1 / 20

Teaching Meditation to College Students James L Spira, Ph.D., MPH, ABPP

Teaching Meditation to College Students James L Spira, Ph.D., MPH, ABPP. Outline. Principles of Meditation Types of Meditation Simple/Effective Techniques Adapting to different problems Adapting to different settings. Principals of Meditation:.

lis
Download Presentation

Teaching Meditation to College Students James L Spira, Ph.D., MPH, ABPP

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Teaching Meditation to College Students James L Spira, Ph.D., MPH, ABPP

  2. Outline • Principles of Meditation • Types of Meditation • Simple/Effective Techniques • Adapting to different problems • Adapting to different settings

  3. Principals of Meditation: • Reducing attention to cognitions and reactions to cognitions and emotions • Reducing focus on and reaction to self and others and the world • Allowing fuller perception of what presents itself, more as it is, with less biased distortion • Being fully and comfortably in the moment • Calming the mind • Comforting the body

  4. Types of Meditation Eastern Experiential vs Western Conceptual • Yogic Origin • Pranayama • Hatha Yoga • Taoist • Tai Chi • Chi Kung • Buddhist • Vipassana • Zen

  5. Simple Effective Techniques • Absorptive Approaches • Yoga • Tai Chi • Zen • Observational/Non-reactive Approaches • Vipassana / Mindfulness • Combination Approaches • Zen/Mindfulness

  6. Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia(Specific Frequencies of HRV) RSA During Worry RSA During Zazen

  7. EEG Aspects of Meditation Hz ~ attentional focus ~ processing effort/style • Delta (0-4Hz) • Sleep • Effortless, recuperative • Theta (4-8Hz) • Daydreaming, background noise • Minimal effort, parallel processing • Alpha (8-12Hz) • Calm, clear open attention to sensation • Low effort, Bottom-up, sensory processing • Beta (12-16; 16+) • Focused attention to problem-solving task • Effortful, conceptually-driven processing

  8. EEG States of Mind Snapshots of a normal subject undergoing different activities (1 lead)

  9. Functional Model of Attentional Processing Elite Athlete thoughts associations Average Person feelings ADHD Attention to environment Attention/access to internal experiences Meditator

  10. Attention is enhanced processing: • 1) We enhance what we attend to • Pay attention to worry and we will enhance the worry • Pay attention to sensation and we will enhance sensation (+ or -) • 2) We become what we attend to • If we attend to pain or worry, our nervous systems gear up for that • If we attend to the softness of the breath or the simplicity of sensory input, our nervous systems reflect that processing

  11. Attentional Retraining • 3) Pay attention to something if you can act on it to improve the situation. • Otherwise, switch your attention to: • Some other “beta” activity you can act on productively • Rest in “alpha” receptive meditative state

  12. Attentional Retraining • Two ways to improve attention (i.e. enhance S/N ratio for what one processes) •  1) Reduce Theta (background noise) • through Vipassana style meditation (low alpha) • (one typically drifts into theta, learns to recognize it and let it go, to be replaced by alpha activity) • this is typically practiced in a meditation session • CBT may first need to be employed to support belief in the benefit of suspending self-image, especially among those who lack confidence in themselves (NPD, GAD, BN, etc.)* 

  13. Attentional Retraining • 2) Enhance Alpha (attended signal) through Zen absorption techniques • A) high alpha • this can be practiced either in a meditation practice (eyes open) • or in receptive activities of daily life, such as driving, walking, eating, listening to a conversation, etc. (examples?) • B) low beta • can be enhanced through training in sustained attention in active involvement • for anxious or ADHD types, being motorically involved is useful (chi kung, tai chi, Yoga, doing massage, Karate, etc.)

  14. Attentional Retraining • Those who ignore internal activity need to emphasize • recognition of internal ‘noise’ and be less unconsciously driven by it (Vipassana) • Impulsivity/OCD/Conversion D/O • Those who are "stuck" in their thoughts need to emphasize • enhancement of signal (Zen) • ADHD/GAD/PTSD/Psychosis • But all need to practice both approaches • typically practicing both each day

  15. Practice Active Absorptive  Still Permissive

More Related