The Buddhist takes the lotus position and goes into psychic space. He feels how he leaves the boundaries of the body, his “I” dissolves in being and merges with the One, which has no boundaries, form and name.
At this time, a section of the posterior superior parietal cortex, which is responsible for sensing the boundaries of his own body, is blocked. It is thanks to the incessant work of this area of the brain that we always firmly distinguish ourselves from the outside world (which, in particular, allows us to move without crashing into obstacles). Always, but not in moments of deep passive meditation. Experiences, which in the Ancient East were considered mystical, have a clear neurophysiological mechanism.
This became clear thanks to the young science of neurotheology. She has many amazing discoveries, which can be found in more detail in the wonderful book by Andrew Newberg, Eugene d'Aquili and Vince Rause “The Mystery of God and the Science of the Brain. The neurobiology of faith and religious experience."
However, meditation has long gone beyond the Eastern religions and turned into a tool for psychotherapists and entertainment for bored managers. However, the effects of this practice on the brain are largely unexplored. Tania Singer and her colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences decided to close the existing knowledge gaps.
It has long been known that memorization and learning are associated with the formation of new interneuronal connections. It doesn't matter whether it is about learning a foreign language or about a dance lesson. If the reader has memorized anything from this text, it means that his brain has changed anatomically. The editors apologize.
But until now it was not clear whether such connections are formed during meditation. And if they do, in what zones? Does it depend on the type of meditation exercise? In other words, is "learning the truth" in this spiritual practice - is it learning in the neurobiological sense, or is it just an illusion?
A team of researchers led by Singer recruited over three hundred volunteers, aged 20 to 55, who had never practiced meditation before. They had to go through three courses of study, which can be conventionally called "Presence", "Feelings" and "View from the outside." Each of these cycles lasted three months and included 30 minutes of meditation a day, six days a week. They differed from each other in what types of meditation exercises were offered to the participants.
Scientists wondered how different courses would affect the brains of the subjects. To account for the possible impact of the order in which the participant will take these training modules, the volunteers were divided into three groups. The first studied in the order “Presence → Feelings → Look from the outside”, the second - “Presence → Look from the outside → Feelings”, and the third studied only the “Feelings” module.
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The cycle "Presence" consisted of meditative exercises for attention. It was required to monitor your heart rate, breathing, sensations in different parts of the body, to focus on visual or sound stimuli.
In the cycle "Feelings", volunteers learned to love. In the process of meditation, they were first asked to imagine someone giving them this wonderful feeling, such as a child or a close friend. Then this feeling had to be transferred to people to whom the participant treats neutrally, then to those with whom there are difficulties, and ultimately to all living beings. To consolidate it was required to mentally repeat phrases like "May you be happy."
In addition to these meditations, this module included another exercise. The participants would pair up and talk to each other about the events of the day that made them uncomfortable, as well as those that awakened their gratitude to someone. The listener's task was to listen to the speaker and try to feel his emotions. Then the participants changed roles. According to the authors, such exercises are designed to develop empathy and such socially significant emotions as gratitude and compassion.
In the cycle "Looking from the side" it was required to learn to see oneself "from a bird's eye view." The meditator watched the flow of his thoughts without sinking into them.
This module has also added a different kind of exercise to meditation. Participants practiced seeing their own and someone else's personality as constituent parts, such as "worried mother", "curious child" or "inner judge". In a pair, the first participant tried to look at the events of the day through the eyes of one of these "subpersonalities", and the second tried to guess on whose behalf he was speaking.
Such practices are designed to develop what is called "metacognition" and "theory of mind" or model of mental state. This is our ability to imagine what is happening in our own head and in the head of a partner. For example, where will the child look for a toy - where he put it himself, or where he hid it later without his knowledge? Healthy children begin to answer this question correctly from the age of five; autistic people, as a rule, make mistakes until the end of their lives.
The experimenters monitored the results of their "experimental" using both tests and MRI. The questionnaires showed that after completing the cycles, the respective abilities of the subjects improved, and an impartial instrument recorded anatomical changes in the brain.
Thus, the cycle "Presence" influenced the prefrontal cortex, which, among other things, is responsible for voluntary attention, goal-setting and will. The "Feelings" cycle touched the limbic system - the generator of emotions. The “side view” affected the area of the junction of the inferior frontal and lateral temporal cortex, which is involved in the formation of our subtle ability to imagine other people's mental states.
Scientists also wondered if a person becomes less stressed after meditation. To find out, the subjects were forced to perform complex arithmetic calculations in public in public. The researchers were interested in both subjective data (whether the participants thought meditation made them calmer) and objective data (the stress hormone cortisol).
It turned out that, according to the subjects themselves, any meditation calms. At the same time, an impartial blood test confirmed the effect only for the exercises of the "Feelings" module.
In general, it turned out that meditation works, but works selectively. Different types of this practice train different areas of the brain and affect the sensitivity to stress in different ways. In this, as the researchers note, it is similar to a sport. There is too much difference between shooting and boxing not to ask yourself what exactly you want from your body. In the same way, you need to firmly understand what the mind lacks before choosing one or another type of meditation.
The results of the work are presented in two scientific articles published in the journal Science Advances. The first focuses on the effect of meditation on the anatomy of the brain, and the second on stress sensitivity.
By the way, we have already written about the benefits of meditation more than once. For example, it strengthens the immune system, and its artificial counterpart reduces anxiety in mice. By the way, virtual reality can help immersion in this unusual state.
Perhaps, if we combine the intuitive insights of ancient mystics with all the power of modern neuroscience, we will indeed learn to be attentive, love people and look at the situation from the outside, which we sometimes lack so much.