The Neurophysiology of Mindfulness: How Meditation Affects Our Brain (This Time On Business)

This year there was already an article with that title, but ironically, it did not reveal the content of its title. I will try to fix it, because the topic itself is interesting and useful.



There is the so-called practice of mindfulness, sometimes entirely consisting of observing your breathing, and there are many positive effects that correlate with it - stress resistance, reducing anxiety, increasing learning and others, up to a complete cessation of suffering. But why is this happening? How is monotonous boring attention to breathing related to improved brain activity and why exactly is this all called mindfulness?



And really, what kind of connection can there be? The first thing many people think about is that a person, focusing on inhaling and exhaling, is distracted from disturbing thoughts, and they pass. This is partly true, but what about the long-term effects that do not disappear after you stop meditating?



The second obvious explanation is self-hypnosis. Breathing is such slow vibrations that it is easy to hypnotize, put you into a trance, and there your brain is already somehow healed. But it is wrong. Apart from the fact that there is still no good scientific substantiation of the brain processes during hypnosis and trance, all leading practitioners of mindfulness unanimously reiterate: in no case should you enter a trance while observing the breath. This trance is called subtle and gross dullness, and is the second big mistake in mindfulness meditation.



The first, the main mistake is the formation of attachment to the pleasant states that are massively generated by this practice. Meditators should never want, anticipate, want to feel the sensation of floating above the ground, goosebumps and waves on the skin, flashes of light, etc. It comes to the point that some schools explicitly prohibit such experiences, recommending to treat them as another form of distraction from the main task - active acute attention to breathing.



And that brings us to an idea of ​​exactly how the practice of mindfulness affects the brain. Why can't you feel desire? The dopamine subsystem is responsible for drives and desires in mammals, and it is also, as recent studies show , is responsible for suffering. Here we have to click in the brain: it is stated that the practice of mindfulness reduces suffering. Does meditation turn off the dopamine neural pathway?



Let's turn to the content of the practice itself. That in its modern form , in which it is used, for example, at Google , that in the original technique two thousand years ago - you can always distinguish two fundamental points:

1. Lively, pronounced attention to an object (such as breathing)
2. Detecting and gently eliminating distractions without opposition

Distractions are nothing more than weak signals from the dopamine subsystem . They originate in the ventral tegmental area of ​​the midbrain (monkey) and spread through the frontal cortex, where motivation, attention, assessment and conscious awareness (as well as the pleasure center) are concentrated. In the picture, this is a large group of arrows.









It is known that the dopamine subsystem of motivation forces us to act not very consciously - to buy unnecessary status items, make trouble, overeat, waste money in gambling, and so on. It would be nice to slow it down, wouldn't it? But not by complete oppression, but by partial replacement of evolutionarily newer mechanisms that also motivate, but without such side effects. So to speak, to upgrade a person.



You've probably heard about the reptilian, mammalian and human brains. This beautiful concept is now recognized as not entirely consistent with reality.and it is changed to the idea of ​​two competing systems of motivation - dopamine (it seems to me that it can be called mammary or, more precisely, monkey) and, conditionally, belt-frontal.



The second system of motivation is completely located in the hemispheres, it is evolutionarily newer and works with more desirable characteristics than dopamine. For example, it does not cause suffering. The source of motivational impulses in it is the anterior cingulate gyrus and related structures. A person who uses only this system would hardly survive in prison (or high school :)), but in general it is more suitable for modern society - giving the opportunity to work tirelessly with many objects at the same time, without experiencing stress and making fewer wrong decisions , and, unlike a robot, experiencing emotions of love and happiness.





A number of facts are known about the new system of motivation, which add up to an interesting picture.

1. The anterior cingulate gyrus is responsible for goal setting, benefit assessment, error detection, ethics, and mindfulness. It is connected both with the frontal cortex (higher cognitive activity) and with the structures of the diencephalon - the hippocampus and amygdala, which are responsible for eating behavior, ancient emotions and everything related to the threat to life. Connections can transmit both excitement and inhibition.
2. Mindfulness meditation trains mindfulness, and ethical thinking such as metta meditation greatly enhances its effectiveness.
3. In experienced practitioners of mindfulness, the activity of the anterior cingulate gyrus is constantly increased, while the activity of the hippocampus, on the contrary, is reduced.
   
   
   
   

The inhibition of the dopamine system is evidenced by a qualitative change in the behavior of practitioners. Without these three facts, these changes could be considered self-hypnosis, a placebo effect, but it seems that this is not so. The effect of mindfulness practice is an essential personality transformation confirmed by MRI.



It is well explained by the purposeful training of new structures of motivation with the simultaneous inhibition of the more ancient ones, inherited from our primate ancestors.



Thanks for attention. May all sentient beings be happy.