Inspiration Meditation – How Does Meditation Work? by Orna Ross

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Kira Kenley

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Meditation is deep rest for our mind, giving it a break from the onslaught of thoughts and ego-centred feelings.

We have written evidence that for as long as people have lived, or at least for as long as things have been written down, humans have been aware of some essential truths about the human creative spirit that we still haven’t managed to absorb en masse.

Ancient sages, saints and artists knew all about these invisible truths and now cognitive psychology, cosmology, quantum physics and neuroscience are contributing to our understanding of the human creative intelligence and the part meditation plays in creating the conditions for it to flourish.

Some types of meditation might work by affecting the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system. This system regulates many organs and muscles, controlling functions such as heartbeat, sweating, breathing, and digestion. It has two major parts:

• The sympathetic nervous system helps mobilize the body for action. When a person is under stress, it produces the “fight-or-flight response”: the heart rate and breathing rate go up and blood vessels narrow (restricting the flow of blood).
• The parasympathetic nervous system causes the heart rate and breathing rate to slow down, the blood vessels to dilate (improving blood flow), and the flow of digestive juices increases.

It is thought that some types of meditation might work by reducing activity in the sympathetic nervous system and increasing activity in the parasympathetic nervous system.

In one area of research, sophisticated neuroscientific tools are being used to determine whether meditation is associated with significant changes in brain function. A number of researchers believe that these changes account for many of meditation’s effects.

The human brain is the most complex creation on planet earth and humans now have unprecedented access to its mysteries. Newly sophisticated scanning technology that can observe and measure brain function is allowing us unprecedented, neurological access to the mysteries of the  human brain, and how its 100 billion cells together forge an elaborate network of one quadrillion – that’s 1,000,000,000,000,000 – connections, to get us through a typical  heart-beating, lung-expanding, leg-striding, food-and-drink-swallowing, information- and entertainment-consuming day.

The neuroscientific study of meditation is still in its infancy but is already showing how meditation brings about a rest from intellectual activity, a general relaxation of brain processing, an improvement in brain function and an increase in positivity, by noting how the areas of the brain that control these functions light up during scanning.

It is also allowing for analysis of brain wave activity in meditators. Twenty-four hours a day, nerve cells in your brain are generating electrical impulses that fluctuate rhythmically in wave patterns. These wave patterns are classified into four types – beta, alpha, theta and delta – and each pattern correlates to a pattern of thought, your emotion and state of being.

Beta (14-30 Hz) (Awake) Surface Mind. Conscious.

This is what we call normal consciousness. Beta waves correlate to concentration; arousal, alertness and cognition. Higher levels are associated with anxiety & unease; feelings of separation; stress; fight or flight.

Alpha (8-13.9 Hz) (Sleep/Wake Borders) Deep Mind. Access To Subconscious.

We experience these in meditation, in deep relaxation and light trance situations and during pre-sleep and pre-waking drowsiness. Alpha waves correlate to relaxed focus; super-learning; increased serotonin production; increased creativity and flow.

Theta (4-7.9 Hz) (Dreaming REM sleep) Beyond Mind. Subconscious.

We experience these in dreaming sleep, trance and deep meditation. Correlates to increased production of catecholamines (vital for learning and memory); creative brain activity; integrative, emotional experiences; potential change in behavior. Increased retention of learned material; hypnagogic imagery.

Delta (.1-3.9 Hz) (Dreamless sleep) Unconscious.

Human growth hormone released. Deep, trance-like, formless state. Loss of body awareness.

Meditation is closely correlated with alpha and theta brainwaves; the deeper the meditation, the slower and stronger the alpha and theta wave activity in the brain.

Meditation also stimulates the creation of new neural pathways between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, creating the brain balance that induces the high-performance state that scientists call “whole brain functioning”, that athletes call “the zone”, that artists call “flow”.

“This should come as no surprise,” says neurologist Gary Kaplan, trying to put the science into more everyday language. “Because the effortless activity of transcending [required by creativity] is the opposite of the narrowly focused activity of analysis. What we are nurturing [when we meditate] is a direct, unimpeded channel between the conscious mind and the unbounded ground state of the mind, at once infinitely silent and the source of all creative expression. [Meditation is simply allowing the mind to reach its ground state, where we can experience thought at its creation.”

In meditation, the body settles into a stillness as deep as sleep while the mind remains focused.  This allows the deeper dimensions of our minds – what we popularly refer to as the heart and the soul – to surface.

These speak in whispers.  Their intimations – insights, ideas, intuitions –  occasionally break through under normal conditions but more often are drowned out by our chattering, surface, ego mind.  By meditating regularly, we actively seek them out, turning down the volume on the noise of the outer world, on our usual train of thought, allowing us to tune into the wise insights of our own creative consciousness.

Making ourselves available to our deepest mind functions in this way also allows the most profound and pleasing human experiences – peace, joy, love, wellbeing and creative flow – to arise. We can have such experiences without meditation, of course, but they are likely to prove illusive or erratic. Meditation practice allows us regular direct and conscious access, so these experiences become more everyday for us.

Regular meditators testify to being able to enjoy these inner states, even when the outer conditions of life are challenging or painful.

Inspiration Meditation allows us to bring attention to  that part of us which is creative even in times when our outer world might feel far from ‘creative’. We can connect inwardly without reliance on the outer expression of our life in a matter of seconds. Anywhere. Anytime.