Therapist Blog - Glenn Burdick, MA, LMSW » Wellness/Holistic Health

Meditation gets even more support from neuroscience

GlennB — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:40:35 +0000

I found this study fascinating. It supports my own personal experience with meditation. The first year I had a daily meditation practice I had severe problems with my lower back. For over a year I had times when lower back spasms would prevent me from standing up and I would have to crawl to my chair to meditate. Each time I began my daily practice the very first thought I had was, ‘this will never work, I’m in too much pain to sit here and meditate!” Yet, a half hour would pass and I would not have been focused on my pain at all. When the meditation period was over I would be so surprised that I had become so calm and relaxed, despite the pain. I could feel the area had relaxed more, and could feel a kind of warm tingling sensation, telling me circulation in the area had increased. I was amazed that I hadn’t struggled against the pain, I had not suffered. This experience was repeated many times, and funnily enough, despite already knowing how helpful and effective it was to meditate while in pain, my mind would always initially offer up this thought, ‘this will never work, I’m in too much pain!” Many of my clients with persistent pain have had a similar experience as they learned to meditate.

Ever noticed how unreliable thoughts can be in predicting how you will react, respond, feel…next!!??!!

Enjoy the article! (hat tip to friend & colleague Rita Benn, for passing this on)

Brain Mechanisms Supporting the Modulation of Pain by Mindfulness Meditation. The Journal of Neuroscience. Vol. 31, April 6, 2011

Meditators can concentrate the hurt away: Volunteers felt less pain while practicing mindfulness By Daniel Strain Web edition : Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

If a tree falls on you in the forest while you’re meditating, does it still hurt?

Well, yes. But maybe not quite as much as it would if you weren’t meditating, researchers from North Carolina and Wisconsin report in the April 6 Journal of Neuroscience. Individuals who practiced mindfulness meditation, or samatha, during a pain experiment reported much less discomfort than they did in earlier, meditation-free sessions. Samatha, the team says, flipped switches on or off in diverse regions of the brain underlying attention, expectation and even the awareness of thoughts themselves.

Getting hit by a tree limb will hurt, but it won’t hurt everyone in the same way, says study coauthor Robert Coghill, a neuroscientist at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. The conscious mind, which is informed by personal experience and context, is an expert at deciding which sensations to take note of and which to ignore. “All the time we’re hanging out, our brain is being bombarded with all sorts of information,” he says. “But we let it go.” A falling tree is more jarring than the tickle of a forearm hair, but meditation may help people to similarly let “ouch!” and “yowza!” reflexes go.

In the study, Coghill and his colleagues prodded 15 volunteers with a hot poker of sorts, then used MRI to watch their brains respond to the hot but humane torture. Subjects found the 49⁰ Celsius pulses, on average, 57 percent less unpleasant and 40 percent less intense while meditating as opposed to resting normally.

Study coauthor Fadel Zeidan, himself a meditation practitioner for over a decade, taught the newbie subjects mindfulness meditation. In just four 20 minute sessions, the dilettantes got a crash course in how to focus their attention on their breathing without becoming derailed by sore bottoms or anxious thoughts.

Meditation, often associated with tranquility, in fact lights up parts of the brain like a Christmas tree. The anterior insula, for instance, which lies in a deep fold on the side of the brain and has been associated with sensing heat, cold and pain, shined bright in the meditation experiments. This region may also preside over the awareness of thoughts themselves, says Zeidan, a cognitive neuroscientist also at Wake Forest. If you’ve ever suppressed the desire to honk your horn rudely in traffic, you may have your anterior insula to thank. “The meditators were able to take a step back from their thoughts and look at them for what they were,” he says.

Parts of the thalamus, on the other hand, flicked off during meditation. The thalamus filters the endless trains of sensory signals arriving to the brain from the body. Meditation could, then, ensure that fewer ouch-inducing signals reach the conscious mind in the first place.

This study illustrates what a powerful pain reliever psychology can be, says Donald Price, who researches pain and the placebo effect at the University of Florida in Gainesville. In some cases, changing a patient’s outlook on pain can be just as soothing as certain doses of morphine. But, he admits, most doctors and nurses don’t have the time to turn the lights down low and lead meditation sessions.

F. Zeidan et al. Brain Mechanisms Supporting the Modulation of Pain by Mindfulness Meditation. The Journal of Neuroscience. Vol. 31, April 6, 2011, p. 5540. doi: 10.1523/NEUROSCI.5791-10.2011.

Announcing Spring 2011 Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program

GlennB — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:29:01 +0000

This is a the link to a <5 minute video that you can watch simply by clicking on it. It will provide you with more information about the approach and the logistics about the Spring 2011 Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program:

Click here to watch video

Greetings! Registration is underway for the Spring 2011 Stress Reduction Program. This is a wonderful, intensive, highly effective program for anyone who wants to further enhance their ability to manage stress, illness, pain…in other words, the human experience!

Participants come from all walks of life, and with a variety of challenges in their life, including: general stress, stress-related medical problems (such as insomnia, high blood pressure, fatigue, headaches) and uncomfortably high levels of tension or anxiety. This can be a powerful approach for those needing to manage their anger better, and those who suffer from panic attacks. It is a very helpful program for individuals challenged by chronic or terminal illness who wish to feel less ‘oppressed’ by such a significant challenge, and those wanting to learn to avoid relapse into depression. Included in the program are new understandings about emotional regulation, and ‘emotional intelligence’, and some of the most powerful knowledge from cognitive therapy. Each of the 8 sessions plus the daylong session are times when we explore our human nature, and practice mindfulness techniques together.

I’ve made the video orientation (see link above) to give you as much info as possible in a short period of time. Please call or email me if you wish to register or need additional information: mailto:glenn@glennburdick.com (please make sure to include your email address in the message) or call (734) 395-2122.

All the best to you,

Glenn Burdick

Announcing Fall 2010 Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program – Begins 9/29

GlennB — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:08:06 +0000

Here’s a link to a <5 minute video of the upcoming Spring 2011 Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program!http://richard11.app.knoodle.com/main/classroom.u?learningObjectID2=ba4e941751c6446aa2eb90dc6c60a398

All the best to you,

Glenn Burdick

MINDFULNESS-BASED STRESS REDUCTION PROGRAM – BEGINS 9/29/10

GlennB — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:35:23 +0000

“An excellent program. The compassion and gentle teachings made this program a priceless experience…I’m feeling happiness and optimism about life for the first time in a very long time!”

Participating in this program can make a big difference in your life, no matter what is going on for you! FOR MORE INFORMATION EMAIL: glenn@glennburdick.com Or Call: (734) 395-2122 –Glenn Burdick

“This course was great! It helped me get healthy in the way I’ve wanted to for a long time. I’m surprised how much mindfulness helps!“

Wellness Is More Than The Absence of Illness

GlennB — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:36:48 +0000

Take a deep breath, inhaling completely. Exhale, letting all of the air – and all of your tension – escape. Do it again and remember the last time you felt REALLY good…

That feeling is “wellness”. It’s a little different for every individual, but the point is that each person knows – intuitively – what it is for him or her. People seem to describe wellness as a feeling that their body, mind and spirit are in tune with one another and with their environment. The goal of wellness education is to help you make your own image of well-being an ongoing reality. Making that happen is a process that takes effort on your part, but the results couldn’t be more rewarding.

Wellness is more than the absence of illness. It is, to quote John Travis, M.D., a graduate of the Johns Hopkins preventive medicine program, an “ever-expanding experience of purposeful, enjoyable living…a lifestyle you design to achieve your highest potential….” Just as pleasure is more than absence of pain, wellness is more than freedom from flu or heart disease or herpes.

IT MIGHT help to understand that much of modern disease-oriented medicine is patterned on a corollary to Murphy’s Law that says: “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.” The last time you visited a doctor, you probably felt bad; maybe you fell prey to a bug and wanted some medicine to get rid of it.

But that’s not what doctors say they’re treating most these days. According to Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D., one-third of all Americans have a chronic disease, such as increased blood pressure, heart disease, and arthritis. Charles Stroebel, M.D., Ph.D., who directed the Institute for Living, said that between 50 to 70 percent of the leading causes of death – heart disease, cerebral vascular diseases, diabetes, arteriosclerosis and cirrhosis – are generally believed to be diet related.

The culprit in modern illness isn’t usually a germ. Many times it’s a habit, or even an attitude. You don’t walk down the street and catch obesity. There are a lot of reasons to change your lifestyle. A great starting place is to understand what ways YOU wish to improve your whole person, and formulate your own plan for developing any additional skills you may need toward that end. Along the way you will need to increase your awareness of your physical, mental and spiritual health, and address nutrition, exercise, stress relief, relationships and other heath issues. It will also involve taking a look at social, environmental and occupational health issues. You will need to develop both a strong will to health and an equally tough “won’t.” It is helpful to devote 30 minutes a week to concentrating on being well. The time spent will extend your well-being day by day for the rest of your life.

What are you doing each week to ensure your wellness? I’d love to hear from you.

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dominicspics/ / CC BY 2.0)