Changing the Brain Takes Time: Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity

Are you feeling discouraged in your mindfulness practice? It can feel very challenging to maintain a regular mindfulness practise especially as a tool for managing mental health. Perhaps you are feeling impatient and “should” be better at it, or experience more obvious results.   The truth is that establishing a mindfulness practice takes time and patience and a resetting of expectations.  

One way we can find the motivation to engage in regular mindfulness practise is to understand what is going on in the brain when we exercise this muscle of attention through meditation.  Research in neuroscience shows us that meditation can change the wiring of our brains. This is so we can regulate emotions and attention with more ease.  

While mindfulness and meditation practices have been around for thousands of years, the field of neuroscience is relatively new. As technology progresses, we develop new ways to observe brain activity. Various kinds of brain imaging give us a peek at how exercising the mind can have an observable effect on the brain, 

Mindfulness Can Change the Brain

A widely cited study by Dr. Sarah Lazar at Harvard University looked at structural change in the brain of participants in an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program. There was also a control group that did not participate.

The study found that mindfulness training resulted in changes in two brain significant brain structures: the hippocampus and the amygdala. To understand why this is significant, we need to look at the role of these structures.

The hippocampus is a structure that is associated with emotion control and storing memories.

The amygdala (also referred to as the “smoke alarm” of the brain ) is a structure in the brain that is associated with fear, anxiety, and stress. It activates our fight-or-flight response when it picks up danger cues from the environment or within

The participants in the study showed thickening in the hippocampus, which is associated with healthier memory consolidation, and decreased grey matter in the amygdala, associated with decreased sensitivity to potential threats.

What is Neuroplasticity?

The study by Sarah Lazar is an example of neuroplasticity, a very important concept for understanding how mindfulness supports our mental health.  Previously, it was believed that the brain was shaped during childhood and would stay the same throughout adult years. 

Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to change with experience as we see in the example above, a phenomenon that continues into adulthood. Neuro refers to neuronal pathways and plastic refers to the ability to be shaped or formed. This is a relatively new concept in our understanding of the brain and offers a lot of hope for the field of mental health.

Our brains have the capacity to shape new pathways throughout life through neurogenesis, the process of creating new neurons, and synaptogenesis where new connections are formed between existing neurons.

The findings in the Harvard Study hint that “mindfulness techniques could reduce stress, not by eliminating the external stressors of everyday life, but by tempering the influence of the brain region responsible for our often out-of-proportion reactions to them.” (Seaver).

Refocus with Mindfulness of Breath

Did learning about neuroplasticity motivate you to start or reinvigorate your meditation practice? The simplest and most foundational practise is mindfulness of the breath.

The reason we start with the breath is that it is always with us and shifts our attention away from habitual thinking to awareness of the body.  The breath is always with us, but we never notice it because the mind prioritizes thinking which often leads to worry and rumination.  

With mindfulness meditation, we use the breath as the anchor point for our attention in the present moment. The goal is not to get rid of thoughts. but to learn how to keep returning to the present moment awareness of the breath with patience and persistence.  As we practise, we learn how to adopt an attitude of interest and “curiosity” to each breath as it comes and goes. Rather than just learning to be good meditators, mindfulness of breath helps us strengthen these compassionate qualities of mind with repetition and practice. This form of brain exercise does get easier. Over time we can foster a gentler stance towards ourselves, even in unpleasant or undesirable states.

As we learn to stay with the breath, we become more familiar with how the mind has a tendency to get pulled away into negative thoughts about the future or the past. This happens to all of us.  When people are struggling with depression or anxiety, these thoughts tend to be persistent in nature and hard to pull away from. 

Manage Expectations

It is important to manage expectations with mindfulness practice for mental health.  Many people give up because they expect to experience “results” and feel better right away.  Just like physical exercise, it takes time and persistence to notice changes in emotional well being and this will change with life circumstances.  We recommend starting with a three-minute meditation and building up to at least 10 minutes of meditation a day.  A regular commitment to regular exercise for your brain and mind will make a difference over the long term and support a more compassionate stance towards yourself.

Check out our short guided meditations to support you with your practice.