Vicente Simonis Professor of Psychobiology at the University of Valencia. A decade ago, while reading texts on Eastern philosophy, he decided to learn the practice ofmeditation. And inevitably he became interested in understanding how this practice affected our brain. He is currently one of the leading experts in theneurobiology of mindfulness or mindfulness, a technique based on Buddhist meditation that, according to the latest scientific studies, can modify the brain.
Question. Meditation has burst into the West …
Answer.The truth is that both the study of brain neurobiology and the clinical application ofmindfulness they are now in a period of explosive growth. We are witnessing an exponential increase in interest in these issues, I believe that because humanity senses, in some way, that it is in real risk of “self-destruction” and seeks the guidance of what has always been called “perennial wisdom” .
Q: What changes in our brain when we practice mindfulness ?
A:Although we are a long way from understanding everything that happens in the brain during practice, research has recently been published that sheds a lot of light on brain activity in meditation. When not engaged in a specific task, our mind tends to get involved in narrative processes, in which it relates the past to the future and builds the entelechy of the“self“personal. This activity occurs in neural networks located in themedial areas of the prefrontal cortex, which are areas with very intense activity in modern humans that differentiate us from other species.
Q: Too much neuronal hustle …
R: We could say that this busy brain task is at the service of human survival. We try to build models of the future based on our experiences in the past. We try to anticipate what is going to happen, so that we can better plan our behavior and thus increase our chances of survival and prosperity. The problem is that when this function is activated too much,we constantly live in the future, being prey to fear or desire. We live for what has to happen (which is something illusory) and we begin to stop living in the reality of what happens. However, when we devote our attention to what is happening in the present moment, the activity of these medial areas of the prefrontal cortex decreases and they come into play.nerve circuits located more laterally in the brain. These are moments in which, instead of wandering through the hills of Úbeda, our mind focuses on what we are experiencing at that moment.
P: And for all of that to become a habit, you have to train yourself mentally.
R: That’s how it is. By training inmindfulness, that is, when doing meditation, what we do fundamentally is to abandon the activity of that wandering mind, also called“monkey mind”because our mind, like a monkey jumps from branch to branch, goes “jumping” from subject to subject. Then we focus our attention on what is happening in the present, either in our body or in the outside world. We stop brooding over the past and worrying about the future. That’s good because,Instead of continuously activating the circuits of survival, we also start the circuits of happiness.
Q: So our brain is “moldable”, can it change?
R: Of course. There is no doubt that even the adult brain has considerable adaptability. If I, for example, began to play golf now, or learn Chinese, certain areas of my brain would be modified to create the neural substrate necessary to carry out these activities. Of course, they would be very different areas in each of the two tasks and, probably, he would not achieve much mastery in either of those disciplines. Regarding meditation, there is a very interesting work by Sara Lazar’s team that, using magnetic resonance techniques, shows thatthe practice of meditation increases the thickness of certain areas of the brain related to attention, sensory processing and interoception. Another very interesting aspect of this work is that it shows signs that meditation is capable of counteracting the loss of weight that certain areas of the brain suffer with age. That ismeditation would protect usof some consequences ofbrain aging.
Q: And how does mindfulness help fight depression or anxiety?
R: In the case of depression, we know that meditation can decrease the frequency of relapses in new depressive episodes. This seems to happen because, by meditating, we spend less time thinking negative thoughts and brooding over our worries. In fact, the treatment and prevention of stress is the theme that historically originated the application of mindfulness to clinical practice. It was Jon Kabat-Zinn who used a combination of meditation and yoga to alleviate the suffering of chronically stressed patients, either for medical reasons (such as back pain, cancer, heart disease and other chronic conditions), or for psychological reasons, for being subjected to long-term stressful situations and suffering from anxiety, depression or insomnia. Mindfulness practice has also been shown to reduce anxiety by activating the areas of the brain responsible for modulating fear.
P: Surprising …
A: And there is more. Meditation facilitates the appearance of positive moods, becauseincreases the activity of the left brain hemisphere. The exercises ofmindfulness increase the capacity ofempathyand communication, thus facilitating interpersonal relationships. It also increasesself-understanding, making it possible for us to better interpret the meaning of life itself. All of these factors contribute todecrease stresssince we feel more owners of the situations we live and, in general, of our lives.
Q: Next October 31st you will give a seminar for health professionals in Madrid, organized in collaboration with the Wellmind Center. What are you going to tell the attendees?
A:I will try to communicate my enthusiasm for the practice ofmindfulness and transmit to them the enormous possibilities that living life offers in a different way than how we usually do it. The practice ofmindfulness It reveals a new world to us, which is none other than the one in which we already live, but seen from a radically different perspective. It is about accessing a different state of consciousness. In our lives, the turbulent activity of our overactive minds does not allow us to clearly distinguish what is important and what is incidental and, in general, we are pursuing goals that create even more problems and tensions for us than we already have. By calming the mind, we discover what really matters and we end up intuiting which is the path that leads to true happiness.
Elena Sanz
