Age is supposed to bring wisdom, but sometimes we can learn important life lessons from children.

A study by researchers at Jacksonville University and the University of California, Davis, published in the journal Child Development, showed that even kindergarteners know that thinking positively will make you feel better.

In the study, researchers looked at 90 kids from five to ten years of age. The children listened to six illustrated stories in which two characters feel the same emotion after experiencing something positive (getting a new puppy), negative (spilling milk), or ambiguous (meeting a new teacher).

Following each experience, one character has a separate optimistic thought, framing the event in a positive light, and the other has a separate pessimistic thought, putting the event in a negative light. Researchers described the subsequent thoughts verbally, then asked the children to judge each character’s emotions and provide an explanation for those emotions. They were most interested in the degree to which children predicted different emotions for two characters in the same situation.

Children as young as five predicted that people would feel better after thinking positive thoughts than they would after thinking negative thoughts. They showed the strongest insight about the influence of positive versus negative thoughts on emotions in ambiguous situations. And there was significant development in the children’s understanding about the emotion-feeling link as they grew older.

The researchers gave a similar test to the subject’s parents and found that while the children’s innate level of hope and optimism played a role in their ability to understand the power of positive thinking, their parents’ views on the topic played an even larger part.

“The strongest predictor of children’s knowledge about the benefits of positive thinking – besides age – was not the child’s own level of hope and optimism, but their parents’,” reported Christi Bamford, assistant professor of psychology at Jacksonville University, who led the study when she was at the University of California, Davis.

The findings point to parents’ role in helping children learn how to use positive thinking to feel better when things get tough, Bamford noted. “In short, parents should consider modeling how to look on the bright side.”

by Terry A. Rondberg, DC, president, World Chiropractic Alliance

I’ve written often before about the many physical, mental and emotional benefits of meditation (see list of previous posts below), so it’s of great interest that another research study has added to the mountain of evidence.

The latest, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that being able to focus on the present moment triggers specific brain activity that can impact on health and well-being.

“Many philosophical and contemplative traditions teach that ‘living in the moment’ increases happiness,” the investigators concluded. “However, the default mode of humans appears to be that of mind-wandering, which correlates with unhappiness, and with activation in a network of brain areas associated with self-referential processing.”

They studied brain activity in experienced meditators who engaged in different forms of meditation (Concentration, Loving-Kindness, Choiceless Awareness).

“We found that the main nodes of the default-mode network (medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices) were relatively deactivated in experienced meditators across all meditation types,” they stated. “Furthermore, functional connectivity analysis revealed stronger coupling in experienced meditators between the posterior cingulate, dorsal anterior cingulate, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (regions previously implicated in self-monitoring and cognitive control), both at baseline and during meditation. Our findings demonstrate differences in the default-mode network that are consistent with decreased mind-wandering. As such, these provide a unique understanding of possible neural mechanisms of meditation.”

The research generated quite a bit of online interest, including a report on a CNN Health blog.

“The study does not address the issue of cause: Is meditation changing the brain, or do people who already have these brain patterns get interested in meditation?

‘Emerging data from our group and others suggests that some things thought to be result of meditation might be cause of meditation,’ said Dr. Charles Raison, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

If some people are just better at keeping their minds from wandering, that would also be consistent with the Buddhist idea that your capabilities are the result of your Karmic path, so meditation may be better suited to some people than others, Raison said.

Someday, if brain scans become cheap enough, one day there might be a test to see who can benefit most from mindfulness training, Raison said.

In the meantime, scientists should explore these open questions by doing longitudinal studies, Raison said. That would involve assigning some people to meditate and some people to not meditate, and following the groups over time to see whether a change in brain activity patterns is visible.”

SOURCE: Published online before print November 23, 2011, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1112029108 PNAS November 23, 2011 abstract online

Previous TCJ/WCA Health Update posts on meditation include:

Hypertension patients rejecting medicine in favor of alternatives

Effects of meditation on brain function explored

MDs using ‘mindfulness’ to relieve pain

UCLA focusing on ‘mind-body’ connections

Two years ago, UCLA researchers discovered that specific regions in the brains of long-term meditators were larger and had more gray matter than the brains of individuals in a control group. This suggested that meditation could be good for all of us since our brains naturally get smaller with age.

Now, there’s a follow-up study, which appears in the online edition of the journal NeuroImage,

suggesting that people who meditate also have stronger connections between brain regions and show less age-related brain atrophy. Having stronger connections influences the ability to rapidly relay electrical signals in the brain. Significantly, these effects are evident throughout the brain, not just in specific areas.

Eileen Luders, a visiting assistant professor at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, and colleagues (study co-authors Kristi Clark, Katherine L. Narr and Arthur W. Toga) used a type of brain imaging known as diffusion tensor imaging, or DTI, a fairly new imaging mode that supplies insights into the brain’s structural connectivity. They found that the differences between meditators and controls are not limited to a particular core region of the brain. They involve large-scale networks that include the frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital lobes, and the anterior corpus callosum, as well as limbic structures and the brain stem.

“Our results suggest that long-term meditators have white-matter fibers that are either more numerous, more dense or more insulated throughout the brain,” Prof. Luders said. “We also found that the normal age-related decline of white-matter tissue is considerably reduced in active meditation practitioners.”

The study consisted of 27 active meditation practitioners (average age 52) and 27 control subjects, who were matched by age and sex. The meditation and the control groups each consisted of 11 men and 16 women whose meditation practice spanned 5 to 46 years. Self-reported meditation styles included Shamatha, Vipassana, and Zazen, styles that were practiced by about 55% of the meditators, either exclusively or in combination with other styles.

Results showed distinct structural connectivity in meditators throughout the entire brain’s pathways. The greatest differences between the two groups were observed within the corticospinal tract (a collection of axons that travel between the cerebral cortex of the brain and the spinal cord), the superior longitudinal fasciculus (long bi-directional bundles of neurons connecting the front and the back of the cerebrum), and the uncinate fasciculus (white matter that connects parts of the limbic system, such as the hippocampus and amygdala, with the frontal cortex).

“It is possible that actively meditating, especially over a long period of time, can induce changes on a micro-anatomical level,” said Luders, herself a meditator.

As a consequence, she said, the strength of fiber connections in meditators may increase and possibly lead to the macroscopic effects seen by DTI.

“Meditation, however, might not only cause changes in brain anatomy by inducing growth but also by preventing reduction,” Luders noted. “That is, if practiced regularly and over years, meditation may slow down aging-related brain atrophy, perhaps by positively affecting the immune system.”

But – there’s a “but.” While it’s tempting to assume the differences between the two groups constitute actual meditation-induced effects, nature versus nurture remains the unanswered question.

“It’s possible that meditators might have brains that are fundamentally different to begin with,” Luders said. “For example, a particular brain anatomy may have drawn an individual to meditation or helped maintain an ongoing practice – meaning that the enhanced fiber connectivity in meditators constitutes a predisposition towards meditation, rather than being the consequence of the practice.”

Still, she said, “Meditation appears to be a powerful mental exercise with the potential to change the physical structure of the brain at large. Collecting evidence that active, frequent and regular meditation practices cause alterations of white-matter fiber tracts that are profound and sustainable may become relevant for patient populations suffering from axonal demyelination and white-matter atrophy.”

Luders said, however, that more research is needed before taking meditation into clinical trial studies.

SOURCES: “Enhanced brain connectivity in long-term meditation practitioners,” NeuroImage Volume 57, Issue 4, 15 August 2011. ABSTRACT

“Is meditation the push-up for the brain?” University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences

The UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness (UCSD CFM) at UC San Diego Health System has begun offering a novel program to help people dealing with chronic pain “train their brains” to lessen their experience of discomfort, and in some cases, eliminate it. Called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), the in-depth eight-week program helps participants learn to better manage their experience of pain through diverse techniques such as guided meditation, gentle yoga, and breathing exercises.

“Cancer patients and those who suffer from chronic conditions, such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease, often deal with cycles of pain that do not respond well to medications,” said Steven Hickman, PsyD, director of the Center for Mindfulness and assistant clinical professor in the UC San Diego Department of Psychiatry. “With MBSR, we teach students how to use their brain to work differently with pain and increase mobility.”

Hickman suggests that the experience of pain and illness varies widely from patient to patient, for reasons that are not always objective or physically explainable. The answer, he believes, comes from the emotional distress that is provoked and manifested differently in each person.

“Given two patients with the same disease or type of injury, we know from experience that they may report wildly different levels of pain. If this difference can’t be explained by medical reasons, it must be something else,” said Hickman. “One person may be angry or afraid, and the other is stoic and reserved, yet each has different amounts of physical pain. Recognizing this difference is crucial to the relief of suffering, because it means that at least part of the perception of pain is how you relate to it.”

According to Hickman, the relationship with pain and disease is cultivated and maintained in the mind so the mind is the logical place to go to potentially change that relationship in a healthier direction.

Lorraine Chase decided to try MBSR after her doctor recommended it as a way to manage her tinnitus, a condition involving a chronic ringing in the ears. At first, she was skeptical. Although familiar with meditation, she wasn’t sure why being mindful of pain or ringing in the ears would have any benefit. Six months after going through the training with Hickman, she began to notice the results when she ceased having migraine headaches. Later, when diagnosed with breast cancer, she used what she had learned from MBSR to help her make difficult treatment decisions.

“Instead of wasting energy on being angry about having cancer, I decided to spend my energy on getting well,” said Chase.

As many people do when they aren’t feeling well, Chase would often get angry when she got sick. Through mindfulness training she came to understand how one chooses to deal with pain can make a difference on how one perceives pain. “Mindfulness helps relieve the suffering of the pain without changing the fact of the pain. I might say to my doctor that I’m in constant pain but when I go into mindfulness, when I really listen to myself, I realize that, yes, I’m in pain but it changes, it moves, it might flare but it’s not constant,” she added.

Constant pain was something that Bonnie Cohen Rooney was facing after experiencing a series of spinal surgeries in 2000 that included a prolonged stint in the ICU. At 46, Cohen Rooney, a self-described active “high achiever,” found herself overwhelmed with pain, fear, and uncertainty about her future. Through MBSR training, she learned several strategies to deal with pain including how to use breath to control it. By imagining her breath as a healing force, Cohen Rooney found she could relax her body and “release pain” while turning down its intensity.

“I close my eyes and turn my attention inward and focus on the breath,” said Cohen Rooney. “I visualize that the air being breathed in brings with it healing and calm and the exhaling breath releases the pain and the tension. My body relaxes and a sense of tranquility follows.”

Hickman said that the MBSR techniques are helpful in regard to dealing with issues of food and eating, recovering from addiction, attention deficit disorder, anxiety and general stress.

SOURCE: “Chronic Pain? MBSR Can Train the Brain,” news release, University of California, 6/15/2011

A new emphasis on the link between the way we think and how our bodies feel echoes what chiropractors have been saying for more than a century, that health comes from “the inside-out.”

While the medical industry focuses on treating disease, DCs aim at allowing the brain and neurologic activity to regulate function to achieve wellness. Increased use of non-drug interventions reflects the changing public attitude toward health.

Investigators at UCLA’s Center for Neurobiology of Stress have been studying the links between the brain and digestive system in the development and treatment of common chronic digestive disorders in adults and children.

And now, supported by the Gerald Oppenheimer Family Foundation, the center will expand its activities to include research into brain-body interactions in other chronic medical disorders and the biology underlying mind-based therapies. In recognition of this support, the center has been renamed the Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress.

The center’s new 5,500-square-foot facility on the UCLA campus features labs and clinic areas and houses 30 faculty members and staff. Supported by $4 million in annual federal grants, the center will receive additional funds from the Oppenheimer family’s 2002 gift of $9.6 million, directed to underwrite both the center and the UCLA Center for East–West Medicine. Half of the gift has been established as an endowment to meet these programs’ long-term objectives.

The endowment will help investigators at the Oppenheimer Center to explore mind-brain-body interactions in several stress-sensitive conditions including: persistent pain disorders, such as irritable bowel syndrome and interstitial cystitis; obesity; inflammatory diseases of the liver and intestine; and chronic cardiovascular disorders. It also will aid studies of the biological mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of various mind-body therapies.

“Traditionally, doctors believed that the mind and the brain had very little role or impact on chronic medical disorders, including those of the digestive system,” said Dr. Emeran Mayer, the center’s director and a professor of medicine, physiology and psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “This is changing as the field grows. We are very excited to be expanding our research and clinical programs through this generous funding.”

Dr. Mayer and his team are pioneers in the characterization of brain-gut interactions in chronic abdominal pain syndromes such as irritable bowel syndrome. Recent research supports the concept that irritable bowel syndrome patients, like other chronic-pain patients, have alterations in their brain structure, characterized by a remodeling of the connections among different brain regions that play a role in pain modulation.

The researchers have also been leaders in unraveling the biological mechanisms linking stressful life events with gastrointestinal symptoms. Center investigators have begun to examine these brain-body connections in other chronic digestive disorders and in other medical conditions, including cardiovascular diseases.

“We are pleased to support this new field of medicine and research that addresses the mind-body connections and the role of stress in chronic disease and which ultimately may be able to offer more treatment and care options for patients,” said Gail and Jerry Oppenheimer.

Further understanding of brain-gut connections could lead to more mind-body therapies – cognitive behavioral therapy, hypnosis, meditation and yoga, etc. – to relieve chronic conditions. In the future, these may be used in combination with more conventional pharmacologic therapies, increasing the cost-effectiveness of therapeutic approaches to chronic pain.

SOURCE: “UCLA Opens Expanded Center to Study Mind-Brain-Body Links in Chronic Medical Disorders,” press release, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences,6/15/2011