Mindfulness meditation found to combat loneliness

[Ensapa]

This is an nice discovery by modern science. It is actually quite interesting to see how modern science keeps proving Buddhism right and discovering benefits in Buddhism. Who knows that such a simple and basic practice can keep loneliness away! Loneliness is but a state of mind as you can be in a crowd but if you dont connect to anyone, you are still lonely. Meditation helps by making the mind focus and makes it less distracted and thus, reducing loneliness as it helps the mind to focus on connecting with itself, and thus connecting to the minds of others.

Mindfulness meditation found to combat loneliness
AFP, July 31, 2012
LOS ANGELES, CA (USA) -- A new study finds that mindfulness meditation can help older adults battle feelings of loneliness while also boosting health.
The study, published in the journal Brain, Behavior & Immunity, shows that eight weeks of training in mindfulness meditation (a total of 2.5 hours a week) is linked with decreased loneliness.

Older adults reported reduced feelings of loneliness after taking part in an eight-week training on mindfulness meditation.

The study included 40 participants between ages 55 and 85, some of whom participated in an eight-week training programme (a total of 2.5 hours a week) called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, which was established by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the US.

“We always tell people to quit smoking for health reasons, but rarely do we think about loneliness in the same way,” said study lead J. David Creswell said in a statement dated July 24.


 “We know that loneliness is a major risk factor for health problems and mortality in older adults,” he said, adding that the research suggests that mindfulness meditation training could be “a promising intervention for improving the health of older adults.”
Using the blood samples collected, the researchers also found that the older adult sample had elevated pro-inflammatory gene expression in their immune cells at the beginning of the study and that the training reduced this pro-inflammatory gene expression, which the researchers said could “reduce older adults’ inflammatory disease risk.”

Aside from alleviating loneliness, mindfulness meditation has also been shown in recent research to have positive effects on the brain – linked with brain changes that may even have effects against mental illness.

Another recent study also found that mindfulness meditation, along with moderate exercise, was linked to a reduction in the severity of colds and flu during winter.

[Positive Change]

Mindfulness: Maintenance of "bare" attention to whatever is occurring in the moment (sensations, affective evaluations, intentions, emotions, ideations, and other mental events and states). This is done with the intention to neither cling to nor avert from these arising and passing mental states, but simply to be with them the way they are without elaboration.

Instead of quoting ancient Buddhist texts on the subject of mindfulness, I've selected passages from a book, Encountering Buddhism: Western Psychology & Buddhist Teachings edited by Seth Robert Segall (State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 2003). It's instructive to see how Buddha's concept of mindfulness is interpreted and applied by modern-day practioners of meditation and psychotherapists.

"The Tao that can be spoken is not the Tao" - Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." - Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

"Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness." On the other hand, he said it."[/i] - Art Spiegelman, Maus II





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The first and foremost item on the Buddhist agenda for healing - not necessarily in its textual formulation but certainly in its practical application - is mindfulness. Since the entirety of our virtual world is being constructed in the present moment, it is crucial to learn to pay attention to this moment. Paying attention sounds simple; one might think we do it all the time, but we actually pay attention very little to what is going on in our present experience. The human mind is constantly swinging into the future and the past, and like a pendulum it passes through the present moment barely enough for us to keep our bearings... The Buddhists are not saying that we should cut off our sensitivity to the full range of experience and live ordinary life in some sort of eternal present. But in order to get beyond some of the embedded habits of the mind, in order to get free of some of the distortions and confusions to which we are subject, we need to train ourselves to attend very carefully and very deliberately to the process by which we construct past and future experience in the present moment. And this is largely what mindfulness practice is all about. It is accessing the present moment, and it involves cultivating the intention to attend to what is happening right now. Left to its own inclinations, the mind would much rather weave its way through some thought pattern that makes us feel good about ourselves, and lead us away from any kind of insight that might threaten our ideas about ourselves... The mind needs to be carefully and gently encouraged through constant practice to look carefully and deeply at what is unfolding in the immediately present moment. One can do this while driving a car, during a meditation retreat, or it can be done sitting here in this very moment: by simply attending carefully to what arises and passes away in experience.

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Buddhism means a commitment to the practice of mindfulness.

It's the practice of opening oneself up and being receptive to the flow of sense perceptions, emotions, and thought processes in each given moment while attempting to hold judgment in abeyance. This is done with no other goal than to be as present as one can possibly be within each and every moment. One does this with an intimate attention that is very different from a scrutinizing, objective stance. Rather than being a distant observer of a set of experiences, one is a participant-observer, and what one observes is not only the sense impressions of the "outside" world, but also one's own subjective reactions to that world... In these moments of unimpeded awareness there is a wonderful sense of lightness of being, and a sense of the rightness to things just as they are. In these moments when the sense of a separate self that needs defending, approval, status, or justification is nowhere evident, one is open to being present and responsive to the world in a deeply caring way. This is what I mean by mindfulness: seeing events as they are with minimal interference from a separate ego that needs to control both self and world; being intimately in touch with the moment as it is, and open-heartedly responsive to it.

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At University of Massachusetts Medical Center (UMMC) in Worcester, Jon Kabat-Zinn had recently established his Stress Reduction and Relaxation Program (SRRP), the basis of which is mindfulness meditation supplemented with Yoga practice, group discussion, and some cognitive techniques. The 10-week program (now referred to as the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Program), using groups comprised of about 30 people with a widely diverse set of presenting problems, has shown effectiveness for managing chronic pain and anxiety disorders, and for persons suffering from problems such as AIDS, cancer, and depression. Although I was not teaching in the SRRP program, I had the opportunity to participate in the program, and then collaborate on research. Jon Kabat-Zinn's ability to adapt traditional techniques to a contemporary medical environment was compelling. He was able to work with people from a wide range of backgrounds who were not necessarily seeking meditation as a personal spiritual practice, but rather for relief from their symptoms. His flexibility, in the context of his own extensive orthodox training in meditation practice, was profoundly influential in supporting my own perspective that this type of adaptation was both possible and appropriate... I began to focus my own work on the importance of cultivating "bare attention" to the physical and emotional experiences that arise. Another key aspect of mindfulness meditation is the importance placed on explicit integration of meditative practice into all aspects of daily life. This emphasis also fits better than does TM, I believe, with developing a meditation-based approach to treating a syndrome such as compulsive binge eating disorder.

From a therapeutic perspective, both mindfulness and mantra-based meditation approaches have something to offer. Insight or mindfulness meditation has the distinction of more actively engaging the individual in a transformative way with the nature of salient issues than does mantra meditation. In my experience clinically, there is a more rapid movement with mindfulness meditation than with mantra-based meditation toward what I would call "wisdom functioning" - drawing on those higher levels of choice and possibility that are within our capabilities but are often blocked out by more powerful and immediate conditioning effects or survival needs.

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Western Psychology has also recently begun to recognize the potential value of the Buddhist concept of mindfulness, and the Buddhist techniques designed to foster it, as a way to supplement and enhance cognitive-behavorial treatments... The Samadhi component of the eightfold path emphasizes "right concentration", "right mindfulness", and "right effort". J. Rubin (Psychotherapy and Buddhism, 1996) has commented on the similarity between the Buddhist idea of "mindfulness" and Freud's concept of "evenly-hovering attention" as a technical aspect of the psychoanalytic method. The most precious gift we can give anyone is the quality of our attention. those moments we have had with others that seem most meaningful to us have been moments when others have freely and genuinely given us their full attention. In existentially based psychotherapies, such attention is given with no other purpose than to be fully present. This means, to the extent that it is humanly possible, leaving all private concerns at the office door; letting go of all concerns for the previous client at the start of the new therapy hour; letting one's attention be "bare attention", rather than analytic attention; listening with one's body rather than with just one's ears. The goal, over and over, is to attend to this client-therapist interactive field in this moment, just as in meditation the goal is to attend to this breath in this moment, over and over... Mindful concentration is an essential ingredient to forming a positive therapeutic alliance and to the kind of deep listening that, within the Rogerian paradigm (C. R. Rogers, Client-centered therapy, 1951), creates the interpersonal space where transformation and healing occurs.

[buddhalovely]

It is not surprising that the recent study by J. David Creswell, Director of the Health and Human Performance Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University, found that mindfulness meditation helps older adults overcome loneliness. This is because the practice addresses the main source of the problem—the human psyche. One thing that mindfulness meditation does is help us see our interconnectedness with the rest of humanity.

The main benefit of mindfulness meditation is that it helps people live in the present moment. This is particularly important to overcoming loneliness because the internal and external causes of loneliness take place in the present moment—that is, our emotions and interactions with other people.

The practice also helps them develop more effective social skills. For those who practice mindfulness meditation regularly, loneliness diminishes significantly because they can cultivate more intimate and meaningful relationships with people without fear of rejection. Practitioners learn to practice deep listening, mindful speech, compassion, forgiveness, and other relevant social skills.

In essence, mindfulness meditation addresses both the internal and external factors that lead to loneliness.

[Tenzin K]

Mindfulness can bring your brain into an integrated state of harmony, balancing chaos on the one hand and rigidity on the other. This scientific wisdom is brought to you by neuroscientist Dan Siegel, author of several important books, including the Developing Mind, The Mindful Brain, Mindsight, and his latest, The Mindful Therapist. The middle prefrontal cortex, located behind your forehead and part of the newest part of the brain evolution-wise, (it's known as the “rational brain” in contrast to the “emotional brain” that is older evolutionarily) is critical to the following nine functions:

1) Bodily regulation
2) Attunement
3) Emotional balance
4) Response flexibility
5) Downregulation of fear
6) Insight
7) Empathy
Morality
9) Intuition

Each of these functions is positively affected by meditation. When you meditate, your prefrontal cortex will actually change. It will become thicker in places, indicating new neural connections and perhaps even new neurons. It will be more efficient and more integrated.

Bodily Regulation
Bodily regulation is accomplished by regulating arousal and relaxation through the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system (think of the gas pedal and a brake in a car). If you are overly stressed or anxious, your sympathetic nervous system is overly active — think of a lead foot on the gas pedal — the car lurches forward and uses a lot of gas. Mindfulness helps to regulate the sympathetic nervous system, making it less reactive (no more lead foot), and helps you to drive the car more slowly. This cuts down on wear and tear on your body and reduces the risk for long-term health problems.

Attunement
Attunement is being connected to others, or being “in tune.” By being mindful you can better connect to others because you are more present and less preoccupied with your own story. Attunement sows the seeds of compassion. Attunement provides the optimal environment for babies to develop in; healthy development happens when babies are attuned with their caregivers.

Emotional Balance
Emotional balance refers to how you engage with experiences. It balances apathy on the one hand and feeling overwhelmed on the other. Like bodily regulation, it's a Goldilocks phenomenon, not too much and not too little. This is the optimal place for neural integration. Like bodily regulation, this helps you to be more nuanced and less clumsy in your emotional responses. This will come in handy in your relationships and dealing with the day-to-day frustrations of life.

Response Flexibility
Response flexibility refers to the pause that can develop between a stimulus and response. It aims at the impulsive reactions that often occur in response to a stimulus. This pause comes from mindful awareness and can help you to be less impulsive and less destructive with what you say and do.

Downregulation of Fear
This important feature is your ability to adjust the signals from the emotional brain that can often overwhelm you. The emotional brain, which is responsible for emotions like fear and anger, has the job of keeping you safe. It does so by figuring out what you should be paying attention to. It is prone to making mistakes that err on the side of caution: “Is that a snake or a stick? Let's assume it's a snake and let's get the hell out of here.”

That kind of mistake is less costly than guessing wrong. It takes longer to recover from a snakebite than to catch your breath for running away for no good reason. To be more accurate in detecting what should really get your precious attention resources, the prefrontal cortex (the rational brain) needs to have more nerve fibers going from the rational brain to the emotional brain to tell it, “Hey, it's a false alarm.” This is accomplished through the development of inhibitory nerve fibers that go from the middle prefrontal cortex to structures like the amygdala in the emotional brain (limbic system). Mindfulness practice can help to develop these nerve fibers.

Insight
Insight refers to what Siegel calls mental time travel or what you might call imagination. Mindfulness can help you to refine this capacity in the service of living skillfully rather than being subjected to out-of-control worry, regret, and self-criticism. If you are not using your imagination for these destructive purposes it will be free to be creative, and that would be a much better thing to do with your attention.

Empathy
Empathy, or what Siegel calls “mindsight,” refers to the ability to take the perspective of the other. Obviously, this is connected to compassion and once again hinges upon the ability to transcend your own selfpreoccupied stories to meet the person you are with where they are. While some people are naturally more empathic than others, you are not stuck where you are. As with all of these features, empathy is a trainable skill. The more you meditate, the more empathic you can become.

Morality
Morality is also a function of the middle prefrontal cortex and includes not just your ability to be moral in public settings but also in private. As you already know, morality or ethics is a cornerstone of Buddhist teaching and practice, so it may not be a surprise to find morality showing up on this list too. Buddhist meditation practice helps you to discern skillful from unskillful actions in all domains. In the context of morality, this may require inhibiting an impulse, or inserting a pause before you say something.

Intuition
Intuition is the capacity to access the wisdom of the body by monitoring your bodily sensations. For example, a brain structure called the insula has a map of the interior body, and studies have found the insula gets thicker with meditation practice. The more you meditate, the more aware you will be of your body. This awareness can help you to cope with whatever the body is experiencing, whether that is pain, anxiety, or any discomfort whatsoever.

Before he took an interest in mindfulness, Siegel came up with the same list of brain function as mindfulness researchers had compiled independently. And it's not just brain researchers; this list has been striven for in many spiritual traditions since ancient times. When you recognize the plasticity of the brain, you can understand why you respond in certain situations the way that you do. Your previous conditioning will have you react in sometimes-harmful ways. But it is the fault of conditioning. However, at the same time, it is your responsibility (and potential) to change these conditionings through mindfulness and meditation. The middle prefrontal cortex develops optimally in an interpersonally attuned environment during infancy. Mindfulness provides the possibility of self-attunement to develop these same brain areas. So sit down and change your brain!