My aunt Pat was something of a dish. Lively and humorous, with a caustic wit that rarely failed to entertain, she augmented the very restrictive rations available to Britons during WWII with “two shilling teas” to which she was escorted by a bevy of besotted servicemen. According to my mother, Aunt Pat had a one-track mind, and the Troop Train Was Always On It.
Aunt Pat isn’t the only one. Norman Farb, along with six other scientists at the University of Toronto, has discovered that we have two distinct sets of circuitry, or tracks, involving different areas of the brain that lead us to interact with the world in two different ways, but many of us spend most of our time on one track – the “narrative circuit”.
The narrative circuit is active when we are thinking about ourselves, planning, daydreaming or ruminating. This is the one we inhabit by default. When we’re in this mode, all information we take in from the outside world is processed through a filter that assigns meaning to the input, adding our interpretations, like my mother’s disapproval of Aunt Pat’s dietary supplementation methods.
The other network is what scientists like to call “direct experience”, where information is absorbed in real time, without first going through our internal filter. On this track, we don’t think as much about ourselves, our relationships or our To Do list. We are more “in the moment”, absorbing information directly. In spite of my mother’s pronouncement, knowing Aunt Pat, I have little doubt it was this circuit she employed while enjoying the two shilling tea – a truly splendid repast replete with tea sandwiches, scones and gobs of clotted cream.
The kicker is that apparently we don’t inhabit these tracks simultaneously. We have to switch back and forth, and increasing the fluidity of the switch is what mindfulness meditation is all about. We can activate the “direct experience” mode simply by taking a deep breath and focusing on the present moment. This is important because an active direct-experience network expands our awareness, so we take in new information, thereby increasing our flexibility and allowing us to make more thoughtful choices. We are less trapped by our stories, our expectations and assumptions, and better able to deal with events as they arise.
So how do we take advantage of the best of both circuits? In Your Brain At Work, David Rock, whose analogy of the brain as a stage we described in our previous blog Life Is A Stage, introduces the concept of the Director. The Director shows us the way. Its role is to stand outside of our experience and make decisions about how our brains will respond, or which track to use. We are most effective when we can both know our brains and observe how our brain processes are occurring. We notice that the stage is too full of actors and we need to get some of them off the stage, or when we need to turn up the lights by getting something to eat.
In the Farb et al study, people who regularly practiced noticing which track they were on, such as regular meditators, could switch paths more easily. Those who did not practice taking note tended to take the automatic path, the narrative route.
Our facility with mindfulness can be measured, and we can watch it improve with practice. Kirk Brown at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond Virginia developed the Mindfulness Awareness Attention Scale (MAAS). It’s the gold standard for measuring our everyday mindfulness. Those with higher scores have better physical and mental health, and higher quality relationships. Hmm – this mindfulness business seems to have a lot of benefits.
Activating our Director can be difficult, especially when we are feeling pressured or stressed. Many of us never leave Circuit Narrative, consumed with busyness and e-mail, and fail to call on our Directors for assistance. But here’s the good news: when we practice activating our Directors, we actually change the structure of our brains by thickening specific regions of the brain involved in cognitive control and switching attention. It doesn’t matter what direct sense we focus on, whether it’s noticing a cardinal alighting in our back yard, or feeling the breeze on our face, the key is to keep switching our attention.
Ask Aunt Pat. I’ve rarely met anyone with more zest for life.
%20Segal%20Anderson%202007%20scan%20paper.pdf), along with six other scientists at the
University of Toronto, has discovered that we have two distinct sets of circuitry, or tracks,
involving different areas of the brain that lead us to interact with the world in two different
ways, but many of us spend most of our time on one track – the “narrative circuit”.
The narrative circuit is active when we are thinking about ourselves, planning, daydreaming or
ruminating. This is the one we inhabit by default, and it recruits our medial pre-frontal
cortex along with memory regions like the hippocampus. When we’re in this mode, all
information we take in from the outside world is processed through a filter that assigns
meaning to the input, adding our interpretations, like my mother’s disapproval of Aunt Pat’s
dietary supplementation methods.
The other network is what scientists like to call “direct experience”, where information is
absorbed in real time, without first going through our internal filter. Significantly, this
circuitry uses several different areas of the brain including the insula, which helps us
perceive bodily sensations, and the anterior cingulate cortex, the area responsible for
detecting errors and switching attention. On this track, we don’t think as much about
ourselves, our relationships or our To Do list. We are more “in the moment”, absorbing
information directly. In spite of my mother’s pronouncement, knowing Aunt Pat, I have little
doubt it was this circuit she employed while enjoying the two shilling tea – a truly splendid
repast replete with tea sandwiches, scones and gobs of clotted cream.
The kicker is that apparently we don’t inhabit these tracks simultaneously. We have to switch
back and forth, and increasing the fluidity of the switch is what mindfulness meditation is all
about. We can activate the “direct experience” mode simply by taking a deep breath and
focusing on the present moment. This is important because an active direct-experience network
expands our awareness, so we take in new information, thereby increasing our flexibility and
allowing us to make more thoughtful choices. We are less trapped by our stories, our
expectations and assumptions, and better able to deal with events as they arise.
So how do we take advantage of the best of both circuits? In Your Brain At Work
(http://www.amazon.com/Your-Brain-Work-Strategies-Distraction/dp/0061771295), David Rock (whose
analogy of the brain as a stage we described in our previous blog Life Is A Stage), introduces
the concept of the Director. The Director shows us the way. Its role is to stand outside of
our experience and make decisions about how our brains will respond, or which track to use. We
are most effective when we can both know our brains and observe how our brain processes are
occurring. We notice that the stage is too full of actors and we need to get some of them off
the stage, or when we need to turn up the lights by getting something to eat.
In the Farb et al study(http://www.aclab.ca/publications/uploadedPubs/Farb%20Segal%20Anderson
%202007%20scan%20paper.pdf), people who regularly practiced noticing which track they were on,
such as regular meditators, could switch paths more easily. Those who did not practice taking
note tended to take the automatic path, the narrative route.
Our facility with mindfulness can be measured, and we can watch it improve with practice. Kirk
Brown at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond Virginia developed the Mindfulness
Awareness Attention Scale (MAAS)(http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/ppquestionnaires.htm#MAAS). It’s
the gold standard for measuring our everyday mindfulness. Those with higher scores have better
physical and mental health, and higher quality relationships. Hmm – this mindfulness business
seems to have a lot of benefits.
Activating our Director can be difficult, especially when we are feeling pressured or stressed.
Many of us never leave Circuit Narrative, consumed with busyness and e-mail, and fail to call
on our Directors for assistance. But here’s the good news: when we practice activating our
Directors, we actually change the structure of our brains by thickening specific regions of the
cortex involved in cognitive control and switching attention. It doesn’t matter what direct
sense we focus on, whether it’s noticing a cardinal alighting in our back yard, or feeling the
breeze on our face, the key is to keep switching our attention.
Ask Aunt Pat. I’ve rarely met anyone with more zest for life.