Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Change Your Brain, Change Your Life

Your Brain as Meditation Hindrance


Functional scan of one American brain: "Swiss cheese" (photo)


Brain damage or dysfunction can radically impede meditation progress. Letting go and entering a state of deep serenity by holding attention-awareness on a single thing (like one's breath) would flood the brain with feelgood chemicals that would begin to heal it.

Recently a WQ staffer discovered that damage or dysfunction in the cingulate gyrus (an executive portion of the brain dealing with emotion and inhibition) can ruin one's meditation to the point of hopeless frustration.


This area functions as an integral part of the limbic system involved with emotion formation as well as processing, learning, and memory. The executive control needed to inhibit inappropriate unconscious priming is also known to involve the anterior cingulate gyrus (Reference).

Change Your Brain, Change Your Life
The morale of the story may simply be for those facing this hindrance to have their brains checked. It can be done simply enough. Do it yourself, to begin with, using Dr. Amen's questionnaires. The surveys give clues that brain SPECT images can confirm or debunk.


The Amen Clinic has found that meditation lights up the brain rather than resting it. So it is soothing and healing to meditate correctly. Frustration, ambition, speculation, and so on harm rather than help. A brain scan on top of the survey confirms a diagnosis then a healing regimen can be undertaken with natural foods, removal of toxins from the environment, and lifestyle alterations. Every brain can be healthy.


(about.com)

  1. Gyrus* rectus
  2. Superior frontal gyrus
  3. Cingulate gyrus
  4. Cingulate sulcus
  5. Paracentral sulcus
  6. Central sulcus
  7. Precuneus
  8. Cuneus
  9. Lingual gyrus
*Note: gyrus simply means "bump"

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