Mindfulness To Guard Against Mind-Full Syndrome
In my previous article, I wrote about brain scans done in a lot of studies to evaluate the positive effects from regular mindfulness practice had found that a few parts of the brain including the hippocampus actually thicken with regular mindfulness practice. And the hippocampus plays important roles in learning and memory, it is involved in consolidating information from one’s short–term memory to one’s long-term memory. This thickening of the hippocampus is a stark contrast to the shrinking hippocampus in people with dementia (Witchalls’ paper). People with damages to their hippocampus can experience anterograde amnesia which is the loss of ability to form new memories, although older memories may be safe. When I explained about dementia to lay persons in class, I’ve always simplified this scenario for my audience by comparing it to a full thumb-drive. When a thumb-drive is full, one is unable to save new information onto it although one will still be able to read and retrieve the existing information in it. Hence, when someone has an injury or damage to his/her hippocampus, he/she can have intact memory of the years before the damage / injury including his/her childhood, but unlikely to have much clear memory for anything after the injury / damage. Therefore, it is evident that people with dementia – with a shrinking hippocampus – are able to maintain relatively good memory of their childhood years and the years before the onset of the dementia, and face challenges in forming new memory, short-term memory, including memory of what just happened (one minute ago)… In addition, hippocampus also plays a role in one’s spatial memory that enables navigation. Thus, it is no wonder that people living with dementia do get lost and are likely to become reluctant to go out subsequently.
This article will focus on the simple practice of mindfulness so that you are able to start practising for a thicker hippocampus! First, let me give you a brief definition of mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the focusing on and paying attention to the now, instead of thinking about events that had happened or will be happening or people whom you had had interactions with or whom you will be interacting with. It is the contrary to the popular buzzword “multi-tasking” that we’ve grown to be acquainted with for years or even decades. As a parent, we have to multi-task to get those huge amount of parenting and home-making tasks done. As a worker, we are expected to be able to multi-task. As a caregiver, multi-tasking is again no stranger to us. Even the simple act of thinking about what to do next after the completion of what we are doing at the current moment. And the list goes on…
According to Dr Gregor Lange (senior lecturer at the National University of Singapore’s Department of Psychology), we have been seeing “an epidemic of attention problems across all domains of life” due to multitasking. Hence, it is causing more problems rather than improving your life – a notion that was sold to us for years . As stated in Dr Lange’s article, neuroscientists had found that multitasking is killing productivity, along with the numerous serious negative consequences including making more mistakes and errors, reduced ability to see the bigger picture, completion of tasks at hand in a longer time as you will take a while and some efforts to re-focus and fully get back into a given task every time you turn to something else like thinking about something or a text message, and increased stress. So, if you are multi-tasking on a daily basis, then you will be chronically experiencing stress over the long-run. Many researches had linked chronic stress to increased inflammation in the body which in turn leads to many diseases including Alzheimer’s Disease, a type of dementia.
In Jul 2018, researchers at Johns Hopkins have added to evidence that rising and chronic inflammation as measured by a biomarker in the blood in middle and late age are linked to visible structural changes in the brains of people with poor cognition and dementia. Walker, K. A and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine say their long-term study found that MRI scans of individuals with an increase in inflammation during midlife and that inflammation being maintained until late life showed greater abnormalities in the brain’s white matter structure. Based on the findings of their study on more than 1,500 people, they suggested that efforts made in midlife or earlier to curb inflammation may be key to delaying or preventing cognitive decline in old age.
So, my friends, STOP multitasking now. START practising mindfulness to reduce stress, reduce inflammation and delay or prevent cognitive decline.
When you concentrate on or pay attention to your breathing or be mindful of your breathing in that particular moment, it means that in that same moment you have to abandon the past, show no interest and not think about your family, your work, your responsibilities, commitments, your good or bad times (in childhood), who your parents were, where you live, your grocery shopping, your dinner for tonight. All these – you let them go in that moment. They no longer fill your mind or take up any space in your mind. You empty your mind like emptying your wastepaper bin. You have no history nor baggage when you are focusing on your breathing, but just experiencing the silent peace which accompanies that concentration – that mindfulness. All of us tend to carry (too much) baggage with us, paying full attention to your breathing helps you put down your baggage for that moment. That silence also means no inner commentaries – our unhelpful inner speech – “oh, that was good”, “I don’t like what she had done”, “that behaviour was mean”, “he was uncooperative”, etc… The inner speech that we believe that through which we know the world, but such belief is flawed as this inner speech does not know the world at all. In fact, it often interferes with our actual ability to perceive the world and others as they are, hence, leading to many of our life’s problems. Yet, it is very difficult to turn off this inner speech – our judgements of our world. Mindfulness is a practice of not acting out of this inner speech, but to note and observe.
To start practising mindfulness:
- Decide how long the particular mindfulness session will last (A session can last from 10 breaths, 20 breaths, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, or for as long as you can, etc. Based on my experience teaching mindfulness to people, I recommend 20-30 breaths for a start. ;) But of course, that’s only a recommendation.)
- Set your timer (so that you don’t have to wonder how long it has been, thus, taking your mindfulness away from your breathing)
- Turn your attention inwards
- Pay attention to your breathing
- Know that body sensations, feelings, and thoughts will arise as you try to pay attention to your breathing
- Note and watch your breath, body sensations, feelings, and thoughts
- Without judging them as good or bad
- Without the need to act upon them or change them
- Just bring your attention back to your breathing each time you catch yourself not focusing on your breathing (which you will have to do that pretty often initially, but I assure you that it will decrease over time 🙂 )
If you like to deepen your mindfulness practice, click here.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus
www.memorylossonline.com/glossary/hippocampus.html
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/commentary-multitasking-a-real-productivity-killer-9416272
https://neurosciencenews.com/inflammation-aging-dementia-9501/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5476783/pdf/fnhum-11-00316.pdf
Walker, K. A., et al. (2018). The association of mid-to late-life systemic inflammation with white matter structure in older adults: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study. Neurobiology of Aging, Aug 2018, 68, p.22-33. https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/neurobiology-of-aging/vol/68/suppl/C