Meditation on mindfulness

Some time ago, I came across a happiness social science experiment by Killingsworth and Gilbert. They developed an app to ping at random times during the day. At that point the participants were to input what activity they were doing, whether their mind was wandering, and whether they were happy. As expected, people were happiest when they were doing what they loved (e.g. sex). But interestingly, and perhaps unexpectedly, they found that when the participants were doing an unpleasurable task and paying attention to it, they were happier than when they were doing the same task whilst mind wandering, even if they were engaged in a pleasurable daydream. People are happiest when they pay attention to whatever they are doing, when they are mindful and living in the moment, rather than forward planning, reminiscing, or daydreaming.

Learning how to maintain a state of attention and presence, in the age of distraction we live in today, is especially challenging. One way it can be cultivated is through meditation. Meditating has powerful protective effects on age-related cortical thinning. In fact, meditation has been shown to actually develop grey matter in areas associated with memory, learning, attention and emotional regulation. Meditation was associated with the development of the left prefrontal cortex, an area associated with feelings of well-being and happiness.

No one is born unhappy. Our brains have not developed yet. But we become unhappy. Whether we become wired to be happy or unhappy in disposition depends very much on our experience of the external environment. For instance, whether we are loved and supported as children, or whether we are traumatised by violence, bullying, abandonment, neglect or abuse.

Traumatised minds tend to be fearful, anxious, depressed, and riddled with insecurities and perceptions that lead us into a negative spiral that limits our social functioning. Traumatised minds are trapped. Mired by their past and the thinking patterns they have developed, they cannot change, and instead bring their traumatic past into their present and future.

Resilient minds are open to change, and adopt mindsets that help us deal. As we develop our minds, we also develop coping mechanisms and resilience, and we all have, to some extent, a choice as to how we want to respond to our external environment, and how we want to shape and change our brains. It is not an easy task, but it is one that we are constantly engaged in, whether consciously or unconsciously. Mindful awareness of our moment to moment existence creates a space for us to recognise the moment we are making choices to feel or think in a certain way and take more conscious control of shaping the way we want our brains to grow.