Fascinatingly, brain areas participating in "default states" in young adults also exhibit early abnormalities seen in the elderly with Alzheimer's Disease (AD).XIV The explanation is unknown, but it might have to do with wear and tear on the brain from too much default activity, or we might be training inattention, or maybe it has to do with the unpleasant impacts
of virtually continually revisiting the past. As with physical inactivity for the body, we do know that inattention is unhealthy for the brain.Furthermore linked to an unhealthy brain and a lifetime risk of AD seems to be leisure activities when we pay no attention mostly watching television. Those who have less than average diversity in leisure activities, spend less time on
them, and practice more passive leisure activities mostly TV were nearly four times more likely to develop dementia over 40-year follow-up, according to one of several studies.fifteen sixteenAmong leisure pursuits, reading, playing board games, playing musical instruments, and dancing were linked to a lower incidence of dementia. Poor mental health including
depression and behavior will wire itself into
the brain from a high degree of default mental activity. We now know that the brain is always re-minded and wanting.Meditation may be complex; first we must be conscious of it, then detached from it, then deliberately study it and let rid of what is irrelevant.More than just learning to pay attention, mindfulness also entails developing an attitude of openness,
interest, and acceptance. One method is that we actually feed the ideas and emotions we would like not to be experiencing greater attention and thus boost their influence. Therefore, a crucial component of learning to be free of them is learning to see them and be non-reactive and nonjudging of them.Most meditative approaches depend on the attention being focused
restfully; hence, the term "restful alertness." One need not fight with the distracting stream of circular, habitual, repeating, fictitious mental activity to do this. One cannot "stop the mind from thinking" and any effort at this usually results in increased strain and frustration. We can, however, learn not to react to it so quickly. This removes the emotive power from it.
Analogously many trains of idea enter
our brains but we may learn not to be swayed by them but by understanding that we do not need to board any old train of thought that passes through us. That requires a lot of awareness on the efficiency of suppression against mindfulness for controlling smoking urges. Only participants in the mindfulness group showed declines in negative affect (mood) and
depressed symptoms; both groups reported a notably lower amount of smoking and improved effectiveness in coping with smoking impulses.26 Patients with cancer and mindfulnessCancer patients who practice mindfulness in their cancer treatment showed far lower scores for low mood, despair, anxiety, rage, and bewilderment but also more vigor with less overall physical and stress symptoms.27 is Furthermore demonstrated to lower cortisol
levels in cancer patients, a marker of a poor prognosis, is mindfulness, which also enhances quality of life. Compassionate meditationAlong with lowering "carer-fatigue," or "carer burnout," mindfulness helps one develop compassion and empathy. This actually makes sense when one realizes that paying greater attention to the people in front of us will enaus to
be in touch with them and understand
what is happening for them. A natural side-effect of attentiveness is compassion; lack of compassion a side-effect of inattention.Constant agonyFor those with chronic pain syndromewiring itself right across our life, mindfulness meditation has been found to be connected with a notable reduction in pain, exhaustion, and sleeplessness but better f
unctioning, mood, and general health. Therapeutistically, it also means that we can "unwire" detrimental patterns of thought and behavior and wire in useful ones. This has major consequences for the management and evolution of anxiety and depression.Research on meditation is literally transforming our knowledge of the brain. For individuals who would want
to learn more on this subject, the book "The Brain that Changes Itself" by Norman Doige provides a fantastic summary of the work of eminent scientists involved in this field.Brain scans evaluating the thickness of the "grey matter" in long-term mindfulness meditators show that it is thicker especially in the areas related with the senses, memory and executive
Conclusion
functions. This could be reversing the detrimental effects of long term stress and depression as well as slowing down brain ageing. Though it has been discovered that the degree of default mental activity is lowered in persons trained in mindfulness meditation. The parts of the brain engaged in self-monitoring are also active even in cases of default mental activity; this indicates that the individual is aware of this mental activity and may thus be more
objective about it and avoid being particularly sucked into it.What we give our attention to is important because we give the power to whatever the attention is directed to. In giving attention to fearful, anxious, angry or depressingthoughts we almost ‘meditate’ upon them progressively making them more ‘real’ andcompelling. When we take such imaginings and mental projections to be real they govern our lives, behaviour and responses to events and,
over time, they can change the brain’schemistry, set up a cascade of events throughout the body, and accelerate illness. Obviously one cannot ‘meditate our problems away’. Mindfulness is therefore not a method of tuning out but rather tuning in. It is not a method of distraction but rather a method of engagement. It is the stressed,anxious, angry and depressed state of mind that is the distracted state – mindfulness isthe remedy Therefore, if
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