What is mind training?

“Rule your mind or it will rule you.”

- Horace

Numerous studies show the benefits of mind training. Mind training, or simply meditation, improves concentration, attention and lessens mind-wandering. People who train their mind show superior performance in resisting distractions and in self-regulation tests. It can help you to create a space between stimulus and response, which allows you to make different and wiser choices. This is fundamental for all domains in your life.

  Researchers from the Chemnitz University of technology conducted a meta-analysis study to focus on the psychological benefits of meditation in a non-clinical population. They found significant effects of meditation, including improvements in relationships, anxiety, negative emotions, neuroticism, attention, cognition, stress, positive emotions, empathy, intelligence, learning and memory and emotional regulation. Their study also shows that the effects of meditation are significantly higher in comparison to control groups, such as positive thinking, sports or cognitive training. Another study shows that mind training provides larger effects than cognitive-behavioural stress reduction in domains of energy, pain, wellbeing and perceived stress. Furthermore a meta-analysis that was published in 2019 in the journal of occupational health psychology reviewed effects of mind training in the workplace. This analysis found evidence for improved attention, reduced psychological distress, reduced anxiety, improvements in wellbeing and improvements in sleep.

Physical measures also demonstrate the impact of mind training. It decreases blood pressure, decreases cortisol levels, it slows down cellular aging and it can improve the immune system. The practice of meditation can moreover physically change the brain. After eight weeks of short daily meditations, brain scans show that neural networks for self-awareness have grown and parts of the brain where we experience stress in the amygdala have decreased. A meta-analysis of 21 neuro-imaging studies conducted in 2014 found that meditation practice alters specific brain regions, which includes the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which is associated with self-regulation and the regulation of emotions. Changes can furthermore be observed in the hippocampus, which is associated with memory consolidation and reconsolidation. Other brain areas affected are brain networks that are associated with introspection and meta-awareness, complex thinking and the sense of self. The ACC detects distracting external or internal events that conflict with a certain goal and enables executive attention, which allows for implementing corrective actions to resolve the conflict. The ACC is furthermore associated with learning from past experiences for accurate decision-making, especially in an uncertain environment.

It seems that mind training is an important key to solve some of the challenges of the 21st century worker, who is stressed, restless and unfulfilled. As neuroscientists Christina Congleton, Britta Hölzel and Sara Lazar state in a Harvard Business Review article: “It should no longer be considered a “nice-to-have.” It’s a “must-have”: a way to keep our brains healthy, to support self-regulation and effective decision-making capabilities, and to protect ourselves from toxic stress.” And Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says: “If you can win over your mind, you can win over the whole world.” Mind training helps us to build the inner resources to deal with the external challenges we face on a day-to-day basis. To get out, you need to go in. But what are we actually talking about when we say “mind training” or “meditation”? 

"To get out, go in."

“We deal with our mind from morning till evening, and it can be our best friend or our worst enemy.”

- Matthieu Ricard

Mind training is a synonym for meditation. There are a lot of preconceived ideas and misunderstandings out there about what meditation is. Let’s start with what meditation is not. Meditation is not a quick fix solution that solves all our problems. On the other hand it is also not something you need to do for years and years on end for it to be effective. Another common misconception is that meditation is about stopping your thoughts or about emptying your mind. If you just want to empty your mind, because you can’t handle what it produces, you actually want the mind of a chicken, sloth or earthworm. I don’t believe that is what you aspire. It is also not about daydreaming, avoiding or escaping reality or replacing your experiences with peace or joy. It is also not about becoming esoteric, airy-fairy or becoming a hippie.

Meditation has for centuries been practiced in the context of religious and spiritual traditions. More than 4000 years ago meditation was already practiced by the Hindu sages. All major spiritual traditions have taught methods and techniques to turn the mind inward, to explore the mind and try to understand the principles of mind. These methods can be found in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, Shintoism and Jainism. You however do not have to practice meditation within a religious context. It can also be practiced in a secular way as it is increasingly being done in the West. Nowadays, meditation also has become a serious topic of study in science and psychology. Specifically the methods as taught and practiced in the Buddhist traditions, have found its way to the West. The scientific study of their efficacy has opened-up an interest in the practices outside of the ancient spiritual traditions. It is now also finding its way into schools, hospitals and businesses. Large corporates that have already introduced meditation-based practices include companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, SAP, GE, Proctor & Gamble, Shell, McKinsey & Company, Accenture, Bosch and Deutsche Bank. Where meditation is coming from or what label you put on it, is however not so important, it is about the underlying principles that can help us in achieving a fundamental change in our being. So meditation is not only for a specific group of people, but basically it is for everyone who has a mind!

Meditation in Tibetan, “gom,” literally means “to familiarize with”. Meditation is about getting to know your own mind and through that knowledge familiarize yourself with the principles of mind. “Authentic happiness,” says Matthieu Ricard, “is a profound emotional balance struck by a subtle understanding of how the mind functions.” By being able to understand the laws and the workings of our mind, we are able to develop an understanding of ourselves and give direction to our mind and life. If you do not understand the universal laws by which your mind operates, it is like trying to drive a car without knowing how to control it. It will end up in a disaster.

Meditation in Sanskrit, “Bhavana,” means to grow, develop or cultivate. Meditation therewith also entails the growth, development and strengthening of your mind, to cultivate the inner resources that help you to deal with external challenges, destructive emotions and ineffective beliefs. Meditation is about understanding, training and developing the mind. A scientific definition that is commonly used nowadays is a definition used by professor of psychology, philosophy and religious studies, Roger Walsh, and clinical psychologist Shauna Shapiro. They define meditation as “a family of self-regulation practices that focus on training attention and awareness in order to bring mental processes under greater voluntary control and thereby foster general mental wellbeing and development and/or specific capacities such as calm, clarity, and concentration.”

The western word meditation is moreover very similar to the word medicine. Meditation is also a medicine that helps us to find a cure for our mental and emotional suffering. Moreover there is a clear process and method to follow in meditation practice. Like scientist study anything according to the scientific method, meditation also follows a rigorous method. Meditation is in that sense the ancient science of mind. And it is rooted in verifiable observations of our mind and experiences. In contrast to the common sciences in the West that try to reach conclusions through third person observations, meditation is a science of the first-person. You are the scientist who studies your own mind and experiences. You are the scientist, and your life and mind are your laboratory in which you can test hypotheses, experiment and gradually better understand the workings of your own mind. In short we can define meditation as: the empirical science of understanding and developing your mind for your own and other's wellbeing. This is important to clarify in order to avoid any popular ideas that it would be about emptying your mind or replacing your experiences with peace or joy. These popular ideas only confuse people and most often only make things worse instead of bringing any real benefit. By better understanding and developing your mind, you can better manage your mind. And by being able to better manage your mind, you can better manage your life.

"Meditation is the first-person empirical science of understanding and developing your mind for your own and other's wellbeing. It is about developing an understanding of the nature of mind, self and reality as it is."

There are many different mechanisms of the human mind that can be understood and trained through meditation. The modern scientific studies of meditation currently mainly study the mechanisms of attention regulation, body awareness, emotional regulation and changes in perspective on the self. There are many more different types of methods and meditation techniques, that one can practice. It is said that the Buddha alone already thought 84,000 different methods and varieties of meditation. By integrating different meditation practices in our life we enable ourselves to approach the challenges of life with a healthy balanced mind. As Alan Wallace says: “Integrated meditation practice is like a healthy diet which is indispensable for maintaining your vitality and resistance to disease. Likewise, a balanced meditative practice in the course of a socially engaged way of life heightens your psychological immune system, so that you are less vulnerable to mental imbalances of all kinds.” By integrating different meditation practices into our lives, we create a healthy balanced diet for the mind.

It is moreover important to note that if you practice meditation it does not mean that you close yourself off from the world. On the contrary. It helps us to gain a better insight in it, so we can find more effective ways to deal with it. By training your mind you develop your ability to voluntarily pay attention with calmness, focus and clarity to enable self-awareness, self- regulation and self-transcendence. This enables us to live with enhanced awareness and live according to the laws that rule the realms of our mind. And since you use your mind in everything, transforming your mind will transform everything. So it will also change our perspective and ability to handle the challenges in life.  

We could choose a different method than meditation to deal with the distress and depression that is caused by the ACTIVE problem. Another method that is often used is medication. We should acknowledge that in some cases medication can be a proper and wise treatment to deal with mental disbalances. We should however be careful. Very often medication is having negative side effects, it creates dependencies or even addiction and it does not address the root-causes of psychological disorders. Moreover medication is often not effective. An article in the American Journal of Psychiatry from 2002, for example states that up to 75% of the efficacy that is attributed to antidepressant medication is in fact due to the placebo effect. And a 2010 article published in The Journal of the American Medical Association states that the benefits of antidepressants are “non-existent to negligible” in patients with mild, moderate and even severe symptoms. And the height of the dose does hardly have an impact. Only with people who have very severe symptoms medication has a real benefit. For people with mild or moderate symptoms, I would therefore advocate: meditate, don’t medicate. To get out, go in.

Through mind training you can develop the inner strength, power and resources to meet the external challenges that keep you trapped in distress and suffering. We however also need to ensure that we do not only look within and completely block ourselves off from the external world. We need a perspective that harmonizes the inside and outside. A perspective that works on the inner as well as the outer. in our training and development solutions we hence will work on the physical, psychological as well as the spiritual levels of our being. To be successful requires a commitment to truth, to principles, as opposed holding on to our  biased stories, views and thinking that prevents us from seeing the way things are. And this is what meditation is about above anything else. It is developing an understanding of the nature of mind, self and reality as it is.