Start the year off with health, healing and rejuvenation with Eiriu Eolas, the amazing breathing and meditation program which is being acclaimed around the world as the KEY that will help you to change your life in a REAL and immediately noticeable way!
Saturday, January 7th from 2:00pm to 4:30pm
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New York, NY 10022-5201
(212) 758-5521
A group of researchers at UC San Francisco have conducted a study indicating that meditation could be a key in helping people to control their dietary habits and help them lose weight. It’s only a small-scale study and needs reproduction, but its findings are consistent with other studies of mindfulness.
Here’s the setup: the researchers took a randomized group of 47 overweight women and divided them into two groups. Both groups received training on the basics of diet and exercise, but no diets were prescribed to either group.
The experimental group received training in “mindful eating” and meditation in weekly sessions. In the mindful eating training, the women were trained to experience the moment-by-moment sensory experience of eating . They also meditated for 30 minutes a day.
The goal of the experiment was two-fold – to use mindful eating to help control cravings and overeating, and to use meditation as a stress relief to prevent “comfort eating.” The preliminary results showed that they were successful. The women in the control group gained weight, while those in the control group maintained their weight and showed significant reductions in their cortisol levels (high cortisol levels are a side effect of stress).
“You’re training the mind to notice, but to not automatically react based on habitual patterns — to not reach for a candy bar in response to feeling anger, for example,” said researcher Jennifer Daubenmier in a press release. “If you can first recognize what you are feeling before you act, you have a greater chance of making a wiser decision.”
Dr. Catherine Kerr, a meditation researcher at Brown University, is also encouraged by the study. She told me in an email that “These findings are consistent with numerous brain studies showing that this practice of attending mindfully to present moment experience brings about changes in brain areas responsible for body sensations, especially body sensations related to hunger and craving (in the brain area called the ‘insula’), the idea here being that daily practice actually trains your brain to help you tune in to your body in a more healthy way.”
There are caveats to this study – it’s only preliminary, and it had a small test group. Also, the difference in the weight changes reported above only applied to the women in the study who were classified as ‘obese’ by their BMI. Overall, there wasn’t a statistically significant difference between the control group and experimental group when it came to weight. (The stress levels were different, however.) But given this study’s consistency with other findings, I think that a bigger scale study would show that the combination of stress reduction via meditation and craving control via mindful eating should work to maintain weight if practiced consistently.
The science of meditation is a subject that will never stop fascinating me – now that it’s started to become the subject of serious research, it’s revealing some aspects of the human brain that are truly insightful. I think that as we explore it more, we’re going to discover some human potential that for most people has remained untapped.
Ironically, the holiday season can be most stressful time of the year. Just imagine you are trying to squeeze some toothpaste out of a tube but you have forgotten to take the cap off. What happens? Deb actually did this in one of her most unaware moments and the toothpaste soon found another way out through the bottom of the tube and got all over her. It will force a hole in the side or wherever is the weakest point.
Now imagine that the tube of toothpaste is you, under pressure and beginning to experience psychological or emotional stress. But you don’t take your lid off, as it were, by recognizing what is happening and making time to relax or deal with your inner conflicts.
So what happens to the mental or emotional stress building up inside? In her book Your Body Speaks Your Mind, Deb shows how eventually it has to find a way out and if it can’t come out through the top, as it were, by being expressed and resolved, it will come out somewhere else, whether through your digestion, nerves, immune system, behavior or sleep patterns. Repressed or ignored stress can manifest as depression, addiction or anxiety; projected outwards it can become hostility, aggression, prejudice or fear.
We have built into our physiology a fight-or-flight response that enables us to respond to danger if, for instance, we are on the front line of a battle or facing a large bear. The battle may be with your teenage son and bears tend to come in a variety shapes and sizes, such as impatient and angry holiday shoppers. Seemingly unimportant events can even cause a stress reaction, as the brain is unable to tell the difference between real and imagined threats: if you focus on your concern about what might happen it plays as much havoc with your hormones and chemical balance as it does in a real situation.
But we all respond differently to circumstances: a divorce may be a big stressor for one but it may be a welcome relief to another. The difference lies in our response, for although we may have little or no control over the circumstances we are dealing with, we do have control over our reaction to them.
In other words, the cause of stress is not as much the external circumstances, such as having too many demands and not enough time to fill them, as it is our perception of the circumstances as being overwhelming; and our perception of our ability to cope, as when you feel stretched beyond what you perceive yourself to be capable of.
What you believe will color your every thought, word and action. As cell biologist Bruce Lipton says in his book, The Biology of Belief:
Our responses to environmental stimuli are indeed controlled by perceptions, but not all of our learned perceptions are accurate. Not all snakes are dangerous! Yes, perception “controls” biology, but… these perceptions can be true or false. Therefore, we would be more accurate to refer to these controlling perceptions as beliefs. Beliefs control biology!
In other words, believing that it is your work, family or lifestyle that is causing you stress and that if you could only change these in some way then you would be fine, is seeing the situation from the wrong perspective. It is the belief that something out there is causing you stress that is causing the stress. And, although changing the circumstances certainly may help, invariably, no matter what you do, it is a change within your belief system and perception of yourself that will make the biggest difference.
Try It Yourself
If you find yourself feeling stressed, take 10 minutes to breathe more deeply. Most people who are tense breathe short, shallow breaths into the upper part of their chest. If you take slower breaths and deepen your breathing into your belly, the stress will dissolve.
Then find an affirmation that works for you to shift perceptions and belief patterns and to reinforce your strengths, such as: “My mind is at ease and I am capable of doing everything,” or “With every breath I am more relaxed and flowing through my day with ease.”
Male cancer patients in Australia are turning to alternative medicine to help find a cure, a new study has found.
University of Adelaide psychology PhD student Nadja Klafke quizzed 400 men with various types of cancer and found more than 50 per cent used complementary medicines, as well as prayer, meditation, yoga and exercise, in conjunction with conventional treatments.
She said the popularity of complementary and alternative treatments reflected the benefits – real or perceived.
“Many complementary therapies have the potential to help reduce common side effects of cancer treatment and disease symptoms,” Ms Klafke said.
“For example, acupuncture and acupressure may relieve chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting; hypnosis and massage are beneficial for cancer-related pain; and meditation and relaxation techniques can relieve fatigue.”
The study found dietary supplements were the most common natural therapy used by men suffering cancer.
Prayer was identified as the second most popular alternative therapy, while herbs and botanicals ranked third.
Ms Klafke said the study suggested many men were turning to alternative options because they were either dissatisfied with the results from conventional medical treatments or were being pressured by their spouse or family to try something different.
It also found that most oncologists were not aware that their male cancer patients used alternative treatments in conjunction with conventional medicine.
“It would definitely be worth clinicians having an open discussion with their patients about the efficacy and safety of complementary and alternative medicine,” she said.
“A better understanding of the role, reasons for use and the benefits of complementary and alternative medicine may lead to more holistic approaches to care.”
Inmates practice meditation during class inside a juvenile detention center in Mexico City. Yoga and meditation can reduce stress, violence, and addiction, and increase self-control, among both female and male inmates. Carlos Jasso/Reuters
Yoga can teach prisoners the self-control and self-discipline that they never learned as youths.
Earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled that state of California prisons were so bad as to be inhumane, violating the 8th amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.
The reason? Overcrowding. California must to reduce its prison population by 30,000 prisoners, according to the ruling.
Overcrowding is a perennial issue in US prisons in no small part because the recidivism rate is remarkably high. In 1994 the largest study of prisoner recidivism ever done in the United States showed that, of nearly 300,000 adult prisoners who were released in 15 different states, 67.5 percent were re-arrested within three years.
James Fox, who founded the nonprofit Prison Yoga Project, has been working with incarcerated youth and adults for more than 10 years and has some ideas on what keeps the recidivism rate above 50 percent. In his opinion, the prison system overly emphasizes retributive justice – that punishment alone is a sufficient response to a crime. Fox is an advocate for restorative justice, an approach that focuses on criminals as individuals with needs and seeks to find ways to empower them to meet those needs, and thinks an emphasis on restorative justice could lower the recidivism rate.
Fox teaches yoga to male prisoners as a form of restorative justice. Criminals, and especially repeat offenders, he told Dowser, are suffering from unresolved trauma from their early years, and stunted emotional intelligence. “The men that I work with didn’t get proper guidance when they were in adolescence, never dealt with core social and emotional issues of that age – they rebelled instead, or got locked up at an early age,” he explained.
Yoga and meditation help prison inmates develop important emotional skills like impulse control and willpower – both of which can prevent someone from seeking out a drug fix or pulling out a weapon in moments of stress, said Fox.
“It’s so important for teaching yoga in prison to make it practical, applicable to issues that prisoners face,” explained Fox, reflecting on his decade of teaching yoga in places like San Quentin in California, the country’s largest prison. (San Quentin has an official capacity of around 3,000 people, but generally holds over 5,000.)
“People in prison have not learned how to manage their impulses, or in some cases their addictions to drugs or alcohol. One of the main advantages of yoga in prison is learning self-discipline. Yoga requires a great deal of self-discipline and self-control,” said Fox.
At first, Fox found it very challenging to get prisoners to take the yoga classes. They are voluntary, so only the men who are motivated would come. Little by little, however, he learned better how to work with them, and gained their respect.
Now, he receives letters from former inmates who say that his yoga teaching changed their lives and helped them become calmer, happier, and ultimately more able to fit into society.
A few years ago, Fox founded the Prison Yoga Project, which provides trainings for yoga teachers who want to begin working in prisons. He wrote a book for prisoners on how to practice yoga on their own, and to date has received requests for around 5,000 copies, which he sends out for free. He is now guiding trainings all over the US for yoga practitioners who want to teach inmates. And eventually, he wants to start a scholarship fund to help former inmates do teacher training, so they can make a career out of the practice.
Yoga has helped Fox deal with his own emotional challenges.
“Yoga has the potential to heal the world. It’s had a tremendous impact on my life, helping me deal with anger issues, and typical male violent tendencies that I inherited from growing up in Chicago in the ’60s. I carried that with me as I grew older, and it was impacting me and the way I operate in the world,” he said. Perhaps if Fox had not been a white male, but an African-American or Latino male, who represent around70 percent of the prison population in the US, he may not have been so lucky and could have ended up in jail himself.
While the emotional benefits of teaching yoga in prisons may be unique, the arts are another way that more privileged members of society have been showing inmates that they can transcend their personal struggles. In Wisconsin, the Writers in Prisons Project has been doing this. Also, playwright Eve Ensler worked with incarcerated women, many of whom were convicted murderers, to produce a theatrical performance that was made into a film. One woman in Maryland has been providing a creative outlet for prisoners through a knitting program.
But yoga, unlike these other activities, is explicitly geared to provide lessons in self-control and emotional maturity. And what’s also new about the Prison Yoga Project is that it brings something increasingly seen as reserved for the elite into the lives of the underprivileged and the outcast.
What Fox has seen is that yoga does not discriminate: Anyone who adheres to the practice can develop mindfulness, patience, diligence, and self-motivation. Finding those skills in life can be hard enough; if people can acquire them in prison, then, Fox hopes that rampant recidivism and overcrowded prisons may one day become a thing of the past.
• This article first appeared on Dowser.org.
The researchers at Howard Hughes medical Institute, led by Bruce Lahn have found evidence that the pressure of natural selection has lead to dramatic changes in two genes known to control brain size in humans. Brain size or intelligence is naturally selected for in evolution for obvious survival reasons, and larger brains require more oxygen. Although the brain represents only 2% of the body weight, it receives 15% of the cardiac output, 20% of total body oxygen consumption, and 25% of total body glucose utilization. The larger the brain, the greater the demand of oxygen and hence the more sophisticated the nervous system needed to provide that oxygen…the evolutionary payoff for larger brain size of course being survival. As a natural extension of mammalian evolution we can see that the human neocortex was an inevitable consequence of evolutionary pressure.
According to the Poly-Vagal Theory during evolution the mammalian nervous system developed two vagal systems. Built onto the relic of amphibians and reptiles is an evolutionary modification unique to mammals. Looking at the history of evolution Poly-Vagal Theory notes the importance of the need for oxygen in evolving the mammalian nervous system. During evolution as the mammalian nervous system got more complex than its amphibian and reptilian brothers, there was a greater demand for oxygen. Porges says that it was this need for extra oxygen that may have provided the evolutionary pressure leading to the development of the highly adaptive and sophisticated autonomic nervous system found in mammals; and that behaviors such as orienting, attention, emotion and stress are by-products of the evolutionary pressure to optimize oxygen resources. The Polyvagal Theory addresses the relative roles of the vagus nerve in energy conservation and survival.
In Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal Theory he uses the term Polyvagal to distinguish between the two main branches of the vagus nerve:
1: The Vegetative Vagus–originates in the dorsal motor nucleus (DMNX), descends visceral efferent fibers regulating smooth and cardiac muscle and is associated with passive reflexive regulation of visceral functions: peristalsis of the GI tract, sweating, lungs, diaphragm, stomach. At the heart it is connected to stretch receptors of the aortic arch and chemoreceptors of the aortic bodies and is responsible for heart rate, dilation of blood vessels and blood pressure. The output from the dorsal motor nucleus does not convey a respiratory rhythm. The most primitive function of the vagal complex is the freeze response, which is dependent on the unmyelinated vagus which is part of the reptilian system.
2: The Smart Vagus–which originates in the medullary source of the nucleus ambiguus (NA), serving efferent fibers regulating the somatic muscles of speech and eating: the larynx, pharynx, and esophagus. The ventral vagal complex (including NA) is related to processes associated with attention, motion, emotion and communication. The functional output of the NA-vagus on the heart is part of a common neuronal network producing a cardiorespiratory rhythm. The most evolutionary recent component–the communication system functions through the new-mammalian or myelinated vagus that regulates the heart and the bronchi to promote calm and self-soothing states.
In mammals the two vagal systems are neuroanatomically distinct, have different origins, and are programmed with different response strategies and may respond in a contradictory manner. Thus Porges attributes various medical disorders to competition between DMNX and NA originating fibers. The different vagi may have oppositional outputs to the same target organ. The vagus is a complex of neural pathways originating in several areas of the brainstem. The vagus nerve consists of afferent and efferent parasympathetic (acetylcholine) fibers that run from the brainstem (medulla oblongata) down to the traverse colon and urinary organs; providing both motor and sensory parasympathetic activation for everything from the neck to the G spot. Efferent fibers originate primarily in two medullary nuclei (NA, DMNX). The vagus is not solely an efferent or motor pathway, at least 80% of the vagal fibers are afferent; that is they conduct impulses from the periphery of the body to the brainstem.
According to the Polyvagal Theory the growth of the autonomic nervous system evolves through three stages:
Stephen Porges points out the phylogentic hierarchy of response to challenge: “The hierarchy emphasizes that the newer “circuits” inhibit the older ones. We use the newest circuit to promote calm states, to self-soothe and engage. When this doesn’t work, we use the sympathetic-adrenal system to mobilize for flight and flight behaviors. And when that doesn’t work, we use a very old vagal system, the freeze or shutdown system.”
Stephen Porges suggests that the true freeze response is dangerous to mammals. For example, high tone in the dorsal motor nucleus vagal system may be lethal in mammals through an overdose of the immobility response overdose. Whereas high tone from the NA-vagal system may be beneficial in adaptive significance of mammalian affective processes including courting, sexual arousal, copulation, and the establishment of enduring social bonds. In the development of enduring pair-bounds the mammalian vagus communicates safety and trust, via oxytocin and vasopressin, between the hypothalamus and the medullary source nuclei of the viscera vagus.
Porges suggests that we use our higher cognitive processes to calm the stress response and establish effective connections with others by using our facial muscles, making eye contact, modulating our voice and listening to others. In this way we increase the influence of the myelinated vagus, which calms us and turns off the stress response and makes us more metabolically efficient. He says the social neural circuit supports our health through its calming influences on the heart and lungs and its reduction of HPA axis activation.
The vagus is asymmetrical with the left and right sides performing different tasks, with the right vagus most active in the regulation of the heart. Primary emotions are related to autonomic functioning since they are often survival related, they must be integrated into the regulation of the heart and lungs. Emotions have a right limbic bias, as does the brainstem medullary structures controlling visceral function. Only when the environment is perceived as “safe” is there cortical regulation of the visceral pathways, because while under threat, cortical control of brainstem structures would compromise the individual’s ability to mobilize. Therefore when stressed or in danger, cortical control of brainstem is “inhibited” and the brainstem structures are “disinhibited” to allow the sympathetic nervous system to efficiently increase metabolic output.
Stimulation of the ascending fibers of the vagus releases norepinephrine into the amygdala strengthening memory storage in regions of the brain that regulate arousal, memory and feeling responses to emotionally laden stimuli. These ascending fibers is how the peripheral epinephrine from the adrenals released into the blood during the fight-flight response activates the release of norephinephrine in the limbic system sharpening memory of the events. Since the adrenal hormone epinephrine cannot cross the blood brain barrier it activates the vagus nerve, which in turn stimulates neurons in the brainstem known as the “Nucleus of the Solitary Tract (NTS). This third medullary nucleus, located near DMNX, is the terminus of many of the afferent pathways travelling through the vagus from peripheral organs. Vagus afferent sensory fibers carrying information to the brain from the head, neck, thorax, and abdomen relay information to the NTS. These NTS neurons release norephinephrine into the memory processing areas such as the amygdala and hippocampus to activate long term memory storage of emotionally laden events. This explains why vagus nerve stimulation was found to improve memory consolidation of recent events. Researchers found that by microinjecting the NTS with either GABA agonists or glutamate antagonists, they thereby increased GABA or decreased glutamate in the NTS and this blocked seizures.
Stephen W. Porges, Ph.D. found that he could improve autism by stimulating the newer structures and prompting the social engagement system with the use of acoustic sessions using frequencies associated with the human voice. Check out Stephen Porges’s fabulous papers on the web:
Emotional safety. We all need it. We really can’t do without it. But do we know what it is?
More than at any other time in the history of humankind we do.
Freud, a neurologist by training, acknowledged that there was no way to confirm the validity of his theories unless and until it became possible to measure and monitor neurophysiological processes.
Current technology enables us to now detect patterns of activation and function of the brain and peripheral nervous system in ways that Freud could only have dreamt about.
Breakthroughs in research and theory – with huge indebtedness to the work of Stephen Porges, Ph.D., pioneering neuroscientist – enable us to define the term emotional safety and describe it in neuroscientific, as well as psychological, terms.
When the mind and body experience emotional safety it is evidence that a particular neurological subsystem is in full operation. Porges labels this particular subsystem the social engagement system. When this subsystem is inhibited or short-circuited, emotional safety is not viable. Emotional safety, to say it another way, is inseparable from a particular neurological function which I will describe shortly.
Before considering emotional safety in the interpersonal realm I’d like to clarify how it comes about within an individual.
Definition: The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is part of the peripheral (outside the brain) nervous system. It is largely responsible for the neurological functions that underpin such non-voluntary functions as heart rate, perspiration, respiration, digestion, micturition (urination) and sexual arousal.
Having at least a general understanding of how the vagus nerve functions is key to grasping emotional safety as a function within the nervous system, Aside from that, it is the largest nerve, by far, within the entire human body. The vagus is connected to all major organs: heart, lungs, brain, spleen, liver, bladder . . .
Dr. Porges, in studying the vagus nerve, identified ways in which this nerve functions, not as a unitary nerve but as a system of nerves.
To describe this system he coined the term – polyvagal theory.
‘Poly’ deriving from the Greek term for ‘many’ as in ‘polygon’ a many-sided geometric figure.
Dr. Porges hypothesized that the polyvagal system is comprised of three coordinated sub-systems. When any of the three subsystems is active it inhibits or shuts down the other two. Depending on the information gleaned from sensory input, through a process called neuroception, we determine whether the situation we find ourselves in – this refers to both our internal or external situation – is either of these three qualities: safe, dangerous, life-threateningly dangerous.
If our sensory input supports the notion that the momentary situation we are experiencing is safe then the most evolved aspect of the polyvagal system — the one that triggers our social engagement capability – is activated.
This subsystem connects the heart, larynx, sinus, ears. When this subsystem is active, the voice is primed to articulate emotion and emotional nuance. The face is energized to gesture communicatively. A part of the inner ear contracts so that we are set to be able to distinguish human voice from other sounds in the environment more readily.
Taken together it is easy to see that when this subsystem is active we are at our best in terms of connecting and working through whatever needs to be dealt with in the social-emotional realm. This subsystem defines the functionality of our readiness to invite and respond to others.
But what happens when this system is not up and running? Should our sensory organs detect an internal or external threat to safety, the social engagement capacities described above shut down instantaneously.
Detail: These shifts in functionality of the polyvagal system occur as a result of a complex series of responses along the Hypothalmic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis, they are hormone-driven.
When our senses detect danger a second system fires up. If that danger seems life-threatening a third system comes to the fore and the other two go dark. Depending on the degree of safety or danger one of the three sub-systems lights up and the others are dark.
Patricia and Vaughan are a thirty-something couple that I worked with during this past year in couples therapy. Patricia initially described Vaughan as unresponsive, “He’s low-key to a fault – except when he gets angry,” she said.
Vaughan acknowledged having difficulty talking about his feelings and told me that he was often unaware of what he was feeling.
As a matter of fact, the first times I asked him how he felt being in my office he commented on the temperature in the room.
Patricia felt blindsided by his outbursts and was growing increasingly resentful.
Older paradigm: Treat Vaughan as a person primarily in need of anger management techniques. Primary goal would be to shut down his explosive temper. This work would include fostering greater awareness of internal and external triggers that precede his outbursts. A focus on the anger and his history with the issue of anger in his family, and life experience would be pursued.
Newer paradigm: Not to say that anger management techniques are not useful. They are and I have utilized techniques to help improve Vaughan’s awareness of when his anger is mounting and how his handling of his anger affects him and his relationship with Patricia.
I also entertain a very different set of concerns with him.
He is the son of an emotionally distant father and lost his mother to cancer when he was a six years old. He associates putting trust in those closest to him with feelings of loss and loneliness. Given his history, fears of closeness with Patricia made sense. In fact, when he felt he was getting closer to her the closeness in itself might trigger anger because it stirred up fears of being abandoned or disappointed again.
It seemed to me that Vaughan’s social engagement system had been chronically shut down.
I worked with him and Patricia to encourage a sense of emotional safety within him and by extension within the relationship.
Being able to talk about anger in a calm and non-accusatory way, for example, proved soothing and served to help Vaughan not just open up but to become less angry. Part of his anger had to do with feeling out of touch with himself. It is interesting to think about this in terms of his polyvagal functionality – with the social engagement subsystem down he was out of touch with his ability to invite or respond to the soothing connectedness he needed.
At the same time, Patricia brought in her own issues related to feeling shut down due to the chronic anger she had begun to feel because of stress with Vaughan and in her job situation.
The work is still in progress and at this point, both partners appear to be increasingly connected and loving towards one another.
Image Credit: digitalbob8
Experienced meditators seem to be able switch off areas of the brain associated with daydreaming as well as psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, according to a new brain imaging study by Yale researchers.
Meditation’s ability to help people stay focused on the moment has been associated with increased happiness levels, said Judson A. Brewer, assistant professor of psychiatry and lead author of the study published the week of Nov. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He said that understanding how meditation works will aid investigation into a host of diseases. He added:
Meditation has been shown to help in variety of health problems, such as helping people quit smoking, cope with cancer, and even prevent psoriasis.
The Yale team conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging scans on both experienced and novice meditators as they practiced three different meditation techniques.
They found that experienced meditators had decreased activity in areas of the brain called the default mode network, which has been implicated in lapses of attention and disorders such as anxiety, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and even the buildup of beta amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s disease. The decrease in activity in this network, consisting of the medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortex, was seen in experienced meditators regardless of the type of meditation they were doing.
The scans also showed that when the default mode network was active, brain regions associated with self-monitoring and cognitive control were co-activated in experienced meditators but not novices. This might indicate that meditators are constantly monitoring and suppressing the emergence of “me” thoughts, or mind-wandering. In pathological forms, these states are associated with diseases such as autism and schizophrenia.
The meditators did this both during meditation, and also when just resting — not being told to do anything in particular. This may indicate that meditators have developed a “new” default mode in which there is more present-centered awareness, and less “self”-centered, say the researchers. Brewer said:
Meditation’s ability to help people stay in the moment has been part of philosophical and contemplative practices for thousands of years. Conversely, the hallmarks of many forms of mental illness is a preoccupation with one’s own thoughts, a condition meditation seems to affect. This gives us some nice cues as to the neural mechanisms of how it might be working clinically.
A new study has revealed that meditation helps women to train their thoughts while love-making which makes them to experience more pleasure between the sheets.
Researchers from the Brown University in Rhode Island monitored the behaviour of 44 students, 30 of whom were female, and half of whom had taken a 12-week meditation course.
According to MyHealthNewsDaily.com, the participants were shown a slideshow of “erotic” images and were then asked to describe their reaction as either “calm”, “excited” or “aroused”.
They found that the women who had been meditating were quicker at registering sexual arousal.
The study also revealed that women who meditate demonstrate increased self-compassion, less anxiety and improved attention span.
“It’s interesting, the women who took longer to register feelings of sexual arousal at baseline were also the ones who were the harshest self-judgers,” the Daily Mail quoted Gina Silverstein, the lead author as saying.
“‘Rather than feeling it, they get caught up in their heads. So it’s definitely a correlated effect,” she said.
The study has been published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine.
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