Meditation can help get rid of Bad Habits…and Good Ones

The “Ommmm, ommmm”s we’ve heard meditators chanting through the years have now been given much more attention in the field of psychology and neuroscience.  Recent research has been linking meditation to many life improvements, not only psychologically such as dealing with stress and depression, but even physically such as diabetes self-management and addiction-treatment, as Dr. Thomas Lyons presented in his lecture. Mindfulness and meditation can have profound effects on physical, and in turn, mental well-being. This is not simply because it encompasses some forms of yoga, which is a great way to exercise, but because it has been shown to actually affect brain regions and neural correlates.

                Mindfulness is “paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn), as Dr. Lyon’s conceptualized it.  Mindfulness comes from interesting eastern traditions, and nowadays, can be done through concentrated meditation or certain types of yoga. Many people do not realize that mindfulness impacts, as much research has demonstrated, actual parts and circuits of the brain. For example, it can increase grey matter density in the hippocampus and cerebellum, whose functions are formation of memories with emotion regulation and coordination of voluntary movements such as posture, balance, and speech, respectively. Those are only two of many areas that are positively influenced by mindfulness and meditation, but researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have found some surprising negative outcomes.

                Mindfulness or meditation was found to decrease implicit learning in those participants who engaged in it, in comparison to a control group. This is important since implicit learning is used in the formation of habits that occur without awareness. It makes sense, however, that this would be the case, because  “behavioral and neuroimaging studies suggest that mindfulness can undercut the automatic learning processes -- the kind that lead to development of good and bad habits” (http://www.sciencedaily.com/). Mindfulness is awesome if you’re trying to get rid of an annoying or bad habit, but it seems that this increased awareness might decrease a person’s ability to automatically engage in good behavior leading to good habits as Chelsea Stillman, a psychology PhD students working in the Cognitive Aging Laboratory, reports.

                Though Dr. Lyon’s research, as well as many other studies, has exhibited the positive outcomes for those who engage in meditation and mindfulness, it seemed rather bizarre to have findings that might suggest any sort of negative outcome from it. However, though Ms. Stillman’s study reports good news if you’re trying to break a bad habit, if you’re trying to keep up with a good one, it might be more difficult. What is more significant are the implications this has for implicit learning which is vital to automatic processing, reaction times, and learning actions that require less “awareness.” Ultimately, mindfulness and mediation are indeed making interesting breakthroughs in neuroscience studies and might be worth considering participation and exercise in.

Citations:

Georgetown University Medical Center. "Mindfulness inhibits implicit learning-- the wellspring 

             of bad habits." ScienceDaily. 12 November 2013. 

             <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131112200625.htm>. 

Lyons, Thomas. "Mindfulness, Meditation, and Drug and Alcohol use." Loyola Neuroscience 

               Seminar. Loyola University Chicago. 18 Mar. 2014. Lecture.