Remodel your brain for happiness

Dr Dawson Church, PhD, is an award-winning science writer who aims to bring science to various exponential and personal and global questions around the way our brain activity changes as we shift our awareness. In his latest book Bliss Brain, Dawson looks at the mental states of people who spend a lot of time meditating such as Franciscan nuns and Tibetan monks.  The book also looks at the science behind meditation and what works as well as showing that certain parts of the meditation are highly effective at inducing those states.

The research Dawson carried out shows how the brain state of these nuns and monks is extraordinarily happy and at a level we can’t comprehend because they are in an ecstatic state. The research also showed that their corpus callosum, the part of brain tissue that connects the left and right hemispheres, were very large. The question Dawson then asked was whether they were happy because their left and right brain had a lot of neural connections, because they had a large corpus callosum or whether these states were triggering brain growth?

Harvard psychologist Sarah Lazar looked at this issue in 2005, asking whether it was because brain anatomies produced these states or whether those states produced brain anatomies. She gave definitive answers, showing that the states that produce the brain anatomy can turn temporary states of wellbeing. When we cultivate these pleasurable states over time, they become traits. We don't just feel more blissful as a temporary state; the changes are literally hard-wired into our brains, becoming stable and enduring personality traits.

The states to traits progression in people who meditate, especially those who meditate effectively means they are able to increase neural mass in parts of the brain like the corpus callosum and the memory and learning system. There is an increase in neural tissues in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex that hooks the executive centres in to the emotional brain and down-regulates all the irritations and distractions of everyday life and focuses on happiness joy and wellbeing. These parts of the brain get bigger and stronger in meditation adapts.

On the other side of the coin are people with major depressive disorders where the ventromedial prefrontal cortex actually thins and starts to disintegrate. What’s left of it starts to signal the wrong way. The emotional brain that can be miserable, worried, anxious and stressed actually starts to control the executive functions and people start to say that they are stressed because of xyz. They then start to invent reasons in their executive centres for their misery rather than controlling it with the same part of the brain. These states produce measurable changes in brain anatomy.

Dawson published another study that explored meditation adapts used by the nuns and monks. It found that the traditional model they used took 10,000 hours to achieve with many having done over 40,000 hours of meditation in their lives. So how do you get there without taking vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and giving up all of your possessions? Dawson has found that there are certain things that you can do that to produce those changes quickly. If ordinary people, even non-meditators, do some highly effective practices culled from ancient traditions in a controlled way they can achieve similiar results.

In the trial some people did the meditation whilst others did other things such as mindfulness and mindful breathing. The trial found that in the first group doing the effective things, there was evidence of rapid and radical brain change and measurable functional changes in two parts of the brain after just one month. They were only meditating for twenty-two minutes a day but, by using effective practices, brain remodeling began and over time these structural changes in brain anatomy can make us calmer, happier, and more resilient.

Dawson found that three things were highly effective. One is to meditate intensively so you feel the good feelings in your body through breathing and relaxing certain muscles. You can then dial-up your emotions.  Neuro-research shows that if you have a positive feeling in your body you need to amplify it. Second, is that the effect is better if you do the practices in a group.  Group meditation is known to provide more positive neuroplascity. Having a body physical experience, dialling up your level of intensity and doing it in a group is really powerful.

The final thing that makes a difference is compassion. Compassion meditation has greater positive neuroplascity than other kinds of meditation. If there is an element of feeling compassion, the part of the brain called the insular lights up. Negative thinking is associated with the activation of brain regions like the mid prefrontal cortex, the “seat of self.” Positive emotions such as altruism and compassion light up the insula, key to social interactions and pro-social emotions such as gratitude and joy.

What we find in these people is the focus has been on emotion and the value of compassion because that's what Buddhism calls it. What we are now seeing more in neuroscience is a single positive meta emotion - you just feel really good and its up to an academic to label whether its happiness, gratitude or compassion.

Meditation activates certain parts of the brain. The commonality amongst all meditation styles is the deactivation of the default mode network. This is how the brain defaults when you are doing a task. When people are just resting they definitely feel better and more relaxed but what often happens is that the default mode network kicks in and they begin to ruminate and cataptophise because the default mode network is associated with thinking about the past especially threats and bad experiences and any problems that might occur in the future.

During deep meditation, ‘the 7 neurochemicals of ecstasy’ are released in our brains. These include anandamide, a neurotransmitter that's been named “the bliss molecule” because it mimics the effects of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. Meditation also boosts serotonin and dopamine; the first has a chemical structure similar to psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”), the second to cocaine and cultivating these elevated emotional states literally produces a self-induced high.

You can find out more about Dawson at http://blissbrain.com/ and https://www.eftuniverse.com/ You can buy his latest blook Bliss Brain at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401957757?ie=UTF8&tag=energypsych00-20

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