April 9 , 2020 , Riccardo De Paolis
The current moment puts us to the test. We are confronted with situations we have no control over. Quarantine, the sharing of often limited space, and a lack of social contact all present difficult and unsettling challenges.
However, we can work on ourselves by being open to the possibility of looking more closely at our relationship with these events by noticing their impact on the body and mind.
All of this has a scientific overtone and follows the rules of cause and effect.
The practice of Mindfulness and Yoga for Awareness can help us to observe reality with different eyes.
We can begin by looking with curiosity at the forms and movements that we make with the body all while observing its effects.
A large part of our psychological, cognitive and affective functioning are not linked to individual areas of the brain, but to a network of neurons that work in collaboration with one another. There are different types of networks: visual, auditory and subcortical; this last one, for example, is linked to the limbic system, to our emotions, and to the part of the brain known as the amygdala.
Blausen.com staff (2014). “Medical gallery of Blausen Medical 2014“. WikiJournal of Medicine 1 (2).
Amongst the neuron networks, the most important are the Frontoparietal Network or Executive Network, the Default Mode Network and the Dorsal and Ventral Attention Systems.
Among these, the most important are:
- The executive network
- The highlight network
- The Default Mode Network
The Default Mode Network is responsible for the ability to place ourselves in past and future experiences and is related to the feeling of being oneself and the presence of that self during an experience. When we feel present during an event, the Default Mode Network is activated.
This system is activated even when not engaged in the event, giving way to a phenomenon such as “mind wandering”, a term that designates daydreaming or other states in which the mind is at rest or distracted.
John Graner, Neuroimaging Department, National Intrepid Center of Excellence, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, 8901 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20889, USA.
The executive network is the network dedicated to executive functioning or the Executive Control Network (ECN) and involved in the processing of external stimuli, in the control of voluntary behavior, and in the regulation of emotions. [1]
The Salience Network (SN) allows for a guided intake of internal and external stimuli, allowing attention to be focused where necessary(Raichle et al., 2001; Seeley et al., 2007).
These networks are interdependent and any imbalance may provoke different illnesses such as anxiety, depression, or schizophrenia, that is, the absence of any regulation of these networks (Menon, 2011; Sutherland et al., 2012) and their interconnections. This could be the source of a number of neuropsychiatric disorders, notably those linked to the use and abuse of substances traditionally associated with changes in activity in specific regions of the brain.
Training oneself in mindfulness tends towards greater neuroplasticity in these three networks, producing cognitive benefits and emotional and psychological regulation.
Meditation is a term that designates an ensemble of practices to regulate emotions and attention span, and generally classed into two main styles :
- Focused Attention Meditation (FA)
- Open Monitoring Meditation (OM)
Each type of meditation involves different types of focus, awareness, and cognitive control.
The results showed that during meditation, when attention is focused on breathing, the activity in certain parts of the brain is radically reduced.
It also demonstrated that refocusing on the breath drastically reduces the activity of proliferating cerebral networks.
It showed that meditation reduces activity in the Default Mode Network, mind wandering, and mental proliferation.
It was also demonstrated that during deep-breathing meditation there is a greater activation of the anterior cingulate cortex, a part of the brain connected to cognitive and affective regulation. In the practice of FA meditation, control of focus is augmented.
When we are faced with a situation, we come up against our emotional baggage and our prejudices; our neuron networks are created to associate input with things we like and do not like, followed by a mental category or judgement.
The external stimulus then goes on to multiply itself via these networks in a virtual basket in which residual prejudices remain from our past experiences.
The return to breathing or the body, and the return of the body to a seated position, allow us to recalibrate our neuro-cognitive and neuro-affective systems to become less reactive to external events.
The attention placed on the breath therefore encourages a downregulation process of networks, allowing the experience to take place and to be taken in by our consciousness, free of any judgement or preference.
The more time spent practicing, the less time needed to reach this deactivation point via a new-found equilibrium between neural networks.
The effects of mindfulness practice are :
- Adjusting focus
- Greater awareness of the body
- Altering emotions
- Altering the self
So how to incorporate these studies into our daily practice?
We can focus attention on our breathing, as much in a seated position as in movement. We imagine the asanas as a way to keep the body alive and joyful in preparing ourselves to concentrate on a different type of energy that only reveals itself when we are attentive to the small things.
Mindfulness, and in particular the awareness of our breath, completes the practice and enriches it daily. We begin by defining an intention for our practice, a daily commitment to ourselves over the course of which we open ourselves up to the possibility of exploring the body and the mind.
Happy practicing to all.
[1] La ricerca sulle reti neurali complesse per comprendere e curare la complessità delle dipendenze, Stefano Canali 2018
[2] Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation-Lutz et.al.- Trends Cogn Sci 2008
[3] Neural correlates of focused attention and cognitive monitoring in meditation-Manna et.al. Brain Research Bulletin 2010
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