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“Altered Traits �� Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body�� by Daniel Goleman (Author of the Bestselling Books on Emotional Intelligence/Psychologist) & Richard Davidson (Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry/Director and Founder of Centre for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison)

“Science operates within a web of culture-bound assumptions that limit our view of what is possible, most powerfully for the behavioural sciences. Modern psychology had known that Eastern systems offer means to transform a person’s very being. When we looked through that alternate Eastern lens, we saw fresh possibilities.��

In “Altered Traits �� Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body��, the authors Daniel Goleman (Author of the Bestselling Books on Emotional Intelligence/Psychologist) & Richard Davidson (Research Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry/Director and Founder of Centre for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison) present hundreds of highly controlled and designed research studies carried out around the world to highlight that various meditation practices can be used to change neural connections in the brain to have positive functional and behavioural impacts on the meditator. They reiterate in the text the need to have long hours of quality practice in the order of thousands especially to have a lasting/trait effect. One of the main aims of the authors is to identify the means of using variants of “deep�� meditative practices carried out by long-term, full-time practitioners for the benefits of “wider�� masses in developing healthy minds/behaviours and overall well-being.

Two of the common attention related meditative practices are referred to as focused-attention meditation and open-presence/attention/awareness (mindfulness) meditation. In the former, the meditator focuses on a single object such as the breadth while in the latter, he/she attempts to focus on whatever that comes to his/her mind such as an emotion or a thought. In these attention-related practices, the meditator constantly keeps track of his/her attention, and if he/she finds attention wandering, he/she uses that meta-awareness to bring the attention back onto the object of focus. The ability to control our attention and develop meta-awareness is crucial for any learning we do �� in fact, the main task of any learning is to get our attention on the object of learning voluntarily. The research listed by the authors have shown that we develop our capacities of cognitive control to select an object and focus (selective attention) in a sustained manner ((by reducing mind wandering). Such sustained attention is shown to enhance our working memories that in turn help in creating lasting/long-term memories. Moreover, the authors highlight a phenomenon known as attentional blink, a measure that helps one to develop sharper attention by identifying differences in a series of objects presented (by reducing attentional blink). Long-term meditators also showed the capacities to focus deeply and fully on the present moments, minimising features such as rumination on the past or future with an inverted V level of attention. Another feature they demonstrated was the effortlessness in the capacities to pay attention to a selected item indicating the use of less brain/cortical resources (or efficient use) for doing it

Another useful and common type of meditation is loving-kindness/compassion meditation. These practices are shown to enhance meditator’s capacities to empathise with others when they are in difficult situations. Also, long-term meditators demonstrated a trait of a higher level of preparedness to help those in need or for engaging in the greater good than the meditators with less number of hours. A higher level of activity was shown in the brain’s radar organ of the amygdala for such preparedness in the long-term meditators (with focused- attention meditation, the amygdala activity was reduced helping to minimise mind wandering). Some empathy-related neural firing was also shown to resonate with other body parts such as the heart validating our longstanding belief of having a “good heart�� when we are compassionate. Further, psychological conditions such as kindness, empathy and compassion are shown to minimise the impacts of negative ones such as anger, depression and stress thus enhancing the meditators immune system and overall well-being by minimising proneness to inflammation and unhealthy attachments such as cravings (for examples for some food, alcohol and drugs etc.). Usually, the negative psychological conditions are associated with involvement of the so-called default network/mode/self-system of the brain that becomes activated when one is idling or not focusing on any specific object/function, and this default mode is more prone to focus on negative thoughts/emotions one may possess.

One interesting and surprising observation authors made in their research with long-term meditators was the generation of higher frequency (than normal) gamma waves in the brain during their open presence and compassion meditation activities. The main feature of gamma waves is the ability to synchronise many regions of the brain for highly efficient information processing such as generating insights. Non or novel meditators are also capable of generating gamma waves, but they last only for a fraction of a second while for long-term meditators could have them for minutes. Even more, the long-term meditators showed to have gamma waves generated during their sleep indicating a possible state of “awakening�� round the clock. Another observation the authors made in their research was the abilities of long-term meditators have open-presence/attention to whatever that comes to their mind, accomplished possibly by the non-judgemental (without rumination on the past and future) way of paying attention. The authors also highlighted the notions of neuroplasticity and epigenetics they validated from their research. The two phenomena relate the brain’s capacity to change (or develop new neural networks while removing unused ones) based on the experience the individual undergoes. That is, we do not want to keep debating on whether a person’s capabilities are a matter of nature or nurture. The notion of epigenetics relates gene expression made possible by appropriate experiences while suppressing some others when relevant experiences are not present. Further, the text brings to our attention that, open-attention/mindfulness and loving-kindness/compassion meditative practices were successfully used in an evidence-based manner for overcoming/healing depressive disorders and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) respectively.

“The faculty of bringing back a wandering attention over and over again is the very root of judgement, character and will…an education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.�� William James �� Father of modern psychology

As an educator, I see some great insights emerging from this text. One of the fundamental capabilities we need to develop in learners is to get them to pay attention/focus (for content by reading/seeing, presentations by listening etc.) despite there is a tendency for mind wandering, especially for the contents perceived to be difficult. In other words, we need to encourage learners to persevere in engagement in the content/learning until a clearer understanding is achieved. Learners can also be directed to practice paying attention by asking them to focus on their breathing. Also, learners can be encouraged to practice open presence/attention by being open to whatever that comes to one’s mind through reading/seeing experiencing/hearing in a non-judgemental way with an intrinsic motivation to learn or developing an understanding that such practices help one in lifelong learning, developing a growth mindset, resilience to adverse social/personal situations and overall well-being. Here we highlight the fact that most of our learning is implicit (not explicit/formal as in a classroom or within an institute) and we benefit simply by paying attention/being mindful to our experiences/environments indiscriminately. Reading and journaling can be two prominent areas one can apply open presence/attention at one’s own pace. Loving-kindness/compassion meditation practices are some useful means to develop an understanding or positive feeling of empathy and equanimity. These positive emotions would enable learners to maintain a balanced mental state at an appropriate arousal level in the journey of lifelong learning with a growth mindset.

Finally, we need to commend the authors Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson for giving the public a gem of an evidence-based resource that can be used in many applications whether as learners, employees or leaders.