How does meditation change mental patterns?

Meditation and Our Thoughts

Have you ever been amazed by the number of thoughts that enter your mind the moment you try to meditate? Well, you are not alone, that’s how meditation works naturally. Just as one cannot experience silence without sound, one cannot experience calmness without agitation. Our thoughts are a treasure trove of health and happiness that we only discover after becoming more aware of them. If you are wondering about how you can use your thoughts to discover the treasure trove of happiness you must be able to differentiate the thoughts into animilastic or rational thoughts. We know for sure that all thoughts physically (or biologically) arise from different parts of the brain, and the brain is the organ that controls our mental patterns. Now let’s deep-dive into these two types of thoughts namely, animilastic and rational, and their source of origin in the brain.??

Animilastic Thoughts and Their Source of Origin

Animilastic Thoughts are instinctive thoughts that cross our mind when we are in a vulnerable situation. These are the thoughts that instantly cause emotional outbursts or disproportionate reactions. These kinds of thoughts arise because of dopamine-induced pleasure. We get a dopamine surge in our body when we do something important for survival, look for shortcuts, and avoid the hardwork or pain. For example, we get a dopamine surge after we eat tasty food. It gives us pleasure, and then we want to eat some more, and the cycle keeps repeating and forms a repetitive mental pattern. This is known as the brain’s reward circuit which is part of the brain’s limbic system. It is important for the survival of all animals as it pushes animals to eat, reproduce, and protect themselves by regulating emotional reactions concerning essential survival functions such as feeding, reproduction, nurturing offspring, and the fight or flight mechanism. However, we can easily become slaves of the system. That is why people suffering from mental disorders such as anxiety and depression indulge in habit-forming activities such as excessive eating or consumption of drugs. The only way to break the repetitive patterns that lead to addiction is to seek help from our rational thoughts. Therefore, now let’s try to understand rational thoughts and their source of origin.

Rational Thoughts and Their Source of Origin

Rational thoughts emerge when we consciously articulate our initial impulsive reactions. For instance, consider a child witnessing his alcoholic father abuse his mother. As an adult, he faces two paths: emulate his father or reject alcohol due to its destructive impact. The former represents animalistic limbic-driven response, while the latter signifies rational decisions rooted in the prefrontal cortex (PFC).

Therefore, unlike animals who are entirely dependent on their limbic system for survival instincts, human beings are blessed with the PFC, which is the most advanced region of the brain that supports our highest-level cognitive functions such as rational thinking. The PFC helps us think differently, recognize impulsive emotions, and turn them into rational thoughts for making better decisions. Now that we have understood the difference between animalistic and rational thoughts, it is time to understand the interplay between these two thoughts.?

The Seesaw of Thoughts

As stated above, we have an option to continue our animalistic instincts by depending on the limbic system, or become more aware of our thoughts using PFC and come up with a well-thought-through rational response that makes the world a better place to live.?

This is because our limbic system and PFC are in a constant state of seesaw. Meaning when one is up the other is down. Therefore, we can use some mental tricks to stay cool under pressure. For example, if we are scared or angry about something our limbic system is up, but when we suppress, name, or rationalize our response our PFC is up. The moment PFC is up, we have overcome the negative emotional response.?

To understand this concept, imagine a scenario where two boys are playing with their toys, and all of a sudden one of them snatches the toy that the other one is playing with. The boy whose toy is snatched hits the other boy which starts a fight, and both of them end up injuring each other. If the boy chooses to fight mindlessly then we can say the limbic system is up. But if the boy tries to articulate how he felt when the other boy snatched his toy the PFC is up. For example, the boy can simply name his feelings as ‘feeling wronged’ and explain his feelings in words saying “I’m not playing with you as you wronged me by snatching my toy”.?

Keeping the PFC up is a smarter choice in the long run, and meditation is one of how we can keep it up. Let’s understand how.

How Meditation Changes Mental Patterns?

Meditative practices such as mindfulness make us become more aware of our thoughts and scrutinize them objectively. The regular practice of meditation has also been shown to strengthen our PFC by improving its functional connectivity- a phenomenon similar to the strengthening of muscles by lifting weights.?

The functional connectivity of the PFC correlates with our mental patterns such as enhanced attention, working memory, cognitive control, executive function, emotional regulation, resilience against adverse effects, self-awareness, and self-compassion. Additionally, this connectivity is linked to reduced levels of anxiety, depression, perceived stress, negative emotions, and symptoms of hyperarousal.?

It is possible to have mental patterns without practicing mindfulness meditation too. Indian yogis practice four virtues described by Patanjali which include Maitri (Friendliness toward the joyful), Karuna: (Compassion toward the suffering), Mudita (Joyfulness towards the virtuous), and Upeksha (Indifference towards the non-virtuous). The mere practice of these virtues keeps the PFC up, leading us to improved mental patterns. Therefore, instead of fighting with someone if we forgive them and befriend them then we are using our PFC and improving our mental patterns. However, it is always easier said than done. That’s why yogis also use breathing techniques to calm the mind and attain one-pointed attention in a specific direction. The one-pointed attention strengthens the functional connectivity of neurons in that specific region of the brain, or body and eventually helps in keeping PFC up.

Other alternate therapies such as neurolinguistic programming work in a similar way to break old habit-forming patterns and replace them with new life-changing patterns.

Conclusion

In conclusion, our mind and body are closely connected. The more we become aware of our mind, the more our brain evolves. An evolved brain makes better choices for us. It also means that the present state of our body’s health is not an accident but a deliberate choice that we made in the past by either depending on our limbic system or PFC. In the past, if we chose the limbic system consistently, we might have made many impulsive decisions that we probably regret today. On the other hand, if we chose PFC we managed to stay at peace. Perhaps Gautam Buddha knew this long before modern science discovered it. That is why he said, ‘We are what we think. All that we are arises with thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.’