Melinda Wenner, Special to LiveScience.com
Yahoo.com, Sat Jun 30, 1:35 PM ET
If you name your emotions, you can tame them, according to new research that suggests why meditation works.
Brain scans show that putting negative emotions into words calms the brain's emotion center. That could explain meditation’s purported emotional benefits, because people who meditate often label their negative emotions in an effort to “let them go.”
Psychologists have long believed that people who talk about their feelings have more control over them, but they don't know why it works.
UCLA psychologist Matthew Lieberman and his colleagues hooked 30 people up to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machines, which scan the brain to reveal which parts are active and inactive at any given moment.
They asked the subjects to look at pictures of male or female faces making emotional expressions. Below some of the photos was a choice of words describing the emotion—such as “angry” or “fearful”—or two possible names for the people in the pictures, one male name and one female name.
When presented with these choices, the subjects were asked to pick the most appropriate emotion or gender-appropriate name to fit the face they saw.
When the participants chose labels for the negative emotions, activity in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex region—an area associated with thinking in words about emotional experiences—became more active, whereas activity in the amygdala, a brain region involved in emotional processing, was calmed.
By contrast, when the subjects picked appropriate names for the faces, the brain scans revealed none of these changes—indicating that only emotional labeling makes a difference.
“In the same way you hit the brake when you’re driving when you see a yellow light, when you put feelings into words, you seem to be hitting the brakes on your emotional responses,” Lieberman said of his study, which is detailed in the current issue of Psychological Science.
In a second experiment, 27 of the same subjects completed questionnaires to determine how “mindful” they are.
Meditation and other “mindfulness” techniques are designed to help people pay more attention to their present emotions, thoughts and sensations without reacting strongly to them. Meditators often acknowledge and name their negative emotions in order to “let them go.”
When the team compared brain scans from subjects who had more mindful dispositions to those from subjects who were less mindful, they found a stark difference—the mindful subjects experienced greater activation in the right ventrolateral prefrontral cortex and a greater calming effect in the amygdala after labeling their emotions.
“These findings may help explain the beneficial health effects of mindfulness meditation, and suggest, for the first time, an underlying reason why mindfulness meditation programs improve mood and health,” said David Creswell, a UCLA psychologist who led the second part of the study, which will be detailed in Psychosomatic Medicine.
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* Original Story: Brain Scans Reveal Why Meditation Works
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| "Earth, the only planet with free choice in the Milky Way Galaxy" |
“.. A
billion years ago, they (Pleiadians)
went through a change and they went through a shift, and they had free choice.
Back then, they were the only planet that did in their time, and eventually
they went through a metamorphosis of consciousness. ”
“.. So
again, we tell you that the ones who came to help seed you approximately 100,000
to 200,000 Earth years ago were the Pleiadians who had gone into graduate
status and who had changed consciousness. They had become quantum with free
choice, and you have parts of their DNA within you. ..”
“..You're
surrounded by divine beings who keep you safe and will continue while this
planet of only free choice – the only one at the moment – makes its decision.
You're turning the corner of consciousness and they all know it, for they've
all been through it and they remember it. Oh dear ones, consciousness is
volatile! You've seen it change so slowly, but it's about to change faster.
It's not going to take generations and generations as in the past. Instead,
you're going to see real-time changes. Humans won't wait to have children for
them to grow up and have children. ..”
"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects:
Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla
(Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells,
Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion,
Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals,
Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)
“.. In
time, the quantum factor will be discovered on this planet. When it is, it will
be highly controversial, and it's going to fly in the face of logic and 3D and
the way things work via the scientific method. The ramp-up to all this is
difficult. The old souls in front of me have signed on to work this new energy
and they've waded through lifetimes, just waiting for this. What would you do
as a scientist if the experiments before you had "a mind of their
own"? What would you think if magnetics, gravity and light could only be
assembled in a certain way that created healing and never a destructive
alignment? All this is going to redefine some of the basic forces in the
Universe. Intelligent design is only the first, and even today many astronomers
and physicists still think it's an anomaly.
That will
be the next largest discovery on the planet. It's been held back from you
because it takes a higher vibrating consciousness to create and understand it.
When any planet discovers a quantum energy and is able to use it, you could go
to that planet and know that you will meet high-consciousness entities. This
has never been given to you before that, for within the quantum factor contains
the secret of interplanetary travel using large, entangled states. There are
ways of doing things you never thought could happen. You can throw away your
rocket ships. You're on the edge of that.
..”
“… And so,
dear Human Being, you have the ability to start to return to an energy that you
thought you'd lost, where Human beings are allowed to live longer and it
doesn't destroy the environment. They don't overcrowd themselves because they
can control it through their minds instead of laws... and through wisdom.
Some day you'll meet the star seeds, your Pleiadian sisters and brothers. They're even here now, since they are quantum. You've got Pleiadian ancestors who live a very, very long time in a graduate situation in a planet that went through the test just like yours. And it developed a quantum factor. They have benevolence and they have quantum energy. That's how they get here instantly and return, and they'll never interrupt your free choice. That's also why they don't land and say hello. Instead, they sit and cheer on the sidelines for what you've finally done. They are waiting with you to celebrate the December solstice of 2012... the half way point of the 36 year shift you are in. …”
Some day you'll meet the star seeds, your Pleiadian sisters and brothers. They're even here now, since they are quantum. You've got Pleiadian ancestors who live a very, very long time in a graduate situation in a planet that went through the test just like yours. And it developed a quantum factor. They have benevolence and they have quantum energy. That's how they get here instantly and return, and they'll never interrupt your free choice. That's also why they don't land and say hello. Instead, they sit and cheer on the sidelines for what you've finally done. They are waiting with you to celebrate the December solstice of 2012... the half way point of the 36 year shift you are in. …”
The Key to Life is Balance
UFO's / ET's
One of the first of many UFO photographs taken by Carlos Diaz-Mexico.
The annual Perseid meteor shower
Google: The annual Perseid meteor shower is happening now in today’s doodle on our home page. (11 Aug 2014)
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Brain Scans Reveal Why Meditation Works
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