The effects of meditation can exceed what medication can do for an individual. Medication is a tutor who is there to help one better understand the subject material, whereas meditation is the teacher who provides the lesson material. Studies have shown that arts training can open neurological pathways for the high functioning of executive brain activity.
The act of mindfulness is having nonjudgmental attention to experiences in the present moment.
There are two components involved when obtaining mindfulness:
- Regulation of attention in order to obtain immediate experience.
- Approaching one’s experiences with an orientation of curiosity, openness, and acceptance regardless of how desirable they are.
This can be acquired through various meditation practices:
- Walking Meditation
- Sitting Meditation
- Mindful Moments
To break it down even further, there are an array of components interacting with one another when practicing mindfulness meditation:
- Attention Regulation – Focus attention on a single object.
- Body Awareness – Ability to notice bodily functions.
- Emotion Regulation – The alteration of ongoing emotional responses through the action of regulatory responses
- Change in Perspective of the Self – Mental events that occur which lead to the perception of the self.
These components interact with each other like clockwork and lead to enhanced internal awareness, which assists with the mental processing of emotional reactions.
To maintain a mindful state when an emotional reaction occurs is the goal of mindfulness meditation and the process is integrated as such:
- The executive attention system identifies the emotional reaction that causes a conflict with their peaceful state of mind.
- Body awareness detects the physical reactions of the emotional reaction (tense muscles, increased heart rate, shallow breaths)
- The feelings that are acknowledged by body awareness act as a prerequisite for emotion regulation to become engaged.
Now, the first two mechanisms – attention regulation and body awareness – will correlate to open up the individual feeling a sense of exposure. This is where the person will fall back on habitual reactions such as avoidance. However, mindfulness meditation teaches the mind to relax, opening up an opportunity to diminish the habitual reaction to the situation.
The teachings of meditation are notorious for their mental health benefits. People who suffer from a co-occurring disorder (when one suffers from both substance abuse and addiction) are usually taught this art in dual diagnosis treatment centers since it enhances the patient’s body awareness, which emphasizes the effect substance has on their body and what triggers them to use.