But she says the mental impact was more difficult—the feelings of fear and loneliness her new body inspired, not being able to do the things she used to. That drew her to Thailand, where she attended her first meditation retreat. Shapiro, now an author and professor of psychology at Santa Clara University, has conducted two decades of research into the health benefits of mindfulness. In this Tedx Talk from the fall, she talks about her personal journey to learning mindfulness, as well as how meditation and mindfulness can affect our health:
Tedx Talk Highlights:
How self-judgement wreaks havoc No matter how hard I tried my mind kept wandering off. And at this point I really started to judge myself. What is wrong with you? You’re terrible at this. Why are you even here? You’re a fake. And then not only was I judging myself, I start judging everyone, even the monks. Why are they just sitting here, shouldn’t they be doing something? Thankfully a monk from London arrived who spoke English, and as I shared with him my struggles, he looked at me and said, “Oh dear, you’re not practicing mindfulness, you’re practicing judgment, impatience, frustration.” And then he said five words that have never left me: “What you practice grows stronger.” How the neuroplasticity of repeated experiences changes the brain We can actually sculpt and strengthen our synaptic connections based on repeated practice. For example in the famous study of London taxi drivers: the visual spatial mapping part of the brain is bigger, stronger. They’ve been practicing navigating the 25,000 streets of London all day long. When you look at the brains of meditators, the areas related to attention, learning, and compassion grow bigger and stronger. It’s called cortical thickening: the growth of new neurons in response to repeated practice. What we practice grows stronger. Three lessons from 20 years of mindfulness research
Also in this talk:
Veterans, PTSD, and mindfulness How mindfulness helped her cope with a difficult divorce How self-compassion practices are some of the most difficult mindfulness practices
