Recent
research has shown that meditation changes how we respond emotionally by affecting
brain systems involved in emotional reactivity (1).
The
26 participants the completed the study had no prior meditation experience. To
begin they undertook a two-week meditation-training course, in which they
practiced breath attention meditation for 20 minutes a day.
The
instructions given to the participants included:
Be aware of your body posture, focus on the sensation of breathing
(in the belly and/or under the nose), accept the sensations of breathing as
they are in the present moment, be non-judgmental if your mind has wandered and
simply return your attention back to the breath if it does.
After
their meditation course the participant’s levels of mindfulness were examined
using the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), a 15-item scale designed to
assess mindfulness during day-to-day activities. One of a number of scales out
that has been designed to measure mindfulness. Here are a few examples of the
questions on this particular scale:
The
participants were then shown a series of aversive pictures and were instructed
to either mindfully attend to their breath or passively view the images, while
their brain activity was being recorded in a fMRI scanner.
After
seeing each image, the participants had 3 seconds to indicate how they felt on
a 7-point scale ranging from -3(very negative feelings) to +3(very positive
feelings).
The
experimenters found that attention to the breath while viewing a negative
picture was associated with decreased activity in the amygdala- a brain area
implicated in processing negative emotions and inducing the associated
physiological reactions, and increased activity in the frontal cortex- a brain
area that exerts “executive control” over behaviour and mental
processing.
This
pattern of brain activity was associated with participants reporting reduced
negative feelings after viewing the images when compared to passively viewing
the pictures.
Furthermore,
those that showed a higher level of mindfulness on the MAAS scale showed
stronger connectivity between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex when attending
to the breath, suggesting greater cortical control over brain areas that
process emotion.
Mindfulness
refers to attending to the present moment and experiencing emotions and
thoughts without judgment. This study shows that meditation on the breath can
modulate the intensity of how our brain responds to emotional situations and
consequently changes the strength of our emotional reactions.
It
would be interesting to see if other meditation styles such as open monitoring
have a similar effect.
References
Doll, A., Holzel, B. K., Bratec, S. M., Boucard, C.
C., Xie, X., Wohlschlager, A. F., & Sorg, C. (2016). Mindful attention to
breath regulates emotions via increased amygdala-prefrontal cortex
connectivity. NeuroImage, 24,
305-313.