The Science of Well-Being for Mindful Leaders

I started reading brain research in my quest to find out if bullying and abuse hurt brains. I discovered, much to my surprise, that there is extensive research into the physical damage all forms of bullying and abuse do to brains.

While we cannot see the neurological scars with the naked eye, they can be seen on brain scans. This is the research that fuels my new book The Bullied Brain. Where the book becomes empowering and inspiring is in the evidence-based actions we can take to heal those scars and restore our health. One of the most effective practices for returning our brains to organic health is mindfulness.

The Science of Mindfulness

There is extensive neuroscientific evidence that shows increases in cortical thickness and hippocampal volume, along with a reduction in worry, anxiety, and depression, in subjects who commit to merely eight weeks of mindfulness-based stress reduction programs.

MRI brain images were taken from 16 healthy, meditation-naive participants before and after an 8 week program. Results showed that slow breathing, focused on deep, calming breaths for 27 minutes daily, increased the density of gray matter in the hippocampus, which is a part of the brain involved in learning, memory, self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.

Not surprisingly, with all that gray matter getting denser, participants reported an increased sense of well-being and peace. Compare this healthy, plush hippocampus to the one we described in yesterday's article that was bathed in the stress hormone cortisol and had become shrivelled "like a raisin" to use Dr. John Ratey's description.

Mindful Leadership

Working with executives and leaders suffering from high stress, neuroscientist Stan Rodski discovered that encouraging them to colour in an abstract drawing, combined with mindfulness over a number of sessions, was highly effective in helping them rewire their brains.

Their mindfulness practice was slow purposeful breathing from the diaphragm, staying focused on the present, being physically and mentally aware and self-compassionate, consciously letting go of memories, worries, or thoughts and remaining fully engaged in the act of colouring. You can take mindfulness to any activity that allows you to stay present such as walking, knitting, even mundane tasks like folding laundry or putting away dishes.

Leaders - like all of us - have the capacity to rewire our brains. This is the foundational concept of neuroplasticity, namely that our brains change in response to our environment and our practices. If a leader creates an organizational environment that allows for and enables bullying, her employees' brains, along with her own, are likely to having spiking stress hormones such as cortisol.

In contrast, if a leader creates an environment constructed on mindfulness, his own and his employees' brains will have neurotransmitters like dopamine more regularly firing up and motivating further productivity, creativity, risk-taking, connection and motivation. Brains won't be harmed and depleted; they'll be made healthy and whole.

What fires together, wires together

You can daily fire up neural networks for anxiety or for mindfulness. What you repeatedly feel, think, practice wires into your brain. Mindfulness is a choice and choosing it shapes your brain. If you've suffered a lot of bullying, abuse, stress, trauma and have resulting anxiety take heart.

You can use your mind to heal your brain and body as elucidated in the work of cardiologist Herbert Benson, founder of the Mind/Body Institute in Boston and described by mindfulness expert George Benson. Research shows that the genes being changed by mindfulness and relaxation techniques are the very genes "acting in opposite fashion when people are under stress."

Neurologically speaking, mindfulness translates as "tamping down your own amygdala-driven threat sensors" while listening to your inner voice or to someone else (like a yoga instructor or mindfulness teacher) who is speaking. As you recall, the amygdala is involved in threat-detection in the brain (among other things). If you've been exposed to bullying and abuse, it may well have become overreactive or hypervigilant. You can use mindfulness to calm it down, make it feel more intentional and safe.

Mindful leadership starts at the top and influences all others as the workplace becomes a place where stress is managed through ancient Eastern practices that in the 21st century are backed by extensive scientific research. Healthy brains are mindful brains.