well-being – The Science of Meditation and Mindfulness

Compassionate meditation creates a positive outlook

Train in compassion to create a more positive outlook.

man holding woman s hand — Regular compassion-based meditation linked to positive and caring thoughts

Authors: Jazaieri, H., Lee, I. A., McGonigal, K., Jinpa, T., Doty, J. R., Gross, J. J., & Goldin, P. R.

Year: 2016

Title: A wandering mind is a less caring mind: Daily experience sampling during compassion meditation training.

Summary: The concept of mind wandering is well known to all of us. It’s the kind of drifting off that we experience when we are not concentrating on a specific activity or goal, people also call it daydreaming or spontaneous thought. If we have a challenging task that requires our full attention we tend to do little or no mind wandering, and conversely, when we are mind wandering we are much less able to concentrate on a task. The two neural networks responsible for task functions and mind wandering respectively are thought to be negatively correlated, when one is more active the other in more passive and vice versa. The benefits of better concentration and task performance are obvious, but we are starting to see that mind wandering may also have a key role to play in our health and wellbeing. This study is one of the few investigations into meditation that acknowledges that mind wandering may have a positive role to play in our lives.

This study investigated the effects of nine weeks of compassion training on 51 adults. As part of my own research into meditation and mind wandering, I have revisited the paper. There are two conclusions that I’d like to draw your attention to. Firstly that the meditation was linked to a decline in mind wandering to neutral topics but an increase towards pleasant topics. That meditation can lead to decreased mind wandering is well known, the highlight of this study is that meditation seemed to change the type of mind wandering. This is highly suggestive that mind wandering has both a qualitative and quantitative aspect. That some forms of mind wandering might actually be beneficial in some way, therefore suppressing mind wandering generally might not of itself be a useful target of any wellbeing intervention.

The evidence that compassionate meditation can naturally draw the mind away from the negative and towards the positive could have profound implications for our health. Mind wandering is spontaneous, it’s not consciously constructed if compassionate meditation leads to a natural increase in positive thoughts, it indicates an association with a range of other cognitive processes. This view is supported by a second finding from the research, that compassionate meditation is linked to augmentation in caring behaviours for oneself and others.

Link: www.tandfonline.com

Who you really are; the default mode network

The default mode network has a crucial but poorly understood role in how meditation influences brain structure and function. This paper sets out some of the current thinking regarding self-generated thought.

Meditation and the defaulyt mode network. — What is your brain doing when you are day dreaming?

Authors: Andrews‐Hanna, J. R., Smallwood, J., & Spreng, R. N.

Year: 2014

Title: The default network and self‐generated thought: component processes, dynamic control, and clinical relevance

Summary: It is frequently suggested that neuroscience is still in its infancy, this becomes patently clear when you start to consider how little we know about the default mode network (DMN). The DMN, also known as the default network (DN) or the task-negative network (TNN) is most active when humans are in a resting state. In short, the DMN is the network that takes over when we are not actively engaged in a specific task. Surprisingly it was assumed that the brain was resting when not engaged in an externally focussed activity. This assumption was surprising because scientists know that their brains are capable of complex processes such as mind wandering when they are not reacting to the external environment. However, only when it was demonstrated that functional brain activity could reach similar levels in task and non-task modes did the investigation into the DMN begin in earnest. This has particular relevance for meditators and contemplative science, as the DMN is often the direct and indirect target for meditation methods.

Andrews‐Hanna, Smallwood and Spreng produced a review of the leading findings linked to the DMN, which they describe as an anatomically diffuse global network. Their primary focus is the DMN and self-generated thought, thought that arise without external sensory stimulus. Describing much of the recent research in the field they conclude that the DMN plays an integrated role in a wide range of neurological functions. Thus both normal and abnormal mental health is dependent on activity and functional connectivity within the DMN and links to other neural networks. The paper provides a useful background to contemplative scientists looking for an understanding of how meditation might influence human behaviour.

Link: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Brain health in middle age; the science of meditation and mindfulness

Meditation and mindfulness may help to keep your brain young

man sitting on chair beside table

Authors: Fotuhi, M., Lubinski, B., Trullinger, M., Hausterman, N., Riloff, T., Hadadi, M., & Raji, C. A.

Year: 2016

Title: A personalized 12‐week ” Brain Fitness Program” for improving cognitive function and increasing the volume of hippocampus in elderly with mild cognitive impairment.

Summary: The idea that brain function inevitably declines as people grow older is firmly established in both clinical and cognitive branches of psychology. This particular study is one of only a handful that I have seen to suggest, that even in retirement, people can maintain and even increase both structure and function in the brain. Participants of retirement age with a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) were asked to engage in a number of activities linked to brain health. They included: cognitive stimulation, Omega 3 supplements, some physical exercise, a change in diet and mindfulness meditation. Participant undertook a range of cognitive tests before the interventions and at the end of the experiment.

Results showed that 84% of participants saw an improvement in their cognitive performance. Further neuroimaging examinations revealed that a majority of a sample of the participants also demonstrated no decline or an actual increase in the volume of the hippocampus. Although this was a preliminary study with a number of methodological problems, it is suggestive that people may have a lot more control over brain structure and function than is generally assumed. This kind of ‘shotgun’ approach can support general theories but adds little to our understanding of the extent to which particular interventions (or combination of interventions) may offer benefit. It also makes the establishment of robust scientific theory a challenge, as no single theory can incorporate such a wide range of activities. For example with a new diet, can cognitive changes be attributed to the food that was no longer being eaten or the new food? Or a combination of the two? However simply to demonstrate that older adults can experience increased structure in certain brain regions is an important contribution to our understanding of the human brain.

Link: https://neurogrow.com

Can mindfulness help you to stop smoking?

Can mindfulness meditation help with smoking cessation or addiction? Stop smoking.

Authors: Maglione MA, Maher AR, Ewing B, Colaiaco B, Newberry S, Kandrack R, Shanman RM, Sorbero ME, Hempel S.

Year: 2017

Title: Efficacy of mindfulness meditation for smoking cessation: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Summary: Although there is an enduring presumption that meditation can help people with addiction, few papers have demonstrated significant effects during randomised controlled trials. This study searched five databases in order to produce a meta-study of relevant research. Ten randomised controlled trials investigating the effect of mindfulness for tobacco smoking cessation were identified. The studies had a total of 1192 participants with individual sample sizes from 27 to 412. The studies had a balance of genders (4) or more males than females (6). The average age of participants in the studies was between from 21.5 to 45.9 years and all the research was carried out in the United States of America. The meditation interventions varied from durations of 1 day to eight weeks. Five studies used only mindfulness as the intervention (monotherapy), three used a combination of mindfulness and nicotine replacement, two studies allowed the participants to augment mindfulness therapy with nicotine replacement if desired.

The meta-review found only one study could be rated as good, four were described as fair and the remaining five adjudged to be poor. The point was made that eight of the studies did not disclose if the experimental assessors were ‘blinded’ to participant intervention. Four studies failed to report cessation outcomes and only one reported an a priori power calculation. The headline finding was that mindfulness did not offer significant increases in smoking cessation compared to other interventions. The study highlighted a number of methodological weaknesses in the reported research but acknowledged the preliminary nature of understanding in this area.

Link: www.sciencedirect.com

Compassion, meditation and depression

Can cognitive based compassion therapy (CBCT) help with depression?

Authors: Jennifer S. Mascaro, Sean Kelley, Alana Darcher, Lobsang Tenzin Negi, Carol Worthman, Andrew Miller, Charles Raison

Year: 2018

Title: Meditation buffers medical student compassion from the deleterious effects of depression

Summary: The body of evidence demonstrating that compassion training offers significant benefit to its practitioners (and the wider community) is growing. This particular study investigated cognitive-based compassion training’s (CBCT) relationship to the wellbeing of medical students in their second year of training. Compassion is a particularly important issue for people working in clinical settings. Because of the nature of their activity, a degree of compassion is desirable if not essential. However, there is concern over issues connected to ‘compassion fatigue and ‘burn out’. A total of 59 students engaged in the research, those participants that received CBCT reported increased compassion and decreased loneliness and depression.

Perspective: Contemplative science, health psychology

Link: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760.2016.1233348

Putting the Meditator at the Centre of the Research

Meditators know the most about meditation, if science ignores them they miss a trick.

(The research is now complete, thanks to all who participated)

Do you meditate or practice mindfulness?

I am currently undertaking an academic survey into meditation and wellbeing. I would like to ask meditators over the age of 18 to complete a short anonymous questionnaire about their practice (it should take around ten minutes). The research has been ethically approved and conforms to all the usual academic norms.

This important research seeks to capture the meditation and mindfulness experience of practitioners of different levels of experience and backgrounds. Based on meditators self reported insights, this projects follows recent signposts in contemplative science putting greater emphasis on the experiential nature of mindfulness and meditation.

Regards

SGM

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