Meditation, Mindfulness and Power of Balance

This is dedicated to my father Karunasena Silva Gunaratne who was born today 8th September 1917 who inspired me to meditate....in gratitude...

Our mind and body balances on basic fundamental laws of our physiology.  We are wired for survival through the reptilian and mammalian brains with our amygdale designed to first recognize a threat in any situation we face.  This manifests as the emotion of fear. 

When we realize our biology is designed to protect us first, we learn to emotionally differentiate between a real and a perceived threat and make an instant decision to take appropriate action.  This was fine in hunter gatherer days, where we needed to fight, flee or freeze when we met a predator.  Action would dissipate the stress hormones such as adrenaline, cortisol that gets pumped into the blood.  

However, today threats are rarely physical, yet a conflict with a colleague will manifest the same hormones, except they will not dissipate as there is no physical response – it is mostly in the mind, but the body will also be adversely affected.  This is the spiral of stress where the mind, through emotions and the body, through health and well-being, become compromised.

Further, the traditional industrial age organizations operate from a rational, logical and analytical space requiring us to be in our neo-cortex, the executive brain.  This has forced us to suppress our emotions, which then seek other outlets for expression when we are under threat, leading to stress and disease.  

The modern organization acknowledges the need to balance between our rational and emotional intelligence.  This enables better interpersonal and organizational relationships, resulting in productivity and performance.  This begins with the intrapersonal - the self first.

In understanding our biology and physiology, we realize the interconnectedness in the way our emotions and logical thinking are affected - when our mind and body are out of sync due to difficult relationships and stress.  We also realize that the power to control our emotions lay within us - as such we have to understand ourselves first. 

To simplify our complex brain - our primal (survival) and mammalian brains are important to signal a threat through emotions of concern, anxiety, fear, even anger and to react through these on auto-pilot can compromise us.  

That is where it is important to deliberately shut the auto-pilot off and move from the primal reactive brain towards the neo-cortex - the executive function where we have emotional regulation by putting things in perspective and context.  This way we can respond appropriately - even if we have to defend ourselves from harm, we do so with total awareness and in control.  

Our breath, then becomes our foundational ally as a focus on the breath shuts the auto-pilot off to gain situational awareness, to acknowledge the threat and the related emotion - put it in perspective for an appropriate rational response.    

Breath and the Mindfulness Practice

This is the power of balance and we gain more skill through a mindfulness practice.  

When we focus on our breath to meditate, we become mindful and present.  Breathing well helps our health and physiology, and clears our mind to realize when 'unhealthy' and 'negative' emotions arise and remain.  This clarity enhances self-knowledge leading to better esteem and confidence.

Having a clear mind enables us to seek objective evidence to acknowledge 'negative' emotions as it provides important information related to our survival.  Then we can assess the threat as real or not, put things in perspective and move to logic and reason to respond skillfully.  

Focusing on the breath has other benefits. With mindful awareness, we can also help our physical well-being with good diet, exercise and sleep, which are fundamental to finding the power of balance.  

When the inner-work is in place, we can move out to our senses to seek alignment with what we do in the outside world.  

Here, our relationships - the way we engage with family, community and the workplace is based on balancing our rational and analytical intelligence; emotional and spiritual intelligence, which gives meaning to our lives.  

This is how we may find the power in that balance, as we are grounded in a way of life based on integrity, generosity, graciousness and dignity.  This may help us to be more skillful at balancing conflict and harmony in our life and to live well in uncertainty.

Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness Meditation is a non-sectarian, research-based form of meditation derived from a 5,000 year old practice. Meditation develops the skill of paying attention to our inner and outer experiences with acceptance, patience, and compassion.  The foundational practice is to focus on our life force - the breath.

Mindfulness is a quality we already have but many do not know its value and that it can be cultivated.  Mindfulness is the awareness that is not thinking, but awareness of thinking and other ways we experience the sensory world - i.e., seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling through the body.

Mindfulness is non-judgmental, friendly and open-hearted, inviting whatever arises in awareness.  It is cultivated by paying attention to what arises in the present moment, either inside or outside of us.  

 

By intentionally practicing mindfulness, deliberately paying more careful moment-to-moment attention, we can live more fully and less on ‘auto pilot,’ thus, being more present in our lives.

Meditation is then the practice to develop skills to become more mindful and present. When we are present it is easier to deal with stress, as we realize that we do not have control over life and nature, and how others act and behave. However, we do have choice over how we respond rather then react.       

The practice of meditation may not yield immediate results and will be different for each other.  It is also not a cure-all for our stressful life, but one of the components that can help us find a better balance. 

 

This makes it even more difficult as we are used to instant gratification.  Mindfulness requires a long term commitment to a regular practice. 

This personal practice has to become a way of life, complementing other good habits - how and what we eat, exercise, sleep, how we treat ourselves with love and empathy and our nourishing relationships with others. It is a holistic practice we engage in without any expectations or goals.  

Over time you may notice changes in the way you respond and act.  You may also get feedback from others, as mindfulness enables us to become less judgmental about ourselves, others and situations.  

With awareness we realize that difficult situations and conflict are neutral and it is our conditioning that puts a value to it, thus bringing it energy.  If we do not fuel a fire, it cannot survive and this way, we may see things as they really are and not with a conditioned bias, which may not be true.

Scientific Evidence

Even though the effects of meditation and mindfulness are palpable at an individual level, latest scientific research in Neuroscience provides tangible results as to how neurons in the brain and the heart are positively impacted.  There is mounting evidence to prove the effectiveness of meditation and mindfulness to gain mental clarity to find a better balance in dealing with an uncertain life. 

Elissa Epel a leading researcher into mindfulness, health and well-being at the University of Southern California – San Francisco states; 

“We speculate that certain types of meditation can increase awareness of present moment experience leading to positive cognitions, primarily by increasing meta-cognitive awareness of thought, a sense of control (and decreased need to control), and increased acceptance of emotional experience. These cognitive states and skills reduce cognitive stress and thus ability for more accurate appraisals, reducing exaggerated threat appraisals and rumination, and distress. These positive states are thus stress-buffering. Increasing positive states and decreasing stress cognitions may in turn slow the rate of cellular aging.”[1]

Elissa Epel - Eureka Alert

Elissa Epel’s, public manuscript published in the National Institute of Health also cites mindfulness meditation practitioners assessed using magnetic resonance imaging revealed greater cortical thickness in brain regions associated with interoception, including the right anterior insula, compared to controls.  

 

These studies provide neural evidence that mindfulness meditation cultivates interoceptive awareness, which is thought to play a key role in maintaining present moment awareness and regulating emotions.[2]

Studies support the notion that mindfulness facilitates interpretation of situations as less threatening, perhaps due to less activation of self-relevant concerns, so that events are responded to more thoughtfully, rather than reacted to through automatic filters of cognitive and emotional processes.  Mindfulness is argued to promote “cognitive balance,” the ability to see clearly beyond assumptions, preventing common and habitual cognitive distortions[3]

Mindfulness may also improve coping with events that are appraised as threatening in which there is little possibility of control. Mindfulness may serve to increase a sense of control, not simply by reacting more “coolly,” (with attenuated cycles of negative thoughts and emotions), but by lessening one’s perceived need to be in control, especially when situations are determined to be uncontrollable.[4]

First Steps - What am I Observing?

For people who are new to meditation, it is not an easy practice, as most of our minds flit about at 750 words per minute from thought to thought.  With a commitment to a regular daily practice, anyone can learn to meditate, thus to stop the thought process, to gain space and calm to become aware to respond more skillfully to day to day situations in life.

Take a deep breath and ask yourself - "what am I observing...?".  That is a trick I use to stop my ruminating thoughts and to become present and aware.  Suddenly, I see the beauty of the sky, the shapes of the clouds, a color of a bird, details of a leaf on a tree.  I can then move my focus onto the breath to meditate and investigate the mind as that is a deep and insightful journey.

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[1] Elissa Epel, PhD.,^,* Jennifer Daubenmier, Ph.D., Judith T. Moskowitz, Ph.D., Susan Folkman, PhD., and Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD: .Can meditation slow rate of cellular aging? Cognitive stress, mindfulness, and telomeres Ann N Y Acad Sci. Author manuscript; available in PMC Mar 15, 2011

[2] Lazar SW, Kerr CE, Wasserman RH, et al. Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness. Neuroreport: For Rapid Communication of Neuroscience Research. 2005 Nov;16(17):1893–1897.

[3] Wenk-Sormaz H. Meditation can reduce habitual responding. Altern Ther Health Med. 2005 Mar-Apr;11(2):42–58. [PubMed]

[4] Astin JA. Stress reduction through mindfulness meditation. Effects on psychological symptomatology, sense of control, and spiritual experiences. Psychother Psychosom. 1997;66(2):97–106. [PubMed)