Take a break, quit piling on life’s suffering, and join Amielle and guest co-host Kate Sherman for an exploration of the neuroscience behind mindfulness meditation. They discuss some unexpected results from Bang et al. (2023) that mindfulness programs makes a major difference on white matter tracks and panic disorder recovery. Allow this audio stimulus—brimming with inspirational jingles and messages of self-compassion—to slam into who you are as a person. Also, your sister isn’t always right.

Links

• On the beauty of sadness: it’s okay to say, I am sad, thank you, Tobore (2023)
• 5 Ways Sadness is Good for You, Forgas & Hickman (2017) 
• Long-term benefits of mindfulness on white matter tracts underlying the cortical midline structures in panic disorder: A 2-year longitudinal study, Bang Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, (2023)
• Inducing a meditative state by artificial perturbations: A causal mechanistic understanding of brain dynamics underlying meditation, Dagnino, bioRxiv, (2023)
• The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation, Tang, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, (2015)
• Diffusion tensor imaging of the brain, Alexander et al. (2007)
• Fractional anisotropy (FA) changes after several weeks of daily left high frequency rTMS of the prefrontal cortex to treat major depression, Kozel et al. (2012).
• Precuneus background
• Kristen Neff’s Self-Compassion Inventory
• DBT & Me podcast
• The Couch and the Chair podcast
• Feature Paper intro song: “Oh Come On” by The Julie Ruin
• Closing song performed by Kate Sherman, composed by Amielle Moreno

Follow the Hosts

• Amielle: @CurlsPhD and @TroubleheliXX
• Kate: @heartfeltmh
• Leah: @HoxInSocks