How does Meditation Change the Mind and Brain? What can we Learn from Meditation Research about Human Potential for Wellbeing?
These are the two key questions my research on meditation aims to answer. Nearly one in five people in Western countries such as the UK and USA meditates. Over the last two decades mindfulness, as the main ‘Westernised’ version of meditation, made its way into healthcare settings, workplaces and schools. The main reason for this is that thousands of research studies have by now documented benefits of different secular forms of mindfulness in reducing stress, anxiety and depression. These effects are not uniform across mindfulness-based programmes and various settings, but rigorous research evidence indicates that certain types of these programmes, for certain groups and settings, can support mental health and wellbeing.
We now also have a better understanding of how meditation works, but it is still fairly limited. Most of the research on changes in the mind and brain resulting from meditation has so far focused on attention and emotion processes. Research from the Well Minds Lab I am heading contributed to this research evidence; for example, one of our studies found that mindfulness requires less ‘brain resources’, and therefore is easier to employ in managing emotions in comparison to other strategies such as changing the way we think. Several studies from our lab also deepened our understanding of how mindfulness training in schools changes processes in the brain underpinning attention and emotion processing.
However, there is much more about the effects of meditation on the mind and brain we do not understand. For instance: Do reasons why we meditate, our motivation and intentions, change the outcomes of our practice? You may be practicing meditation to reduce stress while another person may want to gain a deeper understanding of themselves. States of awareness cultivated in meditation are another understudied topic in meditation research. For example, traditional meditation training aims to foster deep states of awareness in which the practitioner realises emptiness of self or non-dual nature of experience. Such states have the potential to provide insights into fundamental questions about the human mind and our potential for wellbeing. Yet, our understanding of these states from Western research is scarce.
To enable further research that might help answer these questions, I have formulated a new framework outlining the wide range of processes in the mind and brain modified by meditation. Amongst these, the framework specifies a typology of 15 distinct states of awareness (called modes of existential awareness) that can be experienced in meditation, but sometimes also without meditation practice. These states are divided into positive, negative and incomplete categories. The states in the positive category include, for example, decentering, widening of perspective on self, emptiness of self and non-dual awareness. Our research investigated how often meditation practitioners experience these states and how they relate to wellbeing. You can read an accessible article about this research on my Psychology Today Blog.
This research builds the basis for possible answers to some of the most intriguing ‘big picture’ questions about meditation. These questions are intertwined with fundamental inquiry into the nature of the human mind, purpose of human existence and humanity’s potential for wellbeing and greater good. Looking for answers to such questions in research that brings together traditional contemplative training with Western science is perhaps not surprising; these questions are what over many centuries led meditation practitioners to their path of self-inquiry. In the current era of humanity’s existential crisis, it seems timely to seek possible solutions to the challenges we face in traditions and research that cultivate self-knowledge. It is likely that the excessive focus of Western science on understanding and exploitation of our external environment, separated from self-knowledge, is one of the reasons we are now finding ourselves at the precipice of self-destruction.
Books:
My two books on psychology and neuroscience of meditation take a wider perspective on the role of meditation in understanding and fostering human potential for wellbeing.
The first book Mind, Brain and the Path to Happiness explores the whole path of meditation training by comparing the traditional Buddhist perspective on the different aspects of mind-training in meditation to relevant findings from Western psychological and neuroscientific research. The progression of topics starts with a discussion about Buddhist and Western notions of happiness and wellbeing. The book then gradually considers different types and stages of meditation training – those developing motivation and intention for meditation practice, fostering attention skills, cultivating emotional balance and finally exploring different states of awareness. The final part of the book considers what enlightenment might mean from the perspective of Western psychology and neuroscience and what lessons meditation traditions hold for uncovering the potential of humanity for happiness and wellbeing.
The second book Neuroscience and Psychology of Meditation in Everyday Life applies my scientific theory specifying processes in the mind and brain modified by meditation in explaining the long-term effects of six meditation practices: mindfulness, compassion, visualization-based meditation techniques, dream yoga, insight-based meditation and abiding in the existential ground of experience. Each of these practices is also considered from a practical perspective, answering the following question: What would embedding these practices into one’s everyday life look like? The final chapter explores the transformational potential of meditation in its different areas of application, such as psychotherapy and healthcare, and in human society more broadly.
Selected interviews:
We covered a lot of topics in meditation research and practice in this podcast Interview with Victor Lange, a PhD-fellow at the University of Copenhagen! Have a listen if you are interested in Meditation, wellbeing, metacognition, existential awareness and the illusory nature of reality.
Accessible articles:
Whether you are new to meditation or a seasoned meditation practitioner you may want to consider the Six common misconceptions about meditation. This is an article I wrote for The Conversation.
There are more articles on my Mind, Brain and the Big Qs Psychology Today Blog, for example:
This article – Can We Distinguish and Measure Self-Transcendent States? – reports findings of our recent study where we assessed 15 different states of awareness associated with meditation. We divided these states into positive, negative and incomplete categories and examined their links to mental health and wellbeing.
And this article – What the Neuroscience of Meditation Does and Doesn’t Show – explored a possible underlying paradox in neuroscience research on meditation. It is about the contradictions between the reductionist assumptions in this research – that mind can be reduced to and explained by brain activity – and frequent lay interpretations of such research as demonstrating the power of ‘the mind over the matter’.
Upcoming podcast:
Mind, Brain, Meditation and the Big Qs