Your amygdala on mindfulness

How mindful attention on the breath affects emotional regulation - and how much you should practice before you see results

Hey everyone! I hope you have been enjoying the breath-based journey we have been on for a couple weeks, and I hope you don't mind staying on this breath train a little longer because that is what's happening.

For the video this week, I looked at the data from my seven-day Mindfulness of the Breath series to see the most popular one to make my longer video. By far it was the Calming Counting Practice, so do check that out if you enjoyed that one.

For the accompanying article this week, I thought it might be helpful to take a not-too-deep dive into just ONE of the mechanisms (science-speak for "ways" lol) mindfulness affects the brain. I also thought it might be helpful to share with y'all some info on time - specifically how much meditation it takes to start seeing results. So I turned to my favorite trusty open source research resource: Google Scholar!

Next up is a very helpful study I found to help illuminate some key points and help me give y'all some practice recommendations!

Attention to the breath changes amygdala activity after just two weeks of daily meditation

In 2016, a crew of German neuroscientists wanted to investigate how the simple practice of mindful attention to the breath affected emotional regulation. They wanted to investigate this vs the existing research on more lifelong meditators, or mindfulness programs with multiple techniques, which a lot of research had been focusing on. Their study was simple: teach a group to mindfully attend to the breath, have them practice 20 min/day for two weeks, and then test their reactivity to "aversive pictures" while in fMRI brain scanners. The control group got not training but still had to see the aversive pictures (at least blanks were mixed in there too). They also wanted to investigate how parts of the prefrontal cortex interacted with the amygdala during emotion regulation, which had not been clear in the research to date. The amygdala is responsible for our negative emotions - think fear, anger, aversion, hatred. Basically the emotions that aren't super great to feel that we are trying to not feel as strongly when they pop up (in most cases, anyways!).

What they found was striking in a few ways. First, despite only having been practicing for two weeks, the mindful breathers slowed their breathing down when they were presented with the aversive pictures- to the tune of 13.7 cycles per minute vs 17.3 in the control group. They also reported feeling less negative emotions than the control group based on a seven point scale they commented on after every picture.

When it comes to the brain imaging aspect, it gets even more interesting. They found that the simple act of paying attention to the breath decreased amygdala activity, and increased it's interactions (science speak for this is "functional connectivity) with the rest of the brain. Specifically, it increased the amygdala's interconnectivity with parts of the pre-frontal cortex, responsible for self-control and working on tasks. So, mindful breathing decreased amygdala activity as well as it's responsiveness to orders from the prefrontal cortex!!

What this means for your personal practice

I've got a few takeaways for what this means for you and your practice to start benefiting from the emotional regulating benefits of mindful breathing.

• The technique was paying attention to the breath. That's it! If you just practice this one simple technique, you'll reap the benefits
• The meditators practiced for 20 min/day for two weeks to get these results. Even if you just practice for 5 min/day, that's less than two months to get you there
• The aversive stimuli (to provoke emotions to observe regulation) was pictures-what does that remind you of...doomscrolling mayhap? Try a few mindful breaths the whenever you feel jarred by the news you see or read, and you'll be accumulating hella practice reps
• The mindful breathers were prompted before the picture sessions to "breathe like you learned in your training." Reminders encouraged to get you to remember too- maybe those "just breathe" tattoos aren't so cringe-y after all?

One last key finding (and motivation for your practice!)

Before the trial, they had the meditating group complete the Mindful Awareness and Attention Scale to see how mindful they were in general aka "trait mindfulness." Trait mindfulness is what we cultivate every time we practice mindfulness for a few minutes (or more!), which is state mindfulness. It gets higher over time! They did some statistical analysis and found that the meditators with higher trait mindfulness showed even more interconnectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. Want to track your mindfulness as you practice? That link takes you right to the scale to download and use! Fun fact: it is shared on the Greater Good Science Center of UC Berkeley's website, and that is who I did my two-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program with! Feel free to snoop around their website for lots of mindfulness (and other evidence-based well-being) resources.

Getting your mindful breathing reps in

I did a 9 minute video this week with about 7 minutes of practice (between intro and wind-down). Or check out my short videos I did a couple weeks ago, or poke around on the free meditation app Insight Timer for teachers you like (my first track is on there, militaryyogini handle per usual 😉) Lots of options to get going or keep going, y'all! Here's this week's video.

Keep going, keep breathing!

In deep gratitude,

💕Carly

Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter!! If you know anyone who would benefit, I would be delighted if you shared the love and passed it along 🙏

You can find me on YouTube and Instagram with my Military Yogini handle, I'd love to connect with you there!

I greatly appreciate any feedback, comments, or requests for practices/info. I've got a lot of knowledge and skills to share with people, so tell me what ya need and we'll see what I can do!! Simply respond to this email to send me your thoughts 😊