Can meditation change your brain? - Emotion Regulation
Emotion Regulation
So far we have spoken about 2 ways in which meditation changes our brains.
The first was by strengthening our ‘attention muscle’ in our brains (the anterior cingulate cortex for those neuroscience geeks out there).
The second way was growing the parts of the brain that let help us be aware of what our body is feeling (body awareness).
The third way is through emotion regulation…our ability to regulate our feelings.
The Security Guard
But how does it do this?
Well, to look at this let us take the example of the lion coming towards you (presumably trying to eat you).
There is a part of the brain whose main job is to watch for threats such as lions. You can think of it as your brain’s guardian angel or security guard or light house operator.
It scans your environment and, if it detects a threat, will gear up your body to fight it or run away using your sympathetic nervous system (that we spoke about yesterday).
As you can imagine, this security guard has a really important job, and timeliness is very important. You want him reacting to the threat and calling the police ASAP. You don’t want him looking at a robber, having a think, making a plan and then acting. You want him to act NOW. Same with the lion. You don’t want your brain to think, hmm is that a lion?... maybe it is a cat?..., or maybe it is a cow?…and then you get eaten! It is better to have be wrong and have a false alarm than be eaten by a lion!
However, when the security guard gets overzealous and starts jumping at shadows or dodgy looking teenagers, things begin to get tiring. In our stressful lives, with so much vying for our attention and so many stressors in our environment, this can easily happen.
The Boss/CEO
So there is a second pathway. Do you remember the prefrontal cortex,? It is like the CEO of our brains. Scientists believe this is how we regulate our fear response. The security guard sees a teenager and says “OH NO, ROBBER!” and the CEO says “It is okay, that’s just a teenager”.
The CEO vs The Security Guard
But what if your security guard doesn’t listen to the boss? He keeps shouting, “ROBBER! ROBBER! ROBBER!”. This is what we find in people with anxiety disorders and PTSD. Their prefrontal cortex (CEO) is less active and their amygdala (security guard) is more active .
However, in people who meditate, neuroscientific research has found that their CEO has much better control over the security guard. I.e. their prefrontal cortex is more active, their amygdala is less active and their prefrontal cortex is able to inhibit their amygdala.
Photo by fizkes/iStock / Getty Images
But exactly how this happens is not clear. The two suggestions are either the CEO is better and telling the security guard where to look (better attention regulation), or the CEO is better at convincing the security guard that the teenager is NOT a robber (termed cognitive reappraisal).
Either way, in those who meditate, the research suggests the CEO has a better ability to control or regulate the security guard. i.e. Meditation enables us to better regulate our emotions.
Give it a try at Recharge THIS SUNDAY.
*If you are experiencing concerning amounts of anxiety, see your health professional for assistance.