Sometimes we all have days when we spend much of our mental energy on everything other than what’s in front of us now. We get anxious about tomorrow, replay a situation that happened yesterday, or worry about what other people may think of us if we do or say something that’s on our hearts. This tendency to ruminate on anything but the present moment is very common.
Dr. Rick Hanson describes how the brain tends to protect us from experiences that caused pain in the past. Yet in the meantime, without deliberate awareness of what your mind is doing, you may be missing out on the precious moments happening right in front of your eyes.
So is it possible to use mindfulness to not only reduce mind-wandering but also amplify your learning in any area of life that you want to improve? Can you train your brain to experience positive states like joy, happiness, gratitude, or compassion more consistently just by sitting quietly with your mind…even if it’s only for three minutes a day?
To address these and other questions, Dr. Rick Hanson blends neuroscience and mindfulness practices. He shares his approach to training your brain on Mindfulness Exercises’ podcast episode on Neuro-Learning and Amplifying Our Meditation Practice.
Below we expand on Dr. Hanson’s insights from this podcast to help you address ruminating thoughts and experience more positive states like joy, happiness, and gratitude more consistently through a deeper experience of mindfulness.
What is rumination and how does it pull you away from the present?
A 2007 study in Science by Malia Mason and colleagues found that mind-wandering was more frequent, and the brain’s default network more active, when people were not absorbed in a demanding task. And while thoughts are a normal activity of the mind, there is a point at which too much mind-wandering can become a source of suffering. Rumination is when the mind keeps circling back to worst-case scenarios, making it hard to feel calm and present. If rumination feels persistent or heavy, a mental health professional can help, and mindfulness can complement that care.
Dr. Hanson’s work on the brain’s negativity bias helps explain why rumination is so common. The brain is geared toward survival, so it tends to prepare for the next potential threat, viewing the present moment through the lens of past experience and conceptual knowledge.
Your brain can project painful memories or fears from the past into your ideas about the future. You can get stuck in a state of mental time-travel where you’re never fully present, which can contribute to stress and anxiety.
Reducing mental chatter by taking your focus off the concept of “self”
Dr. Hanson explains that the midline cortex is geared toward planning and completing tasks. While it can help you pursue your biggest goals, it can also be a source of over-thinking and rumination, especially when there’s too much focus on the concept of your “self.”
Ancient wisdom traditions often talk about there not being an individual “self.” Rather, everything is seen as part of one large whole, of which we perceive parts by where we place our attention. As Dr. Hanson notes below, there is no one place in the brain where our concept of “self” exists.
When people are engaged in self-referential activity, or they have a strong sense of ‘I’ or they’re describing themselves in some way, activations occur throughout the brain. There’s no place in the brain that does self, which is really interesting.
– Dr. Rick Hanson –
Mindfulness can help you get beyond ruminating on your worries
According to Dr. Hanson, when we drop into mindful presence, we tend to engage networks on the side of the brain while activity in the midline decreases. With less of your attention absorbed by personal fears and worries, you may notice more openings to learn and grow, including new ways of meeting the challenges in your life.
As Dr. Hanson points out in this Mindfulness Exercises’ podcast episode, “what we think of as the self is continually constructed. What we can find in the brain is more akin to a self that is compounded, impermanent, and independently arising.”
Many people find it a relief to consider that there is no fixed “self” in the mind to overcome. As you practice mindfulness, you simply settle into what is present. You can then more easily accept whatever shows up in the mind without judgment and without tying it back to an idea of yourself.
So if you ever struggle with yourself as you meditate, remember that even the concept of self is still simply a concept in the mind. You can observe it, notice it, witness it. But you are not it.
How to transform positive states into permanent traits
Dr. Hanson describes healing, learning, and growth as a process of moving from states to traits: turning short-term experiences into longer-term character traits or habits. Mindfulness can support this by cultivating positive states of being – whether that’s happiness, joy, compassion, courage, gratitude or any other feeling you’d like to experience more in your life.
Ever wonder why good experiences pass by so quickly while negative ones seem never-ending? Dr. Hanson points to the brain’s negativity bias, and compares negative states of mind to velcro; they tend to stick with us more easily.
The more we dwell in negative states, the more likely they are to become negative traits, such as being more reactive, irritated, or anxious, unless we consciously work with them. Positive states like joy and happiness, on the other hand, are more like teflon. They tend to slide off your neural networks easily – that is unless we continually practice feeling them.
One way to balance the brain’s negativity bias is to pay attention to positive states and consciously savor them. Dr. Hanson recommends focusing on the felt sense of reward in whatever you’re developing.
Train your brain by embodying what you want to feel more often
Let’s say you wish to feel compassion more of the time. In your mind, you may conceptually understand what it may look like to be more compassionate. Maybe you can even imagine a scenario where you’re being compassionate to someone whom you may consider an enemy.
Yet it’s one thing to visualize this ideal and to embody it on a consistent basis. By practicing compassion in real life, you may help wire this state of being into your brain so it comes more naturally. This is also where neuro-learning and mindfulness can support the process of becoming the kind of person you want to be more consistently.
Through relating to each present moment in a non-judgmental manner, you can set the intention to bring forth feelings of compassion that are already present within you. The more you access the feeling of compassion or joy in your meditation, the more you may be strengthening the neural networks related to these states. It may then be easier to embody compassion or joy in the midst of daily life, because you’ve laid the ground ahead of time.
How to use meditation to enhance neuro-learning
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s capacity to change with experience, so what we practice repeatedly can gradually shape it. To learn more about neuroplasticity and how it plays a role in cultivating mindfulness, watch this video by Dr. Rick Hanson: Understanding Neuroplasticity.
Neuro-learning is applying your brain’s neuroplasticity to strengthen the connections for the skills, traits, or habits that you most want to master in your life.
In meditation, you’re more able to objectively see what is happening in your mind. As you witness the rumination and mental chatter without judgment, you create a space. The more you practice mindfulness, the more you’re able to enter that space in between your thoughts and feelings. You’re able to see them more objectively and without getting caught up in them.
It is in this inner space of stillness where you can choose to intentionally bring up positive states like compassion, kindness, joy, or happiness. As you practice this, the benefits may carry into daily life.
Daily practice can be more helpful than one long occasional session of mindfulness
To speed up the process of reducing rumination and turning positive states into longer-lasting traits, practice mindfulness consistently. Just like working out or starting any positive habit, consistency tends to help.
Dr. Rick Hanson suggests that repeated episodes of practice spread out over time are more effective than lumping everything together at once.
If you could only do 30 minutes of mindfulness practice all at once or do 3 minutes every day for 10 days, which should you do? Dr. Hanson suggests that 3 minutes for 10 days would be the more effective route. This is why scattering mindful moments throughout the day can be so helpful. Here are some simple tips for helping you practice mindfulness every day.
Mindfulness exercises to accelerate neuro-learning
So what are some practices you can do to become more present and shift the mind away from ruminating thoughts and towards being able to cultivate positive states?
One place to start is body awareness practices. As you bring conscious awareness to physical sensations, your attention is shifted away from ruminating thoughts. Dr. Hanson notes that breath and body awareness practices keep us present and grounded in sensation, which can help loosen ruminative patterns over time.
Cultivating awareness of the body puts you in touch with what’s physically happening inside both your mind and body, allowing you to notice it with less judgment. You can learn how to do a body scan meditation here.
Enjoy the learning process and celebrate your progress
The great thing about mindfulness is that the more you practice, the easier it becomes. So celebrate yourself each time you complete a practice, regardless of how long or short it is. When you rejoice in completing something you set out to do, it may make it easier to do it again next time. Focusing on what feels good in your body after your mindfulness practice, or after any positive experience, is one way to follow Dr. Hanson’s advice to attend to the felt sense of reward. To integrate more moments of mindfulness into your life, start with any one of our thousands of free mindfulness exercises or grab our complete mindfulness toolkit here.
