Many of us take no time for ourselves, focus on work to the exclusion of all else, and let stress affect our health. Of course, there’s an app for that, but mindfulness is one approach worth a closer look.
There is some evidence that mindfulness can help with the symptoms of certain physical conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome, according to a Scientific American overview of the research. It is not a cure, and researchers are still working out how and how much it helps. So several questions come to mind. How does meditation affect physical health? How will I find time to meditate? Does this really work?
Try It
Sometime when you’re sitting and staring out the window, notice the occasion. Are you seeing the traffic moving? Are the trees swaying in the breeze? The birds chirping? Now that you’ve noticed the occasion, notice what you’re thinking.
Are your thoughts focused on something specific, or are you just listening to the chatter in your mind? Are you observing these thoughts from a point outside your head, or are you replying to the conversation? Congratulations, you’ve just practiced mindfulness. This is the conscious attention you pay to different stimuli. It is simple awareness.
The Brain
The brain is a fascinating thing, and it handles many things at once. Let’s examine your brain on mindfulness for a look at how it can affect physical, mental and emotional health. Some of what the brain does happens in particular areas:
- Medial Prefrontal Cortex. Involved in daydreaming and thinking about ourselves.
- Anterior Cingulate Cortex. Involved in attention, impulse control and mental flexibility.
- The Amygdala. Involved in the stress response, the “fight or flight” reaction.
- The Hippocampus. This area is important to emotion and memory.
- The Insula. Involved in registering body sensations.
Chronic stress can affect how these parts of the brain work and how they communicate with each other. A Harvard Business Review article on mindfulness and the brain notes that the hippocampus is covered in receptors for the stress hormone cortisol, that studies have shown it can be damaged by chronic stress, and that people with stress-related disorders such as depression and PTSD tend to have a smaller hippocampus.
The anterior cingulate cortex helps handle impulsivity and mental flexibility. When it isn’t working well, a person may struggle to regulate themselves or to switch from one subject to another, and their thinking may stay in the medial prefrontal cortex, where rambling thoughts live. Picture someone who has trouble making a decision, or handling more than one thing at a time.
Mindfulness
There are many ways of exercising the muscle to gain cognitive flexibility, such as video games and crossword puzzles (without using a thesaurus). The Scientific American piece notes that lots of activities can boost the size of parts of the prefrontal cortex. However, when you are dealing with a condition that stress makes worse, such as high blood pressure, heart disease or anxiety, it makes sense to look at ways to change how the brain responds to stress before it can do its thing. That’s where mindfulness comes in.
Do you remember looking out the window? Let’s say that out of the window you saw a car driving too fast hit your new car. The amygdala portion of your brain sets off the stress response, and you’re on your feet, ready to yell at the driver. The hippocampus, tied to emotion and memory, and the insula, which registers body sensations, join in as your heart pounds.
These regions are all signaling that stress is happening.
Now take a deep breath and close your eyes. Keep breathing deeply to the bottom of your lungs, while you picture your new car as bright and pretty as it was on the showroom floor. Your automobile insurance will pay for the car to be returned to its former glory. The brain can signal to the body that things are okay now, and the heartbeat may slow toward normal.
You’re less likely to wrap the driver around his own steering wheel. You have just used mindfulness to take the edge off the stress response and get a closer look at the stress.
There are many mindfulness exercises, as well as ebooks and guidance from trained mindfulness teachers, to support your well-being. We’ll be happy to explain more when you contact us for more information.
Find more exercises related to mindfulness based stress reduction here.
Find more mindfulness exercises related to self-discovery and purpose here.
