mindfulness

For the Love of Money. It talks about a Wall Street broker who through a series of epiphanies came to the conclusion that he was addicted to money. It got me thinking about whether there is a common denominator for all addictions.

Over my life I have felt the pull of various things that could fall into the category of addictions if left to their devices and in the many classes I have taught in mindfulness I have had plenty of people who have talked of their various addictions and the benefits that mindfulness practice has had in relation to their addictions. It seems to me that if you have an addictive personality then that addictive personality will choose from the many opportunities to express itself. Probably the most common addictions that we hear of through the media are the many kinds of drugs whether they be stimulative or depressive. Many times the two go hand in hand as a way of balancing the extremes. Drugs come in many forms and don’t have to be limited to prescribed and non prescribed substances. We all know of food addictions, behavioral addictions such as sex, extreme sports/risk taking etc. The list goes on and on.

Where does the addiction begin? It has become common knowledge that there is an epidemic of people getting stuck in fight or flight for extended periods of time if not years. The autonomic nervous system gets stuck in the sympathetic mode or high gear. One of the many ramifications of this phenomena is a steady flow of adrenaline and the other stress hormones. Another common acknowledgment is that people begin to crave the adrenaline high after awhile. I think we need to look seriously at this being a root cause of addictions. From here the domino effect kicks in and that adrenaline craving begins to express itself in many ways. I recently read that this can be passed on genetically. The well known disconnection that takes place as a result of chronic fight or flight perpetuates this condition. The well known effect of mindfulness practice being able to reverse this disconnect is also acknowledged. Perhaps we have found an important key for reversing addictions. There is much to discuss here and many dots to connect.

In the late 1990’s I developed and delivered a way to use mindfulness as an integral part of the educational/academic system. The name of the program was: Mindfulness Training for Elementary School Students: The Attention Academy. It was published by The Journal of Applied School Psychology, Vol. 21(1) 2005. Since my study was published there has been a world wide movement to bring mindfulness into the schools and this movement is expanding exponentially. My work with www.innerexplorer.org continues this movement.

My personal experience with learning and mindfulness brought me to the conclusion that thinking and learning had far more to do with just cognitive skills. I discovered that cognition is interconnected with emotion and tactile experience. The term “emotional intelligence” has now become an accepted part of the learning continuum and will continue to play an even larger role as it discovers the depth of it’s possibilities. As it relates to education, mindfulness has the convenient twofold application of increasing attention skills and reducing stress thereby creating new opportunities for excellence. As the over 3000 studies in mindfulness over a vast array of applications conclude, increased attentions skills, increased awareness and connection with emotions and the body result in greater aptitude for learning and communication. We are no longer tied to thinking “inside the box” and are discovering new exciting ways to learn resulting in an unprecedented explosion of creativity.

It had long been a theory of mine that the practice of mindfulness could be helpful in teaching people how to think and learn in new enhanced ways. This idea came to me because of my personal experience of the limits of my own educational training all the way through college and beyond. I felt like a fish out of water and had a hard time just thinking “inside the box”.

When beginning to practice mindfulness there is an issue that comes up repeatedly. When I teach the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program I immediately introduce the formal practice(meditation) and the informal practice(mindfulness in everyday life). The formal/meditation practice involves periods of silence and stillness that are used as the backdrop for developing present moment attention. The informal practice of mindfulness in everyday activity involves by definition…movement and usually a good deal of sound although not necessarily sound. There are four categories of response to these two approaches. Firstly there are those who can’t tolerate stillness and silence, secondly there are those that prefer stillness and silence, thirdly there are those who can tolerate both and lastly there are those who can’t tolerate either. Obviously when looking down the road it is considered preferable to be comfortable with both. However, it is my observation that although I teach both, if someone is having great difficulty with one, I will emphasize focusing on the other until gradually both can be embraced. To insist on one over the other is rigid and self defeating in a situation that calls for flexibility and compassion. Mindfulness can be difficult enough for a beginner and it seems to me that taking the course of least resistance at first is the better part of valor. It is very important to feel as though progress is being made in order to sustain the level of commitment and enthusiasm necessary to continue.

The greatest resistance is usually found with the stillness and silence. A hint as to why can be found with the Wikipedia definition of restless leg syndrome:

“Restless legs syndrome (RLS) also known as Willis-Ekbom disease (WED)[1] or Wittmaack-Ekbom syndrome, is a neurological disorder characterized by an irresistible urge to move one’s body to stop uncomfortable or odd sensations.[2] It most commonly affects the legs, but can affect the arms, torso, head, and even phantom limbs.[3] Moving the affected body part modulates the sensations, providing temporary relief.

RLS sensations range from pain or an aching in the muscles, to “an itch you can’t scratch”, an unpleasant “tickle that won’t stop”, or even a “crawling” feeling. The sensations typically begin or intensify during quiet wakefulness, such as when relaxing, reading, studying, or trying to sleep.[4] Additionally, most individuals with RLS suffer from periodic limb movement disorder (limbs jerking during sleep), which is an objective physiologic marker of the disorder and is associated with sleep disruption.[5] It can be caused by low iron levels.[6]”

The giveaway is “The sensations typically begin or intensify during quiet wakefulness, such as when relaxing, reading, studying, or trying to sleep.[4]” This is essentially describing a condition similar to the stillness and quiet of meditation. Although there can be a neurological disorder I think it is much more common that in stillness and silence we confront our adrenaline addiction. For anyone who has been stuck in stress for a period of time you are very familiar with how it feels to be addicted/sensitive to your own adrenaline. When embarking on reversing that situation it becomes even more obvious when being still and silent. In time, as the nervous system normalizes and the adrenaline factor goes away it is much easier to tolerate the still, quiet times. That’s why movement and activity is the better emphasis in the beginning for those who are most sensitive to the adrenaline factor. So it is important to be flexible and compassionate with yourself as you are discovering the best doorway to learning mindfulness, all the while keeping in mind that eventually we want to be present in all situations.

Mindfulness is one of the best ways to develop true self confidence. I’m talking about being self confident versus acting self confident. I’ve seen a lot of seminars that will teach you how to behave “as if” you are self confident but ignore developing the inner qualities that project the true energy of self confidence. We can sense when someone has this self confidence and when they are just pretending….and it has nothing to do with behavior. The dictionary defines self confidence as “A feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgment. “ Let’s examine how we can develop this quality and what role meditation can play in helping us develop it.

I have discovered through my own mindfulness meditation practice that my self confidence has increased. I notice that there is a direct relationship between my fear levels and my self confidence. In order to truly have a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgment one must have the level of self awareness that informs us that there is nothing to fear. Once that lens of fear is removed we are able to see clearly and function at levels of competence that put us in a peak performance mode. Our energy increases and our ability to put that energy to good use is magnified as our fear levels go down resulting in a natural rise in self confidence.

Mindfulness has been my greatest tool for reducing fear and there have been a number of studies published around this subject that come to the same conclusion. The relationship of mindfulness meditation to stress reduction has been well documented and since fear exists as the predominant experience in stress it makes perfect sense that mindfulness is a very effective tool in lowering fear and thereby raising self confidence.

In conclusion it is important to briefly discuss the concept of human potential. When the fear goes away what is left? What is the true nature of the human experience? Human nature is a multi faceted thing. Once we tip the scales away from fear we have the capacity to bring out all of the positive qualities such as kindness, compassion, gratitude, love, connection, forgiveness and so forth. When we experience these qualities and express them outwardly we are embracing true self confidence which flows naturally and effortlessly from within. Our potential to move in this direction is always present. All we have to do is cultivate it and it will continue to unfold.

The Vagus Nerve and meditation are intertwined. The Vagus Nerve roughly translated means “wandering nerve”. It travels from the brain stem down to the abdomen and connects with many major organs participating in many of our bodily functions such as breathing, digestion, heart rate and many more. It is intimately connected to the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic(automatic) nervous system and therefore plays a big role in regulating stress. The autonomic nervous system runs our bodies automatically without us having to participate. Functions such as heart rate are a function of the autonomic nervous system.

The autonomic nervous system has two branches, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The sympathetic branch is responsible for putting us in fight or flight and the parasympathetic branch is responsible for taking us out of fight or flight and regulating our bodies when not involved with a fight or flight event.

Stress levels are at historic highs and one of the reasons for that is the phenomena of getting stuck in fight or flight. For a number of reasons our nervous systems are getting stuck in the sympathetic mode meaning that the changes that take place in our body/mind during fight or flight are not being resolved after the event happens. Consequently those changes, to varying degrees, stay with us for extended periods of time. This results in chronic stress which leads to a host of physical, mental and emotional symptoms.

Science has given us a number of tools whereby we can measure various bodily functions to determine stress levels. One of the most effective ways to measure these stress levels is by studying the Vagus Nerve stimulation. When the Vagus Nerve gets stimulated it influences the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system to come out of fight or flight thereby reducing stress. Here’s how that happens through meditation.

We know that meditation, particularly mindfulness meditation(full attention to the present moment) is effective in lowering stress. Mindfulness meditation is the most studied approach to meditation having over 2500 studies published worldwide with an average of 200 more per month being published. I consider it to be the hub of the meditation wheel in that it enhances all the other meditation approaches and can be a stand alone practice itself. These studies show that meditation can increase energy, reduce stress, slow breathing, decrease anxiety, reduce pain, increase blood flow and provide a sense of peace to name a few. When the Vagus Nerve receives the signals from these meditation effects it sends a message to the brain that all is well, there is no danger and there is no need to be in fight or flight. The brain then sends the message to the autonomic nervous system which stimulates the parasympathetic branch to come out of fight or flight and regulate the systems into balance. This is an example of the Vagus Nerve and the brain working together. The brain can send messages to the body and the body to the brain through the Vagus Nerve.

 It is interesting to note that a function of the body previously thought to run automatically can in fact be influenced consciously through meditation. This is very important and gives us insight into the possibility of many ways that we can consciously participate in our health and well being.  This is yet another demonstration of the mind/body connection and how our thoughts, emotions and physical sensations are interconnected and how meditation can assist in the smooth running of the system.

For thousands of years people have been searching for ways to increase life span. What drives us to want to live longer? Many would argue that there is a biological impulse that motivates us to live as long as possible. Perhaps it is part of our survival instinct that is hard wired into our autonomic nervous system. That instinct is expressed through our fight or flight response which drives us to live as long as possible. The fight or flight response is driven by fear so perhaps we can say that fear plays a role in our quest for longevity. Even without the fear we seem to seek longevity particularly if there is also quality of life.

Ideally we want to increase quality of life along with life span and usually the two go together. Great strides have been made over the past 50 years to increase both. Medical breakthroughs, increased knowledge about healthy lifestyle changes in diet, nutrition, exercise, emotional intelligence and stress reduction have pushed the envelope of our ability to increase longevity along with quality of life. For many years meditation has been thought to increase quality of life and longevity. Up until about 35 years ago we relied on our experience to confirm the link between meditation, quality of life and longevity. Now we have a body of evidence that is confirming this and one of the most interesting discoveries recently has to do with the effects of meditation, particularly mindfulness meditation on longevity.

Mindfulness meditation seems to affect longevity of the physical body in a few different ways, starting at the cellular level. One that I find to be of great significance is that scientists have isolated length of telomeres and telomerase as indicators of cellular aging. Our cells contain chromosomes, or sequences of DNA. Telomeres are “protective protein caps” at the end of our DNA strands that allow for continued cell replication. The longer the telomere, the more times a cell can divide and refresh. Each time a cell replicates, its telomere length, and therefore its lifespan, gets shorter in a natural aging process.

Telomerase is an enzyme in the body that prevents telomere shortening and can even add telomeric DNA back to the telomere and help our body’s cells live for a longer period of time.

Shorter telomere length in cells is linked with poorer immune system functioning, cardiovascular disease, and degenerative conditions like osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s disease. The shorter the length of our telomeres, the more susceptible our cells are to dying and the more susceptible we are to disease, as we get older.

Telomere shortening happens naturally as we age, but research now shows that it can be accelerated by stress, speeding up the aging process of the body. Meditation is known to reduce stress so research was designed to see if meditation could affect telomeres.

In 2013 Elizabeth Hoge, MD a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, investigated this idea by leading a study comparing telomere length of experienced loving-kindness meditation (LKM) practitioners with that of non-meditators. Results revealed that those with more years of meditation practice had longer telomere length overall, and that women meditators had significantly longer telomeres as compared to women non-meditators. These findings further support meditation’s positive effect on healthy cellular aging and provide fodder for future longitudinal research that could track change in telomere length over time.

Other studies using mindfulness meditation have also made the connection between longer telomeres and sustained meditation practice. These studies are at the forefront of mindfulness meditation and longevity research. As more studies are published I think we will confirm without a doubt that mindfulness meditation definitely increases longevity.

We are currently experiencing an epidemic of memory loss…short and long term. With such diagnoses as Dementia and Alzheimer’s we can track how widespread the problem is. These two diagnoses are usually associated with the older population but we are seeing varying degrees of memory loss in people of all ages. The causes are multifaceted and range from stress to diet /nutrition, lack of exercise, over stimulation from technology, genetics  and environmental pollution. I’m sure I left some out but these seem to be the ones that come to my attention most frequently.

Most of these issues that contribute to memory loss can be addressed by making lifestyle changes. Environmental pollution is a tough one as we are often times held captive by our environment and environmental issues express themselves in air quality, water quality and the food chain. It is important to mitigate these issues as much as possible by making wise choices when possible. Genetics is the only one that is seemingly out of reach although I have come across studies recently that suggest that even genetics can be modified under the right circumstances. Besides scientific genetic engineering and re engineering we have found that mindfulness meditation lengthens telomeres, the protective caps at the end of our chromosomes. The result is the ability to keep our brains younger, longer and we look at our brains as the focal point for memory. Other mindfulness meditation studies have shown some impressive results with different parts of the brain that influence memory.

The Hippocampus is a part of our brain that is directly involved with short and long term memory. Through age and stress we know that the Hippocampus shrinks and gets less dense over time. A 2011 Harvard study showed significant increased thickness of the Hippocampus with the 8 week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction(MBSR) program pioneered by Jon Kabat -Zinn.

We have also seen mindfulness meditation benefits in the frontal cortex area of the brain. The frontal cortex is responsible for functions such as concentration, attention, learning and memory. A study at Massachusetts General Hospital showed the that mindfulness meditation caused the brain’s grey matter of the frontal cortex area to thicken because  mindfulness meditation increases the size of blood vessels and the blood flow in the region.

There is enough scientific evidence now to conclude that mindfulness meditation has a positive effect on memory.

It seems like mindfulness is being applied to almost every sector of society. That, of course is a good thing. One sector that has me scratching my head is the military. The military is composed of people, so from that standpoint it makes perfect sense to initiate mindfulness training to the broad spectrum of positions in the military. The same qualities valued by everyone is to be valued in the military….focus, resilience, stress reduction, communication skills, organizational ability and so forth.

There are other skills that are very valuable to many in the military but need to be looked at carefully, especially for soldiers in combat and less so for all other support people. Skills such as the ability to let go, fearlessness, non judging and acceptance can be problematic when faced with the need to kill other people directly as a soldier or indirectly as a support person. Mindfulness stripped of its moral and ethical roots becomes something else altogether. Those moral and ethical roots consist of qualities such as compassion, kindness, interconnectedness, forgiveness, love and gratitude. An example of this contradiction took place during WW 2 when the Japanese forced Buddhist monks to provide mindfulness training to Kamikaze pilots. Letting go, fearlessness, non judging and acceptance are ideal qualities for a Kamikaze pilot who is preparing to kill others in addition to oneself. What would have happened had the monks also included compassion, kindness, interconnectedness, empathy, sympathy, forgiveness, love and gratitude as part of the training? I suspect those qualities were not included in the training therefore stripping away the moral and ethical backing. The result was to make very efficient killers of the Kamikazes. Years later the Buddhist monks formally apologized for providing the training but who can blame them when death would have been the result of refusal. Perhaps there can be a moral and ethical rationale for killing, an argument that has been debated forever. On the other hand, if you ask people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King and the countless of other proponents of non violence…there are no exceptions.

So here we are once again in a position where a moral and ethically backed system of development is being employed to make killing more efficient and effective. I’m not training the military so I don’t know what approach is being used but I do see the potential for inner conflict. There are some pretty big questions coming up with this. Old questions about war, killing and destruction are being considered once again in a familiar context. Certain mindfulness skills are very useful in this situation as we’ve seen over the centuries, but what about the moral and ethical underpinning? It really creates an opportunity to re evaluate who we are and where we are going as a society.