I was really confused by the typos here. At first I thought there was an experiment on meditation in which the control group was given mediation training instead.
Otherwise, very interesting article! ;-)
Dreams have been described as dress rehearsals for real life, opportunities to gratify wishes, and a form of nocturnal therapy. A new theory aims to make sense of it all.
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It's no secret that meditation can have powerful effects on the mind and body. What is somewhat surprising is the new evidence accumulating in favor of the idea that even brief bouts of meditative practice can help to reprogram the mind. As it happens, little steps have big effects.
As I have blogged about before, eleven hours of meditation changes how the brain is wired. In a study published this week in the journal Psychological Science, it was shown that just five hours of meditation instruction changed how the brain functions.
Here is what happened: Researchers at the University of Wisconsin invited about two dozen people to take part in mindfulness meditation training in exchange for free meditation instruction. Half the group went through five weeks of meditation training right away (meditation group). A wait-listed control group waited until the five weeks was up to start their practice.
Both before and after the 5 week period, everyone took part in a brief 15 minutes of attempted focused attention meditation. They were told: "relax with your eyes closed, and focus on the flow of your breath at the tip of your nose; if a random thought arises, acknowledge the thought and then simply let it go by gently bringing your attention back to the flow of your breath." While they meditated, people wore a cap full of electrodes, creating a picture of their brain activity.
Billions of neurons in the human brain communicate by generating small electro-chemical signals. When probes from an instrument that measures electrical energy are placed near a brain cell, a voltage change can be registered whenever the neuron is active. These electrical potentials are relatively small and cannot be monitored individually in humans without actually opening the head - at least not yet. But, because neighboring neurons frequently are active close together in time, the behavior of a group of neurons can be measured with electrodes placed on the scalp.
People in the meditation group could attend up to nine, 30-minute meditation instruction sessions across a five week period. In actuality, they attended a little under 7 instruction sessions, averaging 5 hours and 16 minutes of training in total.
Even with this small amount of practice, the researchers found big differences in brain functioning. Specifically, meditation training seemed to shift activity in the frontal regions of the brain towards a pattern indicative of greater positive, approach-oriented emotional states.
So, why such big effects with relatively small steps? The researchers think the answer is two-fold. First, people in the study were able to decide which meditation sessions to attend, and for how long; this flexibility may have allowed them to determine for themselves when they would be most receptive to meditation and thus helped them get the most out of the experience. Second, the small amount of active practice people undertook seemed to lead to larger amounts of spontaneous practice. Indeed, many people said that, throughout the five week period, they often found themselves focusing their attention in the way they had been taught, even without having set out to do so.
As it happens, you don't need hundreds or even dozens of hours of meditation training to have an impact on brain functioning. This is good news for those of us who are interested in the benefits of meditation, but find the type of practice undertaken by life-long meditators to be a daunting time commitment.
For more on meditation and the brain, check out my book Choke!
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Moyer, C. A. et al. (2011). Frontal Electroencephalographic Asymmetry Associated With Positive Emotion Is Produced by Very Brief Meditation Training. Psychological Science.
I was really confused by the typos here. At first I thought there was an experiment on meditation in which the control group was given mediation training instead.
Otherwise, very interesting article! ;-)
1. Not everyone responds to meditation at the same pace.
2. There are layers of effects, most of which are subtle, and take time to perceive. I am not sure that the techniques of neuro sciences are comprehensive in this respect.
3. Deep rhythmic breathing or Pranayama enhances effects of meditation.
4. There is no valid approach to find a Guru. Beginners may fail because of limitations of their teachers.
5. Meditation just before dawn and after an early night of restful sleep works best.
Delighted to see this article. For several years, I have been training people to do very short meditation - one minute or less - which I call "one-moment meditation," and have seen some very powerful results. First, people feel that they are able to do it and that they have time to do it, so this encourages them to do it. Second, there is clear value in turning down the volume of distracting thoughts, anxiety, etc. even if briefly. Third, there is also some value in getting in the habit of meditating when you need to, and people who know that it is possible to meditate briefly are more likely to do it when they need to. And finally, let's not forget that many valuable meditative states are not temporal - they are atemporal -- "moments out of time" -- and so the discussion about length of meditation is somewhat of a distraction itself. Let's remember that anyone can be enlightened right now. Indeed, enlightenment is only possible right now. www.onemomentmeditation.com
I really appreciate this study. I too have found that moments of focussed attention in the 'now' are very powerful, especially when combined with deep breathing. I've read that just three breaths switch a person's state to the parasympathetic biobehavioural state which optimises well being and my experience supports that suggestion. As a midwife, I've observed that women who can do this in labour, using their focus to breathe love to their baby while welcoming the sensations, labour well and often "quickly" relatively speaking. The more relaxed and focussed, the faster the labour (generally). For myself, I use focussed awareness and deep breathing regularly during the day to manage challenging situations - mindfulness to me is 'walking meditation' or 'awake meditation' and I can feel my physiology "shift gears" when I do it. Birthing women and my research have taught me how useful and important it is. Thanks for this post.
Hi Carolyn.
I love what you wrote ... particularly about the benefits of being both relaxed AND focused. Often we associate relaxation with being "switched off" and focus with being hyperaroused, and so many people think of meditation as being just about relaxation. But meditation is not relaxation - it is about relaxed awakeness or relaxed focus. And the meditative state can be quite dynamic -- consistent with a life "on the go."
Regarding childbirth ... The first exercise in my training is called the Basic Minute - one minute of focused meditation. Although I was not aware of this when I wrote the book, apparently one minute is close to the average length of contractions in active labor, and a number of midwives have been using this exercise in their practice, just as you suggest.
There's no doubt that one minute is a very useful length of time in meditation, and I find that the more people practice it, the more space they experience in that minute. (In my training, we then reduce the length of that exercise, step by step, until it only takes a moment.) But a minute sure is a nice unit of time ... and no matter how busy their lives, most people have at least one a day to spare!
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