Neuromeditation
What Is Neuromeditation?
Neuromeditation is the application of brain-based principles to meditative practices.
This method of teaching meditation begins with a scientific understanding of what happens in the brain during different meditative states and why each of these practices might be beneficial for specific individuals.
Through advances in neuroscientific research, we now know a great deal about the effects of meditation on the brain. Because of this, we can now state with great confidence that all meditations are not created equal. Different styles of meditation require different ways of paying attention and different intentions; each style involves different activation/deactivation patterns in our neural networks. Based on this knowledge, we can roughly categorize meditation into 4 styles:
Focus Meditation
Focus strategies can be very helpful for people struggling with cognitive issues such as attention, working memory, or distractibility.
Mindfulness Meditation
An ideal match for those struggling with anxiety and/or chronic stress.
Quiet Mind Meditation
Ideal for psychological disorders involving disruptions in a sense of self (disordered identify, illogical perceptions of self) and supports the development of cognitive flexibility.
Open Heart Meditation
Ideally suited as an intervention for depression, grief, and relationship issues; supports the goal of increasing wellbeing and the ability to identify and sustain positive emotions.
Neuromeditation tools provide teachers and clinicians with the ability to match an individual to the meditative style that will more effectively help them achieve their goals.
What is the student’s motivation for meditating? Is it to reduce stress and anxiety, minimize pain, improve sleep, improve focus and attention? What are the student’s strengths? How can we customize teaching to support success?
Customizing Meditation Training
Customizing teaching and training to the most appropriate style greatly increases success and, therefore, symptom management.
Renew Neurotherapy uses several optional tools to help assess and teach meditation skills:
- Quantitative Electroencephalograph (QEEG/Brain Map) (By completing a brain map, your clinician is better able to help you determine the brain activation patterns that would be easiest to learn or best for your symptoms.)
- Biofeedback (By measuring brain activity in real time, the client and clinician are able to identify if you are using the optimal brain activity pattern for the chosen meditation style.)
- Neuromeditation Styles Inventory
- Virtual reality meditations customized to styles
- Style-specific meditation scripts, tools and strategies
This information was adapted from the article An Introduction to Neuromeditation published in The Wise Brain Bulletin (Volume 11.6, 2017) with permission from Dr. Jeff Tarrant. For more information on Dr. Tarrant’s work, please visit www.NeuroMeditationInstitute.
Neuromeditation can be taught with or without biofeedback support.