Meditation: beneficial for students suffering due to lack of attention

Meditation:

We know how much information is passed together through our brain at a time. But we hardly focus all. We only focus on the ones that are important and interesting to us. So, often we forget to give attention to the class teaching, which we find not interesting. As a result, we fall apart in that particular subject. The inability of focusing information can be termed as a lack of attention.

The ability to focus and refocus attention is clearly necessary for teachers, research scholars or student learning at school. Advanced and frontier research suggests that meditation is really useful to improve the ability of attention and to give a boost to our immune system.

Mindfulness meditation derived from Buddhism

Science of Meditation:

Brainwaves are generated when neurons fire inside the brain. So, different brainwaves are generated for various activities like decision making, image processing, face perception, visual search, emotions, different cognitive tasks, motor activities, etc.  Research suggests that there are few brain waves like  Infra low, Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta and Gamma waves, which are mainly differentiated based on their frequencies (cycles per second) measured in Hertz (Hz). Now let's talk about different brainwaves and the corresponding activities due to which that generates.

Brain waves	Activities
Infra low waves      (< .5 Hz)	Very little is known./ No confirmed result
Delta waves   (.5 Hz to 3 Hz)	Deep sleep, Deepest meditation, etc.
Theta waves   ( 3 Hz to 8 Hz)	Deep meditation, Sleep, Vivid imagery, etc.
Alpha waves   ( 8 Hz to 12 Hz)	Mental coordination, Calmness, etc.
Beta waves   ( 12 Hz to 38 Hz)	Cognitive tasks
Gamma waves   ( 8 Hz to 12 Hz)	Altruistic behaviour, Higher virtue etc.

It is very clear from the table that beta waves are responsible for our daily activities (i.e., the complex cognitive tasks). The frequency range for these activities is also high, which indicates high noise in our brain. We often realize the importance of mental calmness in our daily life. We take a deep breath and try to calm down our system.  Alpha waves play a role to calm our brain and improve mindfulness.

Mindfulness meditation

Mindfulness meditation came from Buddhism. It helps to keep one's mind focused and get rid of negative emotions and ideas [1]. Our brain generates alpha waves at our meditation state [2]. Deep meditation and deep sleep can speed up the healing process of our body. There are evidences that deep meditation and deep sleep improve our immune system [3]. Mindfulness promotes emotional regulation, also because it improves the individual's emotional expertise. This definitely implies that it will create a positive emotion that additionally involves being awake to the feeling.

How to do meditations?

There are many ways to do meditations. Here I will tell you one of them (the one I follow). Basically, you need to seat with a chair keeping your feet on the ground. First, you must ensure zero disturbance at that time. Then you start with abdominal breathing (i.e., breathing with your belly) and think that you are taking the fresh air inside and getting rid of the bad air (air with pollution). Abdominal breathing is a wonderful relaxation technique that helps to reduce stress levels. It has many more physiological importance (see details). You should continue this technique for 4-5 minutes keeping your eyes closed. Then try to feel that, your mind is quiet and relaxed and your body weight is reduced as gravity is pulling your body downwards. Now try to feel that you have reached your dream house which is placed in the most beautiful and quiet place in the world. Try to see the beauty of that place through your internal eye. Then freely move around the nearby places there and touch your favorite plants and enjoy the singing of birds. Then after a few minutes, you come back to your house.

This home is your most powerful state of mind. So you may give auto-suggestions to your brain about your likes, dislikes, to-do list, seeking a quick heal from your diseases, etc. Now feel that your confidence has increased a lot and a lot of positive energy is restored in your system. Then slowly open your eyes and stretch your hand and legs. Then get up from the chair. The whole process will take 20-25 minutes but there is no hard and first rule regarding the duration. You should do it according to your convenience. The above meditation technique is called the Quantum method of meditation (Please see for more details). This absolutely works for me. I am a neuroscientist not a doctor so if you find any problem doing the above-stated meditation method, I strongly recommend not continuing this.

Now we have seen enough evidence that meditation improves the ability of paying attention. So regular meditation will be highly beneficial for students suffering due to lack of attention. Since mathematics deals with abstractness, meditation would help to improve abstract thinking and logical sense. 

Check out the following books. These are really nice read.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

References:

[1] Ratanasiripong, Paul, et al. "Stress and anxiety management in nursing students: biofeedback and mindfulness meditation." Journal of Nursing Education 54.9 (2015): 520-524.

[2]  Stinson, Bruce, and David Arthur. "A novel EEG for alpha brain state training, neurofeedback and behavior change." Complementary therapies in clinical practice 19.3 (2013): 114-118.

[3] Irwin, Michael R., and Mark R. Opp. "Sleep health: reciprocal regulation of sleep and innate immunity." Neuropsychopharmacology 42.1 (2017): 129-155.