Mindfulness refers to the state of being aware of and paying attention to the experience that is occurring at this moment, and the characteristics that have become established.Practical methods for fostering mindfulness are said to enhance health and well-being, and are attracting increasing attention these days.
Mindfulness practices consist of focused meditation that deliberately focuses attention on a particular subject and insight meditation that reveals the experience that is occurring at this moment.Both intensive meditation and insight meditation have been shown to reduce the state of mind wandering that is trapped in something, but with regard to insight meditation, the psychological mechanism and neural basis of being aware of it as it is. Was not clarified.
This time, a research group at Kyoto University conducted a functional connectivity analysis to examine the relationships between brain regions by measuring the brain activity of meditation practitioners during insight meditation with an MRI device.As a result, they found that during insight meditation, the connectivity between the ventral striatum and the retrosplenial cortex, which is thought to be related to the degree of memory retention of one's past experiences, is reduced.This suggests that there may be a psychological mechanism that frees us from memory of our past experiences, behind what we are aware of in the experience that is occurring at this moment.
Given that thinking about the past and future based on one's past experience is a major factor in mind wandering, insight meditation reduces mind wandering through freedom from past experience. , May increase daily health and well-being.In the future, the research group aims to elucidate the neural basis by which insight meditation reduces mind wandering and the mechanism by which health and well-being are enhanced.
Paper information:[Scientific Reports] Open monitoring meditation reduces the involvement of brain regions related to memory function