Wednesday, 9 September 2020
The combined effects of meditation and magic mushrooms
Today I want to tell you about a study entitled “Psilocybin-assisted mindfulness training modulates self-consciousness and brain default mode network connectivity with lasting effects,” which a research team from the University of Zurich published in the journal NeuroImage in August 2019. As the title suggests, this study combined two methods of modulating the brain: engaging inmindfulness meditation and taking the hallucinogen psilocybin, a psychoactive molecule found in “magic mushrooms”. Previous studies had shown that both of these methods produced a similar effect: they gave subjects the impression that the boundaries between their bodies and their environments were dissolving (a state of consciousness often referred to as ego dissolution). But in this study, the research team wanted to find out whether combining these two methods might make this effect stronger and longer-lasting. (more…)
The Emergence of Consciousness | Comments Closed
Wednesday, 13 May 2015
Preserving Our Bodies and Minds from the Ills of Civilization
For several hundreds of thousands of years, human beings lived and evolved in small groups of hunter-gatherers whose environment was the natural world. It is only for the past 10,000 years or so that we have lived first in villages, and then in cities. Today, a large proportion of us live in megalopolises and work in factories or offices where we have little contact with nature. And what is worse, our contacts with one another are becoming more and more virtual, and our emotional bonds weaker and weaker.
Thus, over what is a very short timespan from an evolutionary standpoint, the human body and the human brain, shaped by a natural environment very different from our own, have had to adapt to a very radical change in environment. And, it would seem, the further our urban way of life departs from the ways of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, the more our physical and mental health suffers.
That is the argument made by John Ratey, co-author of the book Go Wild: Free Your Body and Mind from the Afflictions of Civilization, in an interview by Ginger Campbell in the last episode of his podcast Books and Ideas. (more…)
Body Movement and the Brain | Comments Closed
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
Lasting Effects of Meditation
A brain-imaging study published in the November 2012 issue of the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience seems to confirm past brain-imaging studies which found that meditation can help people pay better attention and manage stress more effectively. But the November 2012 study goes a bit further: it also shows that such measurable positive effects of meditation seem to continue even when the individual in question is not meditating. (more…)
The Emergence of Consciousness | Comments Closed
Monday, 2 April 2012
Meditation Can Reduce Stress
In a study published in 2007, people who practiced a method of meditation known as Integrative Body-Mind Training, or IBMT, for five days showed better attention and better ability to manage stress and its harmful effects than people in a control group who were given only relaxation training. (more…)
The Emergence of Consciousness | Comments Closed
