Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Meditation and Mindfulness: Food for Body and Soul


    Meditation and Mindfulness: Food for Body and Soul



Many people accept mindfulness and meditation as a mental health intervention, but could it have an impact on your physical health as well? One type of mindful meditation is open monitoring meditation, explained in the paper titled Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation and in the talk by Marcia Grabowecky “involves non-reactive monitoring of the content of experience from moment to moment.” This means that as thoughts come into a person’s mind they acknowledge their presence, but do not hold onto them.
This type of meditation has been shown to have changes in mental and brain function. It has been shown to improve the ability to detect the second target stimuli in a rapid stream of distracters, because participants were less likely to get stuck on the first target. Expert meditators have been found to have high-amplitude pattern of gamma-synchrony brain activity while practicing an emotional version of open monitoring meditation, suggesting that long-term, intense meditation changes the brain’s default mode. There have also been studies that show increases in cortical thickness in meditators. A recent study demonstrated the effect of this type of meditation on telomeres.
Research done at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre and the University of Calgary Department of Oncology conducted a study with a total of 88 breast cancer survivors, averaging 55 years old, who all were experiencing significant levels of emotional distress. These cancer survivors were places either in a mindfulness-based cancer recovery group, a supportive expressive therapy group, or a control group that attended a six-hour stress management seminar. All of the participants had their blood analyzed and telomere length measured before and after the interventions.
The participants in the mindfulness-based cancer recovery group attended eight weekly, 90-minute group sessions in which they practiced mindfulness meditation and gentle Hatha yoga. They also practiced meditation and yoga at home for 45 minutes a day. The goal of this was to “cultivate non-judgemental awareness of the present moment.” The participants in the supportive expressive therapy group attended 90-minute weekly sessions for a total of 12 weeks, in which they talked openly about their concerns and feelings. The goal was to “build mutual support and to guide women in expressing a wide range of both difficult and positive emotions.”
            Results of the study showed that these interventions had an effect on telomere length in comparison to the control group. Shortened telomeres, which are protein complexes on the ends of chromosomes, are associated with disease and aging. The longer telomeres of the participants in intervention groups suggests that mindfulness meditation and supportive expression not only had a positive impact psychologically on participants well-being, but also had a clear positive physical effect.
            All of this research probably makes you want to give meditation try. Not only does meditation train you to be less reactive to negative events and have the positive side effect of increased relaxation, it could also have clear effects on your physical health. To get started, all you need to do is find a quiet place to sit, sit up straight, focus your attention on your breath, and when thoughts come into awareness accept them and let them go.








Bibliography:

Alberta Health Services. (2014, November 3). Meditation, support groups: Clear new evidence for mind-body connection demonstrated in study, researchers show. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 2, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141103114132.htm

Lutz, A., Slagter, H., Dunne, J., & Davidson, R. (2008). Attention Regulation And Monitoring In Meditation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(4), 163-169.

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