8- week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction induces brain changes similar to traditional long-term meditation practice-A systemic review
From 68 Citations and 80 References
Article (PDF Available) in Brain and Cognition 108:32-41 · October 2016 with 2,578 Reads
DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2016.07.001
The objective of the current study was to systematically review the evidence of the effect of secular mindfulness techniques on the function and structure of the brain. Based on areas known from traditional meditation neuroimaging results, we aimed to explore a neuronal explanation of the stress-reducing effects of the 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) program. Methods We assessed the effect of MBSR and MBCT (N = 11, all MBSR), components of the programs (N = 15), and dispositional mindfulness (N = 4) on brain function and/or structure as assessed by (functional) magnetic resonance imaging. 21 fMRI studies and seven MRI studies were included (two studies performed both). Results The prefrontal cortex, the cingulate cortex, the insula, and the hippocampus showed increased activity, connectivity and volume in stressed, anxious and healthy participants. Additionally, the amygdala showed decreased functional activity, improved functional connectivity with the prefrontal cortex, and earlier deactivation after exposure to emotional stimuli. Conclusion Demonstrable functional and structural changes in the prefrontal cortex, cingulate cortex, insula, and hippocampus are similar to changes described in studies on traditional meditation practice. In addition, MBSR led to changes in the amygdala consistent with improved emotion regulation. These findings indicate that MBSR-induced emotional and behavioral changes are related to functional and structural changes in the brain. Read more.
Health Benefits of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Benefits
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a healing approach that combines meditation and yoga. Developed by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn in the 1970s, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction aims to address the unconscious thoughts, feelings, and behaviors thought to increase stress and undermine your health.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is an eight-week program that involves training in mindfulness meditation and yoga. Participants generally meet once weekly.
In mindfulness meditation, individuals strive to cultivate a greater awareness of the present moment. By increasing their mindfulness, participants in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction aim to reduce their overall arousal and emotional reactivity and to gain a deeper sense of calm.
Uses
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is said to benefit individuals dealing with the following health conditions or problems:
- ADHD
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Chronic pain
- Stress
- Fatigue
- Anger
- Headaches
- High blood pressure
- Sleep problems
Pain Relief
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction may help relieve pain and improve psychological well-being in people dealing with chronic pain conditions, according to a study published in 2010. Researchers found that study members with arthritis showed the greatest improvement in health-related quality of life after undergoing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, while participants with chronic headache/migraine had the smallest improvement.
Stress Management
For a report published in 2009, scientists sized up ten studies on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and found that the program is able to reduce stress levels in healthy people. MBSR also appeared to reduce anxiety and increase empathy.
Better Sleep
Some studies suggest that MBSR may help reduce certain factors (such as worrying) that contribute to sleep problems, according to a report published in 2007. However, in their analysis of seven studies on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and sleep disturbance, the report’s authors found insufficient evidence of MBSR’s ability to significantly improve sleep quality and duration.
Depression Relapse Prevention
Research also suggests that mindfulness approaches may help prevent the reoccurrence of thoughts and beliefs about themselves. One study found that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy was as effective as antidepressants for preventing depression relapse.1measured by implicit association tests. Read more2
A Harvard neuroscientist told us the 3 major ways meditation changes your brain
Moyan Brenn / Flickr
Mindfulness meditation is incredibly popular right now.According to the National Institute of Health, 18 million people in the US have meditated, or 8% of the population.
Studies suggests that the practice lessens stresses, increases memory, and may even help prevent genetic damage related to cancer.
While there is an ever-increasing amount of academic research around the practice and its effects, scientists are still figuring out what precisely is happening when people meditate, and what effects that behavior has on the brain.
Harvard neuroscientist Sara Lazar, a leading researcher in the field, is one of the first to show that meditation practice produces structural changes in the brain.
In 2005, her team was the first to show how long-term meditation practice correlates with cortical thickening in brain areas associated with attention, sensory processing, and interoception (the awareness someone has about the physiological state of their body).
In a 2011 paper, she found that people who learned meditation for the first time in an eight-week course had increases in gray matter concentration in areas of the brain associated with “learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective taking.”
The research suggests that “changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing,” Lazar says.
Those changes to brain structure come with big changes in mental activity.
Lazar revealed a few of them to Tech Insider:
• Understanding yourself (and other people too). Meditation increases your awareness of “minimally conscious thoughts and emotions,” or quieter emotions that otherwise go unnoticed. “You have probably experienced many emotions that you’re not even aware of,” Lazar says. “If you understand them in yourself, you’ll understand them better in other people.”
• Emotional strength. When you have a higher resolution image of your emotional landscape, then you’re less to be swayed by each individual feeling. “If you have a better handle of all the different emotions, you realize, ‘Ok, this emotion isn’t useful,'” Lazar says. “It gives you more information, and information is power.”
• Getting less freaked out by stress. “You’re less likely to make a rash decision,” Lazar says. “You’re less stressed, you’re less caught up in the hullabaloo around you. I think that’s important regardless of what you do. it plays into quality of life. I still get stressed, but it takes more to make me stressed out.”
Lazar is careful to note that your brain changes when you learn anything, be it a second language or juggling. Same with meditation: though it can be an intimidatingly abstract activity when you first encounter it, mindfulness meditation is an exercise that you can learn to get better at, just like swinging at a baseball.
It works like this.
“You pick one object,” Lazar says. “For many people, it’s breathing sensations. It doesn’t have to be that, but it’s the most common thing to start with. You notice that, and your mind is going to get bored, and it’s going to start wandering, and then you realize, oh, my mind is starting to wander, and bring it back to breath.”
Instead of manipulating a bat to hit a ball, Lazar says that you’re using two of the mind’s go-to instruments: attention and metacognition, or your awareness of your own thoughts.
“Attention helps you stay focused, and metacognition helps you to see all the minimally conscious content,” Lazar says. “You think, this is boring, but what else is happening? You start to notice little thoughts and feeling happening in the back. They’re happening all the time, and we miss them 80% or 90% of the time. You notice there’s a lot more going on that you never saw before.”
Lazar has had a personal practice for nearly two decades, but she fell into meditation unexpectedly. When she and a friend over-trained for the Boston Marathon and ended up hurting themselves, Lazar started going to yoga to help recover.
Then she got into mindfulness meditation. “It was really clear that something in my brain had changed,” she tells Tech Insider. “I was noticing things I hadn’t noticed before, and I was less reactive to things that would piss me off.”
Lazar is careful to note that meditation is not a cure-all, in the same way that while exercise is a terrifically excellent thing to do for yourself, it’s not the only thing you should be doing for your overall well-being.
“It’s not you start meditation and you become a Buddhist monk,” Lazar says. “It will help promote attention and metacognition. The benefits are real and beneficial, but it’s not like you become a super person because of this.”
Watch Lazar’s 2011 TedX talk on meditation’s effects on the brain below.
How to Calm a Panic Attack: Coping Strategies
If you’ve ever experienced sudden anxiety, you may wonder how to calm a panic attack. In this episode, Dr. Catherine M. Pittman, author of the best-selling audiobook Rewire Your Anxious Brain, shares some powerful coping strategies that can help you to calm down when you need it most.
Today we’re sharing an excerpt from the audiobook Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry. Written by clinical psychologist Dr. Catherine Pittman and researcher Elizabeth Karle. This audiobook presents a greater understanding how anxiety is created in the brain, along with empowering, proven-effective techniques to overcome it. You will learn to literally “rewire” the brain processes that lie at the root of your fears. Read and listen to the podcast.
