EP 4 Heroism

TRANSCRIPT

Interviewer:

You're listening to the Drive show here on Youth Jam. And as it's a Thursday, I am right now joined by Dr. Patrick Jones. Patrick comes on air each week to discuss a different facet of our mental health. And Patrick, today we are continuing a discussion that we set off a couple of weeks ago on the subject of heroism, and in particular, how the practice of mindfulness is something that we can undergo in our own time and can contribute to heroism as an ongoing trait. Now, mindfulness is something that we also looked at a few weeks before commencing this specific conversation on heroism. And we talked about several different mindfulness techniques. But one thing I think it's worth asking in the scope of this is how exactly we measure the outcomes of mindfulness. 

In other words, how do we know that what we're doing in the way of mindfulness techniques is proving effective? 

Patrick:

Yeah, okay, well, I guess there's two things. There's probably theory and what theory says it should do, and then there's also now because mindfulness has been super investigated from a research point of view, there's also the actual data or the results. So, in a way, we probably need to answer that in two ways. But I'll just answer the first in this part of the question. So, in terms of the expected outcomes, if we look, say, at traditional mindfulness, which is just the whole suite of techniques and the whole process, that its end goal is, as perhaps Abraham Maslow might have said, in the hierarchy of needs pyramid, the top of the pyramid self-actualization, the full actualization of human potential. What does that look like? What are the outcomes we expect along the way? 

How do you start from the bottom top and what might be some of those markers? Very reasonable things to ask. We're not just trusting something. What's the evidence? So they would typically have perhaps in a sense, you could say three different outcomes that they would expect, if you like, flags or markers along the way. The first is called mindfulness. It's where the person has got to that point where they've managed to do that, step back from their thoughts, and feeling sensations, and then they can watch them neutrally judgmentally. And that's a critical first step. And typically, modern mindfulness just focuses on that as being the main thing that it does. Traditional mindfulness goes much further than that. 

It seems that as kind of level one, the first thing that you kind of got to get straight to even do that is significant because often people are, in a sense, stuck in their thinking. And it's like what I think I believe, as opposed to stepping back and going, well, that's just kind of crazy thinking. So that would be, in a sense, the first outcome you'd expect if people are doing it properly, the ability to step back and observe neutrally and non-judgmentally and not see those mental events as realities, but in a sense what I would call virtuality. They're things that have been generated by my brain, by myself. They're not the reality necessarily. And the second outcome would be one term they might use is calm abiding. 

The ability to have just seen all the phenomena that are happening, the data outside, the noises, the visuals, whatever else, but to be able to see that they're just kind of arising, they're coming, they're going. And not to have necessarily the sense of self that's always interacting with them as if it's real and they're real, but it's more just this is what's observing, I'm raising it. But even the one that's observing that isn't so real. It's like that sense of self I've kind of got that awareness that it's more a sense of self than me. And so, there's that ability to see that not only those things coming and going that I'm observing but even this sense of self that's observing them is in a sense not solid either. 

And that leads to a much more relaxed, you could say hence Karma Biding's way of operating everything's not so significantly the case or true. The third would be the outcome that you'd expect if you progress and do it well or in the right way would be what they might call insight, where the practitioner can directly experience the nature of who they are underneath. That normal. From the Greek word ego or eye or self. That's sort of been deconstructed.

And you're not just operating from that single point anymore. You've almost dropped beneath that to what you might call the natural resting state of who we are and that place. They can use those terms. Perhaps you want to call that self-actualization the ultimate fulfillment of your potential as a human being enlightenment. 

There's a whole range in every tradition that describes that. But in that place sometimes nondual awareness might be there is no sense of self as a single point anymore. And it's just this beautiful experience of openly relating to the appearance of phenomena. Sounds like a weird way of putting it, but there's just a genuine non-attached but interested openness to what's being experienced. But it's coming from that very peaceful place of calm. But the insight that who we are is beyond everything that we're seeing. So, they're the kind of the three steps and typical modern mindfulness just stays with that first one. Which is why it's clinically so relevant. People can step back from their neurosis or the things that their anxiety is upsetting them. 

But we have so much more than just that mental health focus because if we kind of go deeper into this natural state then it's a very untouchable way of being and so open. And that's what I would now call not just a mental health inquiry. It's the inner well-being inquiry which is a much deeper place that mindfulness can take us. 

Interviewer:

And what we've been looking at in a lot of our discussions around mindfulness is in particular how these practices contribute to ongoing changes rather than the temporary state changes that we've alluded to. And this is something that links to heroism, particularly in the sense of wanting heroism as an ongoing trait. Would you be able to explain both how and why mindfulness can be responsible for prompting these trait changes? 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, I think a good place probably to start with that is there's this thing called the DMN which is the default mode network, and it is sort of seen as using technical terms, if you like. There is sort of relevant neuroanatomical set of structures in the brain that are seen to have the role of being responsible for cognitive processes so that different parts of the brain do different things. And so, these sections, you could almost say, of the brain are affected by mindfulness practices ongoingly, in a sense, a trait way, but one of the kinds of roles, in a sense, of the DMN, the default mode network is responsible for what they would call like, a passive default mode of mind wandering. And perhaps it's sort of like background processing, thinking about all kinds of stuff. 

When your mind just goes in all sorts of directions, it's wandering and it's trying a bit like dreaming, it's trying to collect pieces to make sense of stuff, but it can just go on and on. Interrupting that is not always easy without good practice methods. This is one of the things that they can track in terms of its electromagnetic activity, the ability to see how it fires. And you get people who've been trained in mindfulness and say, well, now that we know that's responsible for that, what happens to that section of the brain? 

Because the amount of DMN activity that you have has been associated with Add, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, negative emotions, anxiety, depression because if you've got an endlessly ruminating brain that's always moving into catastrophizing and worrying and so on, we can see that firing if you like, or see the impact of that kind of brain. Hence, if mindfulness is done properly, it's found that it literally can reduce that activity. It can reduce the mind-wandering default, which is often going it's gone beyond what's functional. There's a certain point where it is functional to just let your mind wander about how are going to get there. It has its role. 

Interviewer:

It's like muscle memory kind of thing. 

Patrick:

Yeah. And when muscle memory in a sense is now reacting inappropriately to things that are now not relevant, that's in a sense what mindfulness can address. And what they've found is that meditators say, compared to say, controls or people that haven't had any training have relatively less activation in this part of the brain. And they found significant reductions in this observable mind wandering or reactivity part of the brain. And the reactivity, say, to distractions has also been found.

They do experiments where they try and just try and distract them and the brain just does not have the same level of unnecessary reactivity to distraction, which of course, really is great in terms of concentration, the opposite of Add, you could almost say. These are trait changes that become observable long-term with practice. So, there are many, in a sense, benefits. 

The brain can also activate what they call task-positive brain regions, which are those that are responsible for responding appropriately, say, to, say, a conflict or whatever else. So, in a sense, what it does kind of use that muscle memory notion, it's almost like a gym workout. It's just that the brain is becoming more toned. It does two things. It does less of the unnecessary, but it does more of the necessary more efficiently. So, I mean, that's kind of really what you're wanting is a healthier cleaner processing probably just to finish that they've done sort of neuroimaging and so on.

And what they've also found, which is pretty staggering, is that the neural structures themselves that are responsible for the processing are all a bit technical, but trying to put it in small chunks that make sense. 

But these neural structures are larger in long-term or sort of advanced meditators, whereas the structures that are sort of underlying cognitive processing that were connected to the unnecessary ruminating, were smaller. In other words, the brain changed through mindfulness workouts to become fitter and bigger in the right muscle group area, so to speak, areas. So, it's extraordinary that now we have the science to be able to map what these techniques are and these changes. 

Interviewer:

Lastly, speaking directly to heroism, what traits contribute to heroism as an ongoing state rather than a temporary one? 

Patrick:

Yeah, right. Okay. Well, this is what I love about the relevance of mindfulness to human potential or the science of heroism. That's why I've been fascinated, being able to contribute to the field in this. And I think, well, even the very beginning in when Cabot Zinn did his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program, or MBSR, that kicked it off in the west, it was focusing on pain management. He was sent people that the doctor said, listen, we really can't do any more with these people who've got chronic pain. It's horrendous. They're good people, but they're suffering. We're just going to send you all our can-not-fix cases and just see if you can at least make them a little happier whilst we can't change their physical stuff. 

And so, he was working in a hospital setting and he was teaching them all the mindfulness work, the beginnings of his version of that in the program. People were mainly focusing on pain management and just trying to feel less by mentally trying to reframe their response to the physical stimulus that was there. And what they found, and they continue to find this with thousands of studies now, is that advanced practitioners, well, actually, even the beginning people started to get changes.

But if we now look at the research these days, advanced practitioners compared to say, controls, people haven't done anything. They have reduced activity. Going back to neuroscience, they've mapped that there's reduced activity in the emotional areas that normally kick off during acute pain. 

And throwing again, a few words in there, the prefrontal cortex or the amygdala and hippocampus, are all these regions that are normally activated in the threat response. And they just found that there was just less activity in these areas. This wasn't just like Willpower; the brain just was not responding with the same level of pain. So, I wasn't even feeling it to the same degree, which also is quite a bizarre thing your head around. So, they were finding that they were having lower pain sensitivity and also higher thresholds for pain purely from working on.

And the way they do it is what they call decoupling or separating your thoughts from the sensations. It's. The critical thing in mindfulness-based pain management is that they see there's a whole topic in itself. 

But just tag it at least that they see that pain is a compound made up of the physical stimulus, which you could say is real at one level. At one level. And my mental relationship to that pain, which is, oh, God, not again. Or how am I going to get through this? And what they did was separate the two and go, well, look, physical stimulus, yes, but the mental response to that physical stimulus, well, that one I can play with that one's malleable, and I can potentially even just drop it completely and I'm just left with the physical stimulus.

And they would say that the pain compound is that combination and if you're dropping half of it, which is the mental resistance to the physical stimulus, you've dropped, just as an example, half the actual pain load. 

So that's some of the examples of how they've done it. And in terms of heroism, you can see if someone can do that. And they're say an experienced meditator, they've found that they've done like skin conductance tests where they just look at some of this pain research, gets through ethics, but anyway, they do all kinds of aversive things to them. Voluntarily ticked all those boxes, and signed off the agreements. However, they found that the experienced meditators, there is a much more rapid decrease in skin conductance in terms of the actual pain that's registered. They also find that there's what they call a startle amplitude, which is their ability to just how quickly they startle and then return to baseline. All of this stuff is so much faster and so much less through simply reducing the mental reaction to the physical stimulus. 

There are so many different things I guess I could highlight, but the relevance to heroism or being a heroic human being is that not only is your processing much more functional, in a sense faster, but you've got a faster processor. The brain grows in relevant areas, but it also means that it sets you up to be able to be available, to be less affected by stuff. When you need to take action in an area and you're experiencing less pain or less reaction, your capacity to act responsibly and powerfully is so much more optimized. So, in terms, it's almost like training to be a humanitarian simply because it's now just easier to help people. I guess I'll just finally finish. 

One of the neuroimaging things that they found, I've highlighted, is that there are changes literally in the gray matter of the brain that processes signals that come from our senses. But these things change. When they've said, for example, done a lovingkindness meditation, they've found that those brain regions connected to, say, emotional regulation, empathy, perspective taking, all of those areas just fire a lot more. They do it neutrally. It's not, like, its belief-based. Oh look, just yes, I'm more empathetic. I feel more empathetic. They do things that you can't, in a sense, trick them. They do things where they show some, say, distressing images if you like, and then there might be a faster heartbeat or something in response to an image of someone's suffering or whatever else. 

There's more empathy that's sort of expressed in that and that they map that in terms of the insular and different parts of the brain. The point of all of that, in a sense, is that the research has found it's not just a cleaner processor, it's also in the lovingkindness meditations, which is part of the mindfulness suite of practices. It's also about opening the heart of a human being to others' pain, to others needs, so that you can be more altruistic and heroic and helpful as a human being, which ultimately, we would all want if we could press that button. So, it's just like, well, here are some techniques, here are some methods that can enable us to do that and ultimately to a level of mastery highlighting. This is not five minutes a day. 

These are people that show all this stuff in the brainwaves. They're people that have been having certainly have a competency because they've been doing this work but at a level of mastery. This is who we can become. We're extraordinary. And it starts to show this through the research. 

Interviewer:

And you mentioned there the subject of these exercises. Again, we've talked about a host of different mindfulness exercises in discussions that people can scope out by way of Drpatrickjones.com. They can find some of our past discussions. But in the scope of this discussion, would you be able to outline which mindfulness exercises specifically target the traits that are conducive to heroism? 

Patrick:

Well, I would probably just, in a general way, describe those two categories, I suppose, because meditation, sensor, and mindfulness techniques can be split into two categories, what they would call the focused attention ones or FA-focused attention. And then the other ones would be, in a sense, the opposite, what they call open monitoring, and that you can work on both of those. A very simple example of a focused attention method would be an observation of the breath, the rising, the falling of the breath, perhaps possibly counting each breath from one to ten, rinse, and repeat. But doing that for count one to ten, you could do that for five minutes. 

You build a certain proficiency where you're not getting distracted because a lot of the work I've done with large groups of people at conferences where we do one to five and then I get people to put their hand up who managed to get to one before they were distracted. Third of the people who got to three, majority of the people already hands up who got to five, virtually no one. So, it's like the normal population can't count to five without getting distracted, essentially.

So, you have to kind of start with that and then build. But that's the single pointed concentration that you're building, which, of course, has so many generalization effects in terms of our life. But one to five, repeat, one to ten, you build that, you start to feel a sense of competency I can get to. 

It's not about numbers, obviously, but getting to a certain level, watching the breath in a relaxed way. But it's one to ten, say. And if you've done that, you could just even play with other games. One to 20 in distraction. Okay, repeat. See if you can stabilize that competency level, then you can go, all right, maybe one to 50, see if I can get there without distraction. And then the process I used to do, then one to 200. And if you can get there without distractions, like, well, at that point, I just thought, it's no point counting anymore, right? You might as well just do it for as long as you want. So that's where we can go. 

But what you're doing is you're now having your mind as your tool to be able to then point and direct to what your heart is drawn to, because it's open-heartedness contributing to others. That's kind of the heroic way of living using this tool that we are for the benefit of others. So that'd be the focus of attention. And then just kind of, in summary, the complete reverse techniques are the open monitoring, which is just allowing thought, feeling sensation just to come and go. Not trying to limit the stimulus, trying to bring it back to a single point, but the complete reverse. It's an inclusive approach, just being with it.

And this one's very good for being in the world where you're just sort of allowing things to come and go and there's that sort of ARSO kind of approach. 

These two, you can do that second one open monitoring. You could also call the present moment awareness techniques of just trying to be in the present, being grounded, and observing what visuals are there. Are there auditory, is there kinesthetic feelings? You might have sensory in the body, then what thoughts or feelings might arise that's what we're calling the VAK is a visual, auditory kinesthetic.

And then thoughts and feelings, letting all that wash through from an impartial, nonjudgmental space. They're the two categories, you could say, which are the building blocks of much more different other meditation techniques, but probably just to highlight what's kind of interesting, because, again, I love what the research is just it's backing up well, it's investigating, but it's also backing up the effects of these things. 

But it's also differentiating between beginners and people with some level of mastery. They found. And they were a bit confused as to why this happened. They had what they call an inverted or a U-shaped curve with normal meditators when it came to attention. So, for example, the beginner meditators were showing these really strong attentional indicators in terms of the brain, that was attending to the stimulus. I thought, great, they're pretty good. But the advanced ones, those intentional parts of the brain, were not being activated.

And the reason why is because they'd gone past needing to pay attention. It was just effortless. 

It's kind of interesting is that ultimately when we get to the place of mastery, you want to be able to integrate this so that you're not just being in that disciplined, controlled I'm trying to be present place, which is beautiful in the beginning stages. But then you want to be able to get to a place where it's so effortless, that no one even knows that you're aware of everything. You're just kind of like in martial arts, they would call this like one of the phrases or the methods was the drunken master, where he's just wandering around looking like he knows nothing and stumbling, whatever else. But you try and do something behind him in a second. He's like you're on the floor. In other words, he's already integrated all of that and it's now effortless and that's the place we want to get to. 

It's an effortless, know who we are. 

Interviewer:

Yeah. And again, if people want to find out more about these mindfulness exercises, they can scope them out by way of Dr. Patrick Jones.com. It's also where they can go to re-listen to this discussion if they're that way inclined. But in the meantime, thanks for getting in touch with us this week, Patrick. Hope to speak to you again soon. 

Patrick:

Sounds good.