I use these 2 diagrams to teach clients re how they can train healthier brain pathways through regular practice of mindfulness exercises, as discovered by recent neuroscience research. I usually give them to clients as a single A4 handout, with one of the diagrams on the each side of the sheet.
Functional Diagram of the Brain - BEFORE Mindfulness Training
As a result of our Western-style education system, the thinking centres of the brain (memory, imagination, planning, logic, problem-solving) are highly developed, but the attentional centre (i.e. the prefrontal cortex and its various connections, "the CPU of the computer") is relatively underdeveloped, and the emotional centres are relatively poorly regulated.
As a result, clients can easily get caught in dysfunctional "brain loops" - e.g. a loop between the imagination, emotion and planning centres of the brain results in worry/anxiety ; a loop between the memory, emotion and imagination centre can result in depressive ruminations). The attention centre is often not strong enough to interrupt the loop and redirect attention elsewhere.
Functional Diagram of the Brain - AFTER Mindfulness Training
8-12 weeks of regular practice of mindfulness exercises results in increased size and strength of the "CPU" and its connections (presented in a rather exaggerated fashion in the diagram!) and some decrease in size of the emotion centre (more specifically, the amygdala which is the source of most of our 'unpleasant' emotions).
As a result, when the client notices she is starting to worry or ruminate, she can use her strengthened attention centre to break the loop and redirect attention in more workable directions e.g. committed action based on values.
The 5 small pictures on the right represent the 5 senses (i.e. the 'inputs to the computer') and the 2 pictures on the left represent the 2 main outputs , i.e. action and speech.
Submitted by Dr Kingsley Mudd MBBS, BMedSci, FRACGP, Townsville, Qld, Australia
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