Mindfullness Meditation

It's a hot topic in the media these days and has been brought to my attention by presentations at legal conferences addressing ways to reduce stress.  As someone who has been fascinated with the organization of the brain since my college days I can't resist (figuratively) lifting up the hood to see what is going on.

It appears that what "Mindfulness" is all about is shutting off that area of our brain above our left ear (in most people) that is the root of language and logic.  The thing with language and logic is it derives meaning from sequential data, this + this = that - because it is rooted in sound which we perceive sequentially.   If you are talking 2+2=4 that's the end of it, but much of life cannot be reduced to such a simple answer.  Most of what goes on in our lives is ambiguous in both cause and effect.  So our logic doesn't get us to an easily identified final answer.  If the topic is important to our life we keep chewing on it to solve the problem.  In modern life that can mean we live with many problems our logic is simultaneously chewing on.  Even if you manage to turn away from one problem another pops up to dominate our thoughts.  The result can be difficulty sleeping, or constant stress or just an inability to relax.

What Mindfulness seems to accomplish is to let the other parts of our brain grab the controls for awhile.  Parts like vision, which doesn't find meaning from sequential data since it builds systems that we perceive as a whole, so vision perception isn't plagued by an eternal nagging sense of something unfinished.  Or even more basic areas of our brain that monitor our bodies as a whole, not as a problem to be solved.

The primary tool mindfulness uses, typically, is breathing.  Breathing is unambiguous in whether we are achieving our objective.  We breathe in then we breathe out.  Mission accomplished.  By focusing on an immediately achievable goal we shut off the sequential processing parts of our brain that never quiet reach a final solution, allowing us to relax.

The need for mindfullness is probably a direct result of modern life that drives us incessantly from early in life to use language and logic to achieve abstract goals and objectives.  It would be a good habit to find a way to strike a balance between achievement and just being.