Motivation and emotion/Book/2023/Guided meditation and emotion regulation

Guided meditation and emotion regulation:
How can guided meditation be used to regulate emotion?

Multimedia presentation (3 min)

Overview

Lately, there has been tensions and stress levels rising, with more bickering occurring between co-workers. You have noticed even smallest things like your desk clock ticking has even started to aggravate you as of late. You have begun to feel like the everyday grind has become even harder, your motivation to get up in the morning and go to work every day has declined, dramatically. Today you're sitting in your office cubical, trying to do your work and it hits you suddenly, you feel that you are about to metaphorically burst as your blood pressure rises rapidly due to the stress and toxicity within the work environment as you continue to feel trapped. What's that weird feeling that is starting to occur? Chances are, you have become so stressed out that you have lost touch within yourself. Your mind, body, and soul are no longer in sync. You decide to leave your desk, and you go to the restroom, splash some water on your face and go sit outside under a tree and put your earphones in and open a guided meditation session. The meditation has started to guide you in ignoring the white noise and thoughts of the mind and focus on only being current and in the moment.

What is guided meditation? Meditation can come in different forms, from sitting through a guided meditation that focuses on your specific goal or the mindset that you want to get to, or sitting somewhere quiet reflecting on your thoughts and feelings. However, for meditation to work it is important to be focused on the moment, the sounds around, and being able to suppress other thoughts and any noises that run though our brain during that time (Jenkins, 2015).

This chapter explores the idea of guided meditation, what meditation is, and the psychological science about meditation and how it assists with regulating emotions, as well as the benefits that come with regular practice of guided meditation. This chapter looks into the idea of medical professionals within the field of science and psychology adding or trying to use guided meditation, or a similar meditation type to assist those who are battling with clinical disorders. There will also be extra resources provided for extra learning.

Focus questions What is guided meditation? What are the emotional regulation benefits of guided meditation? Why should people consider practicing guided meditation?

What is meditation and emotion regulation?

Meditation originates from the Latin word meditari. When meditari is translated it becomes “to engage in contemplation or reflection” (Hussain et al, 2010). Meditation is known to be where an individual is completely locked into their thoughts. The aim of meditation is to become focused on and only be in the moment of time, suppressing the other thoughts, sounds, and noises, running through our brain (Jenkins, 2015).

There is evidence suggesting that in Eastern spiritual tradition, meditation is not an activity, however it is a “tool” that assists with developing stronger spiritual connections, while also aiming to achieve inner peace, better concentration, improve positive emotions, while reducing stress, agitation, and also any negative emotions at the same time (Wallace, 2005; Walsh and Shapiro,2006).

Emotion regulation has been established to be a regulated change in a person, consciously or unconsciously (Rottenberg & Gross, 2003). Mennin et al. (2007) discovered that those individuals who are not able to efficiently manage their emotions for a long time, may be at risk to get diagnosed with depression or anxiety.

Key points

• Guided meditation has been proven to improve clinical disorders such as anxiety and depression, as well as other disorders, addictions, and substance abuse (Ospina et al. 2007; Balaji et al, 2012; Khanna and Greeson, 2013; Lakhan and Scholfield, 2013).
• Blood and cholesterol levels became normal, stress was reduced, and improvement on cardiovascular diseases prevention (Cooper and Aygen, 1978; Barns et al., 2001; Grossman et al., 2004; Anderson et al., 2008).
• Meditation is reported to enhance the immune system and be an effective treatment in pain management (Kabat-Zinn, 1990).

Quiz

1 </nowiki>

{Has guided meditation been linked to the increased ability to focus?

	True
	False

Can functional and structural neuroplastic be increased with guided meditation?

	True
	False

Does Eastern Spiritual tradition see meditation as a tool?

	Yes
	No

Guided Meditation

What is guided meditation and is it the same thing as mindfulness mediation?

Guided meditation is a style of meditation that is led by some sort of audio, such as a teacher, audio recording, or even a video (Headspace, 2023). The goal of this style of meditation is to achieve a purpose, such as improve self-improvement, improving relationships and development of forgiveness, and create a calm and relaxed mind. As the brain is unable to distinguish the imagery during meditation, a feeling of the experience is a real one can help with forming new pathways for a new view and or pathway to be seen (Moral, 2017).

Whereas, mindfulness can be easily described as “moment-by-moment awareness” (Germer et al., 2005, p. 6,  Davis, D. M., & Hayes, J. A.2011). Mindfulness is to be about monitoring attention, making sure the focus always reverts to the present. Mindfulness meditation can be experienced in a formal style of meditation, or alone individually (Gallant, S. N., 2016). Jon KabatZinn debuted mindfulness as a therapeutic discipline at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in the year of 1979, this was through Jon’s own program known as ‘Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction’ (Bishop, S.R., 2002). The benefits of mindfulness meditation has been shown to considerably decrease stress, increase self-compassion, improve resiliency, compassion, and also emotion regulation (Green, A. A., & Kinchen, E. V., 2021)

Emotion Regulation

How to efficiently regulate emotions

Emotion regulation can be explained to be the process of how a person is able to regulate their emotions consciously or unconsciously Rottenberg, J., & Gross, J. J., 2003). Improvements with health, relationships, and improved job performance has also been shown with successful emotion regulation (John, O.P., and Gross, J. J.,2004).

Alpha waves are steady and additionally high amplitude brain waves that have a frequency that can range from eight to thirteen phases per second. When Alpha activity is shown, it is normally an indication that the mind has reached a deep state of relaxation. (Jacobs & Luber, 1989; Delmonte, 1984a).

A case study on meditation and emotion regulation

Case Study

Louie works in the public service. Louie usually really enjoys his work and his work relationships are positive. However, due to the stress at work, Louie finds it harder to remain positive at work and is allowing the negative thoughts and feelings creep up on him, which is making his work less productive. Louie understand that he needs to start to do something which will help and turns to guided meditation.

Case study learnings: guided meditation

Figure 1. A group of people together for a guided meditation.

Louie has realised that he is struggling with his thoughts and feelings due to his current situation at his workplace. Louie understands that he should not feel this way and should be able to have some control over his mindset. He turns to guided meditation, this is allowing Louie to not only do something that is specific to helping him, as guided meditation can be specifically targeted to a goal or emotions, but can also assist Louie when it comes to his mindset and thoughts at work. This situation of Louie realising that guided meditation can help with regulating his emotions.

How does guided meditation effect emotion regulation

Benefits, risks, and emotional regulation

(Davidson et al., 2003) found with recent studies and research performed on the monks of Dharamsala, Himanchal Pradesh, it was proved that even when they are not meditating, their prefrontal lobes remain lit.

Schwatz (1975) indicated that meditation practices can lead to an increased cortical arousability, while decreasing limbic arousability. This decrease can lead to perception levels to increase and emotional activity to decline.

Furthermore, there have been studies that have been undertaken that have seen results where there was an increase in visual imagery abilities (Heil, 1973), the reaction time of an individual has been shown to be increased (Robertson, 1983), and (Jedrczak, Toomey, & Clements, 1986) discovered an enhancement with perceptual motor speed.

Figure 2. Emotions that have broken down into categories.

There are no real risks with the completion of this style of meditation, besides the normal feeling of anxiety when learning a new skill or experiencing something new. This occurs as the letting go of distractions and getting in touch with feelings and thoughts begins (Barton and Bauer-Wu, 2010).

Conclusion

Overall, guided meditation comes in various different forms and styles, this allows for individuals to tailor their own needs and possibly goals to what style of guided meditation they should do. Each individual will go through rough stages, through their work life and even their personal life, introducing guided meditation into everyday life will help create an overall healthier mindset for the individual, while also allowing a clear mindset when it comes to high stress or pressure situations. Furthermore, when an individual becomes more aware and are able to regulate their emotions, it has been proven that they will improve their relationships, overall mental health, and even improve their job performance. Individuals who continue to practice meditation, their Alpha wave activity can be active and the mind can be in a deep state of relaxation, even when not in a meditating state.

Overall, this chapter described when meditation was first recorded to be used, how it is now used and what the benefits that individuals who practice this activity can gain, while also show that there are no major effects or risks and proves that there are major health benefits.

See also

• Motivation and emotion/Book/2022/Mindful self-care (Book chapter, 2022)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anapanasati (Wikipedia)

References

Barton, D., & Bauer-Wu, S. (2010). Mindfulness meditation.

Bishop, S. R. (2002). What do we really know about mindfulness-based stress reduction?. Psychosomatic medicine, 64(1), 71-83.

Davis, D. M., & Hayes, J. A. (2011). What are the benefits of mindfulness? A practice review of psychotherapy-related research. Psychotherapy, 48(2), 198. Gallant, S. N. (2016). Mindfulness meditation practice and executive functioning: Breaking down the benefit. Consciousness and cognition, 40, 116-130.

Headspace, Guided Meditation, 2023.

John, O. P., & Gross, J. J. (2004). Healthy and unhealthy emotion regulation: Personality processes, individual differences, and life span development. Journal of personality, 72(6), 1301-1334. Fingelkurts, A. A., Fingelkurts, A. A., & Kallio-Tamminen, T. (2015). EEG-guided meditation: a personalized approach. Journal of Physiology-Paris, 109(4-6), 180-190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jphysparis.2015.03.001

Hussain, D., & Bhushan, B. (2010). Psychology of meditation and health: Present status and future directions. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 10(3), 439-451. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/560/56017068007.pdf retrieved from International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, vol 10, number 3. October, 2010, pp. 439-451

Jenkins, A. (2015). Guided meditation in the English language classroom. In English teaching forum (Vol. 53, No. 1, pp. 35-38). https://repo.iainbatusangkar.ac.id/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/8400/1509096959459_Untitled.pdf?sequence=1 retrieved from Teaching Techniques

Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Mindfulness-based stress reduction. Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness, 467. https://doi.org/10.1002/shi.88

Mennin, D. S., Holaway, R. M., Fresco, D. M., Moore, M. T., & Heimberg, R. G. (2007). Delineating components of emotion and its dysregulation in anxiety and mood psychopathology. Behavior therapy, 38(3), 284-302. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2006.09.001

Moral, A. (2017). Guided meditation: A regimen for mental health. Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing, 8(2), 180. Rottenberg, J., & Gross, J. J. (2003). When emotion goes wrong: Realizing the promise of affective science. https://doi.org/10.1093/clipsy.bpg012

Wallace, B. A., & Shapiro, S. L. (2006). Mental balance and well-being: building bridges between Buddhism and Western psychology. American Psychologist, 61(7), 690.  https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.61.7.690

Anapanasati. Wikimedia Foundation. 13/07/2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anapanasati

Mysticism. Wikimedia Foundation. 15/08/2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism

Zhang, Q., Wang, Z., Wang, X., Liu, L., Zhang, J., & Zhou, R. (2019). The effects of different stages of mindfulness meditation training on emotion regulation. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 13, 208. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00208

External links

This podcast by Andrew Huberman, Ph.D., is a professor in neurobiology and also a neuroscientist at the Stanford School of medicine, dives into explaining what meditation is, how meditation practices can lead to changed neuroplasticity, how baseline anxiety and depression is reduced, and much more.

https://hubermanlab.com/how-meditation-works-and-science-based-effective-meditations/

InsightTimer is a website that offers free guided meditations and other key talks, sounds, and music to assist with meditation, better sleep, and to help with anxiety and stress.

https://insighttimer.com/guided-meditations