- Almost every guided meditation that I have tried
has been like, "start by ridding your mind of any thoughts."
And I'm like, "Now I'm just thinking about not thinking."
- [Jordan] Looking at Mei's brain.
On the top is before,
below is after more than a month of meditation practice.
- Positive healthy changes, kinda hard.
(upbeat music)
Hi, I'm Mei, and I'm gonna be meditating every day
for at least 25 minutes for the next six weeks.
I've done some guided meditations through different apps
or therapies that I've been in,
but it's never been something
that I've actually been able to stick with.
I've heard that there's so many benefits
like reducing anxiety and depression,
better sleep, better concentration.
I feel like it could be really helpful for me
'cause I definitely need all those things.
My sleep schedule right now is literally tragic.
On average, I'm probably getting
like two to four hours of sleep.
And most of the time, it's interrupted.
I'm on my third prescribed medication
to try and get me to sleep,
and nothing has really worked.
So there have been some studies done that show
that meditation can actually change your brain
if done consistently.
So I'm actually gonna get an MRI taken of my brain before
and after the six-week challenge.
The MRI services we received
in this video were free of cost.
And then I'm gonna sit down
with a neurologist who will go over my scans with me
and tell me if any changes have occurred.
(upbeat music)
It is officially day one of my six-week meditative journey.
So to start myself off,
I'm kind of just gonna try and ease into it.
So I'm just gonna use a guided meditation app
that I've used a lot of times,
because I know that it makes it way easier.
Today, I'm gonna be doing a managing stress
and anxiety guided meditation.
I think it'll be helpful.
I'm a little bit nervous,
but 25 minutes every day, we gotta do it.
(upbeat music)
Day one is done.
I know I was getting a little distracted.
That's something I really wanna work on tomorrow
and just moving forward is the fidgeting.
Surprisingly, the 25 minutes didn't feel unbearable at all.
I think after six weeks of doing this every single day,
there's no way that that won't get easier.
Okay, so it is the last day of my first week,
and to kind of celebrate that,
I'm trying something new
and I'm going to do my first non-guided meditation.
Today, I'm gonna be trying this thing
called sound meditation.
Basically, the way that it works is
I just kind of sit somewhere
and focus on all of the sounds around me
and kind of isolating them
and just centering myself through those sounds.
So instead of just staying in my apartment
and trying to do it here,
I'm gonna drive down to the beach
and like find a semi secluded area, if I can.
Maybe sit on some rocks
and have like the wind, the wave sounds.
(peaceful music)
Okay, not to be dramatic, but I literally almost cried.
I have a lot of emotions tied to like sitting at this spot.
Whenever I have a really hard time,
this is kinda just my spot to like debrief.
Focusing so much on all of the sounds
that kinda come with me,
being at this spot just really brought up so much.
Wow, that was amazing.
I am on my way to meet with a meditation expert
and I am really hoping that they'll be able
to answer some of my questions
and maybe teach me about some different types of meditation
'cause I'm feeling a little limited
with the knowledge that I have.
I'm trying, but we could use some help.
- What is your baseline understanding of meditation?
- I've used the headspace,
but mostly for really short meditations.
- It takes about anywhere from 15 to 18 minutes
for the mind to quiet down completely.
For a lot of people, it's hard.
You spiral into these thoughts
when you're trying to be thoughtless.
- I definitely find myself thinking a lot
about how I shouldn't be thinking.
- Out of the ones that you tried so far,
is there one that resonates
or that your body reacts to a little bit differently?
- I tried yesterday sound meditation.
That was the closest that I have felt to this like quiet.
- When you did the sound one, you set an intention also
about your surroundings before it.
- [Mei] Yeah.
- So you really cultivated the space for it to happen.
Any type of meditation, I really encourage folks
to try to make that moment extraordinary.
- For days that I can't be as intentional,
how can I make that feel more extraordinary?
- I would start setting up a space.
Whatever space feels organically,
intuitively special to you.
Light up some incense, light up a candle,
maybe put some essential oil.
By having that,
you're already tapping into that mental space per se.
What it does is it creates an anchor.
- Maybe I'll go like buy a candle
or something that I'm only gonna light
- [Richard] Exactly. - when I'm meditating.
- What is it that you want out of the meditations to do?
- Improving my sleep.
- Breathing meditations will definitely help
in facilitating your sleep.
- Another massive goal though
I think would be working on anxiety.
- Do you know why you get anxious?
- Well, I have really bad social anxiety,
and then also a lot of my anxiety stems from perfectionism.
- Oh, what would help for that,
definitely loving-kindness.
Think of loved ones.
If you have a pet, think of that love you have
for that pet, or someone,
'cause then that love will turn to you.
- Yeah.
- You have the power within yourself.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you!
Seriously, this is so helpful.
(instrumental music)
I just finished my meditation for today.
The advice to have a specific candle every single time
I'm meditating, changed the game.
I'm not kidding when I say,
when I smell this, immediately, I feel more calm.
Okay, hi.
I look and sound a little crusty,
and that's 'cause I just woke up.
I actually had the worst night's sleep
and I woke up feeling a lot of anger.
I don't remember the dream, but I'm pretty sure
I had a nightmare about this very specific person.
This would be a really good time
to try and do the loving-kindness meditation.
I'm gonna do it for three different people.
So I'm gonna do it for, one, somebody that I love
because that's gonna be really easy.
Two, somebody that I know,
but I'm not really close with, so like an acquaintance.
And then, three,
somebody that I have negative feelings towards,
which is going to be a person
that is in my head right now, really consuming me.
And the goal here is to extend these feelings
of loving-kindness and compassion,
and almost understanding I think as well.
I like the fact that it has a lot of direction,
like it's not passive at all,
it's a very active meditation.
So we're gonna try it.
Ready? Set.
Go.
(instrumental music)
Okay, I'm done.
I feel so much more ready for my day and a lot less mad.
This was really, really good.
I'm gonna keep this one in the rotation for sure.
(instrumental music)
One thing that I am very quickly realizing
is going to be a really annoying problem
this entire six weeks is the way
that I need to plan my days
around the fact that I need to meditate.
Like we are trying to make plans for the day
and something that literally just came outta my mouth was,
"Yeah, but I have to meditate.
So like how can we fit that in a day?"
(India blows raspberry)
It's annoying, but we're working with it
'cause it's part of the challenge.
Ugh, I hate to say this,
but we had our first big setback.
Basically, just to rip the Band-Aid off,
I missed two, pretty much three days of meditation,
which is a lot.
And I'm really, really upset about it.
I suffer with really bad migraines I have my entire life
and I had a really intense episode
that lasted almost three days.
And it was to the point that I couldn't move
like I was laying in bed all day.
My girlfriend was literally like hand-feeding me soup.
I was feeling kind of better yesterday,
it was the first day that I was able
to like really get out of bed and half be a person.
So I tried to meditate,
which is why I said two and a half days
because I did like 10-ish minutes yesterday.
But I'm gonna get back into it today,
go full throttle.
Gonna go back in my little corner
and light my candle.
I'm actually really excited.
Shockingly, I've been missing it.
(instrumental music)
Okay, my motivation to meditate today, zero, literally none.
I'm about to go to dinner and I need to do it before then
because I'm just like gonna be
with India the rest of the night.
And I don't really wanna do it.
I'm forcing myself to go
and be like really intentional about this one
'cause I know it's gonna be harder for me to keep my focus.
My apartment has this rooftop thing.
I'm gonna go sit on there and do the meditation there,
and I'm gonna do a sound meditation,
while I'm watching the sunset.
(instrumental music)
I ended up doing like 10, 15 minutes of sound meditation
and then I got too distracted to keep doing it.
So I just automatically switched
to loving-kindness meditation,
and it worked super well
because I was able to focus my energy very much
on like the mantras or whatever that I was saying.
And I didn't even think about it to do that.
It just kinda happens to me.
Honestly, I feel like I've grown a lot,
even just from that one thing.
Like that's awesome.
(instrumental music)
Something that I'm noticing is
that I think I might have a little bit more mental energy
because it's one of those days
where every little thing is just going so incredibly wrong.
And I just want to pick up my lunch that I ordered online
and somebody picked up my order.
And since I already had such a stressful day,
I know usually, I would probably be crying.
And today, I got into my car after that happened,
just ordered another meal inside
and I just sat here for a sec, took some deep breaths.
And then I was like,
"Did I just soothe myself with breathing?"
Like what?
Who is that?
Like, it's me, I guess now.
Okay.
It's currently 1:00 AM.
And I actually just realized
that I did not meditate today.
So this is actually really good timing
to not be able to sleep
because I'm going to try the sleep meditation
that we talked about with the expert.
I have not slept before like 5:00 AM
in probably a week, and that needs to change.
So I am pretty desperate.
I've kinda been putting this one off
because I just don't wanna be disappointed honestly.
We're ripping the Band-Aid off.
If I don't check back means I fell asleep.
As you can see, I'm awake.
So it didn't work. (chuckles)
I do feel more calm though.
My mind is a lot more clear.
I struggle a lot with racing thoughts,
especially at night.
With that being said, I meant to just let it out,
so that hopefully I don't mess
with what just happened
and I can just maybe fall asleep faster.
(calm music)
I slept over at India's last night
and now we just had breakfast, and I'm on my way home.
And I just noticed this little park on my way home.
It's one of those days where I feel
like I can't get into the headspace
of like actually working
because I just feel like I wanna be
with my girlfriend right now.
But I need to be productive,
and I need to go home and do my work.
If I give myself this 25 minutes to sit here
at this really cute park and just relax
and do my meditation for the day here,
I think I'm actually gonna be able
to be more productive once I get home.
I think this is actually a huge sign of growth.
Putting a pause on my work to do something
for myself is something that I just normally
would have never thought to do.
(serene music)
When I tell you,
I feel like I've never been more relaxed in my life,
what just happened to me.
It is objectively inconvenient to go around
to do these meditations somewhere
beside my apartment, but holy (beep),
it makes such a difference.
And I really do feel so much more into it
and so much more affected by the meditations
when I'm doing them in a space like this.
Wow.
(upbeat music)
My hair looks absolutely insane,
but I was just so excited to report.
I fell asleep while doing the meditation yesterday.
(upbeat music)
Um, I killed it.
If I was guessing, I would say I probably did it
for like 15 minutes before I fell asleep.
So technically, I didn't meet the 25-minute mark,
but the falling asleep while doing it
means a lot more to me than that.
So it's a win.
(calm upbeat music)
All right, I don't know what was going on
with my upstairs neighbors,
but it sounded like they were literally bowling
as I was trying to meditate,
but I wasn't distracted by it.
Like I would hear the noise,
I would kind of acknowledge it in my brain
for one second and then flip it right back.
I feel really proud of myself.
Knowing that the challenge is coming to an end
and I'm feeling like this is just making me so happy.
Okay, I can't believe I'm actually saying this,
but we did it.
It is the final day of meditating every day for six weeks.
I am in shock that I have made it this far
and I am so proud of myself.
And to celebrate my final day,
I am going to do a little throwback
to my first really successful meditation
which was the one in Malibu.
I just feel like it's the perfect way to end the challenge.
It just feels right.
(instrumental music)
- Hi, I'm Victoria, and this is Dr. Jordan.
I am the director of business development and marketing
for The Regenesis Project,
which is a research organization
that is devoted to new technologies
for brain health and regeneration.
There were a lot of people suffering
who weren't seeing results
from traditional therapies.
So he has created his own clinical research organization.
- What is the difference between functional imaging,
like what we did, and just like traditional MRIs,
traditional imaging?
- In conventional imaging, the idea is to mostly look
at the shape and size of the brain.
It's pretty good for looking for areas of scarring
or possibly in the bad case, the growth of a tumor.
It basically shows you structure,
but it doesn't show you how things are working.
When you do a functional image,
you're actually looking at the thought process.
- So we're so excited to share what we found.
- Here we are looking at pictures of Mei's brain.
On the top is before,
below is after more than a month of meditation practice,
and changes in her mood state.
She became much less anxious.
We know that the anxiety is related
to a particular part of the brain called the amygdala.
This is a part of the brain that has to do
with the fight or flight mechanism.
And what happens when people become anxious is
that the whole brain gets caught up.
And you can see in her whole frontal lobe, for example,
is completely engaged in this anxiety response.
And then she had this
more than one month of meditation practice,
and look what happened, all that activity
in the frontal lobe calmed down, much less activation.
We could compare Mei with other people,
and see how much connectivity there is of the amygdala
with the rest of the brain.
You can see all these reds and yellows here,
and that's actually a statistical worsening
of the anxiety response.
So he has much more activation compared to expectation.
And then after this meditation practice for a month,
look at this.
She has very little signal.
So the whole brain is kinda quieted down
compared to expected normal activity.
- That's so cool.
- Interestingly, the insula over here
is a little activated.
That's a part of the brain that has to do with suffering.
People suffer when they're too anxious,
they have repetitive thoughts.
But in this case,
she coped with the anxiety by this meditation practice,
much less activation than before.
What we saw with Mei is the results
of a new meditation practice
that changed her life in some very positive ways.
- I definitely like have noticed certain things,
but seeing like actual factual like inarguable scans
is so cool, 'cause it does make me feel like,
"Okay, it wasn't just like a placebo."
Like that's legitimate like research now.
That's so cool.
I do actually genuinely feel different.
I'm pretty surprised.
The meditation wasn't a cure-all
for my anxiety and sleep issues,
but I did find it to be a helpful tool.
It's not perfect.
But the fact that I did see a little bit
of change does motivate me to keep doing it,
and then allows me to believe
that there is a chance
that it could continue to help more.
Now, I see meditation as something
that I will use in the future on a semi-regular basis.
I feel like it was worth it.
(instrumental music)