Brain
plasticity is perhaps one of the key elements to the advancement and
survival of the human race. Everyday our environment plays a significant
role in shaping the people that we are. Whether you realize it or not,
random stimuli play a crucial role in forming connections of your neural
network. Due to the sensitivity of the brain, many worldly factors can
influence negative change. One of these factors is stress. Stress can be
beneficial, however, it also holds the potential to severely damage
ones physical and mental well being. Different people have different
approaches to dealing with stress but perhaps one of the most beneficial
solutions is meditation.
.jpg)
According
to the National Institute of Mental Health stress is the brains
response to any demand. However, these demands can vary from being
positive/negative and long term/short term. Stress is a product of
evolution that allows animals to respond quickly in dangerous situations
by regulating various body functions such as pulse, muscle tension and
oxygen use. In the short term stress can be beneficial. However, when
these processes are over used they can lead to serious neurological side
effects such as depression, anxiety disorder and other illnesses (NIMH
1). Various techniques can be used in coping with stress but perhaps one
of the most important is meditation. Meditation itself has many
positive effects on the body and mind. Meditation has been show as an
excellent way to deal with anxiety, pain, depression, stress and
insomnia (NCCAM 1). Aside from being a useful way to deal with various
physical issues, developing the ability to meditate carries beneficial
physiological changes in the brain. According to a study performed by
UCLA researchers, there is a positive correlation between the number of
years someone has been meditating and the amount of insular gyrification
they have. The insula is thought to have a role in autonomic, affective
and cognitive integration (Luders 1). Developing this ability can lead
to a healthier lifestyle, and a more beneficial mind state. However,
learning to meditate is easier said than done. How can one teach
themselves to control their thoughts and become more mindful? Perhaps if
you’ve ever tried to meditate you’ve found that it is not easy.
Gary Marcus, author of Guitar Zero: The New Musician and Science of Learning,
takes an excellent approach to answering this question. In his attempt
to learn the guitar he explains and demonstrates the difficulty behind
the task. Even more so, he shows that humans are capable of overcoming
these difficulties and eventually mastering new skill sets. In Guitar Zero,
Gary Marcus writes, “To the degree that we ultimately become musical,
it is because we have the capacity to slowly and laboriously tune broad
ensembles of neural circuitry over time, through deliberate practice,
and not because the circuitry of music is all there from the outset”
(Marcus 33). The brain can rewire itself and form new connections
solidifying the ability to perform new skills. So a good start to
mastering meditation and developing a healthier lifestyle is repetition.
According to Science Daily, “to become an accomplished musician or
athlete, requires practice, and that causes new connections to form in
the brain.” Repetition will tie together new neural networks allowing
you to become better at these skills. In fact, these changes can
actually be monitored through the increase of gray-matter in the brain
over time.
The
process of learning new abilities itself has benefits to the human body
and mind. The joy associated with accomplishment is euphoric. In Guitar Zero,
Gary Marcus describes the process of learning as something that, “can
bring the same sort of surge of dopamine one might get by ingesting
crack cocaine” (Marcus 17). This shows that by attempting to develop new
abilities, one actually increases the quality of their life without
harming their health. In developing a healthier lifestyle through
techniques such as meditation, one physically increases the amount of
happiness they experience not only through the process of learning, but
through the learned abilities themselves. I myself turn to meditation in
times of stress and the results become more beneficial every time. The
world is a stressful place. Acclimating to and dealing with the negative
influences of the world is crucial to the increase in quality of life.
Stress is beneficial when our body is able to react to and compensate for stress driven external forces to maintain homeostasis. In stressful situations, the adrenal medulla releases neurotransmitters: epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine; adrenal cortex secretes cortisol. The neurotransmitters are associated with the “fight or flight response” that is part of sympathetic nervous system. Hans Sayle studied stress in a detail by conducting an experiment whose goal was to constantly induce stress in rats in a variety of ways. After doing so, he observed enlargement of adrenal gland, GI ulcers, and atrophy of immune system. All these are disadvantages of persistent stress in our lives, and when our body has to response to stress stimuli too frequently, stress becomes chronic. By not turning off our stress responses, when reacting to certain situations, we harm ourselves, and afterwards it is our stress responses that are damaging rather than stress itself. What is also common in people who experience excessive stress is their tendency to get involved in unhealthy behaviors, such as drugs/alcohol abuse, which worsens their health condition even more, and puts them in a cycle of an unhealthy lifestyle. Your way of dealing with stress is amazing and probably most people wish they could do the same thing but learning to meditate is not an easy task as you said. However, we can take advantage of other options but for some choosing alcohol or drugs seems like an easy thing to do that does not require any effort. According to Stanford neurologist Robert Sapolsky, chronic stress is a silent killer of our brain cells that shrinks our brains and unravels our chromosomes. There are more disadvantages of chronic stress that I have not mentioned here but the best way to deal with is to find something that we would enjoy doing, set a goal for ourselves and stick to the plan.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.medicinenet.com/stress/page3.htm
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2007/march7/sapolskysr-030707.html