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many voices, one journal No. 20 2010 $20 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF YOGA THERAPY J O U R N A L O F T H E I N T E R N AT I O N A L A S S O C I AT I O N O F YO G A T H E R A P I S T S Many voices, one journal The International Journal of Yoga Therapy, bridging yoga and healthcare since 1990. IJYT celebrates 20 years of bridging Yoga and healthcare I N T E R N AT I O N A L A S S O C I AT I O N O F YO G A T H E R A P I S T S WW W.I AY T.O RG ccare.stanford.edu iayt.org
Where we left off. 1. Meditation trains and changes the brain. 2. Training specific qualities of mind (focus, mindfulness, & compassion) influences big outcomes (stress, health, happiness).
The Brain Responds to Practice 1. Meditation trains the brain to make an effortful state more of an automatic trait. 2. Practice changes the structure of the brain.
Compared cortical thickness of 20 experienced meditators and 15 non-meditators Increased thickness in 1) insula, 2) prefrontal cortex, and 3) somatosensory cortex (Lazar et al. 2005)
Prefrontal cortex Attention Emotion regulation Decisionmaking
Body sensations Social emotions (e.g. compassion) Homeostasis Where body and mind are integrated Insula
Increased gray matter density in the brain stem of Tibetan Buddhism meditators. Most significant difference in area that controls activity of the vagus nerve. (Vestergaard-Poulsen et al. 2009)
The Latest Findings
How Meditation Changes the Brain 50 meditators (15 women) and 50 age & sex-matched controls Age 24-64 (mean 51) Meditation styles included Chenrezig, Kriya, Kundalini, Shamatha, Vajrayana, Vipassana, and Zazen. Meditation experience ranged from 5-46 yrs, 1-7x wk (Luders et al. 2011, 2012)
Differences were in frontal regions of CC. N = 60
Cortical Gyrification Gyrification enhances neural processing Less gyrification in depression, aging, Alzheimer s Disease
Cortical gyrification positively correlated w/ meditation years. N = 100
Uh in English please? Not just bigger brains but betterintegrated and efficient brains.
Lovingkindness Increases Happiness & Compassion Reduces Stress
Immediate Benefits 93 participants (57% female; mean age 24) randomly assigned to lovingkindness (for stranger) meditation or control task. Participants in the LKM group became more positive (calm, happy, loving) and less negative (angry, anxious, unhappy). Felt more connected to the target of the meditation and new strangers presented after meditation. (Hutcherson, Seppala, & Gross 2008)
A Lovingkindness Training 67 adults (mean age 41, 66% female, ethnically/racially diverse) took workplacesponsored 8-week stress reduction course based on lovingkindness meditation. 72 in waitlist control group (Fredrickson et al. 2008)
The meditation course Week 1: Participants practiced meditation directing lovingkindness toward themselves. Week 2: Meditation added loved ones. Weeks 3 on: Meditation built from self, to loved ones, to acquaintances, to strangers, and finally, to all living beings. Each 60-min class included 15 20 min group meditation. Participants assigned to practice LKM at home, at least 5 days/week, with guided recordings (15-20 min).
Training increased positive emotions, reduced depression, and improved physical health and relationships. Training effect: The effect size of 1 hr of meditation on positive emotions tripled from week 1 to week 7.
15-Month Follow-Up 33/45 participants in meditation training continued to meditate at least occasionally (avg 5-32 min/day). Continuing meditators reported more positive emotion. Average meditation time correlated (r =.25) with positive emotion experience. (Cohn & Fredrickson 2010)
What are the effects of an 8- to10-week compassion meditation training?
CCARE 100 adults randomly assigned to 9-week compassion cultivation training (CCT) program (n=60) or waitlist control condition (n=40). Pre & post, participants completed selfreport inventories that measured fear of compassion, self-compassion, stress, anxiety, and depression.
Reducing Social Stress Participants from health ed class at Emory University, age 17-19 Randomly assigned to compassion meditation training or control group 50-min class 2x week for 6 weeks Teaching/discussion 20 min meditation CD for home practice (Pace et al. 2009)
Week 1: Developing breath concentration. Week 2: Introduction to mindfulness practice. Week 3: Explore universal human desires for happiness and avoiding suffering as foundation for compassion. Week 4: Examine changeable nature of distinctions between friends and enemies with goal of generating a felt sense that instinctive emotional responses to others do not reflect reality. Week 5: Meditative techniques aimed at generating compassion for close others. Week 6: Meditation aimed at extending compassion to strangers and people participants do not like.
The Tiered Social Stressor Test Public speaking followed by timed math test (Pace et al. 2009)
After the stressor.. Emotional distress Inflammatory stress response
Effect of compassion meditation time on inflammation and mood
New Study 76 female schoolteachers (age 25-60, M = 41.05), no major physical and psychiatric disorders 8-week training (4 all-day sessions/4 evening sessions) Mindfulness training, compassion meditation, and gentle yoga/movement (Kemeny et al. 2011)
Physiological response to tiered social stress task Practice time predicted blood pressure.
New: Receiving Compassion (5 yrs exp daily LK meditation practice) (Kemper & Shaltout 2012) (6 women, mean age 43.6 ± 10.8)
Baseline After Meditation
The Lovingkindness/ Compassion Practice Bring to mind loved one; connect to feelings of lovingkindness. Imagine loved one suffering; connect to feelings of compassion. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you know peace.
Observations/Questions
Focus Slows Aging
Compared cortical thickness of 20 experienced meditators and 15 non-meditators Increased thickness in 1) insula, 2) prefrontal cortex, and 3) somatosensory cortex (Lazar et al. 2005)
Examined the brains of 13 Zen meditators (>3 yrs daily practice) & 13 matched controls Sustained attention task (Pagnoni & Cekic 2007)
WHOLE BRAIN VOL Compared brains of 13 Zen meditators & 13 controls PERFORMANCE ON COGNITIVE TEST (Pagnoni & Cekic 2007)
Investigated the effects of a 3-month meditation retreat on telomerase 20 participants meditated for 6 hrs/day, mostly training attention Post retreat, telemorase activity compared with age/sex/ses-matched control participants (Jacobs et al. 2010)
Telemorase levels correlated with enhanced sense of being able to handle stress.
New Study 39 family dementia caregivers (mean age 60.3 ) randomized to practicing Kirtan Kriya or listening to relaxation music for 12 min/ day for 8 weeks. Depression, mental and cognitive functioning were assessed at baseline and follow-up. Telomerase activity in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PMBC) was examined in peripheral PBMC pre-intervention and postintervention. (Lavretsky et al. 2012)
Results Meditation group: 65.2% showed 50% improvement in depression, and 52% showed 50% improvement on mental health composite (compared with 31.2% and 19% in relaxation group) The meditation group showed 43% increase in telomerase activity compared with 3.7% in the relaxation group.
Breath Focus Meditation 1. Establish comfortable, alert posture. 2. Acknowledge intention of practice. 3. Notice breathing. 4. Begin to count breaths, from 1-10 (for a total of 10 inhale/exhale cycles). 5. Begin again at 1. Repeat. 6. When your mind wanders, go back to 1. 7. Start with 5 minutes, work toward 15. 8. Acknowledge success of sitting.
Observations/Questions
Mindfulness Reduces Suffering
The Brain s Default State
An alternative default: Embodied, present moment awareness (Farb et al. 2007)
The importance of mind training Evaluation System Experiential System
Interrupting the Default Investigated brain activity in experienced meditators and matched new (non) meditators as they practiced concentration, lovingkindness, and mindful awareness meditations. The default-mode network was more deactivated in experienced meditators during all meditations. Functional connectivity analysis revealed stronger connections between sensory regions and attention network among experienced meditators during meditation and at baseline. (Brewer et al. 2011)
Changing the Default Examined resting state functional connectivity in very experienced meditators (2500 hrs +) and less experienced meditators (1000 hrs -) Participants with more meditation experience exhibited increased connectivity within attentional networks, as well as between attentional regions and self-awareness regions (Hasenkamp & Barsalou 2012)
The Take-Home Because altered connectivity of brain regions was observed in a non-meditative state, this may represent a transference of cognitive abilities off the cushion into daily life.
Suffering
Do Zen meditators and non-meditators process pain in the same way? (Grant, Courtemanche, & Rainville 2011)
Non-meditators showed more activation in evaluative regions. Meditators showed more activation in sensory pain processing regions. The greater the decoupling of two systems, the higher a meditator s pain threshold.
Mindful Anxiety? 16 patients with social anxiety disorder took 8- week mindfulness program geared toward anxiety and self-criticism. From pre to post, reduced anxiety and depression; higher selfesteem. (Goldin et al 2010)
In the brain scanner.. Confronted with negative statements like There is something wrong with me, and People always judge me. Post MBSR, greater activity reflecting sensory information processing (e.g. visual areas). Reduced activity reflecting negative emotions/stress/ anxiety.
Minding One s Emotions: Mindfulness Training Alters the Neural Expression of Sadness (Farb et al. 2010) 36 moderately depressed adults Randomly assigned to MBSR or wait list Pre and post: Sad films in fmri; depression inventory
After MBSR, greater activation in experiential network..and greater deactivation in evaluation network.
The greater the increase in insula activation during sadness, the greater the reduction in depression.
Attending to Experience
Observations/Questions
Sensing body & breath; breath visualization Relaxed belly breathing Relaxation pose
Observations/Questions
Resources http://kellymcgonigal.com/2011/03/22/toronto/ Or send email to getslides@gmail.com for automatic response with link Slides from all sessions Free practice MP3s Readings Organizations/web resources