These findings have important implications for emotional well-being. States of mind such as anxiety, depression, and anger often engage the prefrontal cortex. “I can’t shut my mind off” -- a statement most of us can relate to in times of stress. Have you ever tried to talk yourself out of such a state of high stress and failed? Trying to talk ourselves out of being less anxious or angry is often a futile exercise. The mind quite simply has a hard time telling itself what to do.
Dan Wagner of Harvard University describes this as an "ironic process" When we attempt to resist a certain thought or action (e.g. trying not to eat junk food when you're on a diet, or trying not to think of someone you just broke up with) the effort can easily backfire under stress. In the realm of the mind, what we resist persists. Sadly, some people end up turning to alcohol and drugs as a last resort to quiet their mind.
Farb’s findings, however, suggest that the neural networks of interoceptive attention may provide an inbuilt system separate from the thinking mind to help ourselves find calm. We can’t control our mind with our mind (or our pre-frontal cortex with the pre-frontal cortex), but with interoceptive awareness, we may be able to escape our racing thoughts. The expression “take a deep breath” in a moment of anger or fear is a common saying that directly taps into our ability to use our interoceptive awareness. Many clinicians include some kind of breathing instructions into a therapy setting for anxiety.
How can we train our interoceptive awareness? Yoga, breathing and meditation practices are designed to increase our interoceptive awareness. A study by Jocelyn Sze at the University of California Berkeley showed that people who meditate have greater interoceptive awareness than dancers who, though they also have trained awareness of their bodies' movements, are perhaps less in tune with their emotional states.
For some, turning attention inward can be distressing, because it may tune us into emotions that are not comfortable. However, constantly distracting ourselves through attention turned outwards will not remove those underlying emotions. By learning to engage with them through our dedicated interoceptive awareness, we may experience the first signs of healing. Research conducted in our laboratory with veterans suffering from trauma is also showing this to be true. Though the veterans are at first wary of being present with the emotions, feelings and memories that can arise during their first yoga, yogic breathing, and meditation practice, they report that over time those distressing inner experiences start to actually wane and heal. Best of all, they feel empowered. No longer reliant on drugs or a therapist, they have learned to use their own breath to regain control of their lives.
Learning to tune into our bodies could have other beneficial consequences as well. We are so used to directing our attention outward that we often don’t even really taste food because we are too busy watching TV or distracting ourselves in other ways. However, research suggests that our greatest moments of happiness are times we spend fully involved and engaged in a situation: be it a physical activity, a sensory experience, or intimacy with another person. If we are distracted, we are depriving ourselves of some of the greatest sources of happiness.
Next time you find your thoughts racing and emotions blaring out of control, instead of trying to talk yourself out of the situation or turning to a glass of wine, have a seat, take some deep breaths and tune into your body, or go to a gentle and awareness-based yoga or meditation class. Farb’s research suggests that we have an inbuilt ability to calm ourselves down. We just need to take a deep breath.
Rights & Permissions
See what we're tweeting about
6 Comments
Add Commentthis is a good article with important content. but, even though it references yoga and meditation, it nonetheless continues to espouse the perhaps unconscious denial of how far ahead much of eastern thought is on this matter relative to western thought (not to superimpose a fictitious dichotomy between methods of thought). the sentence, "this newly discovered pathway of attention may hold the key to greater well-being" is a perfect example, because, in fact, this is meditation 101 and has been understood and implemented by buddhists, hindus, et al for millennia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnot only is the disparity between these understandings being ignored, but also being ignored is the fact that much of contemporary thought, especially regarding psychology, has been highly informed and enhanced by buddhism, and vice versa, and that this is an amazing thing. these two systems of thought can no longer be considered as separate entities to the degree which they previously were, and it would be entirely beneficial for people to acknowledge and utilize this dynamic in order to garner a much richer understanding of ourselves and the rest of reality..
I agree with username69
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee any numbers of links to inner awarness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obYJRmgrqOU
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=20+minute+body+scan+meditation+&oq=Body+scan+medi&aq=4m&aqi=g2g-m3&aql=&gs_nf=1&gs_l=youtube.1.4.0l2j0i5l3.3990.8414.0.16684.14.14.0.0.0.0.532.2163.8j0j4j0j1j1.14.0.
Sorry to say this but this work is almost like reinventing the wheel. Those who work in clinical psychology know that there is a difference between internal/external type of attention. In fact one can say that in order to have depression or states of anxiety one needs to do internal attention which is also known as rumination. The only interesting thing about this work is that it identifies the parts of the brain which are activated by internal and the external attentions. This actually provides further support to those who do neurofeedback in clinical interventions and tries to increase the frontal brain activity. This makes the person to become more external oriented and so spend less time ruminating, less depression and something which no drug can do. Thanks Farb for the work. Nice one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDalai Lama 1000; Western Psychology 5.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this_/\_<3
Mindfulness meditation has been shown to decrease stress and burnout while improving career satisfaction and overall happiness in physicians and other health care workers. Please join us for a 3 day retreat in the mountains of sunny norther New Mexico, as we explore mindfulness meditation with the stresses of the health care provider in mind. 8.5 CME credit hours, spouses welcome. Scholarships available.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.vallecitos.org/events/mindfulness-101-for-physicians-and-health-care-providers
I think you're missing the point. She didn't say inward attention is newly discovered. She said a *different* brain structure has been identified that controls inward attention. THAT's what's new. No where does eastern thought suggest it's a different brain structure. I'd submit that you're showing your own bias in *assuming* she's ignoring eastern though. It's not even relevant to her point. She goes on to speculate that this pathway might underlie why "taking a deep breath" or mediation calms the mind. WHY that worked, from the perspective of physical brain structure, was not understood before.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this