Science Says Silence Is Much More Important To Our Brains Than We Think

In 2011, the Finish Tourist Board ran a campaign that used silence as a marketing ‘product’. They sort to entice people to visit Finland and experience the beauty of this silent land. They released a series of photographs of single figures in the nature and used the slogan “Silence, Please”. A tag line was added by Simon Anholt, an international country branding consultant, “No talking, but action.”

Eva Kiviranta the manager of the social media for VisitFinland.com said: “We decided, instead of saying that it’s really empty and really quiet and nobody is talking about anything here, let’s embrace it and make it a good thing”.

Finland may be on to something very big. You could be seeing the very beginnings of using silence as a selling point as silence may be becoming more and more attractive. As the world around becomes increasingly loud and cluttered you may find yourself seeking out the reprieve that silent places and silence have to offer. This may be a wise move as studies are showing that silence is much more important to your brains than you might think.

Regenerated brain cells may be just a matter of silence.

 A 2013 study on mice published in the journal Brain, Structure and Function used differed types of noise and silence and monitored the effect the sound and silence had on the brains of the mice. The silence was intended to be the control in the study but what they found was surprising. The scientists discovered that when the mice were exposed to two hours of silence per day they developed new cells in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a region of the brain associated with memory, emotion and learning.

The growth of new cells in the brain does not necessarily translate to tangible health benefits. However, in this instance, researcher Imke Kirste says that the cells appeared to become functioning neurons.

“We saw that silence is really helping the new generated cells to differentiate into neurons, and integrate into the system.”

In this sense silence can quite literally grow your brain.

The brain is actively internalizing and evaluating information during silence

A 2001 study defined a “default mode” of brain function that showed that even when the brain was “resting” it was perpetually active internalizing and evaluating information.

Follow-up research found that the default mode is also used during the process of self-reflection. In 2013, in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Joseph Moran et al. wrote, the brain’s default mode network “is observed most closely during the psychological task of reflecting on one’s personalities and characteristics (self-reflection), rather than during self-recognition, thinking of the self-concept, or thinking about self-esteem, for example.”

When the brain rests it is able to integrate internal and external information into “a conscious workspace,” said Moran and colleagues.

When you are not distracted by noise or goal-orientated tasks, there appears to be a quiet time that allows your conscious workspace to process things. During these periods of silence, your brain has the freedom it needs to discover its place in your internal and external world.

The default mode helps you think about profound things in an imaginative way.

As Herman Melville once wrote, “All profound things and emotions of things are preceded and attended by silence.”

Silence relieves stress and tension.

It has been found that noise can have a pronounced physical effect on our brains resulting in elevated levels of stress hormones. The sound waves reach the brain as electrical signals via the ear. The body reacts to these signals even if it is sleeping. It is thought that the amygdalae (located in the temporal lobes of the brain) which is associated with memory formation and emotion is activated and this causes a release of stress hormones. If you live in a consistently noisy environment that you are likely to experience chronically elevated levels of stress hormones.

A study that was published in 2002 in Psychological Science (Vol. 13, No. 9) examined the effects that the relocation of Munich’s airport had on children’s health and cognition. Gary W. Evans, a professor of human ecology at Cornell University notes that children who are exposed to noise develop a stress response that causes them to ignore the noise. What is of interest is that these children not only ignored harmful stimuli they also ignored stimuli that they should be paying attention to such as speech. 

“This study is among the strongest, probably the most definitive proof that noise – even at levels that do not produce any hearing damage – causes stress and is harmful to humans,” Evans says.

Silence seems to have the opposite effect of the brain to noise. While noise may cause stress and tension silence releases tension in the brain and body. A study published in the journal Heart discovered that two minutes of silence can prove to be even more relaxing than listening to “relaxing” music. They based these findings of changes they noticed in blood pressure and blood circulation in the brain.

Silence replenishes our cognitive resources.

The effect that noise pollution can have on cognitive task performance has been extensively studied. It has been found that noise harms task performance at work and school. It can also be the cause of decreased motivation and an increase in error making.  The cognitive functions most strongly affected by noise are reading attention, memory and problem solving.

Studies have also concluded that children exposed to households or classrooms near airplane flight paths, railways or highways have lower reading scores and are slower in their development of cognitive and language skills.

But it is not all bad news. It is possible for the brain to restore its finite cognitive resources. According to the attention restoration theory when you are in an environment with lower levels of sensory input the brain can ‘recover’ some of its cognitive abilities. In silence the brain is able to let down its sensory guard and restore some of what has been ‘lost’ through excess noise. 

Summation

Traveling to Finland may just well be on your list of things to do. There you may find the silence you need to help your brain. Or, if Finland is a bit out of reach for now, you could simply take a quiet walk in a peaceful place in your neighborhood. This might prove to do you and your brain a world of good.

BY REBECCA BERIS

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Can meditation slow rate of cellular aging? Cognitive stress, mindfulness, and telomeres

Abstract

Understanding the malleable determinants of cellular aging is critical to understanding human longevity. Telomeres may provide a pathway for exploring this question. Telomeres are the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes. The length of telomeres offers insight into mitotic cell and possibly organismal longevity. Telomere length has now been linked to chronic stress exposure and depression. This raises the question of how might cellular aging be modulated by psychological functioning.

We consider two psychological processes or states that are in opposition to one another--threat cognition and mindfulness--and their effects on cellular aging. Psychological stress cognitions, particularly appraisals of threat and ruminative thoughts, can lead to prolonged states of reactivity. In contrast, mindfulness meditation techniques appear to shift cognitive appraisals from threat to challenge, decrease ruminative thought, and reduce stress arousal. Mindfulness may also directly increase positive arousal states.

We review data linking telomere length to cognitive stress and stress arousal and present new data linking cognitive appraisal to telomere length. Given the pattern of associations revealed so far, we propose that some forms of meditation may have salutary effects on telomere length by reducing cognitive stress and stress arousal and increasing positive states of mind and hormonal factors that may promote telomere maintenance. Aspects of this model are currently being tested in ongoing trials of mindfulness meditation

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Out-of-Body Experience Is Traced in the Brain

What happens in the brain when a person has an out-of-body experience? A team of scientists may now have an answer.

In a new study, researchers using a brain scanner and some fancy camera work gave study participants the illusion that their bodies were located in a part of a room other than where they really were. Then, the researchers examined the participants' brain activity, to find out which brain regions were involved in the participants' perceptions about where their body was.

The findings showed that the conscious experience of where one's body is located arises from activity in brain areas involved in feelings of body ownership, as well as regions that contain cells known to be involved in spatial orientation, the researchers said. Earlier work done in animals had showed these cells, dubbed "GPS cells," have a key role in navigation and memory.

The feeling of owning a body "is a very basic experience that most of us take for granted in everyday life," said Dr. Arvid Guterstam, a neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and co-author of the study published today (April 30) in the journal Current Biology. But Guterstam and his colleagues wanted to understand the brain mechanisms that underlie this everyday experience. [Eye Tricks: Gallery of Visual Illusions]

Rubber hands and virtual bodies

In previous experiments, the researchers had explored the feeling of being out of one's body. For example, the researchers developed the so-called "rubber hand illusion," in which a person wearing video goggles sees a rubber hand being stroked, while a researcher strokes the participant's own hand (which is out of sight), producing the feeling that the rubber hand is the participant's own. The researchers have used a similar technique to give people the feeling of having a manikin's body, or even an invisible body, as they described in a report published last week in the journal Scientific Reports.

In the new study, Guterstam and his colleagues wanted to understand the brain mechanisms behind the perception of where one's body is located. Experiments in mice and other animals have shown that neurons called GPS cells are involved in navigating one's body in space (as well as in memory), a finding that was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2014.

These studies have typically involved animals running in a virtual maze, while electrodes are hooked up to their brains. "But we don’t know what the animals perceive," Guterstam told Live Science. To better understand how the process works in people, the researchers scanned the brains of people who were experiencing the illusion of being outside their body, Guterstam said.

Out-of-body experience

In the latest experiment, the participants lay in an MRI scanner while wearing a head-mounted display that showed video from a set of cameras elsewhere in the room. The cameras were positioned to look down on the body of a stranger, while an image of the participant's own body lying inside the scanner was visible in the background.

To produce the out-of-body illusion, the researchers touched the participants' body with a rod while simultaneously touching the stranger's body in the same place, in view of the cameras. For the participants, this technique produces the illusion that their body is in a different part of the room than where it actually is.

"It's a very fascinating experience," Guterstam said. "It takes a couple of touches, and suddenly you actually feel like you're located in another part of the room. Your body feels completely normal — you don't feel as it's floating around," he added.

Then, the researchers analyzed the brain activity in the participants' temporal and parietal lobes, which are involved in spatial perception and the feeling of owning one's body. From this activity, Guterstam and his colleagues decoded the participants' perceived location.

The researchers found that the hippocampus, a region where GPS cells have been found, is involved in figuring out where one's body is. They also found that a brain region called the posterior cingulate cortex is what binds together the feeling of where the self is located with the feeling of owning a body.

The findings could one day lead to a better understanding of what happens in the brains of people with a condition called focal epilepsy, who have seizures that affect only one half of the brain, as well as people with schizophrenia. Out-of-body experiences are more commonly reported by these groups.

It may also help to better understand the effect of the anesthetic drug Ketamine (which is used illegally for recreational purposes), which can induce similar feelings of being removed from one's own body, Guterstam said.

"We don't know what's going on in the brain [in these conditions]," he said, "but this sense of self-location could possibly involve the same brain areas" as those in his study.

by 

Tanya Lewis

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Adult colouring in books in high demand

Colouring in books for adults are the latest phenomenon to hit bookstores throughout the country leading to a shortage.

Adults colouring in pictures for relaxation started in France about 18 months ago as the concept of Mindfulness took hold and seems to have arrived here about three months ago.

Mindfulness, has its roots in Buddhism and is about actively focusing attention on the present without judging it.

Timaru counsellor and Mindfulness facilitator Christine Macfarlane said colouring in, in a busy world with high anxiety, activates the right creative side of the brain.

"It allows you to have space to be, instead of do."

Temuka kindergarten teacher Haylee Darling started colouring in after researching Mindfulness about a year ago.

"I enjoyed the result. It's a simple pleasure."

Depending on how stressed she was will determine how long she will fill In the shapes in her book with coloured pencils.

"Usually for five to 10 minutes or half an hour. "

People may scoff but it was a "fabulous" thing to do, she said.

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"I highly recommend it."

Like many adults who have taken up colouring in, sourcing the books was challenging.

"I'm on a waiting list for one."

Whitcoulls national book manager Joan Mackenzie said the demand was "massive" and the company's suppliers had struggled to keep up.

"It's the biggest phenomenon I have seen since Harry Potter."

The Timaru store was selling between 10 and 20 of the books a day and had a waiting list. Mackenzie expects the Timaru branch to sell about 1000 between now and Christmas.

One of the most sought-after adult books was by Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford who has published intricate picture outlines within pictures. For example, an outline of a fox may have forest flora shaped within its body and puzzles with clues imbedded visually as a narrative. Some New Zealand artists were starting to create books but it would be a while before they were produced. Children's colouring in books were selling by default when the ones the adults wanted were unavailable, Mackenzie said.

Though more women were interested in the pastime than men, Mackenzie knew of the chief executive of a large company who was encouraging all his staff to colour in for relaxation regardless of gender.

"These things do have a life cycle so I think it will be around and dominant into 2016," Mackenzie said.

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5 Keys to Real Happiness From 5 Must-Read Books

Fairytales feed our minds with the enchanted thoughts about finding a situation where our wishes are fulfilled and we live "happily ever after." Contrary to this belief, happiness is not something to go out and find. Happiness is made (with focus and effort) from within. Following the guidance of researchers and masters in wellbeing we can extract these key points:

1. Accept the unfamiliar.

If you only find value in what you know well and ignore or dislike everything unfamiliar, you may be passing up on life's diamonds. Open yourself up to learning new perspectives. "Novelty, or exposing ourselves to new ideas and experiences, promotes the growth of new connections among existing neurons," Daniel J. Siegel explains in Mindsight. Siegel explains how the brain and personality forms and transforms as we incorporate new behaviors. Openness to a new practice such as meditation that focuses on balance and fulfillment can not only give you a new experience, but can change your personality to becoming a harmonious, happy person.

As Bob Dylan puts it, "He not busy being born is busy dying." Life is growth and linked to happiness through the joy of expanding our abilities. For example, learning a new specialty, language or other ability brings greater pleasure than limiting yourself to continuing to only do what you know. Like a coal miner who knows and depends on the value of coal, if he is open to find something "not coal" he may find a diamond.

Open up and expand yourself towards happiness.

2. Activate your intuition.

Not everything is figured out rationally. In fact, sometimes we can use logic to disclaim truth. (Think of the rational belief people once had that the world is flat and had an edge to fall off. Thankfully, someone had an intuition that opened up new territories. )

For those of us that have been so schooled to only trust knowledge that comes from books or backed by scientific studies, we could access meaningful wisdom by listening to intuition. "The intuitive way of perceiving has always put me in touch with the effortless, truly joyful nature of life and showed me how, when we approach our experiences with childlike innocence and awe, miracles abound," delights Penny Peirce, intuitive development trainer in the introduction of her book, The Intuitive Way.

Learning the wisdom you have inside can begin filling you with joy.

3. Mindfully sort through information.

We are constantly bombarded with information. Deciding what we take in either moves us toward happiness of derails us into depression. Be conscious of the underlying direction of the information that you take in from the books you read, shows you watch and conversations that you participate in. Ask yourself, "Is the message here moving me towards hopefulness and compassion or hopelessness, fear and anger?"

Hope and compassion encourages us to connect into viable support systems with others, allowing for greater possibilities in collaboration. "Mindfulness can also be described as compassion, because it is an empathetic awareness," as explained in the book, Mindfulness by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Jon Kabat-Zinn. The authors, professors and researchers in psychology and medicine, explain that depression is overcome by empathetic awareness. When we create bonds of caring with others, those bonds build our secure sense of self.

Stories, real or fiction, that describe love and caring stimulate our internal position to the mindful compassionate state of being. Choose to expose yourself to the friends, news, shows, books and other media that convey hopeful accounts.

4. Use language carefully.

What we say forms our thinking and eventually our actions. For those who speak different languages, you know that a different way of thinking accommodates the tongue.

In the English language we experience words that call for harmony from Martin Luther King Jr, words that inspire courage from Winston Churchill and words that evoke passion from William Shakespeare. In our personal lives, we recall encouraging words of a parent, teacher or coach that carry us through challenges. We probably recall how a criticism was phrased in a supportive way or in a style that crushed us.

The language we use to describe others and ourselves forms thoughts and behaviors that shift our identity. "Words will and do influence your actions. They start the painting of your self-projection to others and reinforce this image within," David Fastiggi reminds us in Your True Identity. We tend to follow the words we say about ourselves into becoming our personality.

5. Appreciate who you are.

Recognize the positives of your qualities. All qualities have a plus side and aspects that can irritate others. Instead of focusing on wanting to change your qualities, change the way you use your qualities. Appreciating yourself facilitates your ability to love, respect and value others as well.

"Everything, even your success issues and your circumstances, boils down to whether you are in an internal state of fear or an internal state of love," Alexander Loyd clarifies in his recently released book, Beyond Willpower: The Secret Principle to Achieve Success in Life, Love and Happiness. Compassionate acceptance of yourself with love frees you to make choices towards fulfillment and happiness. The small choices we make based on love or fear accumulate to the life we build. Therefore love yourself.

AND as you appreciate who you are, do the same for others. We are mirrors to one another.

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Mindfulness. You may be reading about or hearing this word more often. While the word is not new, its usage among the general population as well as within education is on the rise. In essence, it is a state of mind which is achieved by focusing our awareness on the present moment while calmly acknowledging and accepting our feelings, thoughts and physical sensations. Originally intended as a means of therapy, mindfulness, today, is becoming more of a way of life. We are, after all, the sum total of our thoughts. Our thoughts affect the way we feel by producing chemicals, such as serotonin, which regulate our mood.

What more people are beginning to realize is that if our thoughts affect the way we feel, and we ultimately choose the thoughts about which we think, we can ultimately affect how we feel by focusing upon choosing the correct thoughts. Scientifically, this is accurate. However, humans are not as simple as that. While we do choose what to think about, we do so mostly without thinking. What does that mean, you ask? Quite simply, most of what we think about has become a habit of thinking. Take the optimists, for instance. They see the good in life and people. They are generally happy, content and fulfilled. Were they born optimists, or are they just so used to thinking that way that it has become a habit? While we are certainly born with certain genetic predispositions, most of us are the results of our environment; especially the one in which we were raised.

Mindfulness is all about our reconnecting to ourselves to our true desires, dreams and ambitions while becoming aware of how our thoughts are affecting our view of life. Let's face it, we all wish for a life of peace, harmony and fulfillment. Our brains are bombarded, though, every day by the news, the media and our culture. We chase after things in the belief that they will be the conduit of happiness, but the reality is they will not. Things collect dust and wind up in garage sales. But mindfulness brings us into the infinite world of our inner selves. It allows for us to foster and cultivate appreciation for all of the wonderful things in life, such as the air we breathe, the sun and every element of nature from which we derive life. Mindfulness allows us to supersede the false need for material items. It gradually puts our attention on the greater things in life. And, where we place our attention is where we will be.

If you find that you are unhappy, before you run to take a pill, try engaging in mindfulness. Try it every day for a month. Unhappiness in most people is the result of long-term, negative and fearful thinking. We must accept the reality that we are ultimately in control of our lives through the thoughts that we think. With Mindfulness, we are taking control of our thoughts and creating new ways of thinking which, if we think the thoughts enough, will become as much of a habit as our negative, fearful thoughts.

This is why mindfulness is now something cutting-edge educators are realizing should be taught to children as young as pre-k. If we start children on the correct path of thinking, we can help them possibly avoid the development of negative thinking while building a generation of mindful, loving, peaceful citizens of the world. So take the time to be thankful for your life, your friends, family; the sun, all of the things you enjoy. Be thankful of others. They'll be thankful for you.
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Dania Percy's Interview with Allan Wallace on Cultivating Emotional Balance

Don't forget to register for five day retreat at Perth 'Cultivating Emotional Balance' starting August 1st, 2015.