How Meditation Helps Depression
– Voltaire
“A lot of what passes for depression these days is nothing more than a body saying that it needs work.”
– Geoffrey Norman
The current research in the scientific world is proving what for centuries, if not millennia, mystics have been saying all along, that meditation is a key step in the process of purifying the body, mind, and spirit. When we examine the power that meditation has over the spirit, the spirit’s influence over the mind, and then the mind’s influence over mental and physical health, it is made plain to us the interconnectedness of all aspects of the complete person. It has long been accepted that we are what we eat, could it also be that we are what we think? How many times do we feel ourselves stuck in psychological patterns, victims to our own emotional addictions? I believe that meditation can have and does have a profound affect on the physical, emotional, and spiritual well being of all individuals. After having experienced periods of mental duress and depression in recent years, I turned to meditation and now yoga to aid me in taking charge of my mind. I will examine the way that our thoughts can affect our mind and body in addition to our spirit by discussing current trends in neuroscience. Then I will explore one example of how meditation is being used by psychologists to break these patterns using a technique called Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. Finally I will discuss my own experience with depression, and how exploring my own spirituality and meditation practice aided me in understanding myself better and then finally gaining control over my life again.
When trying to define meditation and its function in our lives, Donna Farhi states that “Life is not inherently meaningful. We make meaning happen through the attention and care we express through our actions.” I do not think that she presumes to suggest life without meditation and yoga is inherently meaningless, but that as we explore the gradations of what makes our life meaningful and how we attain higher states of meaningfulness, we are greatly enhanced through learning to spend conscious time with our “self.” The practice of this celebration of the spiritual is called Ishvarapranidhana. While it is understood that there are many ways to commune with the divine in yourself, Farhi further states, “âÂ?¦one of the first ways that we can practice Ishvarapranidhana is by putting aside some time each day, even a few minutes, to avail ourselves of an intelligence that is greater than our own.” In the Yoga Sutras, meditation is dealt with in the beginning of the third chapter, where it states, “(3.1) One-pointedness is steadfastness of the mind. (3.2) Unbroken continuation of that mental ability is meditation. (3.3) That same meditation when there is only consciousness of the object of meditation and not of the mind is realization.”
After examining the nature of what meditation is, and before we examine some examples of how it can be used to affect our lives, I would like to switch gears to talk a little bit about the nature of how the body works though an examination of cognitive neuroscience. Cognitive neuroscience is the study of the biological foundations of mental phenomena, further it is a branch of neuroscience that studies the neural mechanisms of cognition. While it is impossible to cover this topic with any completeness, I would like to give a general overview so as to give a working model to the reader on the overall point that science and spirituality are interdisciplinary when it comes to the study of the mind, body, and spirit. We begin by discussing a molecule that is found on the surface of cells in the body called the receptor. This was initially searched for and discovered in the hopes of explaining how drugs take effect on the cell, and thus the body. On the surface of every cell are literally millions of these receptor molecules, broken down into groups for each chemical that the cell is capable of receiving information from. These receptors operate much like a ‘lock and key’ with the receptor acting as a lock, and the ligand serving as a key. In her book The Molecules of Emotion, Candice Pert defines a ligand as ‘âÂ?¦any natural or manmade substance that binds selectively to its own specific receptor on the surface of a cell.” When the ligand finds its corresponding receptor and they merge in union, they activate the function in the cell that the ligand is programmed to deliver. In short, once they are interacted with by their intended chemical key, or ligand, they bring about a release of energy in the cell which can take many forms, anything from a general release of energy, as in euphoria, to an order to divide and create a new cell. ligands are comprised of three basic types; neurotransmitters, steroids, and peptides. The first two are set up as an elaborate communication system from the brain to the individual cells as part of the aforementioned communication system. For the purpose of my paper I will be discussing the effect of the peptides alone in depth.
When we begin to examine Peptides, we begin to see how negative behavior and actions to our mind and body can rewire our brain to a state of addiction, which can then further the breakdown of our bodies on a cellular level. Peptides comprise 95 percent of ligands and are made up of proteins and amino acids. Simply put, if the cell is the machine, the receptors are the levers, and the ligands are the workers who give the orders. Receptors are also responsible for the effect that drugs have on the body. It was discovered that all human made chemicals that affect the body emulated natural compounds that the brain, specifically the Hypothalamus, created naturally for body function, just in often much greater quantity. Due to use and overuse of certain peptides, the cell could begin to build more receptors to certain ligands, and thus pushing out of other, less used receptors. This means that the more you use a receptor, the more of the receptors are created, and the less room that is available for others. Further as this process is happening, the brain rewires the synapses to seek out and create situations that will give the cells what they desire. This creates the basis for drug addiction. If you over sensitize your receptors to Morphine, then the cells will react in such a way when they get it to rewire the brain to become addicted to that ligand so that the receptors on the cell can be used, and thus two things will happen; the body becomes psychologically and physically addicted to the substance at the same time, and given that more and more receptors are created for the ligand, other receptors cease to exist thus disabling the bodies ability to receive things that it may need to. This can bring about the premature aging, and the natural breakdown of the body that often accompanies drug or emotional addiction.
The next phase of research uncovers that scientists began to uncover evidence that ‘experienced emotions’ were also a result of peptides which had their own receptors on the surface of cell structure. When the brain experiences anger, peptides are released into the body and the cells react. It is at this point with a small leap of faith that we can begin to see that not only with narcotics or food, but that our body can become addicted to emotions and strings of emotional responses. Have you ever wondered why you often date people with the same emotional issues? Why you can’t seem to stop certain behavioral patterns? It is because your body has quite literally become addicted to certain emotional states, exactly in the same way it would to certain foods or drugs. As the cells receptors change, the brains neural net is rewired to bring about these sets of events. So when we are not present with our body and mind in each moment, we become more open to our subconscious bringing about these strings of events. We begin to see how meditation can bring the mind to peace, and thus bring our body to better health and well being.
Another approach that meditation is taking in the medical community is how psychologists are using meditation techniques to help people that suffer from depression from experiencing a relapse. This system is called Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, or MBCT. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) combines Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Stress Reduction program with techniques from Cognitive Therapy for patients who are currently in remission from clinical depression. It is generally a group exercise that is aimed at training recovering depression sufferers from relapsing by disengaging themselves from thinking that may lead to relapse. Mindfulness can be defined as paying attention in a concentrated, non-judgmental way to the present moment. This training focuses people not on the content of their negative feelings, but how they are perceived. Through meditation techniques first the patents are taught how to be mindful to everyday thoughts and ideas, and then are exposed on how to bring this to bear on their mental state. This is by no means new, as it covers mainly Buddhist meditation techniques that have been used for thousands of years, but it does bring to bear how this can be directed for the purpose of dealing with the possibility of depression relapse. John D. Teasdale, of the Medical Research Council, (Cognition and brain Sciences Unit) on his theory of Cognitive Therapy (CT) that “âÂ?¦it has been suggested that vulnerability to depression, and relapse, depend not so much on relatively enduring trait-like dysfunctional attitudes as on the patterns of negative thinking that become accessible in a mildly depressed mood.” CT’s model is to change the patterns of negative thinking as activated by a depressed mood.
I have personally gone through dramatic changes across the board in my life. My spiritual journey previous to September 2003 is only important in the manner that it laid the groundwork for what happened to me at that time. Even though during my childhood we were agnostic in nature as a family, I spent a lot of my college years and the years that followed becoming a theological hobbyist. It was not until September of 2003 that I truly opened my mind to an actualized spiritual life. It is not without some irony that my intention to explore this aspect of my life occurred just a month before my fianc�©e left me in a very sudden and hurtful way. At this time I fell into a deep depression, and while I was functional, I suffered a great deal. I explored some different spiritual systems, but in the end I met a new friend who introduced me to Buddhism. After some initial exploration into this fascinating spiritual system, I came to the realization that I did not want to become a Buddhist, but in fact that I had been one all along.
During the first several months of my spiritual practice, I gathered a lot of information on history, methods, and examples of similar people’s practices. It became apparent to me that not only was meditation useful to people in the search for enlightenment, but that search would surely involve getting over depression and anything that was holding a person back. At this time I began in earnest my meditation practice. Meditation for me can take many forms; while I am running, while I am chanting and/or prostrating myself, or while I am sitting quietly clearing my mind. The best analogy I can give people in this age to understand what meditation does for you is to ‘defragment’ the hard drive that is your brain. The more time I spent not thinking about what was troubling me, the less it came back as the primary focus on my mind. On the other hand, what always did come back was all the good work that I was doing. It has had a dramatic effect on my life; first it helped me overcome my depression, further it allowed me to ask a series of very fundamental questions to my life.
Directly due to my meditation practice, I have opened myself up to reevaluating my life and the foundations that I had built it on. I have long respected the ideal of Friedrich Nietzsche when he said “Strike your idols with hammers, as with tuning forks, to see if they are hollow.” But this began to take a whole new force as I began to let go of ‘truths’ that I held static about what I wanted, what would make me happy, and what was important. My experiment with meditation and yoga is ongoing, but it is already apparent to me that it has been invaluable to my personal growth as a person. I have overcome depression, reconnected and been developing my activism, returned to finish school, and cultivated the Buddhist precepts into my heart. Meditation has been the single greatest instigator and enabler of growth in my adult life.
When we ask a question in earnest, we are forced to accept the answer that we are given. I have learned through my research into neuroscience, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, my study of Buddhist meditation, and my personal experiments with my own depression the need for us to practice Ishvarapranidhana in our daily lives. When we understand that our physical body can be shaped and altered by our mental state, our mental state be altered by our spiritual state, and our spiritual state can be shaped and enhanced by our practice of mediation, it becomes apparent the need for us to pay attention to all aspects of our ‘self.’ If when we are not mindful, our brains will seek to fulfill our emotional addictions, we must seek to create behavior that rewires our brain. We must begin to see that whether we are talking about psychological therapy, neuroscience, or spirituality, that meditation and other mindfulness based practices are essential to creating and realizing the interconnectedness of our mind, body, spirit, and all other beings in the world.
Citations
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