Research published last month in the journal, Human Brain Mapping, explored whether meditation practitioners’ experiences of felt mindful awareness resulted in changes in the physical measurement of brain activity using electroencephalography.
Image credit: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
The researchers explored the common-knowledge hypothesis that meditation practice promotes states of mindful awareness which bring an overall quieting effect on everyday life. If this belief in meditative effects is true, then there should be an objective and observable imprint on the function of brain networks.
Participants in the study were experienced meditators who were randomly assigned to complete a 3-month circuit of focused meditation or serve as a wait-list control. Wait-list control refers to a reserve group that will undergo the experimental intervention but are followed as a control sample suing the period of time prior to receiving the intervention.
The researchers gathered electroencephalograms during rest at the beginning, middle, and end of the two training periods. The participants also provided a daily subjective assessment of meditation practice and quality.
The findings suggest that the participants’ reported experiences of attentiveness and serenity were observable in the whole brain EEG patterns. The researchers suggest that the ability of meditators to calmly rest in the moment appears to create the conditions that result in the observable benefits of meditation such as increased calm and better mental performance.
The researchers caution, however, that more research should be directed at this phenomenon and that the findings did not provide any evidence that on state, such as serenity, yielded the observable neural changes.
ψ ψ ψ
A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies addressing the same question. The combined results provide an insight into the robustness of the findings and the degree of error in them. The technique allows for the summation of findings on a specific question.
Research published in the journal, Mindfulness, conducted a meta-analysis to determine the attention-based mechanisms across meditation studies.
The researchers noted that “the mechanisms of meditation are not yet scientifically well-understood, systems of attention and executive control may play an important role.”
The researchers looked at 87 published empirical studies that used mindfulness practices and coded them based on the techniques used such as focused attention and open monitoring or both on attention and mental control (called executive control).
What the researchers found was that the use of both types of techniques did not improve attention over those that taught techniques separately. However, “meditation led to greater improvements in accuracy-based tasks than reaction time tasks.” They note that attention appears to be beneficial in attention processes but that it may improve some but not all of them.
ψ ψ ψ
The metacontrol model in psychology suggests that the degree to which goals and stimuli contribute to actions (such as goal attainment) is dependent on the metacontrol setting, or how the brain decides to manage or allocate its resources. Research published in Mindfulness found that meditation may benefit goal attainment.
The hypothesis of the underlying process is that binding between a stimulus and behavioral response is mitigated by the executive functions of the brain, that is, the metacontrol settings.
German researchers examined brief focused attention meditation on a small group of 40 study participants with typical neurological functioning and novice meditators.
The participants were guided in the focused attention meditation, in this case an attention to breath, and then an activity using a smartphone app. One group meditated before a stimulus-response activity and the other did not.
The stimulus-response activity involved correctly matching shapes on the smartphone app. The group that meditated performed better at the task.
The researchers noted that, “When we perceive the same combination of stimulus and response features or an entirely different combination, performance is improved in contrast to when we perceive a partially new combination of the same feature which hampers performance.”
The findings suggest that meditation maintains a cognitive bias toward mental flexibility. In other words, meditation allows for a more fluid allocation of resources as suggested by the metacontrol model.
The researchers note that the findings are based on a short-term effect and recommend more research on longer-term effects and the effect of metacontrol states on individual functioning and goal attainment.
ψ ψ ψ
Research published last month in the Journal of Environmental Psychology reinforces a long-held Pagan understanding that engagement with nature is positive and restorative.
Image credit: czu_czu_PL from Pixabay
Prior research had established a connection that individuals who viewed a natural environment (such as a video of natural landscapes) found themselves more relaxed when compared to individuals who viewed a built environment such as a cityscape or city streets. Viewing natural environments resulted in participants reporting improved improve mood and reduced stress.
In this study, researchers conducted two experiments on two separate sample populations. One study focused on 57 university students and the other study involved 200 individuals from the general population.
The aim of the research, however, was to determine if effects of mood improvement reported in the general population would be observed in individuals reporting depressive symptoms which, the authors note “theoretically may either reduce or enhance restorative effects of viewing nature.”
In other words, whether depressive symptoms might reduce the observed benefits of nature engagement.
Participants were assigned to a nature-video group or a built-environment video group. The participants completed a questionnaire to assess depressive symptoms as well as experienced stress prior to viewing a stressful video, the content of which was not described. The participants then viewed the video assigned to their condition, nature or built environment.
Researchers found some mixed results for those with low depressive symptoms but more pronounced in those with depressive symptoms.
They noted, “In both experiments, participants with more (rather than less) depressive symptoms displayed more stress reduction after viewing nature rather than built settings. Viewing nature (vs. built settings) only increased reduction of negative affect for participants with more (rather than less) depressive symptoms in Study 2. No significant differences emerged for positive affect.”
The researchers note that their findings suggest that “nature-based interventions may be especially beneficial among people suffering from depressive symptoms.”
The Wild Hunt is not responsible for links to external content.
To join a conversation on this post:
Visit our The Wild Hunt subreddit! Point your favorite browser to https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Wild_Hunt_News/, then click “JOIN”. Make sure to click the bell, too, to be notified of new articles posted to our subreddit.