Mindfulness

Hey, Cadre. Happy Wednesday. This is Stephen or Stefan, whichever you prefer, but not Stefan. And let's see, it is Wednesday, August 21. That means that we have 14 days until my kids are in school. They will be in school in two weeks and I can't wait. I mean, I love having them home and getting to do stuff with them, but man, I can't wait for school to start and getting back into a normal routine. Hello. I'm not sure if that's Miss Mary. Is that Miss Mary? Welcome. I was just mentioning that we here in town that I live in, our kids go back to school two weeks from today.

So I have a five and a seven year old and I can't wait for school to start. As much as I love hanging out with them in the summertime, I also will be very excited when they go back to school. They need the routine and I need the routine. So it's going to be a good thing. But we've got lots of fun stuff planned. Hey, Luke. We've got lots of fun stuff planned before school starts. We've live in a little resort town here in the coast of Delaware and we have a cool boardwalk with some rides that'll be closing in, I think, Labor Day weekend, maybe the weekend after.

Hey, Shannon. And so we're going to do a boardwalk trip. My youngest son is really into the haunted house at the boardwalk. He loves that. I think we're going to go back to the water park. Although every time I go to the water park the next day, I kind of feel like I fell down a flight of stairs. But my older son really loves going to the water park. Yeah. Hi, Shannon. Hi, Luke. I'm Miss Mary. So we've got some fun stuff planned. I think a beach day, a couple of more things today. It's actually like the fall here, so it's a little chilly for the beach.

So every Wednesday I join the quadra sphere to talk about mindfulness. And we'll get to that in just a moment. But first I wanted to talk about something that was kind of inspired by what I've been watching in kind of the political discourse lately. And I remember really clearly having an older relative who had some older Archie bunker views. Hey, Steph. And when I was younger, I kind of mentioned that this is outdated. This is a crazy way to be thinking about the world from this one kind of Archie bunker relative that we had.

I don't even like saying Archie Bunker because that kind of makes it seem like it's acceptable. But you get where I'm going here. And I remember the message that I got from whoever the grown up was that I was talking to at the time was that X person is 70 years old and they're just not going to change. They're not going to change their ways, and they're not going to change the way that they think, which, you know, I kind of just accepted at the time because I was young and not really thinking about it in the same way that I think about things today now, I kind of wonder, like, okay, so if that's true, like, what's the cutoff when our views become so fixed that we can't change them?

Hey, Jules, you know, when is it that our minds are made up in a way that we can't change our perspective? And what's really interesting about mindfulness practice and research, and coming from kind of a research backed training programs that I've participated in, is that we know that there's this thing called neuroplasticity, which means that our brains can change, they physically can change. So this idea that, like, at any point we're fixed is not correct. Science shows that we can continue to evolve.

The way that our minds work can change, and we can impact how it changes through practice and through practices, I should say. And that is an incredibly inspiring thing for me. So, you know, when I have a habit or when I have a pattern or some thoughts that come up that seem to be repeating and maybe aren't useful for me, the idea that, hey, this isn't fixed, I can. I can impact this and I can influence things, I have some control. I'm not at the effect of my circumstances. I can be a cause, not just in effect.

That is awesome. So, today, for kind of mindfulness conversation, I want to talk about five different specific ways that we know that mindfulness meditation practice affects our brain and the neurobiology, the way that things work up here. JC isn't here today, but maybe he'll join. I don't know. JC and I have known each other for a really long time, and I think JC would say that I am the least kind of woo woo guy in the world. It's just I need facts and evidence and, like, I'm not that guy. That's terribly woo woo.

Although I think that's great. If you are right, that's not who I am. So for me, the on ramp to mindfulness practice was science. And it was understanding that the practices that make up a traditional mindfulness practice aren't just operating on belief. We don't have to just believe that someone tells us that this is a good thing for us. We can look at the science and look at the research and see what science and studies have shown to be the actual effects in reproducible studies. And that was incredibly reassuring for me as I really dove into practice.

The idea that I don't have to just believe someone. You know, mindfulness practice comes from buddhist practice and the buddhist lineages, the wisdom traditions of Buddhism, which many believe started 2500 years ago. But the practices themselves, like what we actually do when we're practicing, are incredibly secular. There's not a spiritual component to that. There doesn't have to be. There certainly could be, but there doesn't have to be. And one of the sayings that I've talked about in previous live streams is that the Buddha wrote the recipe.

But it's our job as teachers and as practitioners to bake the bread every day, and we get to bring ourselves to the practice and experience it ourselves. And I love this idea that, I'm not saying that you should practice because I say that you should practice or because the Buddha says that you should practice. I'm saying just, here's an invitation. Here is something that has worked and really been supportive and helpful for me in my life. I think it will be helpful and supportive for you in your life, and I invite you to try it out and see how.

See what works. So that's my invitation today. Try this stuff out. See how it works for you. So what are the ways that mindfulness practice, and mindfulness meditation in particular, affects the brain? The first is that it increases the gray matter. It's kind of the cells in the makeup of our brains increases the gray matter in the hippocampus. Now, the hippocampus is an area of our brain that's associated with emotional regulation and learning and memory. So having an increase in the gray matter in the hippocampus has the positive effect of helping us with emotional regulation, learning, and memory, which is a really powerful effect.

Another thing that happens is that through mindfulness meditation practice, we can deactivate or slow down the impact or effects of the default mode network. So the default mode network is a part of our brain that's often associated with just mind wandering. So it's that I walk into the kitchen and I can't remember why I walked into the kitchen. The default mode network, if that is less active, it's a little bit easier for us to stay focused and on track and. And experience less mind wandering, which is great.

And my mind can wander. So knowing that practice can help with. That is a really powerful tool. There is also some, the cortisol thickness. So it's an area of the brain that, through meditation, we can improve the thickness of the cortisol areas. And this brain region, having thicker brain region and more cortisol thickness is associated with better attention, interoception, and sensory processing. So interoception is that ability for us to kind of do a check in and see what's going on in our bodies and in our minds at any given moment and be aware of that as we're moving through our day.

So when you have less cortisol thickness, sometimes it's harder for us to become aware of what's happening moment to moment, because our minds are busy doing something else and not aware of what's happening internally. And having more introception allows us to be more aware. And what is a really powerful effect of that is that it can allow us to be responsive in situations instead of reactive. And that's something that I think we all can benefit from. So, you know, a little story about that. I was sitting with someone in my family.

They were visiting us here at the beach, and this person has a lot of anxiety and a lot of anxious energy. And as we were sitting and talking, I could feel myself getting anxious. I could feel myself taking on the energy of that person that I was talking to. And because my ability and my capacity for interoception has improved with practice, I noticed that. Otherwise, I might not even have noticed that. Wait, I'm kind of feeling the same energy now that this person across from me is feeling. So that cortical thickness is really important and a really wonderful benefit that we can increase that.

This one, I think, is pretty popular. Lots of people talk about this, but it is that we can reduce the size of the amygdala in our brains that's sometimes connected to this idea of the lizard brain. It's like our leftover prehistoric areas of our brain that really are in charge of the fight or flight response. So it triggers the fight or flight response whenever we assess that, there's a risk. And studies have shown that through mindfulness meditation practice, we can decrease the gray matter in the amygdala.

Now, why that's important, and I would say for me, I had a fairly kind of hyperactive fight or flight response for a long time. And the saying that I used to have is that I have really great. Oh, what's the. Now the word is escaping me. Oh, wait. I have really great intuition, but I have really bad gut reactions. And that was amygdala at work. That was that reactivity to the fight or flight response that often was being triggered at times when there really was no real risk. So reducing amygdala size, one of the things that we think that does is that decreases the reactivity of the fight or flight response in a healthy way.

And certainly still, if you're taking a walk and a bear walks onto the path, you're going to have a fight or flight response. But in day to day life, at times when it's not necessary to have that response, we're not helpful. I mean, helpful, I think, is a good way to look at it. Decreasing the amygdala size can dampen the effect of the fight or flight response. Sometimes what that does is that gives us a little bit of space, it gives us a little bit of space between whatever the stimulus is that we're responding to and our reaction, so that we can respond in the way that we want to respond with intentionality versus simply reacting, that's an incredibly powerful thing.

So four great ways, and there are many others, I'm just highlighting these four, that mindfulness practice affects the brain one, and we'll go back over them. Increasing the gray matter in the hippocampus, which often helps with emotional regulation, deactivating the default mode network, which is that mind wandering part of our minds, increasing cortical thickness so that we can do a better job of interoception and sensory processing. And that last one about reducing amygdala size. It's kind of amazing to me that we have the ability to impact the chemistry and the structures of our brains through a practice that we can do ten minutes a day.

In some of the cases of these studies that support these findings, people were tracked over eight week periods of time. So just over two months, being able to see an actual measurable difference in. And the markers for some of these things, that's incredibly powerful. Knowing that two months of practice, we can change your brain. So that's what I want to leave you with today. A little bit of inspiration to think about the ways that you have power and that you have the ability to. You have the ability to impact how you show up and what your experience of life is.

So that's all for me today. But before I go, I'm just going to wait for a moment because sometimes I sign off and I just want to see if there are any questions in the comments. You can feel free to leave questions and I'll do my best. Otherwise, where someone's probably picking up their phone and trying to get to the keyboard to type out a question. Give it one more moment. My kids are at art camp today. They're making Halloween decorations. So after our livestream, I'm going to be heading over to pick them up and then taking them school supply shopping and continuing to count down the days until school begins.

As I started with this call, in 14 days, just two weeks from now, my kids will be in school and I can't wait. All right, listen, it's been great to be with you today. I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday and rest of your week, and I look forward to seeing you next week. Thanks. Bye.