How Mindfulness Works-On the scientific level...

[Anatta]

Kia Ora,

I hope this is in the right section [it is health related=Both Mental & Physical health ]



"Just 'being there' without a care !"

Happy Mindfulness 

Metta Zenda

[brainiac]

I had a great professor in undergrad (who used to be a professional magician, actually) who studies things like attention, placebo effects, and hypnosis--basically, ways that your brain can affect your body. These are called "top-down" effects and I think they're really cool. Most people seem to think of a placebo as "a treatment that doesn't actually do anything", but in reality, a placebo effect is when a treatment that doesn't directly affect a system changes it anyway. It's a really interesting phenomenon.

Anyway, this prof showed us studies about attention and meditation, and how (like real hypnosis and athletes "getting in the zone"), people who meditate regularly have superior attentional control--like what she describes in this talk.

Personally, I've found that body-focused mindfulness is one of the most important things for me for controlling my anxiety issues. I can stop panic attacks from ramping up by doing similar techniques to what she describes, which is a huge change from when they would just take over me. I'm not skilled enough to meditate yet, but it's definitely something I want to work on (I've done some body-scanning with my mom, who has found a lot of peace in meditation).

(Also, being from MA, the Walden Pond vs. Cape Cod reference totally worked for me.  )

[Anatta]

Kia Ora Brainiac,

Glad to hear that both you and your mother have witnessed the benefits that can come from meditation...In the East, meditation was not really meant as a tool to 'cure', but as  a means of 'prevention'..."Prevention is better than cure !"

Even though Western science has made some hugh advances over the last twenty years involving the connection with mind and matter, I think it still has a long way to go when it comes to understanding the 'mind' ie, what the mind is ... I read this somewhere [can't remember where] " The mind can be used to understand logic, but logic can not be used to understand the mind !"

Prior to transitioning and coming into contact with the Buddha's Dharma[ ie, "When the student is ready the teacher will appear !"] I too had suffered from panic attacks, anxiety etc and had spent many years popping 'prescribed' tranquilisers=Valium ...

"You can't run away from yourself !"

However, when I started my transition journey I also started on the middle path[The 'middle way' = The eightfold path] which lead me to start to practice very basic meditation...

One of my first instructions was to observe the thoughts and not to try and block unpleasant ones...It is said all a thought wants is to be acknowledged, once this happens it will pass on through-but the more one tries to block a thought the more energy one gives it and the more persistent it becomes...

Mastering the simple technique of just acknowledging the thoughts can take a great weight off of ones 'mind' [ and I mean this in the literal sense]... 

After I begun to reap the benefits of this simple meditation technique I began a quest to understand more about how the 'mind' [and matter] worked together... I looked into and started to practice other forms of Buddhist meditation and by this time Western scientists had been studies different types of mediation and began to publish their findings and little snippets of information began trickling into the mainstream media...

There a vast array of techniques out there to suit the individual, but for the beginners I would recommend they start with the basic 'mindfulness' and once mastered[reaping the benefits] then go on from there, if they feel the need... 

You could call me a "Meditation Junky & Dealer" because it is part and parcel of my daily life and I never leave home without it...

Meditation practitioners are scientists, they study "Inner-Science" the science of the mind...

Happy Mindfulness

Metta Zenda