Now another study shows that mindfulness meditation, even over short periods of time, can actually make a difference in how thick the gray matter is in some parts of the brain. Gray matter is made up of actual nerve cells. Other parts of the brain are the white matter (basically, the connections between brain cells), and other cells that provide a supportive scaffolding for nerve cells and immune functions.

The study shows that just 8 weeks of meditation training made changes in parts of the brain associated with memory (the hippocampus) and complex information integration (the temporoparietal junction).

You don’t need special equipment or even special training to get started with mindfulness meditation, although an experienced teacher may be helpful. You can download meditation training materials off the Internet in a number of sites (check out iTunes). A favorite site of mine is Zencast.org. You can download basic meditation training talks there (free), focused on Zen Buddhism. But you don’t have to be a Buddhist to do mindfulness meditation.

Reference:

Holzel BK et al (2011). Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 191, 36-43. You can read the abstract here.

It’s likely that this kind of thinking is associated with increases in cortisol and immune system markers associated with inflammation. The whole “chemical soup” is neurotoxic. The same chemicals are associated with mental and physical decline in older persons. Younger persons aren’t off the hook, though, because research increasingly shows that cognitive decline starts in early life. As several researchers remarked at the Cognitive Aging Summit two weeks ago, “Aging begins at birth.”

One of the things that sets off URT for many people is a random or casual event or thought. Someone cuts you off on the freeway, or you get stuck in the wrong line at the grocery store, or a co-worker makes a comment that upsets you. It’s at that point that the URT gets going, and it’s at that point that you can do something to stop it.

From the point of view of cognitive therapy, the actual event isn’t so important. It’s the fact that it sets off. or activates, a underlying pattern of thought that some people call a schema.You have a choice: (1) go with the URT, and feel upset, and activate a set of chemical processes that are bad for your brain, or (2) stop by the process and move on (in your mind, or in your life) to something else.

In my previous post, I laid out a three-step plan for dealing with URT. Those steps emphasized being aware of the thoughts, deciding whether thinking about the upsetting event was going to resolve anything, and then making a commitment to dealing with the thoughts.

Here are 5 more steps to deal with irritability and improve your brain fitness:

• Assign yourself  homework: Commit to noticing when you engage in URT at least once a day for a week.
• Pay attention to the event that set you off.
• Decide what the event means to you. Did the comment from a coworker set off worries about how good you are at your job? Did the person on the freeway make you feel as though everyone was down on you? Did the line at the grocery make you feel panicky about getting everything you had to do done?
• Come up with a more reasonable response to what you’re thinking. Maybe say something like, “That person probably didn’t mean to upset me,” or “Even if he or she did that to make me feel bad, I get to choose how I react.”
• Repeat each step at least once a day. The way you think is a habit, and the only way to change a habit is to practice doing something different.

A study from this past summer in the prestigious journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that even 11 hours of a special kind of meditation can’t make a difference in the connections in your brain.

The technique, called “Integrative Body-Mind Training” or IBMT is based in Chinese method. The publications are a little sketchy on the exact details of the procedure, but it involves a combination of mental imagery, breathing, and posture exercises done under the guidance of a “coach,” all while listening to relaxing music.

Researchers at the University of Oregon, including the well-known cognitive neuroscientist Michael Posner as well as IBMT’s founder Yi-Yuan Tang used a neuroimaging technique called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to study changes in the brains of students being trained in IBMT.

Results showed that just 11 hours of training resulted in significant changes in connections to the anterior cingulate cortex, a part of the brain involved in emotion and self-regulation. The researchers had already shown that IBMT increased activity in the anterior cingulate and improved self-regulation. The new study shows that even a brief intervention can actually change connections in the brain.

The implications are that specific types of meditation practice cna improve cognitive functions, such as attention and resistance to distractions. That could add up to better study skills, being more productive, and possibly even better memory.

References:

Tang YY et al. (2010). Short-term meditation induces white matter changes in the anterior cingulate. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107, 15649-15652.

Tang YY et al. (2009). Central and autonomic nervous system interaction is altered by short-term meditation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106, 8865-8870.

Here are five things you can do to improve your brain fitness right now. Each targets one of the key elements of brain fitness or brain training. They’re free and easy to include in other daily activities.

Take a deep breath. Breathing deeply can help improve the level of oxygen in your blood and reduce stress. It’s hard to be tense when you’re taking a deep breath.

Break a habit. While habits are shortcuts we develop to get things done efficiently, they don’t improve brain fitness. Always take one route to work or the grocery store? Try a new one. Exploring what’s around you probably will help your brain form new connections between neurons.

Do mental arithmetic. Look around you and find two numbers. Add them, subtract them, multiply them, divide them.

Focus! Developing better attention may help you improve your memory and probably will help you be less likely to get distracted when you’re doing something. Take a few seconds to pay attention to something around you – look at the chair on other side of the room. Look at its form and color. Could you draw it from memory?

Don’t focus! When your brain is idle, a group of structures in it are activated in something called the default network. Problems in the activation of the default network are associated with brain disorders as different as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s. Making the transition from from focused attention to not attending may help improve your brain fitness.