An 8-week training in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) meditation can increase attentional focus and seems to impact the alpha brain waves that help filter and organize sensory inputs, improving attentional control.

Meditation’s Effects on Alpha Brain Waves

By Pam Zhang | Posted January 15, 2014



A new study out of Brown University has found that a form of mindfulness meditation known as MBSR may act as a “volume knob” for attention, changing brain wave patterns.
What is MBSR?

Originally developed by a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) is based on mindfulness meditation techniques that have been practiced in some form or another for over two millennia. The 8-week MBSR program still follows some of the same principles of the original Buddhist practice, training followers to focus a “spotlight of attention” on different parts of their body. Eventually, it is hoped, practitioners learn to develop the same awareness of their mental states.

In the last 20 years, MBSR and a similar practice called mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) have been included in an increasing number of healthcare plans in the developed world. Some studies have shown that these practices can reduce distress in individuals chronic pain and decrease risk of relapses into depression.

In this study, Brown University researchers wanted to investigate whether MBSR could have a broader application beyond the clinical realm. Could MBSR impact the alpha brain waves that help filter and organize sensory inputs, improving attentional control?

Study design

Researchers divided the study’s 12 healthy adult participants into two groups: a test group that underwent MBSR training for 8 weeks, and a control group that did not. After 8 weeks, a brain imaging technique known as magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used to measure alpha wave patterns in participants.

While hooked up to the brain scanning equipment, participants were tapped on their hands and feet at random intervals. On average, those who trained with MBSR demonstrated faster and greater alpha wave changes in response to these taps.

How alpha waves affect cognition

Alpha rhythms help filter irrelevant sensory inputs in the brain. Without proper filtering, the ability to carry out many basic cognitive operations can be crippled.

Imagine the simple task of backing a car out of the driveway. In order to reach the street safely, you must hold your destination in mind while steering and ignoring distractions from every modality: news on the radio, children playing at the end of the block, an itch on your foot, the glare of the sun in your eyes. Most people filter out these distractions subconsciously — but should irrelevant stimuli distract you, backing out can become a difficult ordeal.

This Brown University study is in line with other research on meditation, confirming previous findings that link enhanced attentional performance and fewer errors in tests of visual attention with meditation. While it’s still too early to declare meditation a cure-all for everything from attentional control to chronic pain, it’ll be fascinating to see what future research uncovers about this millennia-old tradition’s impact on the brain.


About Pam Zhang

Pam Zhang studied Creative Nonfiction Writing and Cognitive Science at Brown University (and a smattering of Egyptology too). All this has left her with an itch for unearthing all the weird and wonderful connections between our brains, our bodies, and our ideas of self. Now writing for Lumos Labs, she'd like to know what facets of neuroscience you want to read about!

Tricycle - The Mindful Manifesto: An Interview with Ed Halliwell

This interview with Ed Halliwell on the book he co-wrote with Dr. Jonty Heaversedge, The Mindful Manifesto: How Doing Less and Noticing More Can Help Us Thrive in a Stressed-Out World, was featured a week or two ago in the Daily Dharma, and the full interview/article remains available to non-subscribers (for the time being).

The Mind Manifesto web page has additional material and resources for those who are interested.

The Mindful Manifesto: An Interview with Ed Halliwell

Posted by Sam Mowe on 16 Jul 2012 

Mindfulness isn't just for Buddhists anymore; you can find it in hospitals, schools, prisons, and in some of today’s largest corporations. It is being used to help people quell their cravings, find emotional balance, eat healthier, and even to fall asleep at night.

All of these things are well and good, of course, but there's a question worth considering: Is anything lost when we remove mindfulness meditation from a Buddhist context?

In this interview with writer and mindfulness teacher Ed Halliwell we explore the ins and outs of mindfulness. We discuss the definition and benefits of mindfulness practice, whether it's the same in Buddhist and secular contexts, and Halliwell's new book (along with co-author Dr. Jonty Heaversedge) The Mindful Manifesto.

What is mindfulness? The way we're using the word in The Mindful Manifesto, which is in line with what's taught in most secular mindfulness-based courses, it means paying attention to what's happening in our bodies, minds, and the environment in a manner that's open-hearted, aware of but not caught up in our habitual patterns of thoughts, emotions and behavior. It's knowing what's happening as  it's happening, and learning from that in a way that leads us to act from a place of greater skill, choice and compassion. Having said that, I think definitions can be a little tricky when it comes to mindfulness, as we're referring to a quality that can only be really understood as an experience rather than a concept.

As you note in the book, mindfulness practice has deep roots in the Buddhist tradition. However, it is being used increasingly in secular settings—schools, prisons, hospitals, etc. What are the benefits of mindfulness going mainstream? The most obvious benefit is that a lot of people who would probably not have been drawn to practice meditation are now doing so, and many of them seem to be finding it helpful. Most people who sign up to a mindfulness-based stress reduction or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy course would not have gone along to their local Buddhist center (if there is one), or if they have, they perhaps haven't felt this was the approach for them. Meditation practice presented as a way to well-being within a secular, psychological, mind-body-health perspective sometimes connects for people who might find learning in a Buddhist context too alien, too religious, or too institutionalized for them. I think it's wonderful that they are finding a route to practice that works for them.

I also think the scientific rigor which is being brought to studying mindfulness-based approaches is very helpful. We now have good evidence that mindfulness courses help people work with stress more effectively, develop attention skills, and maintain physical and mental well-being, as well as cultivating greater empathy and compassion. Scientifically-minded people who might previously have dismissed meditation as irrational, flaky or new-age are becoming convinced that it can be usefully taught and practiced as a way to help people and communities become happier and healthier. Science is a main mode of validation in our culture, and a result of all this research is that areas such as healthcare, education, and workplaces are now opening up to meditation as something worth exploring.

I think the science is good for understanding what's happening when we meditate, too. We are starting to know more about what's going on in the brain and body when we practice, and what the studies suggest seems to correlate with what meditators have reported for thousands of years, which perhaps helps build confidence in the value of meditation. Knowing what we're doing in this way may also help us cultivate precision in what and how we practice. In these ways, the scientific mode of inquiry is an excellent complement to the first person mode of inquiry that we engage in when we actually meditate.

Are there any possible cons? Yes, I think there’s the potential for mindfulness to become diluted and separated from other key aspects of a contemplative path—such as ethics, the understanding of impermanence or emptiness, loving-kindness or other aspects of wisdom traditionally cultivated as part of, say, a Buddhist training. As more and more people start to practice and teach mindfulness who perhaps don't have any background in Buddhism or another meditative tradition, there's a risk that we lose some of the depth and insight that has been cultivated and passed down through the generations, and this could become just another self-help movement, aimed at personal betterment, rather than a deep letting go of self, which is actually what really produces such a change in our experience of well-being.

As mindfulness is increasingly presented in a western framework—science, psychology, meeting healthcare targets, business goals and so on—if we're not careful we could begin to lose the radical essence of what's actually being taught, and turn it into a patching up of our egos, a watered down, even perverted version of what meditation training traditionally leads us towards. I think a certain amount of this is inevitable (indeed, don't most of us end up falling into this trap with our practice?), but as mindfulness moves into the mainstream, will there be enough people willing and able to notice that it's happening, and  draw attention to it?

Having said that, my sense is that most of the people who are pioneering this movement are deeply concerned to maintain the integrity of what's being offered, shepherding its direction without also falling into the trap of trying tightly to control it. It may sound like what's being offered is a one-fold path, but actually the other seven spokes of the wheel are implicit, if not explicit, in a good mindfulness course, and participants also start to discover and be drawn to them for themselves, as they connect with their own mindfulness, their own wisdom. People report becoming kinder, more ethical, more skillful in their words and behavior as they start to see things more clearly. I also think that the truth is ego-proof: as soon as we stop practicing the essence of the dharma, we won't be able to access its power, and all these remarkable effects people report from going on a mindfulness course will stop happening in the same way. So there's a kind of in-built protection. The challenge, and it's an interesting and exciting one, is to be able to find the skillful means to share the wonders and difficulties of mindfulness and a contemplative path with people in a way they can relate to, without watering it down or bastardizing it, accommodating it to our cultural neuroses.

You say that one reason that mindfulness has gone mainstream is because of science. We're finding out that there are measurable benefits to practicing. But let's say that tomorrow all the science was proven false—that scientists said "actually we don't know what mindfulness mediation does to practitioners." Unlikely as that is, if it happened, would you still practice? Well, I started practicing meditation before I knew about any of the science, and I'm pretty sure I'd still be meditating if there was no science now, because my own experience has been so powerful. I can see, feel, taste and touch the benefits of practice on my mind, body, and relationships with others and the world. So, for me, the scientific evidence for meditation is a useful confirmation of that first-person experience—it suggests my mind isn't deceiving me. But if scientists said 'we don't know what's happening when you meditate' (which, incidentally, is still very largely the case in many aspects!), then yes, I'd still practice. Science is an observer at the material level, and it's a really important part of the story, but my own experience of meditation is much richer and deeper than just the quieting down of my amygdala, or some other scientifically observed process.

However, if there was lots of science which suggested meditation was generally harmful or ineffectual, then that would give me an interesting pause for reflection. I would be puzzled, because it would be so contrary to my experience, and I think I would be prompted to ask some questions about both the science and my experience, to see if it was possible to understand this discrepancy. So far, what is being observed scientifically with meditation seems very much in line what most people report when they practice.

For some people, the science can lead them into a practice when they might otherwise have been skeptical, say, of first person reports like mine. Even so, I still suspect that once people engage with meditation, it's the experience of something shifting, or unfolding in themselves that really convinces that this is worthwhile, rather than the promise of a smaller amygdala, or even reduced stress. Indeed, focus on a future goal like that can really get in the way of meditation practice...

What is the difference between mindfulness as it's used in secular mindfulness-based courses and as it's used in a Buddhist context?

Go read the rest of the interview.