Everyone knows what it feels like to be anxious. Your legs tremble and you feel like throwing up. A more serious culmination of these symptoms, described by many to feel like the loss of breath and a racing mind, are considered to constitute a panic attack.
The definition of anxiety has continued to transform across the ages. Some notable and laughable examples include the “Laudanum” of the Victorians and “Americanitis” of the 19th century. In our day and age, anxiety is highly topical. The different types of anxiety have been classified to encompass four distinct domains:
1.Catastrophic Anxiety
2.Evaluation Anxiety (Social Anxiety)
3.Anxiety Over the Loss of Control
4.Anxiety of Uncertainty
These conditions have risen unmistakably in prevalence: anxiety has become the second most common mental illness following depression, affecting 260 million people around the world. In the current lockdown circumstances, the issue of anxiety is even more critical than ever before.
There are of course biological mechanisms underlying anxiety. One of the most important of these is the activation of the fight or flight response of the sympathetic nervous system. It is believed that the feeling of anxiety is caused specifically by the inability of the prefrontal cortex to inhibit the fear response created by the amygdala. It could also be that faulty levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin are implicated. Although all people have the capacity to feel anxious, it could be that particularly those who are genetically predisposed are the ones most severely affected.
Not only is genetic predisposition to blame, but past experiences are of course also a contributing factor. It has been suggested that past experiences and particularly associations that have been conditioned to facilitate anxious feelings, may constitute changes the structure of the brain.
A question we must now answer is whether we, in our current high energy, stress society, are inadvertently forming some of these anxiety provoking associations within ourselves. Modern electronic triggers are most likely to blame. Social media is undoubtedly another one of the main culprits.
What are Some of the Remedies of Anxiety That Exist Today?
In our current anxiety ridden world, the rise of ineffective “self-medication” based treatments is on the rise. The global use of benzos is at an all-time high. The use of alcohol and marijuana are not far behind in popularity. Instead of improving anxious symptoms, these methods serve only to exacerbate feelings of nervousness in the long term.
However, there do exist certain chemical treatments besides the harmful ones mentioned above that have been demonstrated to mitigate anxiety. Namely, the use of psychedelics as a means to break through the barriers created by repetitive thought patterns has in recent years proven incredibly promising.
Other behavioural treatments have also been reported to be beneficial. Perhaps the best documented long-term remedy for anxiety is exercise. Psychological therapy is another way to ease symptoms. A notable and popular example of such a treatment method is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). The aim of CBT is to equip patients with the tools necessary to make changes to one’s own thought patterns. The idea behind the method is as follows: by focusing on the details of external circumstances instead of the contents of one’s own mind, one is effectively disjointed from the looping thought patterns common to anxiety and depression.
Another, admittedly less popular way of combatting anxiety is by making drastic lifestyle changes. To find out more about this method of anxiety reduction we can turn to Mingyur the monk, who also happens to be an expert in mindfulness meditation.
At the age of 44, Mingyur’s brain looks to be one of someone who is 11 years his junior. What is even more striking is that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of Mingur’s brain shows that the areas which modulate compassion are increasingly engaged compared to the brains of non-meditators. Strangely, the closest point of comparison on the brains of meditators such as Mingur are the brains of those experiencing epileptic seizures. However, while brain activity during seizures is uncontrolled, the pattern of activations in Mingur’s mind are under his intentional control.
But lets step back a moment and reflect on where Mingur’s lifestyle was born. The real story of mindfulness begins in Godhyan India, where the Buddha famously achieved enlightenment underneath the Bodhi tree. The tree is now 2,600 years old and still stands today.
It was of course the Buddha who established the core tenants of Buddhism. These are considered to constitute of eight distinctive steps. The process of the practice is not unlike a goal-oriented sports achievement of sorts.
Many different types of meditation that have arisen from the original Buddhist practices. These include but are not limited to:
1.Transcendental Meditation
2.Dynamic Meditation
3.Religious Meditation
While Buddhists have been practicing mediation for thousands of years, meditation was only popularised in the West in the early 1990’s.
Ok, but How Does Meditation, and by Extension Mindfulness, Even Work?
Some have compared the process of meditation to the behaviour of a turtle. When a turtle is worried, it hides in its shell until the cause of the worry has passed. During meditation, one teach oneself to withdraw deeper into the cause of the worry. This process allows one to internalise the fact that both real life events as well as well as events within the mind are only meaningful if one allow them to control one’s behaviour. Over time, thoughts become entities that are no longer considered commands that must be obeyed, but are instead classified as passing products of the mind. In short, one learns to allow their thoughts and feelings to be just as they are, without assigning any worry or judgement to them. So if a non-meditator may for example thinking “Oh no, panic!”, a meditator may think “Hello panic, welcome.”
But Why are Mingur and Other Mindfulness Experts so Much Better Than the Rest of Us at Controlling Their Minds in This Special Way?
The answer could lie in the Default Mode Network (DMN) – a brain system interspersed throughout the medial temporal lobe, medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, ventral precuneus and parietal cortex. The function of the DMN is to allow humans to recall past selves and to imagine future selves. A wealth of studies has demonstrated that the DMN becomes activated when one is not exerting any particular effort to “think.” It is believed that this system has been designed by evolution to be the mechanism by which humans create an awareness of where they have been and where they might be going. Simultaneously, the DMN is also the same system that facilitates endless rumination over regrets and fears. Therefore, Buddhist call the DMN the “monkey brain” – an evolutionarily designed feature that may no longer be relevant in the modern world.
Research has suggested that DMN activations can be reduced just by drawing one’s attention to the breath, which is a common practice in many different forms of meditation. These same avenues of research have also suggested that while activity of the DMN during meditation is reduced, an increasingly “higher order” brain area becomes increasingly activated. This region is known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and has been closely linked to executive functioning, memory and decision making.
Therefore, the main function of meditation seems to be to equip one with the tools necessary to bring one’s attention away from ruminating over past and future selves, allowing one to focus increasingly on the now.
In short, meditation changes the way we relate to our own experiences, feelings and to the world at large.
WAST WRTNG 