when I was first learning to meditate the instruction was to simply pay
attention to my breath and when my mind wandered to bring it back sounded simple
enough yet I'd sit on these silent retreats sweating through t-shirts in
the middle of winter I take naps every chance I got because it was really hard
work actually it was exhausting the instruction was simple enough but I was
missing something really important so why is it so hard to pay attention well
studies show that even when we're really trying to pay attention to something
like maybe this talk at some point about half of us will drift off into a
daydream or have this urge to check our Twitter feed so what's going on here it
turns out that we're fighting one of the most evolutionarily conserved learning
processes currently known in science one that's conserved back to the most basic
nervous systems known to man there's forward based learning process is called
positive and negative reinforcement and basically goes like this we see some
food that looks good our brain says calories survival we eat the food we
tasted it tastes good and especially with sugar our body sent a signal to our
brain that says remember what you're eating and where you found it we lay
down this context-dependent memory and learn to repeat the process next time
see food eat food feel good repeat trigger behavior reward simple right
well after while our creative brain say you know what you can use this for more
than just remembering where food is you know next time you feel bad why don't
you try eating something good so you'll feel better we think our brains for the
great idea try this and quickly learn that if we eat chocolate or ice cream
when we're mad or sad we feel better same process just a different trigger
instead of this hunger signal coming from our stomach this emotional signal
feeling sad triggers that our to eat maybe in our teenage years we
were a nerd at school and we see those rebel kids outside smoking we think hey
I want to be cool so we start smoking the Marlboro Man wasn't a dork and that
was no accident see cool smoke to be cool
feel good repeat trigger behavior reward and each time we do this we learn to
repeat the process and it becomes a habit
so later feeling stressed out triggers that urge to smoke a cigarette or to eat
something sweet now with these same brain processes
we've gone from learning to survive to literally killing ourselves with these
habits obesity and smoking are among the elite event about causes of morbidity
and mortality in the world so back to my breath what if instead of fighting our
brains are trying to force ourselves to pay attention we instead tapped into
this natural reward based learning process but added a twist what if
instead we just got really curious about what was happening in our momentary
experience I'll give you an example in my lab we studied whether mindfulness
training could help people quit smoking now just like trying to force myself to
pay attention on my breath they could try to force themselves to quit smoking
and the majority of them had tried this before and failed on average six times
now with mindfulness training we dropped a bit about forcing and instead focused
on being curious in fact we even told them to smoke what yeah we said go ahead
and smoke just be really curious about what it's like when you do and what did
they notice well here's an example from one of our smokers she said mindful
smoking smells like stinky cheese and tastes like chemicals yuck
now she knew cognitively that smoking was bad for her that's why she joined
our program what she discovered just by being curiously aware when she smoked
was that smoking tastes like shit
now she moved from knowledge to wisdom she moved from knowing in her head that
smoking was bad for her to knowing it in her bones and this spell of smoking was
broken she started to become disenchanted with her behavior now the
prefrontal cortex that youngest part of our brain from an evolutionary
perspective it understands on an intellectual level that we shouldn't
smoke and it tries its hardest to help us change our behavior to help us stop
smoking to help us stop eating that second that third that fourth cookie we
call this cognitive control we're using cognition to control our behavior
unfortunately this is also the first part of a brain that goes offline when
we get stressed out which isn't that helpful now we can all relate to this in
our own experience we're much more likely to do things like yell at our
spouse or kids when we're stressed out or tired even though we know it's not
going to be helpful we just can't help ourselves
now when the prefrontal cortex goes offline we fall back into our hold
habits which is why this disenchantment is so important seeing what we get from
our habits helps us understand them in a deeper level to know in our bones so we
don't have to force ourselves to hold back or restrain ourselves from behavior
we're just less interested in doing it in the first place and this is what
mindfulness is all about seeing really clearly what we get when we get caught
up in our behaviors becoming disenchanted on a visceral level and
from this disenchanted stance naturally letting go this isn't to say that proof
magically we quit smoking but over time as we learn to see more and more clearly
the results of our actions we let go of old habits and form new ones the paradox
here is that mindfulness is just about being really interested in getting close
and personal with what's actually happening in our bodies and minds from
moment to moment this willingness to turn toward our experience rather than
trying to make unpleasant cravings go away as quickly as possible and this
willingness to turn toward our experience is supported by curiosity
which is naturally rewarding what does curiosity feel like it feels good
and what happens when we get curious we start to notice that cravings are simply
made up of body sensations oh there's tightness there's tension
there's restlessness and that these body sensations come and go these are
bite-size pieces of experiences that we can manage from moment to moment rather
than getting clobbered by this huge scary craving that we choke on in other
words when we get curious we step out of our old fear-based reactive habit
patterns and we step into being we've become this inner scientist where we're
eagerly awaiting that next data point know this might sound too simplistic to
affect behavior but in one study we found that mindfulness training was
twice as good as gold standard therapy at helping people quit smoking so it
actually works and when we studied the brains of experienced meditators we
found that parts of a neural network of deaf self-referential processing called
the default mode network we're at play now one current hypothesis is that a
region of this network called the posterior cingulate cortex is activated
not necessarily by craving itself but when we get caught up in it when we get
sucked in and it takes us for a ride in contrast when we let go step out of the
process just by being curiously aware of what's happening this same brain region
quiets down now we're testing app and online based mindfulness training
programs that target these core mechanisms and ironically use the same
technology that's driving us to distraction to help us step out of our
unhealthy habit patterns of smoking of stress eating and other addictive
behaviors now remember that bit about context dependent memory we can deliver
these tools to people's fingertips in the context that matter most so we can
help them tap into their inherent capacity to be curiously aware right
when that urge to smoke or stress eat or whatever arises so if you don't smoke or
stress eat maybe the next time you feel this urge to check your email when
you're bored or you're trying to distract yourself from work or maybe to
compulsively respond to that text message when you're driving
see if you can tap into this natural capacity just be curiously aware of
what's happening in your body in mind in that moment it will just be another
chance to perpetuate one of our endless and exhaustive habit loops or step out
of it instead of see text message compulsively text back feel a little bit
better notice the urge get curious feel the joy
of letting go and repeat thank you