Yes, Virginia,

Meditation
Does Create
Awareness
MIND/BODY
By Bill Harris
Current research shows
that meditation does
create awareness
which leads to something else quite
amazing:
Choice. Awareness
creates choice.
Scientists have been interested in
meditation for some time now
especially since Harvards Herbert
Benson wrote The Relaxation Response
in 1975, describing changes in
metabolism, heart rate, respiration,
blood pressure, and brain chemistry
during meditation.
Meditation reduces activity of the
sympathetic nervous systemthe
source fght or fightand increases
activity in the parasympathetic nervous
systemthe source of Bensons
relaxation response.
Meditation has been found to reduce
stress (an immune system depressant).
This has led to programs such as
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
(MBSR) to reduce chronic pain,
fbromyalgia, coronary artery disease,
while enhancing immune function in
cancer patients.
But meditations biggest beneft is
that it increases awareness.
Some research-based
examples:
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Meditation creates a
wider, more fexible attention
span, making it easier to
be aware of a situation, to
be objective in emotionally
or morally diffcult situations,
and to achieve responsive,
creative awareness (a fow
state).
Meditation increases the
thickness of gray matter (ie,
neurons) in parts of the brain
responsible for attention
and sensory processing,
increasing the integrity and
effciency of messages sent
between neurons.
These same changes allow
more effective regulation of
blood pressure, heart rate,
and many cognitive functions
including reward anticipation,
decision-making, empathy,
impulse control, and
emotional control.
Still other studies
show reductions in
anxiety.
A study at Royal Sunderland
Hospital in Great Britain
involving Centerpointes
Holosync audtio
technology (which creates
meditative brain waves
using combinations of pure
sine wave tones) showed
signifcant reductions in pre-
operative anxiety compared
to typical methods. Another
Holosync study showed a
43.77% reduction in cortisol,
the main stress hormone.
Meditation also
increases executive
control.
Executive control increases
the ability to plan complex
cognitive behaviors including
personality expression,
decision making, and social
behavior. Executive control
also increases positive
emotions and life satisfaction.
Again, more
awareness = more
choice.
Meditators more easily
perceive objects directly
rather than cognitively
(ie, without automatically
projecting qualities onto
them), leading to an increase
in accuracy, objectivity, and
quantity of perception (how
much is noticed).
In meditation studies
done with the Dalai Lama,
University of Wisconsin
neuroscientist Richard
Davidson discovered
that meditation enhances
attention and the bodys
ability to heal itself,
while decreasing anxiety,
depression, fear, and anger.
Your brains
amazing
neuroplasticity
This increase in awareness
is possible because of
something previously
thought to be impossible:
the brains ability to change
in response to stimulation,
movement, experience,
or thinkingits natural
neuroplasticity. We now know
that any repeated stimulus,
movement, experience, or
thought causes the brain to
assign additional neurons
and neural connections to
that function.
The young brain is like a ski
slope, covered with virgin
snow. The frst skiers can
go anywhere, as long as
they avoid rocks and trees.
Successive runs, though,
create distinct tracks, then
ruts, making it diffcult to take
alternate paths down the
slope.
Similarly, the young brain
has many choices regarding
behavior and thought
patterns. As more neural
connections are assigned to
learned ways of thinking and
behaving, choice is reduced.
Meditation, by creating
new neural connections
that increase awareness,
reestablishes these choices.
The meditator sees where
dysfunctional ruts lead,
allowing her to go off the
beaten path, creating new
and more functional choices.
Our work at Centerpointe
Research Institute suggests
that these choices fall into
four categories: those
regarding how we feel, how
we behave, which people
and situations we attract or
become attracted to, and the
meanings we assign to what
happens around us.
Meditation does indeed
create more awareness, and
awareness creates more
choice.
Which brings us back to
our dilemma: Whywith all
these beneftsare most
of us unable to stick with a
meditation practice? Next
month Ill discuss research
that led to a startling
solution.
MAY 2014 22