How does meditation work? Your brain and neuroplasticity

HOW MEDITATION WORKS: Your brain and neuroplasticity

When I first got into a regular meditation practice, I very quickly began to notice the game-changing impact it was having in my life. (See this cartoon for details!)  I wanted to share a little bit about “the science” behind meditation and how it creates life changing impact.

Bearing in mind that this is actually pretty far from “science” and is really just a very broad and VERY simple overview of what is happening in the brain when we cultivate a meditation practice.

how does meditation work

How does meditation work?

Above is my very scientific diagram of your brain.

(Granted, your brain is generally way fancier than the diagram above – but let’s just go with it for now).

Physically, the nerve cells in your brain form synapses or little junctions/gaps between one another. Information that is running along “the blue cell” needs to reach “the green cell” and it does so through releasing chemical neurotransmitters into the synapse between the cells which enables the message to pass from one cell to the other. These messages either transmit a stimulus (“geez, this boiling pot is HOT”) or relaying an action back to the body (“move your hand idiot”) or vice versa.

These processes happens in nano-second time – which is lucky for us, as we may otherwise end up covered in welts from holding onto boiling pots for too long.

how meditation works

For a very long time, the brain was believed to be a very “fixed” structure with a very fixed physiology – similar to your elbow or your knee or any other “fixed” structure in the body. Mostly up until now, it has been difficult to really “study” the brain in any kind of useful way.

However there are more and more studies being done through advancing brain imaging technologies (such as  single photon emission computed tomography or “SPECT” scans) which show proof that it is actually possible to change the physiology of neural cells.

In other words we actually have the ability to CHANGE the way the brain functions.

And the way we USE the brain – helps determine the WAY the brain functions and it’s physiology.

(and then the WAY the brain functions and it’s physiology helps determine the way we USE the brain. {chicken/egg}).

Neuroplasticity – is the ability of the brain to reorganise itself and create new neural pathways and networks along which information can travel.

(As an aside: it’s my personal belief that we get “old” because we stop providing opportunities for ourselves to stimulate new neural pathways. We get caught up in the “hum drum” of daily life – wake up, commute, work, get home, have the same dinners, watch tv, go to bed, wake up, repeat. We stop challenging our bodies, minds and souls to create new neural pathways like we did when we were children – learning growing and developing. We stop stepping out of our comfort zones, we stop “forcing ourselves” to do new things that require a bit of bravery – and the brain then responds by further entrenching the old neural pathways that already exist – (Which then makes it even more challenging to get out the comfort zone!) Even choosing to brush your teeth with the opposite hand or picking up a random new hobby can be stimulating for new neural activity!)

So anyway, back to how meditation works:

The beginning stages of meditation are literally about observing or watching your thoughts as they come and go.

The more often you do this, the more readily you are able to observe your thoughts outside of “meditation” and when you are able to observe your thoughts, rather than being “IN” your thoughts, it creates a tiny little gap between the thought and the response to the thought.

When you have that tiny little gap in between the thought and your reaction to it  – you are able to more readily CHOOSE a purposeful response, rather than react impulsively.

“Impulsively” is really just a way of saying – “whichever neural pathway is most frequently activated at present”.

And when we have that tiny breathing space between “the trigger” and our response – we are able to effectively CHOOSE how we want to respond – as in the diagram below which shows a simplified neural pathway in relation to the trigger of a car cutting in front of you:

(The diagram is taken from my 173 page Teach Yourself Yoga at Home – beginners practice guide.)

Let’s say in the case of road rage, we decide (after some F&%$&$ has cut in front of us), that we ask ourselves, “does this really affect me?/ is ME getting rageful going to have ANY affect on the person who cut me off?” and then let’s say we decide to take a breath and remain calm.

This creates a completely NEW neural pathway than the one the brain/body was anticipating.

Over time, if this CHOICE of behaviour is repeated, it creates an entirely new network of synapses in the brain. Neuroplasticity and brain functioning assist in determining brain organisation –  as these new behaviours are repeated, the brain learns to adapt the physiology to meet the new actions and behaviours – it literally creates and solidifies new neural pathways and very soon the new “impulsively” (which was once road rage) is actually now a brand new response behaviour that is cool, calm and collected.

This is not to say that you will always feel like behaving in a cool, calm, collected way (and there may INDEED be some instances where rage is required!) but the neural pathways now wired in the brain are those that start from that present, calm, alert and responsive state rather than a wildly-reactive one.

In short – meditation basically puts you back into the driving seat of your own life by creating space between your thoughts and your response to your thoughts, which then creates a difference in repeated behaviour and actions, which in turn creates new neural pathways and networks in the brain, which then help to create more space between your thoughts and your response to your thoughts.

If you are looking for more “science-science” and not my “blue-cell-pseudo-science” then I would definitely recommend Sane New World – Ruby Wax; Change your Brain, Change your life – Dr. Daniel G. Amen and The Body Keeps the score – Bessel van der Kalk.

(Side note: those links above are affiliate links, but so far in my “blogging career” I’ve made a grand total of 49p from affiliate links (lol) – so it really makes no difference to me whether you use these links or not!)

If you want something to put all this “science” into action – sign up to my 5 day beginners guide to meditation series below!

Each meditation is roughly 10 minutes each and I have no doubt you will start seeing some amazing shifts in your perspective.

 

Photo by Artem Bali on Unsplash

 

2 Comments

  1. Sara Stilson on June 5, 2020 at 3:51 pm

    This explains the Montessori “normalization “ process

  2. C. on July 14, 2020 at 8:18 pm

    Brilliant article. Thank you.

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