Attention Deficits and Mindfulness Training

Attention deficits and mindfulness training: Recently I posted a blog entry (click here) about research support for mindfulness meditation training as one non-medication intervention for attention deficits. Seems as if this topic is really taking off: a few days after that blog entry, my friend Stephanie West Allen, of Brains on Purpose, tipped me to an excellent article in the Boston Globe that explores the concept of attention. What is it, anyway, and can it be "trained"? Here are excerpts:

"Attention remains one of the most poorly understood human faculties. Neither a subject nor a skill, precisely, attention is often seen as a fixed, even inborn faculty that cannot be taught. Children with attention problems are medicated; harried adults struggle to "pay attention." In a sense, our reigning view of attention hasn't come far from that of William James, the father of American psychological research, who dolefully asserted a century ago that attention could not be highly trained by 'any amount of drill or discipline.'

"But now scientists are rapidly rewriting that notion. After decades of research powered by fresh advances in neuroimaging and genetics, many scientists are drawing a much clearer picture of attention, which they have come to see as an organ system like circulation or digestion, with its own anatomy, circuitry, and chemistry. Building upon this new understanding, researchers are discovering that skills of focus can be bolstered with practice in both children and adults, including those with attention-deficit disorders... "

The Boston Globe article also alludes to one aspect of attentional control, or capacity, that is of enormous significance (but rarely mentioned): there appears to be a strong relationship between emotion regulation and attentional control. And emotion regulation is tremendously important in mental health and wellness. Dysregulation of emotion cuts deeply into, and across, the spectrum of psychiatric problems: poor regulation of "negative" emotions is involved in depression, impulsivity, and interpersonal problems; poor regulation of "positive" emotions is involved in mania, and also in gambling and other "addiction" problems. The Globe article quotes Dr. Amir Raz, a cognitive neuroscientist at McGill University:

"If you have good attentional control, you can do more than just pay attention to someone speaking at a lecture, you can control your cognitive processes, control your emotions, better articulate your actions... You can enjoy and gain an edge in life."

Mindfulness meditation is a practice that helps us to consistently learn to compassionately observe our own emotions, thoughts, sensations, and impulses. This capacity to observe is (among other things) a way to build in a space between impulse and action (diminishing reactivity). And when we diminish knee-jerk responses (reactivity), we are enhancing our capacity for thoughtful, meaningful action responses to the all the various stimuli, emotions, thoughts, and impulses that we encounter on a daily basis.