The One Meditation Study You Need to Know
“When thinking about life remember this, no amount of anxiety can change the future. And no amount of guilt can solve the past”
-anonymous
I’m an avid daydreamer. I can come up with stories in my head like you wouldn’t believe. The cute guy I sat next to on an airplane once? I had an entire vision of what kind of date we could go on. When I’m driving in my car, I’ve caught myself (on multiple occasions) acting out potential conversations I could have with people. I often have to remind myself not to create stories in my head and to just chill out. “Let everything unfold as it’s meant to” type of thing.
In the same realm as day dreaming, future-tripping is right up my ally as well. It happened just the other day while my sister & I were going for a walk. The lid on my coffee cup was leaking and as a result, stained my brand new white shirt. There were a couple things that happened when this went down. Being the clumsy individual that I am, the “of course this would happen to me” dialogue started running in and you better believe my mind went nuts.
It won’t come out. This shirt is ruined. What a waste of money. Why do these things always happen to me? Continuously asking my sister if she thinks it’ll come out in the wash. Yadda Yadda Yadda. In my head, the relationship between this shirt and I was over. The truth? I hadn’t even tried to fix it yet. I was suffering from anticipatory anxiety.
I got home, used one of those stain remover pens & it disappeared. That’s a whole lot of panic for nothing. But that’s what future-tripping is, right?
It’s projecting a certain outcome on a situation that hasn’t even happened yet. It’s freaking out over a POSSIBILITY. Not even the real thing.
Whenever I start to future-trip, I think of one of my favourite meditation studies.
It was conducted by Dr. Richard J. Davidson at the University of Wisconsin and he set out to measure brain waves & responses to both pain and the threat of pain. It went like this...
He observed the brain patterns of 2 different groups of volunteers…
1 - Non Meditators
2 - Monks that have been meditating their entire lives
In the first round, he took a heated applicator and, without warning, placed it on the arm of the participants. The pain centres of the brain in both the non meditators and the meditating monks lit up….because whose wouldn’t when a hot rod is being placed on your body? Nothing out of the ordinary here. You’re subjected to an uncomfortable situation, your brain reacts.
The second round looked a little different. Before placing the heated applicator on their arm, the facilitators said to the participants; “In 10 seconds, I’m going to be placing this heated applicator on your arm”
What showed up next on the brain scans was fascinating!
The pain centres of the brain in the non meditators lit up immediately, before the heat had even touched them. They were projecting the discomfort of what was to come in 10 seconds & had tricked their bodies into believing it was happening to them in that exact moment. They reacted to the first hint of future pain and therefore, lived it twice.
The brains of the meditating monks on the other hand, when told that exact sentence, remained the same. The pain centres of their brain didn’t light up until the heated applicator was actually touching their skin. They knew the threat wouldn’t arise for another 10 seconds...so why stress about it? They stayed in the present moment and didn’t feel pain when the threat of pain was announced.
What if x, y, z happens, what if this, what if that...it’s so easy to get caught up in possible disasters when an alternative is to take a deep breath. Interrupt our future-tripping. And just leave the future in the future.
Even if you’re hit with the worst case scenario, you’ll deal with it when the time comes. If it’s not your current reality, there is no need to suffer twice.
This is way easier said than done. Trust me, I get it. BUT every time you sit (or lie) down to meditate, you’re helping these pain centres of your brain (in specific the amygdala) get stronger & more resilient. If the meditating monks can do it, so can you!
Want practices that help you stay in the present? My Meditation Library has tons & they are all free, for you.
When was the last time you future-tripped? Were you able to interrupt it? Let me know in the comment section below