Meditation May Help Brain Tune Out Distractions

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"Study Helps Explain Why Meditation Improves Concentration"

Written by Jennifer Warner WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

 

"Nov. 21, 2011 -- People who meditate may be able to use their brain in ways others can't to tune out distractions and focus on the task at hand.
A new study shows that experienced meditators may have less activity in parts of the brain associated with daydreaming and distraction while meditating and in their day-to-day lives.
Researchers say this brain network, known as the "default mode network," has also been linked to anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and Alzheimer's disease.
"The default mode is when you ruminate, think about yourself, or daydream," says study researcher Judson Brewer, MD, PhD, medical director of the Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic. "Everybody has it, but experienced meditators have a different type."
Brewer found that people who meditate are able to link up other parts of their brains to monitor activity in the default mode network that tell them to get back on task when distractions arise and be present in the moment.
The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Experts say the results help explain the benefits of meditation on concentration and open the door to future research using meditation to treat and potentially prevent a variety of psychiatric and neurological disorders.

Meditation Modifies Brain Networks

In the study, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to analyze brain activity in 12 experienced meditators (more than 10 years of experience practicing mindfulness meditation) and 12 novice meditators. The scans were done as they practiced three different types of mindfulness meditation as well as at rest.
The results showed that experienced meditators had less activity in the default mode network, regardless of the type of meditation they practiced.
In addition, the scans showed that when the default mode network was active, other brain regions responsible for self-monitoring and thought control were also activated in experienced, but not novice meditators.
"This new default mode in meditators has these other components that are monitoring and telling you to get back on task and be present," Brewer tells WebMD.

More Benefits of Meditation

Experts say the findings build on previous studies that have shown meditation can alter brain structure by increasing gray matter density and brain activity to improve concentration.
"The finding sheds light not just on meditation's effect on the brain but on some basic brain operations that may have implications beyond meditation," says Catherine Kerr, PhD, director of translational neuroscience at Brown University, who has studied the effects of meditation on brain wave activity.
Kerr says the brain has two networks, the attentional network and the default network. The attentional network is usually focused on something external, such as a manual task. The default network is involved in internal chatter and daydreaming.
Usually these networks work exclusively of each other. When one is on, the other shuts down, Kerr says.

The concept of self as a hanger

A metaphor that I often use to explain the concept of self is a hanger… made of building blocks. We build the hanger up one block at a time until it has a fixed structure that you can drape pants and coats (life experiences) on and upkeep a consistent concept of who you are and make sense of the world around you.

When we are born our mind can be thought of as formless, pure sensation and perceptions. Close and consistent contact with caregivers slowly forms those sensations and perceptions into groupings. One group can be hands and bottom, water or dry wipe, cleaning wet and dry, cold, diaper, changing board, light, and baby powder. Another group can be excruciating hunger pains in the stomach, holding and caressing, breast or bottle, warm milk, drowsiness. These grouping begin to form rhythyms and life’s rhythyms create form. These become primary building blocks for conceptions of the self. How do I feel at different times, how do I influence my surrounding, what kind of reactions do I illicit from my surroundings, how to live in my environment…

Picture a four year old sitting cross legged on the floor and in front of that child are a bunch of legos. What do you imagine the child doing with those legos? Trail and error, experimentations? Is there someone else there or is the child alone with the legos?

 

Yesterday I talked to someone who said that his mother was always exasperated with his slowness and lack of following instructions and she would have left him alone. Made him sit away, maybe in a corner, by himself, to figure out what to do with the legos. Some other child might have been given a pre-packaged lego set that came with instructions. Another child might have a parent or guardian sitting beside them saying, ”That’s so good, wow, you made that? Good job! Keep going, you’re really good at building. (What is it???).” The child left alone to figure out life, form and ”I” by himself has a different path. Even now, he says he constantly second guesses his decisions in life, spending a lot of time and energy worrying about the past and future, finding it really hard to live in the present.

That might be the biggest benefit of having a cohesive self, an ”I” that stays intact: the capacity to be present in the moment and enjoy the very basics of life- being alive. Buddha teaches that the self is an illusion. In my role as a psychologist, I would say that you have to have a cohesive self before you can deconstruct it and ponder an abstraction like ”freeing yourself from conceptions”.

Life is full of bumps and bruises as well as profound realizations. These shift our blocks and mould our hanger. After a period of re-alignment the spine of our hanger falls into shape and carries our experiences and learnings once again. Actually, like a live cell in our body, the more evolving and changing the form is, the more stable it is in the long run. We experience anxiety during the re-alignment phase.  Some times if what we encounter is very acute or traumatic lego blocks fall out of the hanger. And we have to use psychological energy to ”keep our selves together”. Sometimes our hanger can disinegrate, as in psychosis, and we fall into an abyss. A depressed hanger colors our clothes. A hanger with a personality disorder has used a glue to put the hanger together which can be a bit toxic, it keeps the self togther, but I can not thrive. 

Our primary relationships give us the building blocks for our hangers. In fact all our relationships, throughout our lives, are building blocks. During adolescence, the shaping and building of our hanger is rather intense. Many experiences teach us about who we really are and how to swim in our surroundings. We need support in all phases of our lives. Sometimes it’s good to take a good look at our hangers.

I guess you could say that professionally I am in the business of hangers, giving support for building and inspection.

Summa summarum:
We need our relationships and experiences.

We need support.

We are allowed to change and stay together.

Life is best when it living it doesn’t take too much out of us and we are able to be experience our essential presence, be present and thrive.

BUDDHALAISEN MINDFULNESS'IN KESKUSTELU ILTA

KUTSU

TERVETULOA BUDDHALAISEN MINDFULNESS'IN KESKUSTELU ILTAAN

14.11.2011 klo 18-20.30

RAUHAN ASEMA, Veturitori, Pasila

Keskustelu forumi on jatkoa 2.10.11 pidettyyn dialogiin, jonka tarkoitus oli edistää vuorovaikutusta ja yhteisymmärrystä Buddhalaisten yhteisöjen välillä. Mindfulness ja sen ympärillä olevat kysymykset nousivat esiin dialogissa. Tämän tilaisuuden tarkoitus on keskustella näistä kysymyksistä. Tilaisuus on tarkoitettu kaikille joita kiinnostaa Mindfulness sekä Teille jotka haluavat keskustella Mindfulness'in tilasta Suomessa. Kaikki ovat tervetulleita dialogiin.

Mindfulness'in harjoittaminen alkaa olla tutumpi monille Suomessa. Mindfulness pohjautuu Buddhalaisiin meditaatioharjoituksiin ja ajatteluun. Näitä harjoitusmenetelmiä ja ajattelua opetetaan Suomen monissa Buddhalaisissa keskuksissa. Näistä opeista on myös kehitetty hoito-interventiot MSBR- Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction sekä MBCT- Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Mindfulness kursseja tarjoavat monet instanssit kuten hyvinvointikeskukset, työterveyshuollot, terapiaa tarjoavat yhteisöt sekä Mindfulness-keskukset.

Hyvin herkullista olisi

- sekä tehdä molemmat Buddhalaisten keskuksien ja Mindfulness kouluttajien tarjoamat opit tutummaksi. Vaikka Mindfulness'in harjoittaminen alkaa olla tutumpi, kenttä voi tuntua ”epämääräiseltä”.  

- että käydä elävää dialogia niiden yhtäläisyyksiä ja eroavaisuuksista…demystifiointi lienee tarpeen?

Illan keskustelun alustukset:

- meditaatio ohjaaja ja kääntäjä Lauri Porceddu (Dharmachari Sarvamitra) Triratna keskuksesta ohjaa Buddhalaisen mindfulness meditaatioharjoituksen

- työterveyspsykologi Miia Rautiainen esittää MSBR- Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction kurssin sisällön

- Rami Rahtu Nirodha Ry yhteisöstä kertoo Buddhalaisuuden ja Mindulfness'in välisestä suhteesta

Keskustelutilaisuus. Alustusten pohjalta on hedelmällistä pohtia yhdessä:

- Miten määritellään Buddhalaisen ja MSBR:iin pohjautuvien Mindfulness menetelmien eroja

- Mindfulness'in harjoittamisen mahdollisuuksista Suomessa sekä kentän kosketuspinnoista, miten Mindfulness’ia voidaan opettaa ja oppia Suomessa.?

- Mitä Buddhalaisilla yhteisöillä on annettavaa Suomen Mindfulness kenttään?

Terveyssmoothit valmistavat Common Love Ry

Vapaa-ehtoinen 5 euron sisäänpääsy maksu auttaa kattamaan tilan vuokran

Ilmoittautuminen: www.ilmoittautuminen.info - Ilmoittautumislomake

Mindfulness groups

Many instances are offering Mindfulness groups these days. The need for stress reduction has become an unfortunate condition in daily life. At times it seems like the need for stress maintenance is akin to the need for sleep, exercise, etc.

One way to do stress maintenance is through mindfulness exercises. MBSR- Mindfulbased Stress Reduction Training is one form of stress reduction and maintenance utilizing mindfulness techniques. MBSR- Mindfulbased stress reduction schooling was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Kabat-Zinn) of the Massachusetts stress clinic, where it has been used with remarkable results since the 1980’s. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Daniel Siegal, Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Rebecca Crane for instance have written extenisively on the subject for sometime and there is a world of books on Mindfulness available. I suggest heading to the library or online if you are interested.

I completed Kabat-Zinn’s 8 week MBSR program under psychotherapist Clara Wikström with the Finnish Psychophysical Psychotherapy Association at which I am a member. There are many places to study MBSR and they should all be based on the same program. The exercises I did during this program and in my other courses and practices have helped me get more out of life. After this program I have been holding courses myself and the participants have had the same type of experiences I have had, such as:

- “It feels like I have gained more time”

- “I feel more in control of what I am doing”

- “I get more out of what I do and enjoy myself more”

- “My stress levels are down and I sleep better”

The courses I hold are based on MBSR as mentioned above as well as MBCT principles and other theories and techniques I have studied, such as:

- Psychodynamic Body Psychotherapy Downing -Method course at the Finnish Psychophysical Psychotherapy Association in Turku, Finland

- ACT - Acceptance and commitment therapy developed by Steven C. Hayes and others, originally called "comprehensive distancing", which uses strategies of mindfulness, acceptance, and behavior change. (In Finnish this is HOT – Hyväksyntä-Omistautumisterapia training).

The goal of the group is to increase your capacity for concentration and for being present in the moment, through which your work performance and experience of work enjoyment will be enhanced. Working in a group gives a powerful setting to investigate and modify our own behavior, patterns of thought and even experience bases. The group methods used include experiential exercises and “homework exercises” relating to stress reduction, relaxation and presence or mindfulness. The course includes exercises based on recent research results produced by brain researcher Daniel Siegel at Harvard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Siegel). During the group sessions there will also be expansive learning lectures on sleep, cognitive ergonomics, stress reduction and topics that arise in the group.

If you are interested in Mindfulness groups a good google search is Mindfulness+your area. If you live in the Helsinki, Finland area and you are interested in my groups, I offer them through CommonLove.fi and you can contact me at miia.rautiainen@commonlove.fi

If you are an occupational health customer at Lääkärikeskus, you can sign up through your OH nurse or doctor (see the ad at http://www.laakarikeskus.com/sites/default/files/lk_mitakuuluu_5_160911_lr.pdf)Elsewhere in Finland (including the Helsinki area) MBSR training is also available through:

Suomen psykofyysisen psykoterapian yhdistys ry. http://www.psykofyysinenpsykoterapia.fi/ Clara Wickström, c/o Hol-Tera, Jarrumiehenkatu 7, 20100 Turku p. 0400-803 038 , clara.wickstrom(a)kolumbus.fi

Suositeltavaa lukemista:

Joustava Mieli by Arto Pietikäinen. katso lisää: Psykologi-lehti tai http://joustavamieli.blogspot.com/

Book excerpt. On the pain of breaking up and how to survive

Excepts from my appendum on breakups in the book: marriagemoneyandporn.blogspot.com/

Key elements of surviving a break-up include distancing- not identifying with your painful emotions and practicing relaxation techniques.

"When we are abandoned or cause pain to another by initiating the breakup, we naturally feel bad about ourselves. This feeling may be so pervasive and seep into us so deep that we lose the context of why we feel bad. We are not inherently bad even though something bad has happened. We must please remember to be humane to ourselves. Cut ourselves a break. Be kind and merciful. Don't punish ourselves. Putting oneself in the dog house doesn't change the situation or help resolve it, it only displaces the dog. It's just non-sensical.

It is, however, important to allow ourselves to feel any feelings that arise. Blocking out grief, anger, disappointment, relief, etc. will only encapsulate them in the long run. It's like the kind of capsule that powder form medicine comes in. As with medicine capsules that dissolve when we swallow them, the emotions we may hide away and try to encapsulate regularly dissolve and require us to use psychological energy reserves to re-encapsulate them continuously. Why not use that same psychological energy or currency to let those emotions breathe for a moment and be on their way? These emotions may keep washing in with the waves, but let them leave with the waves as well. We don't have to be so responsible and diligent as to hold onto and nurse every feeling. They can knock on the door, be acknowledged, but they don't have to move into the house. It's harder to see our authentic selves in a house full of needy guests."

"Allowing your brain to rest is important. Meditation is powerful. Research has shown that in a state of rest our brains function optimally. Further research on meditation shows that in a meditative state we have even more neuro-electric activity in all areas of the brain than in the rest state, especially between our right and left lobes. We can process thing better if we let our brains rest and rejuvenate. A short and simple technique that can be used to “clear the palate,” like having ginger between pieces of sushi, is to count your breathing from one to ten, then from ten to one and then repeat this process until your brain calms down. Usually between 5 and 15 minutes depending on how anxious you are. This technique is especially useful for decreasing anxiety levels if you happen to wake up in the middle of the night. Having a meditation CD to listen to may also be useful."

Knitted Prayer Flag Pattern

This year I have started to take compassionate charity work seriously and have looked for a project I want to put my time into. After hearing the Dalai Lama speak, I was moved to help nomadic Tibetan tribes living high up in the mountains in the area that is now China. If the kids there aren't able to go to school they won't learn Tibetan language and history, essentially Tibetan culture won't take many generations to die out. I found this organization, Danakosha Aid (http://danakoshaaid.fi/), that is helping to build a school for the kids to go to and live at. Their families will also receive aid. If you want to see a video of the area and the people go to http://youtu.be/-Nir3rQRIaU.

If you want to practice compassion as well, you can help buy donating in the form of buying this pattern I designed at ravelry.com: Tiriki Designs, contributions to Danakosha Aid. Click here!
All proceeds go to the project in full.

This pattern was designed specifically for the building and upkeep of the Gegong school (see danakoshaaid.fi or the blogposts below for more details). All donations go directly to that fund in full.

Any information or symbolism in this pattern is produced solely by the author of the pattern and do not represent the teachings of Danakosha Finland.

The use of prayer flags dates back to pre-Buddhist traditions in Tibet. It is believed that the special blessing power of what is printed on prayer flags (mantras, special prayers and auspicious symbols) is spread all over the world by the wind, therefore the flags are strung on ropes and hung from a pole or between two poles.

You can hang your banner anywhere it makes you happy. If you wish to make your flags symbolic, the prayer part of the flags can be whatever images or symbols you decide to paint, embroider or sew onto the flags (there are some Buddhist symbol suggestions in the instructions) or the prayer can simply be wishes and intentions that you knit into the flag stitch by stitch. Traditionally prayer flags are medium/dark blue (sky), white (clouds), red (fire), green (water) and yellow (earth) flags, but you can choose any colors that please you. Traditionally they are also rectangular. As knitting curls, I have made these more like traditional banners. And this knit version withstands wind well J

Have a loving day and let your spirit fly!!

Compassionate Charity

One path to sustainable happiness is being the happiness you want to achieve. Live it now. A component of happiness is the capacity to have an open heart. Practicing compassion is a path to opening your heart. The development of compassion has had phenomenal scientific research results in the welfare of the brain. Which is amazing since compassion not only breeds happiness in yourself and others it is like rehabilitation for your brain. For instance Metta-meditation increases cerebral activity between our cerebral cortexes, i.e. we can better utilize both sides of our brain in unison.
I had the amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity of following His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama during his visit to Finland (http://www.dalailama.com/news/post/727-his-holiness-the-dalai-lama-concludes-two-day-program-in-finland , you can also read more in the post below). He spoke at many different forums, each time spreading the message of compassion and speading awareness regarding the realities of poor conditions of those Tibetians living in the Tibet area of China. At a formal luncheon at the Helsinki Bourse Club an inspired participant asked what people in Finland can do to help. His Holiness answered that what everyone everywhere in the world can do to help is to upkeep awareness of the terrible conditions faced by those living in the area of Tibet. AWARENESS AND COMPASSION.

There is one excellent way to do more than just upkeep and spead awareness, you can send practical help to the people in Tibet. You can send a donation to Danakosha Aid:

http://danakoshaaid.fi/About_us.html
 
Donations go directly towards building and operating a school for nomadic children in Eastern Tibet. These children live in poor conditions and have no access to education. Government aid is lacking.

Danakosha Aid is an awesome charity because you can trust that the aid you give will be brought directly to those in need in the village of Gegong in the area of Dzachuka in Eastern Tibet. Danakosha workers work in direct co-operation with both the local nomad families and Gegong monastery to built and operate an educational center which will be built close to Gegong monastery. (see http://youtu.be/-Nir3rQRIaU for a visual of the area, people and Gegong mpnastery)

If you live in Europe, chances are you can send aid directly to Danakosha Aid through the following bank account: FI3940550010120638/BIC/SWIFT HELSFIHH

Elsewhere you can donate through PayPal.com using the button on the right of this page. Just select any amount, no matter how small and submit. The funds sent through PayPal will be transferred to the Danakosha account above.