Mindfulness

Another foodless post in my food blog, I should stop calling myself a foodblogger, also because my foodless posts (sadly?) are read much more than my recipes :)

I have been cooking a lot lately, but I failed in taking any decent picture. Hence, tonight let me talk about one of my personal hot topics of 2014, which is mental health and specifically the effect of meditation and physical exercise on it. Wow, I am a real radical-chic, I wear a Burberry trench coat and talk about vegan shit and meditation, unbelievable! (the 10-years-back myself would have killed me)

I (in my spare time, as many friends would say) work as a researched in the field of neuroscience, and thus I hear quite often words related to brain conditions such as disease, plasticity, degeneration, and so on, but I guess I always saw such things as legends in my plots, factors in my anova, and nothing more.

But more recently, I joined the anxiety club, a very prestigious gathering of people that is not as exclusive as one might think, but instead rather welcoming with new members from all over the world :)  Googling my symptoms (and throwing years of medical research out of the window), amongst a lot of shit I also found something interesting: a paper showing that the effects of meditation in anxiety/depression are comparable to those of mild antidepressants. Ok, let's do it.

For the first week or so, I only learned to mind the weight of my ass on the chair. But I didn't quit, because at the time the thought of my ass pressing on the chair was better than anything else that was crossing my mind. I did it for a while and I still do it when I feel like. What I liked most was the idea of letting thoughts and feeling flow, without fighting the negative and chasing the positive ones. I am not sure I learned how to do it, perhaps not, but I liked this idea so much that I kept trying. But every now and then, the 10-years-back myself popped up in my mind, saying with a teasing voice: what are you becoming, a freaking hippie? Will you start dancing in the moonlight and talking with flowers? The brain is working as any other organs, full stop.

Well, after a while I made my mind on it. Yes, the brain is like any other organs, ok, a bit more sophisticated, but that's what it is. Abnormal mental states are symptoms that something is not working properly, as muscle pain is the symptom of too much exercise. But perhaps meditation is a way of training the brain to engage healthy circles of thoughts, just like controlled physical exercise is a way of training the body. BTW, training the body too has a positive effect on mental states, and this is one of the reasons why I run my ass off during the week :)

So, I still think lighting incense sticks and orienting the bed towards east (or west? or south?) is not helpful for mental health. Eventually, it is a misbalance of neurotransmitters. But meditation yes, perhaps it helps. Along with a deep search of what has gone wrong. And someone that every day reminds you that perfection is boring, just loving you the way you are.

The 10-years-from-now myself is looking at me with a gentle gaze and the smile of who thinks that a lot of water has to pass under the bridge (perhaps too much of a literal translation from the italian, but you know what I mean ;) )