What is meditation
Meditation is a collective term for many types of contemplative practices aimed at deep study of the mind in order to completely change the inner self. Likewise, sports reflect a wide range of sports trends. In both sports and meditation, the end results depend on what you actually do.
Regular exercise improves your fitness. Likewise, any type of meditation will strengthen your psychological form to some extent. Special benefits of one type or another have an increasing impact as the cumulative hours of practice increase.
An undisturbed mind
The opponent of a calm mind is all those anxieties that occur in life: financial difficulties, too heavy workload, family or health problems. In nature, stressful episodes such as encounters with a predator are fleeting and give the body time to recover. In modern life, stressors are more associated with psychology than biology and can be constant (even in thoughts), for example, a terrible boss or family problems. Similar stressors induce the same ancient biological responses. If these stressful reactions continue for a long time, they can harm you.
Science knows that the more of these difficulties we experience in life, the higher the level of stress hormones like cortisol. It sounds creepy: if cortisol levels are constantly on the rise, it has negative effects on the body, such as increasing the risk of dying from heart disease. Can meditation help in this situation?
Research
In an Emory University study, people who had never meditated were randomly assigned to mindfulness training and compassion meditation programs.
Participants were scanned before and after the eight-week training session. As they scanned, they were shown a set of images - common in emotional research - that included disturbing photographs of, for example, fire victims. The lucid attention group showed a decrease in amygdala activity in response to disturbing images. The changes in the activity of the amygdala occurred during the standard state of the participants in this study, which suggests the possible first shoots of the effect of changing the traits.
The pain is in your head
When you pinch yourself firmly on the back of your hand, different brain systems are activated. Some systems are responsible for the pure sensation of pain, while others are responsible for our aversion to pain. The brain combines them into an intuitive, instant "Ouch!"
But this union is destroyed when we practice mindfulness of the body, studying physical sensations for hours in detail. We maintain concentration and our awareness is transformed.
What was a painful pinch changes, breaking down into its component parts: the intensity of the pinch and the painful sensation, the tone of the emotional feeling - we do not want pain, we want it to disappear immediately. But if we persist in our careful exploration, the pinch becomes an experience worth unpacking with interest, even calmness. We can see that our disgust disappears and the "pain" breaks down into subtle shades: pulsation, heat, intensity.
Among the main components of pain are our physiological sensations, such as burning sensations, and our psychological reactions to these sensations. The theory is that meditation can drown out our emotional responses to pain and thus make the heat sensations more bearable.
Meditation as psychotherapy
Although meditation was not created for the purpose of treating psychological problems, in the modern world it looks like a promising method in the treatment of certain diseases, especially depressive and anxiety disorders.
In a meta-analysis of 47 studies on the use of meditation techniques for treating patients with mental health problems, the results showed that meditation reduced depression (especially severe), anxiety and pain in much the same way as medication, but without side effects. Meditation also reduces the severity of psychological stress - less so than medication. Loving-kindness meditation can be beneficial for trauma patients.
Long term
Meditation over the years offers more benefits when people reach the range of practice, 1,000 to 10,000 hours. This could mean daily meditation sessions and possibly annual weekly training retreats - all over the years. The initial effects will grow, while new ones will emerge.
For example, in this range, we see the emergence of neural and hormonal indicators of reduced stress response. It also strengthens functional connectivity in the brain in an area important for regulating emotions, and decreases levels of cortisol, the main hormone released by the adrenal glands in response to stress.
Practicing loving-kindness and compassion over an extended period strengthens the neural resonance with the other person's suffering, as well as caring and the likelihood that you will actually help that person. Thanks to long-term practice, attention increases in many aspects: selective attention increases, the effect of blinking attention decreases, it becomes easier to hold it, and alertness to act increases. Experienced practitioners have shown an increased ability to suppress wandering and self-directed thoughts of the passive mode, as well as reduced connectivity in areas of this network, indicating less self-concern. These improvements often appear in meditative states and tend to become traits.
Meditation is a collective term for many types of contemplative practices aimed at deep study of the mind in order to completely change the inner self. Likewise, sports reflect a wide range of sports trends. In both sports and meditation, the end results depend on what you actually do.
A practical tip for those who are going to meditate, or for those who are currently trying different practices: it is worth keeping in mind that, as with mastering a skill in sports, there are huge benefits to choosing the right meditation practice and using it ... Pick one practice and determine the amount of time you can actually devote to it every day - even if it is a few minutes. Try the practice for a month and see how you feel after that time.
Regular exercise improves your fitness. Likewise, any type of meditation will strengthen your psychological form to some extent. Special benefits of one type or another have an increasing impact as the cumulative hours of practice increase.
An undisturbed mind
A calm mind is an important goal of meditation in all great spiritual traditions. Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, wrote his own version of an ancient Taoist poem in which he praised this quality. He talks about a draftsman who could draw perfect circles without using a compass and whose mind was "free and unconcerned."
The opponent of a calm mind is all those anxieties that occur in life: financial difficulties, too heavy workload, family or health problems. In nature, stressful episodes such as encounters with a predator are fleeting and give the body time to recover. In modern life, stressors are more associated with psychology than biology and can be constant (even in thoughts), for example, a terrible boss or family problems. Similar stressors induce the same ancient biological responses. If these stressful reactions continue for a long time, they can harm you.
Science knows that the more of these difficulties we experience in life, the higher the level of stress hormones like cortisol. It sounds creepy: if cortisol levels are constantly on the rise, it has negative effects on the body, such as increasing the risk of dying from heart disease. Can meditation help in this situation?
Research
In an Emory University study, people who had never meditated were randomly assigned to mindfulness training and compassion meditation programs.
Participants were scanned before and after the eight-week training session. As they scanned, they were shown a set of images - common in emotional research - that included disturbing photographs of, for example, fire victims. The lucid attention group showed a decrease in amygdala activity in response to disturbing images. The changes in the activity of the amygdala occurred during the standard state of the participants in this study, which suggests the possible first shoots of the effect of changing the traits.
The pain is in your head
When you pinch yourself firmly on the back of your hand, different brain systems are activated. Some systems are responsible for the pure sensation of pain, while others are responsible for our aversion to pain. The brain combines them into an intuitive, instant "Ouch!"
But this union is destroyed when we practice mindfulness of the body, studying physical sensations for hours in detail. We maintain concentration and our awareness is transformed.
What was a painful pinch changes, breaking down into its component parts: the intensity of the pinch and the painful sensation, the tone of the emotional feeling - we do not want pain, we want it to disappear immediately. But if we persist in our careful exploration, the pinch becomes an experience worth unpacking with interest, even calmness. We can see that our disgust disappears and the "pain" breaks down into subtle shades: pulsation, heat, intensity.
Among the main components of pain are our physiological sensations, such as burning sensations, and our psychological reactions to these sensations. The theory is that meditation can drown out our emotional responses to pain and thus make the heat sensations more bearable.
Meditation as psychotherapy
Although meditation was not created for the purpose of treating psychological problems, in the modern world it looks like a promising method in the treatment of certain diseases, especially depressive and anxiety disorders.
In a meta-analysis of 47 studies on the use of meditation techniques for treating patients with mental health problems, the results showed that meditation reduced depression (especially severe), anxiety and pain in much the same way as medication, but without side effects. Meditation also reduces the severity of psychological stress - less so than medication. Loving-kindness meditation can be beneficial for trauma patients.
Long term
Meditation over the years offers more benefits when people reach the range of practice, 1,000 to 10,000 hours. This could mean daily meditation sessions and possibly annual weekly training retreats - all over the years. The initial effects will grow, while new ones will emerge.
For example, in this range, we see the emergence of neural and hormonal indicators of reduced stress response. It also strengthens functional connectivity in the brain in an area important for regulating emotions, and decreases levels of cortisol, the main hormone released by the adrenal glands in response to stress.
Practicing loving-kindness and compassion over an extended period strengthens the neural resonance with the other person's suffering, as well as caring and the likelihood that you will actually help that person. Thanks to long-term practice, attention increases in many aspects: selective attention increases, the effect of blinking attention decreases, it becomes easier to hold it, and alertness to act increases. Experienced practitioners have shown an increased ability to suppress wandering and self-directed thoughts of the passive mode, as well as reduced connectivity in areas of this network, indicating less self-concern. These improvements often appear in meditative states and tend to become traits.
