Optimizing Learning and Quality of Life throughout the Lifespan

Abstract

This overview surveys the new optimism about the aging mind/brain, focusing on the potential for self-regulation practices to advance research in stress-protection and optimal health. It reviews recent findings and offers a research framework. The review links the age-related biology of stress and regeneration to the variability of mind/brain function found under a range of conditions from trauma to enrichment. The framework maps this variation along a biphasic continuum from atrophic dysfunction to peak performance. It adopts the concept of allostatic load as a measure of the wear-and-tear caused by stress, and environmental enrichment as a measure of the use-dependent enhancement caused by positive reinforcement. It frames the dissociation, aversive affect and stereotyped reactions linked with stress as cognitive, affective and behavioral forms of allostatic drag; and the association, positive affect, and creative responses in enrichment as forms of allostatic lift. It views the human mind/brain as a heterarchy of higher intelligence systems that shift between a conservative, egocentric mode heightening self-preservation and memory and a generative, altruistic mode heightening self-correction and learning. Cultural practices like meditation and psychotherapy work by teaching the self-regulation of shifts from the conservative to the generative mode. This involves a systems shift from allostatic drag to allostatic lift, minimizing wear-and-tear and optimizing plasticity and learning. For cultural practices to speed research and application, a universal typology is needed. This framework includes a typology aligning current brain models of stress and learning with traditional Indo-Tibetan models of meditative stress-cessation and learning enrichment.

Staying Present: Incorporating Mindfulness into Therapy for Dissociation

“…The intentional harnessing of attention is a concentration skill in which clients purposefully shift attention; mindfulness skills improve clients' ability to redirect attention volitionally (Corrigan 2002;Loizzo 2009;Zylowska et al 2008). Staying present occurs both through holding present moment awareness (attentional focus on internal and/or external experience of the present moment) and through participating in the present moment (engagement in experience).…”

“…Clients can practice purposefully shifting-like a zoom lens-between focused attention to detail and broad awareness of the larger context (Brown et al 2007). By intentionally and consciously directing attention, holding present moment awareness, and observing with neutrality (Kabat-Zinn 1990), a client is better able to consciously direct mental processes that are often unconscious (Loizzo 2009). If therapy can create a link between awareness of dissociation and intentional harnessing of attention on the present moment, mindfulness can be used to counteract dissociation (Boon et al 2011;Corrigan 2002;Kennerley 1996;Najavits 2002).…”

Meditation research, past, present, and future: perspectives from the Nalanda contemplative science tradition

“…Since the Buddhist University of Nalanda was dedicated to developing the most scientific approach to Buddhist teaching and practice, and making it accessible to mainstream students—Buddhist and non‐Buddhist, lay and religious—this living tradition represents a useful resource for contemporary meditation research . And since the Nalanda tradition is both continuous and cumulative—integrating multiple models and methods in a complete system of contemplative arts and sciences preserved to the present day—it also represents what may be the world's most comprehensive and rigorous framework of ancient meditative teachings and practices . While it is specific to a given cultural tradition, its emphasis on explaining meditation mechanistically in terms of mind/body causation, combined with its systematic approach to diverse practices, makes this synthesis a potential Rosetta Stone that can help modern science decipher the symbolic language and ritualized methods of meditation techniques drawn from many different religious traditions.…”

“…In two recent articles, I have reviewed the literature and presented a rationale for integrating the Nalanda synthesis into a comparative framework for contemplative research and clinical application. Here I briefly summarize the framework proposed and suggest ways in which it may help interpret ambiguous findings, direct future studies, and improve methodology.…”

The Effect of Meditation on Physical and Mental Health in Junior College Students

“…Meditation has been the subject of hundreds of clinical studies in recent years, suggesting that it controls high blood pressure, reduces chronic pain and insomnia, and relieves a variety of symptoms or distresses (Loizzo, 2009). It is increasingly well known for therapeutic efficacy in a variety of illnesses and conditions (Garland, Gaylord, & Park, 2009).…”