How to eliminate negativity in life is a matter of being mindful, according to a new study by researchers at Yale, Columbia, and Dartmouth.
The study "Let it be: mindful acceptance down-regulates pain and negative emotion" found that mindfulness allowed the brain to remain in normal temperature even if the participants were subjected to high heat on their forearm.
Mindfulness refers to the awareness and acceptance of a situation without giving judgment. Mindfulness has been proven beneficial for treating conditions such as anxiety and depression.
"It's as if the brain was responding to warm temperature, not very high heat," said Yale's Hedy Kober, associate professor of psychiatry and psychology and corresponding author of the study.
The researchers aimed to know how to eliminate negativity through mindfulness and whether people without formal training in meditation and mindfulness could experience its benefits from a 20-minute orientation about mindfulness concepts.
Published in the journal Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience, the study tested individuals in two contexts while going through brain imaging scans. The first is to evaluate response to physical pain caused by applying high heat to the forearm. The other is to assess their response when shown with negative images.
The researchers determined notable differences in brain signaling pathways when individuals were asked to practice mindfulness techniques compared to when they were asked to act as they normally would.
Moreover, participants manifested less pain and negative emotions when applying mindfulness techniques. Their brains showed high reductions in activity linked to pain and negative emotions.
However, these neurological changes were not found in the prefrontal cortex, which manages conscious or rational decision-making. This means that these changes were not caused by conscious willpower.
"The ability to stay in the moment when experiencing pain or negative emotions suggests there may be clinical benefits to mindfulness practice in chronic conditions as well -- even without long meditation practice," said Kober.
