result of brain scanning.
Meditation awareness. It is also called meditation of free perception. In the process of meditation, a person is exposed to various audible, visual and other stimuli, including internal sensations and thoughts, but does not allow them to captivate themselves. Experienced meditating decreases activity in the areas of the brain associated with the alarm, such as island and almonds.
Meditation of empathy and loving kindness. With this type of meditation, a person cultivates a feeling of benevolence towards another person, regardless of whether he is a friend or an enemy. At the same time, the activity of the regions associated with the presentation of themselves in the place of another person, for example, the activity in the temporal node increases.
Achievements in the field of neurovalization and other technologies allowed scientists to understand what was happening in the brain for each of the three major forms of Buddhist meditation: the concentration of attention, awareness and compassion. The following scheme allows you to see the cycle of events that occur during meditation of attention and activation of the corresponding areas of the brain.
Consider what happens in the brain during three common types of meditation, which came from Buddhism, and are now used outside the religious context in hospitals and schools around the world. The first type of meditation is the so-called meditation concentration of attention: Consciousness at the current time is limited and sent, developing the ability is not distracted. Second type - meditation awareness (clear mind) Or free perception, during which a person seeks to develop a calm understanding of his own emotions, thoughts and feelings experienced by him at the present time, so as not to allow them to get out of control and bring it to a mental disorder. At the same time, the type of meditation, a person retains attention to any of its experiences, but not focuses on something concrete. And finally, the third type is known in Buddhist practice as compassion and mercy and contributes to an altruistic attitude towards others.
Under the supervision of devices
Neurobiologists only recently began to study the phenomena occurring in the brain in various types of meditation. Wendy Hazenkamp (Wednd NasnkAMR) From the University of Emori, together with colleagues, used tomography to identify the sections of the brain, in which the increased activity of the concentration of attention during meditation is observed. While in tomograph, the tests focused on breathing sensations. Usually, attention begins to escape, the meditator must recognize this and return the concentration on the rhythm of inhalation and exhalation.
In this study, the subject was supposed to use the button to submit a loss of attention.
Researchers have determined that there is a cycle of four stages: Extralling attention, the moment of awareness of the distraction, reorientation of attention and resuming focused attention. At each of the four stages, different parts of the brain are involved.
- At the first stageWhen distraction occurs, the activity of the regions that form a network of passive brain mode increases. It combines areas such as the medial prefrontal zone of the bark, the rear belt bark, the preclinix, the lower dark slicing and the lateral region of the temporal bark. It is known that these structures are active at a time when we "twist in the clouds". They play a leading role in creating and maintaining the internal model of the world, based on long-term memory of themselves and others.
- In the second stageWhen the distraction is aware, other parts of the brain are activated - the exceeding part of the island and the front waist cortex (the structures form a network that is responsible for cognitive and emotional functions). These areas are associated with subjectively perceived feelings, which may, for example, contribute to distraction during the task. It is assumed that they play a key role in identifying new events and switching between different networks of neurons during meditation. For example, they can derive the brain from the passive mode of operation.
- In the third stage Additional areas are involved, including the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Bark and the Lower Deteralist of the Dark Share, which return the attention, "revealing" it from distracting incentive.
- And finally, on the latter, fourth stage A high level of activity in the dorsolteral prefrontal cortex remains, which allows the attention of the meditating target to the specified purpose, for example, breathing.
In the future, we observed in our laboratory in Wisconsin the differences in brain activity depending on the experience of the subjects. It is neither paradoxical, but people who have serious meditation experience (more than 10 thousand hours) have observed less active in areas related to reducing attention. As the experience of people experience accumulated, they learn to keep attention, spending less effort. A similar phenomenon is observed in professional musicians and athletes who perform actions automatically with minimal conscious control.
In addition, to study the influence of meditation associated with the concentration of attention, we studied volunteers before and after a three-month period of intensive classes at least eight hours a day. They were given the headphones from which the sounds of a certain frequency were heard, and sometimes - a little higher sounds. For ten minutes, people had to focus on sounds and react to the emerging higher tone. It turned out that people after a period of long meditations had fewer differences in the reaction rate compared to those who were not engaged in meditation. This means that after long-term training of consciousness, a person preserves attention and less frequently distracted. People with meditation experience electrical activity in response to high sounds was more stable.
MINDFLOW
In the second, too well studied form of meditation Another type of attention is involved. When meditating awareness, and free perception, the meditator should notice all the views or sounds and track their feelings, as well as an internal dialogue. A man remains aware of what is happening, not focusing on some one feeling or one thought. And returns itself to this suspended perception, as soon as consciousness begins to wander. As a result of such exercises, ordinary everyday annoying events - an aggressive colleague at work, an annoying child at home - losing a destructive effect, and a feeling of psychological well-being is developing.
Awareness of unpleasant sensations allows to reduce non-adaptive emotional reactions, helps to overcome the unpleasant feeling and can be especially useful for dealing with pain. In our laboratory in Wisconsin, we studied people with extensive meditation experience, while they were engaged in a complex form of awareness of awareness, called open presence. With such a kind of meditation, which is sometimes called a clean perception, the consciousness is calm and relaxed, there is no reason for nothing, but at the same time the living clarity of the mind is preserved without excitement or inhibition. Meditating observes, not trying to interpret, change, get rid or ignore painful sensations. We found that when meditating, the intensity of pain does not decrease, but it bothers the meditating less than people from the control group.
Compared with newcomers in people who have extensive experience in meditation, in the period before painful exposure, less activity in the areas of the brain associated with anxiety was observed. - Island and Almond. With repeated pain in the brain of experienced meditating in areas related to pain, faster addictiveness was observed than newcomers. In other tests conducted in our laboratory, it was shown that training consciousness increase the ability to control and mitigate the basic physiological reactions, such as inflammation or highlighting hormones in social stressful situations, such as a public speech or an oral account in the face of the strict commission.
In several studies, it is shown that the meditation of awareness has a beneficial effect on the symptoms of anxiety or depression, and also improves sleep. Having received the opportunity to consciously observe and track their thoughts and emotions, patients with depression can use meditation in disturbing situations to manage spontaneously emerging and obsessive negative thoughts and feelings.
Clinical psychologists John Tisdale (John Teasdale), who worked in the University of Cambridge, and Zinelo Sigal (Zindel Segal) from the University of Toronta in 2000 showed that patients who had previously survived at least three periods of depression, after six months of classroom awareness in Combining with cognitive psychotherapy The risk of recurrence is reduced by about 40% during the year. Later, Segal showed that meditation acts better than placebo, and in efficiency comparable to the standard methods of antidepressant therapy.
Compassion and mercy.
Dalai Lama. Dialogue with scientists about compassion (University of Emory). Part 1
Dalai Lama. Dialogue with scientists about compassion (University of Emory). Part 2
Third type of meditation Develops feelings of compassion and mercy towards people. Initially, the meditative is aware of the needs of another person, then experiencing a sincere desire to help or alleviate the suffering of other people, protecting them from their own destructive behavior.
Entering the state of compassion, the meditator sometimes begins to experience the same feelings as the other person. But for the formation of the compassionate state, there is not enough presence of simply emotional resonance with the feelings of another. Should still be disinterested desire to help to someone who suffers.
This form of meditation aimed at love and empathy, more than just a spiritual exercise. It is shown that it helps to preserve health to social workers, teachers and other people who have the risk of emotional burnout due to the experiences that they experience deeply sympathize with the problems of other people.
Meditation begins with the fact that a person focuses on unconditional benevolence and love to others and silently repeats the wish to himself, for example: "Let all living beings find their happiness and will be released from suffering." In 2008, we studied the activity of the brain of people engaged in this type of meditation thousands of hours. We gave them to listen to the voices of suffering and discovered them enlarged activity of some areas of the brain. It is known that in empathy and other emotional reactions involved the secondary somatosensory bark and island. When listening to the suffering votes in experienced meditating compared to the control group, these structures have activated stronger. This means that they have better separated other people's feelings without experiencing emotional overload. In experienced meditating, an increased activity was also observed in the temporal node, the medial prefrontal crust and the field of the front temporal furrow. All these structures are usually activated when we mentally put ourselves to another person.
Recently, Tania Singeg (Tania Singeg) and Olga Klimetski (Olga Climencki) from the Institute of Human Cognitology and Science on the Brain of Society. Max Planck along with one of the authors of this article (Mathieu Ricar) tried to understand the differences between ordinary empathy and compassion from the meditating. They showed that empathy and altruistic love are associated with positive emotions, and suggested that emotional exhaustion or burnout is, in fact, the "fatigue" of empathy.
In accordance with the Buddhist traditions of contemplation, from which this practice has gone, compassion should not cause fatigue and despondency, it strengthens the internal balance, the strength of the Spirit and gives determination to help suffering. When the child falls into the hospital, the mother will bring more benefit if he keeps his hand and calm down with gentle words than if, overloaded with empathy and anxiety, without making a kind of sick child, it will rush backwards on the corridor. In the latter case, the case will end with a burnout, from which, according to the studies conducted in the United States, approximately 60% of the 600 people surveyed were suffering from the patients.
To further study the mechanisms of empathy and compassion of Cleeck and the Singer divided about 60 volunteers into two groups. Participants in the first group meditation was associated with love and compassion, a sense of empathy to others developed in another group. As showed preliminary results, a week of meditation based on loving kindness and compassion, led to the fact that participants, although not previously had experience, experienced more benevolent feelings while watching video recording with suffering people. Participants from another group, which during the week only trained in empathy, experienced the same emotions as suffering from people on video. These emotions caused negative feelings and thoughts, and participants from this group experienced strong stress.
Having revealed such devastating consequences, Singer and Climets held with the second group of physical meditation of compassion. It turned out that additional classes reduced the negative consequences of the empathy training: the number of negative emotions decreased, and benevolent - increased. This was accompanied by appropriate changes in the areas of the brain associated with sympathy, positive emotions and maternal love, including in orbitorrutal crust, ventral strit and anterior cingular cortex. In addition, researchers have shown that the compassion training during the week has strengthened the prospective behavior in a computer game specifically designed to assess the desire to help others.
Meditation not only causes changes to certain cognitive and emotional processes, but also contributes to the increase in some areas of the brain. The study showed that people with extensive experience in meditation increased the volume of gray substance in islet fraction and in prefortional crust.
Doors consciousness
Meditation helps to explore the nature of thinking, giving a person the opportunity to explore his consciousness and mental state. In Wisconsin, we studied the electric activity of the brain at Buddhists who have extensive meditation experience, recording the electroencephalogram (EEG) during the meditation of compassion.
It turned out that experienced Buddhists could arbitrarily maintain a condition characterized by a certain rhythm of the electrical activity of the brain, namely high-amplitude gamma oscillations with a frequency of 25-42 Hz. Such coordination of the electrical activity of the brain can be of great importance for creating temporary nerve networks that combine cognitive and emotional functions in the learning process and conscious perception, which can lead to long-term changes in the brain.
Throughout meditation, high amplitude fluctuations continued for several tens of seconds, and they were the greater, the more experience of the meditating. First of all, such features of EEG were expressed in the lateral region of the frontal-dark part of the crust. They can reflect people to increase environmental awareness and internal thinking processes, however, for understanding the role of Gamma Rhythm requires additional research.
The brain is growing
Researchers from several universities studied the ability of meditation to cause structural changes in brain tissues. With the help of MRI, it was possible to show that 20 people with extensive experience of Buddhist meditation The volume of fabric in some areas of prefortional cortex (fields 9 and 10 through Brodman) and in islet fraction more compared to the brain of people from the control group (graphics). These areas are involved in processing information related to attention, internal sensations and sensory signals. To confirm the data requires further long-term research.
Meditation not only causes changes to certain cognitive and emotional processes, but also contributes to the increase in some parts of the brain. It is estimated that it is caused by an increase in the number of connections between the neurons. A preliminary study conducted by Sarah Lazar (Sara Lazar) with colleagues from Harvard University, showed that people with extensive experience in meditation increased the volume of gray substance in islet frath and in prefrontal crust, and more specifically in fields 9 and 10 by Brodman, which are often activated With different forms of meditation. Such differences were most expressed in the elderly research participants. It is assumed that meditation can slow down the rate of thinning brain tissue occurring with age.
In the future work, Lazar with colleagues showed that those subjects, who, as a result of classes, the meditation of awareness, the stress reaction was also reduced, also decreased by the volume of almonds - areas of the brain involved in the formation of fear. Later, Eiley Luders (Eller Luders) from the University of California in Los Angeles, together with his colleagues, found that meditating distinguished axons - fibers connecting different parts of the brain. It is assumed that this is due to the increase in the number of compounds in the brain. Such an observation testifies to the assumption that meditation classes do cause structural changes in the brain. An important lack of these works is the lack of long-term studies in which people would have been observed for many years, and the lack of comparative studies of people of one age and similar biography, which would differ only to those, they meditate or not.
There are even evidence that meditation and the ability to improve its own state can reduce inflammation and other biological reactions occurring at the molecular level. As was shown in the study conducted jointly by our group and group under the leadership of Pearl Kaliman (Perla Kaliman) from the Institute of Biomedical Research in Barcelona, \u200b\u200bfor an experienced meditating enough of a single day of intensive meditation of awareness to reduce the activity of genes associated with an inflammatory response and affect The work of proteins that activate these genes. Cliff Saron (Cliff Saron) From California University in Davis studied the impact of meditation on a molecule, participating in the regulation of the life expectancy of the cell. This molecule is a telomerase enzyme lengthening DNA at the ends of chromosomes. Chromosomes, called telomeres, ensure the safety of genetic material during cell division. During each division, telomeres are shortened, and when their length is reduced to a critical value, the cell ceases to share and gradually ages. Compared to the control group, meditating more effectively decreased psychological stress and there was a higher telomerase activity. Sometimes the classification of awareness can slow down cell aging processes.
Path to well-being
For 15 years of research, it was possible to show that long-term meditation practices not only significantly change the structure and work of the brain, but also significantly affect biological processes critical for physical health.
Further research is needed using clear randomized controlled tests to separate the effects caused by meditation, from other psychological factors associated with other psychological factors, which can also influence research results. This, for example, the level of motivation of meditating and roles that play teachers and students in the group of meditating. Further research is necessary to determine the possible negative side effect from meditation, the desired duration of classes and how to adapt them to the needs of a particular person.
But also, taking into account all the precautions, it is obvious that as a result of meditation studies, we received a new understanding of psychological training methods that could potentially improve the health and well-being of a person. It is no less important that the ability to develop compassion and other positive human qualities lays the foundation for creating ethical standards not tied to any philosophy or religion. It can deeply and beneficially affect all aspects of human society.
Richard Davidson (Richard J. Davidson) - Director of the Weissman Laboratory of Neuroviasualization and Conduct and Center for Mental Health Research at Wisconsin University in Madison. The first began a scientific study of meditation.
Antoine Lutz (Antoine Lutz) - Researcher of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Studies, University of Wisconsin Actor and in Madison. Headed neurobiological studies of meditation.
Mathiere Ricar. (Matthieu Ricard) - Buddhist monk. Engaged in cell biology, and then, about 40 years ago, I left France and went to the Himalayas to study Buddhism.
What is the first coming to you in the head when you hear the word "meditation"? Surely, this is a calm, peacefulness, Zen ... We know that meditation helps to clean our consciousness, improves concentration, soothes, teaches living consciously and gives other benefits to both mind and body. But what actually does meditation with our brain from a physiological point of view in order to get such an effect? How does it work?
You can skeptically refer to how others sing the diffilams of meditation and extolish it use, but in fact, things are so that daily meditation for 15-30 minutes has a huge impact on how your life passes, as you react to situations and How to interact with people.
It is difficult to describe in words if you at least have tried. From the technical point of view, meditation allows us to change our brain and make just magic things.
Who and what is responsible
Parts of the brain on which meditation affects
- Side Prefortional Cora. This part of the brain, which allows you to look at things more rationally and logically. Also, she calls "an estimated center". It is involved in modulating emotional reactions (which comes from the center of fear or other parts), automatically redefines the behavior and habits and reduces the brain trend to take things "close to heart" by modulating a part of the brain that is responsible for your "I".
- Medial prefortional bark. Part of the brain that is constantly addressed to you, your point of view and experience. Many people call it "Center I" because this part of the brain processes information that refers directly to us, including the time when you dream, think about the future, reflect on yourself, communicate with people, sympathize with others or trying to understand them . Psychologists call it the abstract center.
The most interesting in the medial prefortional crust is that in fact it consists of two sections:
- Ventromedial Medial Prefortional Cora (VMPFC). It participates in processing information related to you and with people who, in your opinion, are like you. This is just the part of the brain that can make that you will take some things too close to your heart, it can make you worry, cause anxiety or put you in stress. That is, in stress you drive yourself when you start worrying too much.
- Domsomedal prefrontal bark (DMPFC). This part processes information about people you consider different from yourself (that is, completely different). This very important part of the brain participates in the empathy and maintaining social connections.
So, we have left the island of the brain and the cerebellashkoy almond:
- Island. This part of the brain is responsible for our bodily sensations and helps us track how much we will feel what is happening in our body. It is also actively involved in experiences in general and in empathy to others.
- Mazezhechkin almond. This is our alarm, which since the days of the first people launches our program "Take or run." This is our fear center.
Brain without meditation
If you look at the brain before the person began to meditate, you can see strong neural connections within the center I and between the center I and the brain sites that are responsible for bodily sensations and for the feeling of fear. This means that as soon as you feel any anxiety, fear or bodily sensation (itching, tingling, etc.), most likely you will respond to it, as anxiety. And this is because your center I processes a huge amount of information. Moreover, dependence on this center makes that in the end we are stuck in our thoughts and fall into the loop: for example, we remember that we have already felt it sometime and can this mean something. We begin to sort out the situation in the head of the past and do it again and again.
Why is this happening? Why is our center I make it? This is because the link between our estimated center and the center I am rather weak. If the evaluation center worked for complete power, he could regulate the part that is responsible for the adoption of things close to the heart, and would increase the activity of that part of the brain that is responsible for understanding the thoughts of other people. As a result, we would have sifted all unnecessary information and looked at what was happening more expensive and calmly. That is, our assessment center can be called brakes of our center I.
Brain during meditation
When meditation is your constant habit, there are several positive things. First, a strong connection between the center I and the bodily sensations weakens, so you stop being distracted by the sudden sensations of concern or physical manifestations and do not fall into your mental loop. That is why people who often meditate, the anxiety is reduced. As a result, you can look at your feelings no longer emotionally.
Secondly, stronger and healthy relations between the evaluation center and the bodily sensations / fear centers are formed. This means that if you have bodily sensations that can mean potential danger, you begin to look at them from a more rational point of view (and not start panicing). For example, if you feel pain, you start watching them, for their downsion and renewal and eventually accept the correct, balanced decision, and do not fall into hysterics, starting to think that with you exactly something wrong, drawing in my head The picture is almost your own funeral.
And finally, meditation binds useful aspects (those parts of the brain who are responsible for the understanding of people who are not similar to us) with bodily sensations that are responsible for empathy, and makes them stronger. This healthy connection increases our ability to understand where another person came from, especially such people who you can't intuitively understand because you think or perceive things otherwise (usually, these are people from other crops). As a result, your ability to put yourself in place of others, that is, really understand people, increases.
Why is the daily practice
If you look at how meditation affects our brain from a physiological point of view, we get a rather interesting picture - it strengthens our assessment center, soothes the hysterical aspects of our center, I reduce its connection with bodily sensations and strengthens its strong parts responsible for understanding Others. As a result, we stop so emotionally to respond to what is happening and accepting more rational solutions. That is, with the help of meditation, we do not just change our condition of consciousness, we physically change your brain for the better.
Why is the permanent practice of meditation important? Because these positive changes in our brain are reversible. It is like maintaining a good physical form - it requires constant training. As soon as we stop doing, we return to the starting point again and the time is required to recover again.
Just 15 minutes a day can completely change your life as you can not even imagine.
Loading...
