Meditate For Brain Health: AI Research & Science Promote This Solution
Digital human brain with connections.
It's not hard to find science showing that chronic stress can be hard on the brain.
We know intuitively that stress can be harmful to our bodies, and even though it's a natural part of life, excessive stress is to be avoided. To be sure, there are different kinds of stress. There's the kind that propels you forward to finish a project, that, if handled correctly, can be fine. Then there's the kind of stress that puts too much pressure on the cardiovascular system and, ultimately, the brain too, that you might describe as 'eating away' at you – chronic or episodic stress.
New science suggests that inappropriate stress responses can rewire the brain, and that decreasing stress can have a very positive effect on cognition.
Here's a piece from the University of Alabama at Birmingham that talks about the difference between chronic stress and common short-term stress activity
'The key differences between 'normal' stress and chronic stress lie in duration and intensity,' writes Teresa Hicks. 'Acute stress is typically short-term, triggered by a specific event or situation. It causes a temporary reaction that subsides once the stressor is resolved, allowing the body to recover and return to a balanced state. Chronic stress arises when a persistent stressor lingers for an extended period with few opportunities for resolution.'
The recommendations from experts are often the same – eat a good diet, maintain fitness, and sleep well, also enjoying fun and relaxing activities.
And then there's meditation.
Brian - neuroinflammation
Balachundhar Subramaniam is a professor of anesthesiology who has done research on the role of meditation in combating conditions like brain fog, which can cause forgetfulness and make it hard to concentrate.
Subramaniam started the Sadhguru Center for a Conscious Planet to expand our understanding of Consciousness, Cognition, and Compassion.
In a presentation, he shows how the experience of life improves with regular meditation and lower stress levels in general, starting with an explanation of what we face.
'There is this slow fire that is burning in your brain,' he said. 'It's not large enough to recognize, but surely and slowly, (it's) burning down your neurons and the supporting structure, and accelerating your mental thoughts and your fear, your anxiety, your stress, and also the aging process.'
He called this 'neuro-inflammation.'
'It can accelerate memory loss,' he said. 'It can worsen your anxiety, it can worsen your stress, and above all, it can be facilitating dementia. It's important to note, not just that, what you eat … can add fuel to this fire. If you don't have a good night, restorative sleep, it also adds fuel to the fire. And (if you are) deprived of joy, that also adds fuel to the fire of this slow decline that is inflammation.'
Blood Proteins
Subramaniam went over some of the history of this research through the pandemic years, which were uniquely stressful for most of us.
'We looked at 5000 people who were doing this meditation at the time of the pandemic,' he said. 'Even before the vaccine was announced, they were practicing it five days a week, for at least six months or longer, and (we) compared it to 2500 people from similar zip codes, and of the same age group and gender mix.'
What did they find?
'They had the lowest levels of stress, not just once, but repeated after four weeks and another four weeks, so three time points, even before the vaccine was announced,' he added. 'So they were not just surviving, but really thriving.'
Subramaniam talked about looking at reactive proteins, and presented a graph with results for surveyed patients with severe Covid.
'Meditation can cool the fire of neuroinflammation,' he said. 'We are actually in a position to fight against infection … maybe when the next pandemic comes.'
Pandemic Stress
There's also additional research on relevant topics, where you can see more about the role of stress on the body.
For example, a landmark study on stressed caregivers suggests that daily Kirtan Kriya yoga meditation, according to the authors, 'down-regulated pro-inflammatory gene expression.'
The upshot of it?
'Compared to a relaxation-control group, meditators had reduced transcription of cytokine genes and lower activity of the pro-inflammatory NF-κB pathway in their immune cells.'
And there's more on brain aging and neuroplasticity.
Many of these pieces of research help to paint a better picture of how we improve our neurology, including with anti-stress practices.
Subramaniam also talked about the recent designation of the gut as the 'second brain,' and the ways that the microbiome works with our cognition.
Identifying higher levels of healthy lactobacillus in the guts of people engaging in good anti-stress behaviors. He noted that the secondary effect can be good, too.
Subramaniam mentioned situations where you experience your mind wandering – a lot.
'How many of you have been having that problem? Your mind always wanders. Something is happening in the back of your brain all the time. Right at the front of the brain, you have a switch center … and in these people, at baseline, the connection between the switch and the mind wandering center is enhanced after meditation. So you can actually switch it between the two, whether you're going to do the task, or whether you're going to go to the mind wandering states.'
Meditation, he said, helps you get control of your brain, not wrangling with what he called a 'monkey brain,' but being adaptive and capable in key ways.
Specifically, Subramaniam recommends a practice called shoonya meditation. (read about it here.)
Neuroinflammation and Measurability
In aid of explaining this further, Subramaniam revealed something he calls the 'brain age index,' and showed how after a retreat, people were feeling better due to interactions with endocannabinoids and what he called the 'bliss molecule.'
You might ask: what is the relevance of AI here?
Before we learned to aggregate data, crunch it, and reveal insights, in an automated way, a lot of this kind of research was simply not possible.
I've written about various types of research that bring AI to neuroscience, to put the human brain under a microscope. There's the synergistic idea that as we learn about our brains, we learn to better understand the work of neural nets, and vice versa. That's why I am including this blog post here.
Another compelling part of the talk involved Subramaniam showing a line of the conjunction between awareness, and life experience, again showcasing some of the science of gaining better neurological control.
'This is a gift to be born as a human,' he said, exhorting us to think about life hacks that will improve our experiences. 'Time is short.'
The bottom line is that meditative techniques may be able to help us to live better and ward off cognitive problems later in life. Think about it.
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