Certain types of meditation, particularly 'Metta' or 'Loving Kindness' meditation are scientifically proven to change your brain in ways you may find positive and which may assist in dealing with the more challenging aspects of living with AS.
This excerpt is from the following blog: meditation
How does meditation change the brain?
Another area of interest to scientists and meditators is the amygdala, a small section in the center of the brain which seems to control the intensity and duration of how long a negative emotion like fear or anxiety can ‘highjack’ the brain. In one study that looked at mindfulness practice and altruism, after 8 weeks of mindfulness meditation, the physical volume of the amygdala shrank significantly in meditators, and the amygdala recovery time quickened. What this meant was meditators had less emotional stickiness. They recovered more quickly from the kinds of emotional reaction which spill over and color subsequent moments of experience.
But this wasn’t the same for all types of meditation: compassion and loving-kindness meditation correlated with the biggest changes in the amygdala. When presented with images of human suffering, the anxiety or emotional stickiness signaled in the amygdala was lower in those who had done one full day of compassion or loving kindness meditation versus those who had done one full day of ‘open awareness meditation....
continued from same article
Meditating on compassion increases your readiness to act
The afternoon continued with reports on the results of f-MRI brain imaging of long-term meditators. Davidson’s lab has built up a cohort of research subjects, monks, nuns, and lay people, 50% men and 50% women, with over 10,000 hours (3 years) of meditation experience (the average is 34,000 hours in formal practice: all have completed a minimum of one 3-year retreat).
When long-term practitioners meditate on compassion the main effect observed is a huge increase in gamma wave activity – higher than ever reported in any other study. Gamma waves are high frequency brain waves that indicate a huge number of neurons operating in a synchronized fashion. For those who had meditated for long term on compassion, there was dramatic increase in brain activity in the insula (responsible for emotion) and the temporoparietal junction (responsible for empathy). But what surprised Davidson and his colleagues were the fMRI scans that also showed a dramatic increase in the brain region responsible for planned movement. He and Ricard theorized that compassion meditation increases the brain’s ‘total readiness to act, to help’ to jump into action to alleviate suffering. And the more compassion meditation a practitioner had done, the greater were the changes observable in the brain.
As little as 8 minutes produces a result
Davidson was then asked the obvious question, “OK—What’s the lowest dose that produces a result?”
“8 minutes among non-practitioners was enough to produce significant physiological and mental changes” he answered. And what was most encouraging, is he said that it seems that at the beginning stages, among novice meditators, there’s a very strong connection between the amount of meditation practice and the amount of biological change. In other words, especially when you first start meditating, that’s when you make a lot of positive changes in the brain.
So how do we meditate on boundless loving-kindness?
there is a good video here online guided metta meditation by Sharon Salzberg which is a good starter:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3uLqt69VyI[/youtube]
Also you could try this 10 minute guided breathing meditation:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67SeR3LxtdI[/youtube]
06 Jan 2013, 10:19 am
