From woo-woo to the lab

A woman recovering from a significant mental health crisis is embracing evidence-based treatment while simultaneously exploring meditation practices that many still view sceptically. She knows where the science currently ends. Yet her own experience has left her wondering whether tomorrow's science may eventually explain more than today's can. By ANDY WILSON Like all things in medical science, claims made in areas considered non-science can draw enough attention over time to get investigated. Contemplative traditions, such as meditation practiced for centuries by Tibetan monks (and elsewhere) have always maintained that meditation can change the mind. Half a century ago that was largely a claim only, given the limited technology we had for understanding brain function. However, over time, meditation has become steadily less 'woo-woo'. We now know meditation changes measurable brain activity and, with repetition, can alter neural pathways and behaviour. One local resident, Maria, has found progress with her own mental health therapy by following the online guidance of Joe Dispenza, a researcher and former chiropractor whose own testimony of healing by mediation drives his argument. Maria says the scientific component of mindfulness rests on research showing that the brain enters different measurable states during meditation. “Joe Dispenza's argument begins with neuroscience,” she said. “He suggests that people can create new neural pathways in the brain by changing habitual thought patterns and belief systems. “His view is that when a person's mindset changes, their reality begins to change as well.” Today we have scanning technology and hundreds of studies into imaging of brain structure as well as research into attention and stress responses which all show that meditation produces measurable changes in brain function and, in some circumstances, brain structure. This is only half a century from when scientists convinced us that new brain cells could not regenerate, that the brain simply developed then matured with ‘wiring’ that is largely fixed, before the life-long decline sets in. Neuroscientists knew people could learn, of course, but the common belief was that the adult brain was mostly a finished machine. The big story that got scientists wondering, however, was that of London taxi drivers, who have always been required to have a perfect memory of that city’s streets (the ‘knowledge’) before being issued with their cab licence. The hippocampus (part of the brain to store memory) was found to be larger in qualified London cabbies, and bigger again in more experienced drivers. A researcher called Joseph Altman found evidence in the 1960s that brain cells could develop inside rat brains. He was ignored. It was Michael Merzenich some years later who was regarded as having discovered ‘neuroplasticity’, whereby the adult brain could adapt, particularly after significant injury or trauma, a theory supported by a lot of evidence from post-stroke therapy, which brought the idea into the mainstream. Where does this place the likes of Joe Dispeza’s model of mental self help? Maria stands on the shoulders of the science but can't help looking beyond. “They have measured the effects of the brain when it goes into mediation, that it goes into different states and that’s what helps with a change in a person’s life,” Maria said. “And those frequencies can also be affected by the energy outside the body.” Which is where Dispenza takes the leap further by insisting external frequencies can help determine a person’s destiny. Where he goes further still is in his own testimony of having healed himself from a broken vertebrae by meditation, and by championing similar testimony of others. He believes that whether it be health, wealth, or a change of circumstances, when people focus on what they want, then the universal frequencies will have to deliver. However, the frontier of science stepping thus far into the world of the almost mystical has not shifted that far to produce evidence that manifestation is simply something of the mind – yet. “He also talks about creating coherence between the brain and the heart, arguing that when thoughts and emotions become aligned, genuine personal change becomes possible," Maria said. “This is where some people begin to view his ideas as more spiritual than scientific. “I can’t see this harmonizing with modern day people. “It sounds to woo-woo.” And while Maria is not rejecting medicine, counselling or medical care in her own journey, and is also taking on board the science of meditation, she is lapping up its positive contribution to her own experience. There is something happening in the experience that she cannot ignore, that the science has brought her to thus far. "My personal experience is telling me there may be more to investigate." And that's where the story becomes interesting, because history is full of things that initially survived only on testimony before tools were acquired to measure them properly. What was once filed under mysticism now has evidence enough that the simple claim 'mental practice changes the brain' is no longer a controversial one. The frontier moved. Could it move again?