The Evidence-Based Effects of Mindfulness Training

Sections

1. Introduction - Mindfulness is Not Just for Monks
2. Mindlessness Follows a Life Dictated by Forces Beyond Your Intention
3. Meaning of Mindfulness and Effects of Mindfulness Training
4. How Can I Start? - Stages of Mindfulness Practices
5. References

Introduction - Mindfulness is Not Just for Monks

To all of my fellow scientists out there who often prioritise decisions rooted in logic and reason, mindfulness may be a concept you've overlooked as a key to being in full control of your outcomes in any aspect in life. As an undergraduate student studying Neuroscience, I too, undervalued the benefits of mindfulness, largely due to how it is portrayed in media. I blindly associated practices such as mindfulness meditation and yoga with religion, often playing them down in conversations as "useless" or simply "all in the head". During this period, I rarely questioned the endless stream of random and often inaccurate information I consumed from social media. Ironically, it was my own closed-mindedness and biases toward mindfulness that kept me away from exploring its true potential.

Being a scientist means embodying a mindset of curiosity, inquiry and critical thinking in the pursuit of evidence-based conclusions. This makes it essential that we recognise our own ignorance and bigotry, and truly embrace open-mindedness when encountering unfamiliar topics. I had never considered incorporating mindfulness in my daily routine, until a friend introduced the practice to me last year from a philosophical perspective. The truth is, no matter what age, academic background or expertise, you just don't know what you don't know!

While I'm still far from an expert on this topic, each new experiential layer I've uncovered through theory and practice has been eye-opening, directly transforming the quality of my relationships, overall wellbeing, and even academic performance. Most importantly, this blog highlights academic papers that suggest the transformative effects mindfulness training has on levels of metacognition (ability to think about thinking), ultimately benefiting self-regulation, self-awareness and problem-solving skills.

Incorporating mindfulness practice in your life is neuroscientifically proven to exponentially enhance your quality of life, and it does not have to involve religion.

Mindlessness Follows a Life Dictated by Forces Beyond Your Intention

To understand what mindfulness is, it is important to take a look into the meaning of mindlessness. Mindlessness can be defined as:

"a state of unawareness, of going through the motions without being consciously aware of your surroundings or your inner states."(Boutros, n.d.)

In other words, you are mindless when you are lost in thought, without an awareness of the objects appearing in consciousness. The only six internal sense bases that can appear in consciousness are vision, sound, smell, taste, bodily sensation and mind objects (thoughts and emotions) (Hoffman & Prakash, 2014). Hence, any human experience is like a musical piece created by the six-chamber orchestra of these appearances in your consciousness (Kringelbach & Deco, 2021). Having an untrained mind and being constantly lost in thought means actually, you don't even realise you are lost in thought. It is directly related to losing intention in the decisions you make, and hence the outcome of anything in your life is beyond true control.

Humans are all naturally "mindless", thanks to the brain's evolved ability to massively conserve energy and prioritise running autonomous bodily systems to meet survival needs such as shelter, nutrition and protection from threat. Neuroscientifically, the reason to our proneness to being mindless is due to our brain being energy-saving machines that try to avoid cognitive load. Considering evolutionary priorities, the brain is strongly wired to prioritise most of the 20% of the overall metabolic energy being used for the brain for functions which keep us safe and alive over higher cognitive functions such as metacognition (UCL, 2020).

Consciousness is the state or capacity which allows experience to be possible, and attention is like the spotlight of mental energy in the larger field of it, diverting towards a specific sensation or appearance. If you have never engaged in mindfulness practice before, chances are an immense part of your daily life involves mindless behaviour, as you haven't strategically paid attention to specific appearances in consciousness. For instance, while you're brushing your teeth in the morning, commuting, or really, at any point such as social interactions and work/school. Realising that you've been lost in thought, commonly referred to as "daydreaming", truly feels like you had been in a dream with no control over your actions. Looking back to these moments, you remember the experience as almost autonomous and out of your control.

Mindfulness is simply the opposite of mindlessness. It's being...not lost in thought.

Meaning of Mindfulness and Effects of Mindfulness Training

Mindfulness is a difficult term to define explicitly, as its true meaning involves multiple dimensions which unfold as one deepens their practice through unique experience. Different sources on the internet state parallel yet distinct definitions, as mindfulness is practiced through multiple lenses sharing a common ground (practicing of present-moment awareness and mental clarity): such as spiritual/religious, cultural, philosophical, neuroscientific and clinical.

I follow a philosophical approach led by Sam Harris on the Waking Up App (Harris, n.d.), and like to explore the concepts discussed in interplay with my findings in secondary Neuroscience research.

Hence, the definition I resonate with the most would originate from Sam Harris himself:

"A state of clear, non-judgmental and undistracted attention to the contents of consciousness, whether pleasant or unpleasant. There is nothing passive about mindfulness. One might even say that is expresses a specific kind of passion—a passion for discerning what is real in every moment. It is a mode of cognition that is, above all, undistracted, accepting and non-conceptual. Being mindful is not a matter of thinking more clearly about experience; it is the act of experiencing more clearly, including the arising of thoughts themselves." (Kabat-Zinn, n.d.)

Essentially, mindfulness is the non-judgemental state of mind of open-receptivity in the present moment, and the moment-to-moment tracking of the character of the appearance in consciousness. It is training your brain to strategically pay attention or merely accepting what sensation arrives.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is one of the most broadly utilised mindfulness training programs, and has been reported to directly increase brain grey matter density in the left hippocampus. MBSR is a method of mindfulness therapy used for treating a variety of physical and mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, chronic pain, cancer and many more (Niazi & Niazi, 2011). In a journal article published by Britta K. Hölzel et al, 16 healthy meditation-naïve individuals underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and proceeded with an 8-week MBSR program to dictate whether the program has effects on structural alterations of the brain. This was measured through a method called voxel-based morphometry, measuring the changes in grey matter concentration in specific regions, and comparing the results with 17 control individuals. As a result, the MBSR group had an increased grey matter concentration in the following regions: Left hippocampus, posterior cingulate cortex, temporo-parietal junction and cerebellum. These brain regions are heavily involved in learning and memory processing, emotional regulation, metacognition and perspective taking (Hölzel et al., 2011). Moreover, relapse processes of addiction are prevented through the Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP), a program designed to target experiences of addictive urges, offering cognitive-behavioural relapse prevention. An efficacy highlighted that participants randomly selected to undergo MBRP, in comparison to those of a control group, demonstrated a significantly lower rate of substance use and greater reduction in craving following the termination of treatment. Additionally, areas of the brain that have a correlation with cravings, negative affect and relapse have been suggested to be altered by mindfulness training (Witkiewitz et al., 2013).

The long-term aim of mindfulness-based practices is to improve health and well-being. Empirical evidence shows that incorporating regular mindfulness practice reduces anxiety and depression, lowers blood pressure and improves sleep quality. Depression and anxiety are characterised by the "hijacking" of your attention into the past or future, in the form of constant rumination. Building a habit of repeatedly placing attention (or a notice of being lost in thought) trains your brain to stay concentrated and grounded in the present moment, eventually de-centering you from such thoughts later down the journey (National Institutes of Health, 2021).

Definitions

1. *Grey matter concentration: Suggests the concentration of cell body and dendrites of neurons: where processing occurs (Cleveland Clinic, 2023).
2. *Left hippocampus: Brain region which plays a critical role in episodic verbal memory (Ezzati et al., 2016).
3. *Posterior cingulate cortex: Brain region which plays a crucial role in regulating the state of arousal, breadth of focus and internal/external focus of attention (Leech & Sharp, 2013).
4. *Temporo-parietal junction: Brain region implicated in processes such as multisensory integration, social cognition, sense of agency and stimulus-driven attention functions (Clare, 2016).
5. *Cerebellum: Brain region involved in the coordination of movement, maintenance of posture/balance, muscle tone and motor learning (Unverdi & Alsayouri, 2021)

How Can I Start? - Stages of Mindfulness Practice

Different mindfulness practices are utilised in clinical and individual settings, however, various forms of meditation and yoga are the two most widely known methods. Often, individuals begin mindfulness practices through paying attention to the breath to experience the foundational distinction between mindfulness and distraction, intentionally returning attention to the breath. In most mindfulness practices, an individual typically undergoes the following mental development:

Stage 1: Ordinary or Conventional Mindfulness (Dual)

• Developing the basic level of concentration to reach stage two, usually through attending to the breath.
• The feeling of self persists (subject to object feeling).
• The individual is developing a profound distinction between the mindless state(distraction) and mindfulness, noticing and shifting attention back to breath/sensations.
• Deliberate or spontaneous feeling of mindfulness (effortful or effortless).

Stage 2: Illusion of Self Gets Cut Through (Nonduality AKA awakening)

• The individual has experience of not finding a centre to awareness. The sense of self dissipates.
• Experience of openness becomes synonymous with mindfulness.
• Everything is simply happening and appearing on itself in the prior condition of consciousness.
• Mindfulness becomes not a behaviour or state of mind, but a way of being, an intentional approach to life that permeates each moment with awareness, presence and acceptance.

It is important to note that truly reaching this stage takes consistent practice and resilience, as mindfulness is fundamentally experiential. It is a skill developed by repeated action, not conceptual understanding on its own. As your mindfulness journey unfolds, you will find a raised awareness of each present moment including habitual patterns of thoughts, an improvement in emotional regulation, and even a boost in creativity and problem solving!

References

Boutros, N. (n.d.). Mindlessness: Definition, Theory & Examples. The Berkeley Well-Being Institute. Retrieved November 6, 2024, from https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/mindlessness.html

Hoffman, D. D., & Prakash, C. (2014). Objects of consciousness. Frontiers in Psychology, 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00577

Kringelbach, M. L., & Deco, G. (2021, October 6). The brain has a team of conductors orchestrating consciousness. Psyche; Psyche Magazine. https://psyche.co/ideas/the-brain-has-a-team-of-conductors-orchestrating-consciousness

UCL. (2020, August 3). Energy demands limit our brains’ information processing capacity. UCL News. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/aug/energy-demands-limit-our-brains-information-processing-capacity

Harris, S. (n.d.). Waking Up with Sam Harris - Discover your mind. | Waking Up. Www.wakingup.com. Retrieved November 6, 2024, from https://www.wakingup.com/

Kabat-Zinn, J. (n.d.). Mindfulness definitions. Retrieved November 6, 2024, from https://www.olli-dc.org/uploads/PDFs/2021_fall/834_Drobis/MindfulnessDefinitions.pdf

Niazi, A. K., & Niazi, S. K. (2011). Mindfulness-based Stress reduction: a non-pharmacological Approach for Chronic Illnesses. North American Journal of Medical Sciences, 3(1), 20. https://doi.org/10.4297/najms.2011.320

Witkiewitz, K., M Lustyk, K. B., & Bowen, S. (2013). APA PsycNet. Psycnet.apa.org. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-18077-001

National Institutes of Health. (2021, June). Mindfulness for your health. NIH News in Health. https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2021/06/mindfulness-your-health

Cleveland Clinic. (2023, March 19). Grey Matter. Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/24831-grey-matter

Ezzati, A., Katz, M. J., Zammit, A. R., Lipton, M. L., Zimmerman, M. E., Sliwinski, M. J., & Lipton, R. B. (2016). Differential association of left and right hippocampal volumes with verbal episodic and spatial memory in older adults. Neuropsychologia, 93, 380–385. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.08.016

Leech, R., & Sharp, D. J. (2013). The role of the posterior cingulate cortex in cognition and disease. Brain, 137(1), 12–32. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awt162

Clare, E. M. (2016). Temporoparietal Junction - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics. Www.sciencedirect.com. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/temporoparietal-junction

Unverdi, M., & Alsayouri, K. (2021). Neuroanatomy, Cerebellar Dysfunction. PubMed; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK545251/