The Neuroscience of Meditation, Mindfulness, and Compassion

Summary

Dr. Will Mobley and Dr. Fadel Zeidan from the Institute for Empathy and Compassion and the Center for Mindfulness discuss the impact of mindfulness and compassion-based meditation on reducing anxiety, stress, and loneliness. They present evidence from studies showing significant improvements in well-being after just 20 minutes of practice and share insights into the brain regions associated with these practices. The collaboration aims to offer free online resources and studies to enhance community well-being.

Takeaways

• 😌 The Institute for Empathy and Compassion, in collaboration with the Center for Mindfulness, is offering online resources to help manage anxiety, stress, and loneliness.
• 🌐 These resources are available for free and can be accessed 24/7 through recordings and live exercises.
• 🧠 Dr. Fadel Zeidan, a cognitive neuroscientist, discusses how mindfulness and compassion-based meditation can impact well-being and general health, especially during the pandemic.
• 🧘‍♂️ Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on the breath and acknowledging distractions without judgment, which can be traced back over 4500 years.
• 📉 Research shows that just 20 minutes of meditation can significantly reduce perceived stress, tension, depression, and improve mood.
• 🧬 Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) has been used to study the brain's response to meditation, revealing how it can reduce anxiety.
• 🧠 The anterior cingulate cortex and prefrontal cortex play a key role in reducing anxiety through meditation by increasing activation, while the posterior cingulate cortex's deactivation is linked to reduced mind wandering.
• 🤝 Mindfulness meditation has been found to reduce stress by de-coupling the connectivity between the anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala, which processes fear and negative emotions.
• 🏡 The practice of meditation and compassion-based exercises can alleviate feelings of loneliness and increase a sense of social connectedness, even in isolation.
• 🔄 The collaboration aims to refine and tune meditation exercises for greater effectiveness and to understand emotional health and its impact on individuals and society.

Q & A

What is the main purpose of the collaboration between the Institute for Empathy and Compassion and the Center for Mindfulness?

The main purpose of the collaboration is to provide online resources and exercises to help with anxiety, stress, and loneliness, particularly in light of the ongoing pandemic.

Who is Dr. Fadel Zeidan and what is his role in this collaboration?

Dr. Fadel Zeidan is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Anesthesiology and the Associate Director for the Center for Mindfulness. His role is to provide an overview of the mindfulness exercises and their impact on brain and behavior.

What kind of practices does Dr. Zeidan study to understand their impact on well-being and health?

Dr. Zeidan studies contemplative and self-regulatory practices, such as mindfulness meditation and compassion-based meditation, to understand their impact on well-being and health.

How does mindfulness meditation help in reducing stress and anxiety?

Mindfulness meditation helps by training individuals to focus on their breath and acknowledge and let go of distracting thoughts without judgment, leading to reduced stress and anxiety.

What is the significance of the brain regions identified in the study of meditation practices?

The study identified that mindfulness meditation reduces anxiety by increasing activation in the anterior cingulate cortex and the prefrontal cortex, and decreasing activation in the posterior cingulate cortex, which is associated with mind wandering.

What was the outcome of the study where participants practiced meditation for 120 minutes?

The study found that after just 120 minutes of meditation practice, there was a 22% reduction in state anxiety on average.

How does the connectivity between the anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala relate to stress levels?

Greater connectivity between the anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala is associated with higher stress levels. Mindfulness meditation helps reduce stress by de-coupling this connectivity.

What is the role of the amygdala in the context of stress and anxiety?

The amygdala is an old brain region associated with processing fear and negative emotions. Its increased activation contributes to heightened stress and anxiety.

How does compassion-based meditation affect feelings of loneliness?

Compassion-based meditation can significantly reduce feelings of loneliness and increase social connectedness, even without physical presence around people.

What kind of resources are available through the online platform provided by the collaboration?

The online platform offers free guided practices, including recordings and live exercises, to help cope with anxiety, stress, and loneliness.

How can individuals participate in the study or access the additional exercises mentioned in the script?

Individuals can participate in the study or access additional exercises by visiting the website mentioned in the script, where they can also provide feedback and share resources with others.

Outlines

00:00

🧘‍♂️ Introduction to Mindfulness and Collaboration

The video script introduces Dr. Will Mobley from the Institute for Empathy and Compassion, who collaborates with the Center for Mindfulness to offer online resources aimed at reducing anxiety, stress, and loneliness. These resources include exercises that are accessible 24/7 through recordings and live sessions. Dr. Mobley is joined by Dr. Fadel Zeidan, a neuroscientist and Associate Director of the Center for Mindfulness, who discusses the impact of mindfulness and compassion-based meditation on well-being and health, especially during the pandemic. Dr. Zeidan explains the practice of mindfulness meditation, focusing on breath and acknowledging distractions without judgment, and its potential benefits for self-regulation and well-being.

05:06

🧠 Neuroscientific Insights into Meditation's Benefits

Dr. Fadel Zeidan presents preliminary data on how mindfulness meditation affects the brain and behavior. He explains that mindfulness meditation can significantly reduce perceived stress, tension, depression, and fatigue, while improving mood, even after just 20 minutes of practice. The script references a 2014 study where 120 minutes of meditation practice reduced state anxiety by 22%. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) was used to observe brain activation and deactivation, showing how meditation reduces anxiety by affecting the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and posterior cingulate cortex. The anterior cingulate cortex and prefrontal cortex, which govern thoughts and emotions, become more activated, while the posterior cingulate cortex, associated with mind wandering, becomes less active. The script also discusses how meditation can reduce stress by decoupling the connectivity between the anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala, which processes fear and negative emotions.

10:06

🤝 Collaboration for Empathy and Well-being

The final paragraph summarizes the collaboration between the Institute for Empathy and Compassion and the Center for Mindfulness. Dr. Mobley emphasizes the importance of understanding emotional health and the impact of self-regulatory practices on well-being. He highlights the mission to refine and improve these exercises through study and to make them more accessible. The conversation concludes with an invitation for feedback and participation in a study to measure the efficacy of these exercises. The video also mentions the intention to offer additional exercises and resources on their website to help people cope with the ongoing pandemic, and encourages viewers to share these resources with their networks.

Keywords

💡Empathy

Empathy refers to the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. In the context of the video, empathy is a core value of the Institute for Empathy and Compassion and is a key component of the mindfulness and compassion-based exercises being discussed. The script mentions that these practices are aimed at improving well-being and health, which includes emotional understanding and connection with others.

💡Compassion

Compassion is the feeling of wanting to alleviate another's suffering or distress. The video script discusses the collaboration between the Institute for Empathy and Compassion and the Center for Mindfulness to provide resources that foster compassion. It is highlighted as a critical element in the exercises designed to help with anxiety, stress, and loneliness.

💡Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a mental practice involving awareness and attention to the present moment. The script explains that mindfulness meditation involves focusing on the breath and acknowledging and releasing distracting thoughts without judgment. It is presented as a practice that can significantly reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, as supported by the scientific research discussed in the video.

💡Stress

Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances. The video script addresses stress as a common issue that the online resources and exercises aim to alleviate. It is mentioned that these practices can help with stress reduction, which is particularly relevant during challenging times like a pandemic.

💡Anxiety

Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome. The script discusses how the mindfulness and compassion-based exercises can directly improve anxiety, which is a significant concern for many people, especially during times of uncertainty and social isolation.

💡Loneliness

Loneliness is the distressing feeling of being alone or isolated. The video script highlights that the practices discussed can help reduce feelings of loneliness, even in the absence of physical social interaction, by fostering a sense of social connectedness through self-regulation.

💡Neuroscience

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system and brain functions. The script introduces Dr. Fadel Zeidan as a cognitive neuroscientist who uses various methodologies to understand how practices like mindfulness meditation impact health and brain function. The video discusses preliminary data and brain imaging studies that show the effects of meditation on anxiety reduction.

💡Meditation

Meditation is a practice of focused attention and awareness that is used to increase one's consciousness and improve well-being. The video script describes mindfulness meditation as a technique where individuals focus on their breath and learn to acknowledge and release distractions. It is presented as a practice with profound benefits for mental health.

💡Prefrontal Cortex

The prefrontal cortex is a part of the brain involved in executive functions such as decision-making, attention, and behavior regulation. The script discusses how the prefrontal cortex and other brain regions are deactivated during stress and anxiety, and how meditation can increase activation in these areas, leading to reduced anxiety.

💡Posterior Cingulate Cortex

The posterior cingulate cortex is a region of the brain associated with mind wandering and self-referential thought processes. The video script explains that during stress and anxiety, this region is highly activated, but meditation can lead to its deactivation, which is associated with reduced anxiety.

💡Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging is a neuroimaging technique used to measure and map brain activity. The script mentions the use of fMRI to capture snapshots of brain activation and deactivation during meditation, providing evidence of how meditation practices impact brain function and reduce anxiety.

Highlights

Greetings from Will Mobley for the Institute for Empathy and Compassion, announcing new resources for anxiety, stress, and loneliness.

Collaboration with the Center for Mindfulness to provide online resources and exercises.

Online resources are free and available 24/7, including recordings and live exercises.

Introduction of Dr. Fadel Zeidan, Assistant Professor and Associate Director for the Center for Mindfulness.

Dr. Zeidan's role as a neuroscientist studying the impact of mindfulness and compassion-based meditation on health.

Mindfulness meditation focuses on breath and acknowledging distractions without judgment.

4500-year-old practice of mindfulness meditation is being studied for its profound impact on well-being.

Evidence of reduced anxiety, stress, and loneliness even after just 20 minutes of meditation.

Preliminary data on how meditation practices inform the brain and behavior.

20 minutes of meditation can significantly reduce perceived stress, tension, and depression.

120 minutes of meditation can reduce state anxiety by 22% on average.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) used to capture the first images of a meditating brain.

Meditation reduces anxiety by activating the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex.

Mindfulness meditation reduces stress by de-coupling connectivity between the anterior cingulate cortex and amygdala.

Compassion-based practices can reduce feelings of loneliness and increase social connectedness.

Self-regulating feelings through daily meditation can improve mental well-being.

Offering free guided practices to help cope with the ongoing pandemic.

Plans to create a study to measure the impact of these exercises on well-being and invite participation.

Encouragement for the audience to take advantage of online resources and share them with others.

Transcripts

(slow calming music)

(bright upbeat music)

- Greetings. Will Mobley here,

for the Institute for Empathy and Compassion.

And happy to be providing some new information

available to you and to the UCSD community

but more to the community at large.

We're collaborating with the Center for Mindfulness

to provide online resources,

exercises that we will hope will help with anxiety,

with stress, with loneliness.

We think these exercises should benefit you.

We'd delighted to have you share them with other people.

This online resource is free

and available 24 hours a day really through recordings,

as well as through live exercises.

And I'm here together with Dr. Fadel Zeidan,

who's Assistant Professor

of the Department of Anesthesiology

and is Associate Director for the Center for Mindfulness,

to provide us with an overview of the exercises

and what we think that you will achieve

by having engaged in them.

So Fadel thank you for being with me

and please say a little bit about yourself

and then let's talk about these exercises,

and perhaps how they work at a brain level.

- Sure. Thank you so much Dr. Mobley.

I'm delighted to be working with you

and our growing team on how contemplative

and self regulatory practices

can impact our well being, our general health,

especially in light of this ongoing pandemic,

in this time of uncertainty that we're all experiencing.

I'm a neuroscientist, a cognitive neuroscientist

that uses multiple techniques and methodologies

to better appreciate how practices

like mindfulness meditation

and compassion based meditation impact our health

but also how the brain

and our basic physiology can inform these processes.

We're really trying to understand

how these practices impact our well being, if at all.

And we've done some work where we were able

to identify what brain regions that are associated

with practicing meditation, how they reduce stress,

and how they impact anxiety and depression.

And I'm going to be delighted to be presenting

some preliminary data on how

these practices inform the brain and behavior.

Mindfulness meditation, as many of you may know

is a practice where an individual focuses

their attention on a body part,

generally speaking, it's the breath.

And the individual is trained

to focus on the changing sensations of their breathing.

And not if but when their mind gets distracted

the individual is taught

to acknowledge distracting thoughts, feelings, emotions

for whatever they are, and to simply let them go

without judging themselves and the distraction

by bringing the attention back to the breath.

This is a practice that's been...

It's quite remarkable,

it's over 4500 years old, and we are now only starting

to see how profound these practices can be,

and improving our well being in a self regulatory

non-pharmaceutical fashion.

So we are listening to our community, to our campus

and there is an overwhelming amount of anxiety

and stress and even loneliness that we are experiencing

in light of this Covid-19 pandemic

and our current lockdown to deal with social isolation

to stop this contagion.

So, as a part of the primary missions

and objectives of the Center for Mindfulness

in the Institute for Empathy and Compassion,

we're particularly interested in how a variety

of contemplative practices impact behavior

and the neurophysiology that supports and mediates

and facilitates improvements in well being and health.

And we have some overwhelming evidence demonstrating

that mindfulness and compassion based meditation

can directly improve stress, anxiety and loneliness,

even after just 20 minutes of practice.

So, I'm gonna share with you some slides

that kinda provides some of this preliminary work,

preliminary evidence

of how these techniques improve well being.

This is work that we've published a while ago,

almost 10 years ago that shows

that just 20 minutes of meditation practice

can significantly reduce perceived stress, tension,

depression, confusion, make you less tired,

as well as improve your total mood.

120 minute meditation practice

can on average reduce anxiety, state anxiety by 22%.

This is a study we published in 2014,

where we recruited 14 subjects

and after just 120 minute practice,

you could see the change.

This is the percent change in state anxiety,

you could see the change in state anxiety

so you don't need to be a monk

to reap the benefits of these practices.

And we also scan these people's brains

with a technique called

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

This is where we could take a snapshot

of individuals' brain activation and deactivation.

And these are the first images of a meditating brain

and we were the first to show

how meditation reduces anxiety.

So when someone is stressed out and or anxious,

there's an inability of a part of the brain

that controls thoughts and emotions to work.

So brain regions in the front,

the prefrontal cortex over here,

and the anterior cingulate cortex, they're deactivated.

And generally speaking, they're deactivated

because they reflect an inability to govern

or control thoughts, worries, anxieties.

Another brain region that's highly activated

during anxious anxiety and stress is this brain region

called the posterior cingulate cortex.

And this is a brain region associated

with mind wandering, self referential thought processes,

the thoughts in our heads.

What we found was just after

a very brief meditation training,

meditation significantly reduced anxiety

and that anxiety relief was associated

with greater activation in these exact brain regions.

Higher activation in the anterior cingulate cortex

and the prefrontal cortex predicted reductions in anxiety,

and greater deactivation of this region,

the posterior cingulate cortex

also predicted reductions in anxiety.

So we have, and there's lots more evidence out there

showing that meditation works in this way

even if you're not an expert in the techniques.

So moving along, I'm gonna show you

a slide demonstrating work from other groups

that have explicitly looked at stress in folks

who are unemployed, looking for a job,

which may be similar to the situation

we're experiencing today here during

this Covid-19 pandemic.

What we see is that the same brain region

that I showed you, the anterior cingulate cortex,

right here, greater connectivity here,

with a brain region called the amygdala,

which lives right here

is associated with greater stress.

The anterior cingulate cortex processes conflict

and ongoing states.

And the amygdala is a super old brain region

that's associated with processing fear,

negative emotions and emotions in general.

And the greater the connectivity

between the anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala,

the greater the stress.

And this group led by David Cresswell

at Carnegie Mellon found some findings

that are synonymous with what we found as well.

And that mindfulness meditation reduces stress

by de-coupling this connectivity.

That the emotional centers of the brain start

to reduce their activation,

they become less hyperactive,

and that's generally controlled

by these more prefrontal brain regions,

kinda we call them the CEO of the brain.

And this was directly facilitated

by mindfulness meditation practice,

when compared even to relaxation techniques.

Further, the same group just published some work last year,

that found that mindfulness meditation

as well as compassion based practices

can significantly reduce the feelings of loneliness.

Even though they're not around people,

even though they're not participating in group settings

the practice itself helps lower feelings of loneliness

and increases feelings and social connectedness.

So what we're finding out now more than ever

is that simply self regulating your feelings

by just sitting for a few minutes a day

can dramatically improve the way that you feel.

And I'm proud to be a part of our respective centers

where we're now offering free guided practices

to help us cope and deal with the ongoing pandemic.

- Fadel, thank you very much.

So what I'm hearing then, is that there isn't,

it isn't just that there are thousands of years

of experience, human experience.

That that experience is now backed up by both subjective

and objective measures of brain function,

and that the exercises that do exist

are really quite helpful.

- That's exactly right Dr. Mobley.

- Very encouraging and,

and just to summarize a little bit more,

you know, this is the kind of thinking

that really led us to create

the Institute for Empathy and Compassion.

And it's the kind of thinking that really forged

this collaboration with the Center for Mindfulness.

With the idea that, in general,

we wanna help people deal with anxiety, stress, loneliness,

especially now and that we can do this in two ways.

In one way, we can simply provide these exercises

that we know help people.

But also we can study them.

And as we study them and their neuro biological basis,

the goal is to really refine and tune these exercises,

so they can become even more helpful.

And ultimately for us, to understand our emotional selves,

how we relate to the world,

and how it is that we can keep ourselves healthy,

but also help those around us, our colleagues, our friends

but even total strangers.

So I'm really pleased that we're working together on this

and I really thank you for your insights.

- I'm delighted to be a part of this project

and our ongoing projects as we try

to best find self-regulatory ways to feel better.

- And we're working together also for the people listening

to the video, we're working now toward

providing additional exercises and also for creating a study

to really measure objectively as possible

the impact of these exercises on your well being.

And so we'd love to have your feedback

and we'd love to have you participate

and what we hope to bring soon to the website

is a chance to volunteer in a study of efficacy.

On that same website, we will list a couple of

the videos that helped us introduce the institute,

the new institute to the UCSD campus

and we'd be delighted for you to share any of these

with your colleagues, your friends, your family members.

We want to serve you.

We wanna serve those that you love and you care for

and who care for you, and we think

this is one way to do that.

So, thank you for listening.

Thanks Fadel for being here,

and for being my colleague

and please do take advantage of our online resources.

Thank you very much.

(calming music)