Author Marsha Lucas Reveals How Meditation Rewires The Brain For Love
February 2, 2012
Author Marsha Lucas talked to me recently about her new book and how mindfulness meditation rewires the brain for relationships, love and even sex.
In Rewire Your Brain For Love, the Washington-based neuropsychologist weaves together research and practical examples from her own psychotherapy practice, with humor, to explain the genesis of the relationship wiring of our brains. She contends that we can improve our emotional responses, insight, resilience, sex, and ability to handle fear at any age using mindfulness meditation. Here are a couple of excerpts from the interview published by SecondAct.com:
SA: How does meditation help rewire the brain for love and relationships?
ML: Better neural pathways mean better relationships. If your brain is not integrated, you might over-rely on one part of your brain. For example, you may be living in a literal, logical, linear world. When your spouse comes to you upset, you may respond with logic. Then she feels as if you don’t understand what she’s saying, and then there’s that disconnect. Practicing mindfulness gives you a chance, in the moment, to bring more pathways online and turn dirt roads into information highways.
SA: What does meditation cause the brain to do differently?
ML: Repeated meditation practice seems to develop a richer, thicker pathway from the body up to the limbic system—the key player in your emotional life—and through something called the insula to the “top” of your brain. A plumper insula seems to send information in a less knee-jerk way. So your limbic brain doesn’t get to run the show.
When I asked Lucas if mindfulness mediation could really change the structure of our brains in midlife or beyond, she noted that in the U.S., we imagine that with age everything shrivels. As a result, we expect dementia and attentional deficits. But in one captivating study, “researchers found that cortical areas (of the brain) were thicker in older meditators than younger nonmeditators.” Moreover, you don’t have to devote hours to meditation practice.
Patients often tell her, “I don’t have 10 or 20 minutes to meditate.”
“I say, ‘Okay, have you got two?” You can practice for six seconds—each time the phone rings. The brain loves micro-practicing. The more you practice, the more real estate your brain devotes.”
SA: How can mindfulness meditation improve our sex lives, even as we age?
ML: Parts of our bodies may not work the way they once did. But if we’re able to experience more of our body and all of the wonderful sensations, and get more connected to our partner so that we’re also getting all of that juicy emotional stuff, then we’ve got 10,000 times more input than with just our genitals. Sex really can be a much richer, bigger experience.
For the complete interview go to http://www.secondact.com/2012/02/new-book-reveals-surprising-benefits-of-meditation/