Somatosensory awareness

Mindfulness starts with the body: Meditation has been practiced for over two millennia in Asian Buddhist traditions. It is said to involve the cultivation of experiential awareness of the present moment. This present-moment focus is thought to improve well-being by allowing individuals to become aware of sensations, emotions and thoughts that arise in the mind without judgment or reactivity. Over the last two decades, mindfulness-related treatments have become an increasingly common component of the healthcare system. A common set of mindfulness exercises have been shown to reduce distress in chronic pain and decrease risk of depression relapse. These practices require attending to breath and body sensations. Here, we offer a novel view. Somatic focus helps modulate 7–14 Hz alpha rhythms (brain waves) that play a key role in filtering inputs to primary sensory neocortex and organizing the flow of sensory information in the brain. In support of the framework, we describe our previous finding that meditation enhances attention in the primary somatosensory cortex. The framework allows us to make several predictions. In chronic pain, we predict somatic attention “de-biases” neuro activity, freeing up pain-focused resources. In depression relapse, we predict somatic attention competes with internally focused rumination, as internally focused cognitive processes (including working memory) rely on alpha filtering of sensory input. Somatic focus sensitizes practitioners to better detect and regulate when the mind wanders from its somatic focus. Enhanced regulation of somatic mind-wandering may be an important early stage of mindfulness training that leads to enhanced cognitive regulation and metacognition

From Frontiers in Neuroscience [ link ]