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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:44,760 - [Driver] We're about 2 minutes away from the main entrance. 2 00:00:51,760 --> 00:00:56,560 - How far away is the Syrian border from here? 3 00:00:56,600 --> 00:01:00,480 - Syrian border is about 17 to 18 kilometres, 4 00:01:00,520 --> 00:01:04,040 north of the Za'atari camp. - Yeah. 5 00:01:04,080 --> 00:01:06,920 - The border is completely sealed off. 6 00:01:06,960 --> 00:01:09,320 Jordan is no longer accepting 7 00:01:09,360 --> 00:01:12,360 or able to take any more refugees 8 00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:15,360 because of security issues. 9 00:01:15,400 --> 00:01:18,160 Unfortunately we cannot film the main gate. 10 00:01:18,200 --> 00:01:19,920 - [Shannon] Ah ha. 11 00:01:19,960 --> 00:01:22,000 - So we will have to turn cameras off. 12 00:01:41,800 --> 00:01:43,520 - [Shannon voiceover] When I started my experiment 13 00:01:43,560 --> 00:01:46,080 to see what would happen to my mental wellbeing 14 00:01:46,120 --> 00:01:48,680 if I meditated every day for a year, 15 00:01:50,120 --> 00:01:52,160 I didn't plan to end up in the Middle East, 16 00:01:53,240 --> 00:01:55,120 a region which is the front line 17 00:01:55,160 --> 00:01:58,120 of a global humanitarian crisis, 18 00:01:58,160 --> 00:02:01,440 and the heart of so much suffering. 19 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:07,160 None the less it was here, on the dusty streets 20 00:02:07,200 --> 00:02:10,360 of one of the biggest refugee camps in the world 21 00:02:10,400 --> 00:02:13,360 where the psychological scars left by war 22 00:02:13,400 --> 00:02:16,000 and homelessness are in plain sight, 23 00:02:16,040 --> 00:02:20,760 that the importance of my first question finally hit home. 24 00:02:22,760 --> 00:02:26,240 But my story actually begins half a world away, 25 00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:28,800 and more than a year ago. 26 00:02:42,680 --> 00:02:44,880 In my work as a journalist and film maker, 27 00:02:44,920 --> 00:02:47,880 I had started to research a new documentary 28 00:02:47,920 --> 00:02:51,680 on what can only be described as a mental health crisis. 29 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:54,200 And I don't just mean the wellbeing 30 00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:56,000 of the 70 million people 31 00:02:56,040 --> 00:02:58,760 who have lost their homes to war and famine. 32 00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:02,280 Despite living in a time of unprecedented progress 33 00:03:02,320 --> 00:03:05,360 in science, technology, and medicine, 34 00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:08,240 according to the leading medical science journal, 35 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:12,120 The Lancet, every country in the world is facing 36 00:03:12,160 --> 00:03:16,120 and failing to tackle a host of mental health disorders. 37 00:03:17,840 --> 00:03:20,600 - If economic affluence was a recipe for happiness 38 00:03:20,640 --> 00:03:22,720 and freedom from pain and suffering, 39 00:03:22,760 --> 00:03:24,000 then the developed world should be 40 00:03:24,040 --> 00:03:25,400 about as happy as it gets. 41 00:03:25,440 --> 00:03:26,800 But it's not. 42 00:03:26,840 --> 00:03:28,160 - [Nick Van Dam] The rough estimates suggest that, 43 00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:31,280 something like 20 to 25% of people will experience 44 00:03:31,320 --> 00:03:32,960 mental illness within their lifetime. 45 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:35,000 So we're talking about one in four people. 46 00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:37,160 And there's even more interest in data more recently 47 00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:39,680 suggesting that that might even be an underestimate 48 00:03:39,720 --> 00:03:41,440 which I find shocking. 49 00:03:41,480 --> 00:03:44,440 And if you think one in four people, that's huge, right. 50 00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:45,800 And if that's an underestimate, you know, 51 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:47,480 what are we talking about? 52 00:03:47,520 --> 00:03:50,800 - Around the world there about 300 million people, 53 00:03:50,840 --> 00:03:53,040 right now, suffering with depression. 54 00:03:53,079 --> 00:03:56,200 And if you think about depression as a recurrent problem, 55 00:03:56,240 --> 00:03:58,640 that means it's a 1 billion person problem. 56 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:02,200 - The statistics on kids who are in college, 57 00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:04,080 who are taking anti-depressant drugs. 58 00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:06,560 And it's almost so high, it's unbelievable. 59 00:04:06,600 --> 00:04:08,960 It's a kind of pharmaceutical madness. 60 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:13,080 - We are definitely in an epidemic of chronic stress. 61 00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:17,120 And we are not meant to be under stress everyday 62 00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:18,600 for years at a time. 63 00:04:18,640 --> 00:04:20,279 And that's when the damage occurs. 64 00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:23,320 - Because the number one thing determining health is the mind. 65 00:04:23,360 --> 00:04:25,640 It affects us directly because what goes on 66 00:04:25,680 --> 00:04:27,360 in our mental and our emotional state 67 00:04:27,400 --> 00:04:29,120 influences us psychologically, 68 00:04:29,160 --> 00:04:30,840 but there's the indirect affects, as well. 69 00:04:30,880 --> 00:04:33,120 So when we're not feeling good in ourselves, 70 00:04:33,159 --> 00:04:35,640 we are not likely to look after ourselves well, 71 00:04:35,680 --> 00:04:37,800 eat well, exercise 72 00:04:37,840 --> 00:04:40,200 and so everything's impacted by our state of mind. 73 00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:42,200 That's why I say it's the number one thing 74 00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:44,360 and we're just not taking it seriously. 75 00:04:45,680 --> 00:04:47,800 - [Shannon voiceover] Above all, there was one fact 76 00:04:47,840 --> 00:04:49,760 I couldn't get out of my head. 77 00:04:50,680 --> 00:04:53,120 Unless we change course, 78 00:04:53,159 --> 00:04:57,000 by 2030, depression will overtake heart disease 79 00:04:57,040 --> 00:05:00,480 and be the single biggest health problem we face. 80 00:05:09,840 --> 00:05:12,000 And it wasn't just my future I was worried about. 81 00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:15,120 I wanted to be able to teach my kids 82 00:05:15,160 --> 00:05:17,800 how to prepare themselves for the world that is coming. 83 00:05:19,520 --> 00:05:22,960 As they faced a future of disruption and uncertainty, 84 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:27,000 how could they protect, nurture and nourish their minds? 85 00:05:27,040 --> 00:05:30,680 The single filter through which they will experience the world. 86 00:05:33,320 --> 00:05:34,880 While there was tonnes of information 87 00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:37,240 on what we should all be eating and drinking, 88 00:05:37,280 --> 00:05:39,320 how much sleep we should be getting 89 00:05:39,360 --> 00:05:41,720 and how much exercise we should be doing, 90 00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:45,120 when I looked for a widely accepted, 91 00:05:45,159 --> 00:05:49,120 evidence-based recommendation for our mental health, 92 00:05:49,159 --> 00:05:52,200 the brain's equivalent of a 30-minute jog around the block, 93 00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:56,440 or the mind's daily serving of five fruit and vegetables. 94 00:05:57,920 --> 00:06:01,640 There was nothing. 95 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:25,560 So I guess I just, I wanted to show you this. 96 00:06:25,600 --> 00:06:29,360 These are my health records since I first got sick. 97 00:06:29,400 --> 00:06:33,840 I had constant pain all through my body. 98 00:06:33,880 --> 00:06:37,320 And I had insomnia. 99 00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:40,280 Yeah emotionally, I was in a pretty dark place. 100 00:06:41,640 --> 00:06:43,200 This is the first letter that was written 101 00:06:43,240 --> 00:06:45,440 after I was diagnosed. 102 00:06:45,480 --> 00:06:47,760 I thought I was seeing this doctor 103 00:06:47,800 --> 00:06:50,120 because he was going to tell me that I needed 104 00:06:50,159 --> 00:06:52,480 to take a couple of weeks off work 105 00:06:52,520 --> 00:06:56,760 and put my feet up. 106 00:06:56,800 --> 00:06:59,880 But actually, he told me that he suspected 107 00:06:59,920 --> 00:07:02,960 that I have an autoimmune disease called lupus, 108 00:07:04,920 --> 00:07:06,960 for which there is no known cause 109 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:08,760 and there is no known cure. 110 00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:12,160 - [Interviewer] How old were you? 111 00:07:12,200 --> 00:07:16,000 - So I was 24, then, 24. 112 00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:20,120 When you've got a chronic disease and you're desperate, 113 00:07:20,160 --> 00:07:23,000 you will like, I would hand over my money 114 00:07:23,040 --> 00:07:26,760 to anyone and everyone who offered me a cure. 115 00:07:28,320 --> 00:07:31,520 I spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars 116 00:07:31,560 --> 00:07:33,840 trying to find something that would cure me. 117 00:07:37,800 --> 00:07:41,680 One of my symptoms was that I, thought I had food allergies. 118 00:07:41,720 --> 00:07:44,960 So I went to this place called Advanced Allergy Elimination 119 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:49,000 that promised I would be able to cure my allergy. 120 00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:52,080 I think I spent $700 with these guys. 121 00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:55,600 And yeah, here's this news release from when 122 00:07:55,640 --> 00:07:58,400 the government took them to court 123 00:07:58,440 --> 00:08:01,240 and they were found to have misled consumers 124 00:08:01,280 --> 00:08:03,800 about the efficacy of their treatments. 125 00:08:03,840 --> 00:08:06,200 And I was one of the victims of that. 126 00:08:07,880 --> 00:08:10,640 And that's when I started basically turning to science. 127 00:08:12,120 --> 00:08:15,680 [pensive music] 128 00:08:28,680 --> 00:08:30,680 - [Shannon voicover] Experiment notes. 129 00:08:30,720 --> 00:08:33,400 If there's anyway that I can prevent my kids 130 00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:35,880 from suffering in the same way I have, 131 00:08:35,919 --> 00:08:37,520 I want to find it. 132 00:08:37,559 --> 00:08:40,080 And I suspect if there is an answer, 133 00:08:40,120 --> 00:08:44,080 it will buried in the latest scientific research. 134 00:08:44,120 --> 00:08:46,120 To me, any realistic solution 135 00:08:46,160 --> 00:08:49,040 has to meet some key requirements. 136 00:08:49,080 --> 00:08:53,680 It has to be available to any one, anywhere, at any time 137 00:08:53,720 --> 00:08:58,240 which means, it has to be free or at least, low cost. 138 00:08:58,280 --> 00:09:00,960 It has to be available to anyone regardless 139 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:03,560 of their education or life circumstances 140 00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:05,440 and it has to fit into the busy schedules 141 00:09:05,480 --> 00:09:08,320 of people living in the real world. 142 00:09:08,360 --> 00:09:10,800 My other key requirement is that it has to be based 143 00:09:10,840 --> 00:09:13,560 on a solid foundation of scientific evidence. 144 00:09:14,760 --> 00:09:16,680 Now all that sounds like a lot to ask 145 00:09:16,720 --> 00:09:19,920 but there is one thing that ticks all my boxes. 146 00:09:19,960 --> 00:09:22,720 Mindfulness meditation. 147 00:09:24,200 --> 00:09:26,640 I know we have decades of research informing the advice 148 00:09:26,680 --> 00:09:29,480 on exercise, food and sleep. 149 00:09:29,520 --> 00:09:31,200 But in the last 10 years, 150 00:09:31,240 --> 00:09:34,680 new technology has enabled scientists to peer inside 151 00:09:34,720 --> 00:09:37,520 our brains and bodies while we sit quietly 152 00:09:37,560 --> 00:09:39,680 with our thoughts and feelings. 153 00:09:39,720 --> 00:09:42,360 In other words, meditate. 154 00:09:42,400 --> 00:09:44,680 And contemplative science has exploded. 155 00:09:46,360 --> 00:09:47,360 Whilst there are a number 156 00:09:47,400 --> 00:09:49,840 of popular forms of meditation, 157 00:09:49,880 --> 00:09:53,000 mindfulness in particular has captured scientific attention 158 00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:56,160 and gone from a few hundred peer review papers 159 00:09:56,200 --> 00:09:59,720 to almost 6,000. 160 00:09:59,760 --> 00:10:01,320 From what I can tell, 161 00:10:01,360 --> 00:10:04,920 it's a simple yet adaptable form of mental training 162 00:10:04,960 --> 00:10:06,600 that seems to work on a range 163 00:10:06,640 --> 00:10:09,040 of different psychological levels. 164 00:10:09,080 --> 00:10:11,360 And in a similar way to exercise, 165 00:10:11,400 --> 00:10:12,880 can sit quite comfortably 166 00:10:12,920 --> 00:10:16,920 alongside the best of current medical practice. 167 00:10:16,960 --> 00:10:19,440 And this is what I find really interesting 168 00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:22,120 in the context of my question. 169 00:10:22,160 --> 00:10:25,200 An eight-week programme underpinned by mindfulness 170 00:10:25,240 --> 00:10:28,520 has repeatedly been found equal to medication 171 00:10:28,560 --> 00:10:31,080 for preventing recurrent depression. 172 00:10:34,600 --> 00:10:36,880 Given the mental health crisis, 173 00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:39,880 should we all be practising mindfulness in the same way 174 00:10:39,920 --> 00:10:43,680 that we should exercise and eat our vegetables? 175 00:10:43,720 --> 00:10:46,160 Or is this evidence too good to be true? 176 00:10:47,320 --> 00:10:50,120 There's only one way to find out. 177 00:10:50,160 --> 00:10:53,000 I'm going to do an experiment, 178 00:10:53,040 --> 00:10:57,280 My Year of Living Mindfully. 179 00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:04,160 Hi Marc. Okay, so you're across what-- 180 00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:06,680 You're across what the film is, obviously? 181 00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:10,720 [Marc faintly talking on phone] 182 00:11:17,440 --> 00:11:19,000 Yeah. 183 00:11:19,040 --> 00:11:23,360 Specifically in a nut shell, specifically, it's meditation. 184 00:11:25,040 --> 00:11:27,960 So, you probably maybe, unless you've been under a rock, 185 00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:30,520 you've probably heard that meditation is being sold 186 00:11:30,560 --> 00:11:32,560 as this cure all panacea. 187 00:11:32,600 --> 00:11:35,160 And so, this is kind of a project that's looking 188 00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:38,880 at you know, is meditation, 189 00:11:38,920 --> 00:11:42,880 is it just self-report quality of life that changes? 190 00:11:42,920 --> 00:11:45,240 Or is there something really interesting that happens 191 00:11:45,280 --> 00:11:46,680 on a biological level? 192 00:11:47,680 --> 00:11:48,920 - Hey. - Neil. Hello. 193 00:11:48,960 --> 00:11:50,960 - Welcome. - Nice to meet you in person. 194 00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:52,760 - Yeah, come on through. 195 00:11:52,800 --> 00:11:56,280 - Well go down to this lab, straight ahead here. 196 00:11:56,320 --> 00:11:58,640 - [Shannon] I'm thrilled that a whole heap of scientists 197 00:11:58,680 --> 00:12:00,200 have come on board. 198 00:12:00,240 --> 00:12:02,200 Two neuroscientists, I've got somebody looking 199 00:12:02,240 --> 00:12:03,520 at my telomeres. 200 00:12:03,560 --> 00:12:07,360 We're tracking my stress hormones. 201 00:12:07,400 --> 00:12:08,880 That's where you guys come into it 202 00:12:08,920 --> 00:12:11,280 with the gene expression side of things. 203 00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:12,600 Especially from the perspective 204 00:12:12,640 --> 00:12:14,520 that I have an autoimmune disease. 205 00:12:14,560 --> 00:12:16,120 Here's the sample. - Excellent. 206 00:12:16,160 --> 00:12:18,360 Throw it in the freezer to keep it nice and cold. 207 00:12:18,400 --> 00:12:20,480 - And then she has 30 minutes 208 00:12:20,520 --> 00:12:22,240 from when she's taken that blood 209 00:12:22,280 --> 00:12:23,640 to get it back to the lab. 210 00:12:23,680 --> 00:12:25,240 Has this ever been done before? 211 00:12:25,280 --> 00:12:27,920 - So, not at this sort of intensity, 212 00:12:27,960 --> 00:12:29,640 in terms of the scheduling of testing. 213 00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:37,800 - It says saliva. 214 00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:43,720 Who has saliva on their to-do list? 215 00:12:45,360 --> 00:12:47,840 So that's why I'm so grateful that 216 00:12:47,880 --> 00:12:50,160 you guys came on board and said you're interested 217 00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:52,000 and I'm fascinated. 218 00:12:53,880 --> 00:12:55,680 Experiment notes. 219 00:12:55,720 --> 00:12:57,960 It's been a wirlwind but I think I'm ready 220 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:00,240 to put my hypothesis to the test. 221 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:04,600 I first got sick 13 years ago, 222 00:13:04,640 --> 00:13:07,520 during an especially difficult time in my life. 223 00:13:07,560 --> 00:13:09,120 Although specialists have given 224 00:13:09,160 --> 00:13:11,520 my autoimmune disease various labels, 225 00:13:11,560 --> 00:13:13,680 if the science is anything to go by, 226 00:13:13,720 --> 00:13:15,600 then regular mindfulness meditation 227 00:13:15,640 --> 00:13:17,280 should have positive affects 228 00:13:17,320 --> 00:13:20,360 on my mind, body and health. 229 00:13:20,400 --> 00:13:21,960 I've set up interviews with 18 230 00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:24,360 of the world's top mindfulness scientists 231 00:13:24,400 --> 00:13:26,160 to guide me over the next year. 232 00:13:27,480 --> 00:13:29,680 And I now have six researchers onboard 233 00:13:29,720 --> 00:13:32,360 to track every biomarker linked to mindfulness 234 00:13:32,400 --> 00:13:35,000 as well as my subjective wellbeing. 235 00:13:35,040 --> 00:13:39,040 Step one is to be poked, prodded, scanned and screened 236 00:13:39,080 --> 00:13:42,720 to establish a baseline before I start to meditate. 237 00:13:42,760 --> 00:13:44,320 - So we've already done this scan once 238 00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:46,040 and now we're going to do it with the meditation. 239 00:13:46,080 --> 00:13:47,200 - [Shannon] Okay. 240 00:13:47,240 --> 00:13:49,080 - So we have comparable data. 241 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:51,520 - [Shannon] And how does the brain look? 242 00:13:51,560 --> 00:13:54,280 - It looks great. - There's a brain. 243 00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:56,280 - We were commenting on it that there's a brain. 244 00:13:56,320 --> 00:13:58,960 It's very nice, well formed. 245 00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:01,520 No abnormalities. 246 00:14:01,560 --> 00:14:04,560 This part is the hippocampus. 247 00:14:04,600 --> 00:14:06,960 And it's one of the regions we're interested in. 248 00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:09,080 And we're interested in the hippocampus 249 00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:11,600 because it's one structure in the brain 250 00:14:11,640 --> 00:14:13,480 that we can measure very well. 251 00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:15,840 It's sensitive to stress. 252 00:14:15,880 --> 00:14:18,520 It shrinks more with ageing. 253 00:14:18,560 --> 00:14:23,160 So if we want to see whether some interventions decrease 254 00:14:23,200 --> 00:14:26,360 the effect of ageing, that's one place we look at. 255 00:14:27,880 --> 00:14:30,320 - [Shannon voiceover] The theory behind meditation's effect 256 00:14:30,360 --> 00:14:32,680 on the brain is that when we do something, 257 00:14:32,720 --> 00:14:34,640 there's activity in our brain and over time, 258 00:14:34,680 --> 00:14:37,160 if it's done over and over again, 259 00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:40,440 those networks become stronger. 260 00:14:40,480 --> 00:14:42,600 It's the old neurons that fire together, 261 00:14:42,640 --> 00:14:45,400 wire together catchphrase. 262 00:14:45,440 --> 00:14:47,520 And it doesn't matter if I'm learning to navigate 263 00:14:47,560 --> 00:14:50,200 London's streets in a taxi cab, 264 00:14:50,240 --> 00:14:52,080 practising the piano, 265 00:14:52,120 --> 00:14:55,240 or training in mindfulness meditation. 266 00:14:55,280 --> 00:15:00,160 If I do my exercises, my brain should theoretically change. 267 00:15:01,400 --> 00:15:04,600 So far, several studies have used MRI's 268 00:15:04,640 --> 00:15:08,200 to look at the brain structure of long-term meditators. 269 00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:11,040 And there are noticeable differences. 270 00:15:11,080 --> 00:15:14,840 Professor Nicolas Cherbuin who's studying my brain 271 00:15:14,880 --> 00:15:17,520 was involved in one experiment which found 272 00:15:17,560 --> 00:15:21,240 that at age 50, the brains of meditators were seven 273 00:15:21,280 --> 00:15:24,360 and a half years younger than non-meditators. 274 00:15:25,800 --> 00:15:28,720 This has huge implications because brain ageing 275 00:15:28,760 --> 00:15:32,160 or atrophy is linked with everything from dementia 276 00:15:32,200 --> 00:15:36,160 and alzheimers to depression and addiction. 277 00:15:36,200 --> 00:15:39,600 So at first glance, I'm thinking, younger brain? 278 00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:40,720 Sign me up. 279 00:15:41,680 --> 00:15:42,920 But there's a catch. 280 00:15:42,960 --> 00:15:45,480 Their findings led to more questions, 281 00:15:45,520 --> 00:15:48,160 crucially were their brains different 282 00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:50,880 because they were long-term meditators? 283 00:15:50,920 --> 00:15:53,920 Or were they more inclined to stick with meditation 284 00:15:53,960 --> 00:15:56,680 because they had different brains to begin with? 285 00:15:56,720 --> 00:16:00,040 The missing link here is scientific data 286 00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:03,400 that tracks people like me over time. 287 00:16:12,240 --> 00:16:15,080 So, yeah, so I've just been lying in bed thinking 288 00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:16,640 that maybe... 289 00:16:19,200 --> 00:16:24,040 Doing another low budget feature documentary 290 00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:30,880 is a really silly idea. 291 00:16:32,440 --> 00:16:34,240 And I think to myself, okay, 292 00:16:34,280 --> 00:16:36,120 insomnia is back, 293 00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:39,200 it looks like my autoimmune disease is presenting. 294 00:16:40,240 --> 00:16:41,600 Like, is making this film 295 00:16:41,640 --> 00:16:44,720 just the stupidest idea in the world? 296 00:16:44,760 --> 00:16:47,240 Like, am I gonna pay for this with my health? 297 00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:49,880 And I start catastrophising 298 00:16:49,920 --> 00:16:52,200 and I start thinking, oh my God, like, 299 00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:56,800 how can be sick and be a good mum? 300 00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:08,920 So, like I have been chronically stressed lately. 301 00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:11,520 I've probably taken on a bit more than I should have. 302 00:17:11,560 --> 00:17:13,160 - Hmm hmm. 303 00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:16,200 - If I was to keep this up 304 00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:19,119 and you know, my insomnia has returned. 305 00:17:19,160 --> 00:17:22,680 would you think that my symptoms could 306 00:17:22,720 --> 00:17:24,920 become worse? - Yes. 307 00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:27,440 But I think we've talked about this before. 308 00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:28,480 Having realistic expectations 309 00:17:28,520 --> 00:17:29,960 of how you manage that as well. 310 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:31,240 I think-- - What do you mean by that? 311 00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:33,040 - In a perfect world, 312 00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:36,360 we'd all be stress-free but, 313 00:17:36,400 --> 00:17:38,840 today's society, we're all so, 314 00:17:40,360 --> 00:17:41,640 have so many different pressures. 315 00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:43,480 You as well, like you're working full-time, 316 00:17:43,520 --> 00:17:44,480 you've got two young children, 317 00:17:44,520 --> 00:17:46,320 you've got a lot on your plate. 318 00:17:46,360 --> 00:17:49,720 It'll be interesting to see this year of stress management, 319 00:17:49,760 --> 00:17:51,480 whether that's possible. - Hmm, yeah. 320 00:17:51,520 --> 00:17:52,760 - And-- 321 00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:53,840 - [Shannon] You're not even sure it's possible. 322 00:17:53,880 --> 00:17:54,680 - No, no, no, I'm not saying it's not. 323 00:17:54,720 --> 00:17:56,120 I'm not saying it's not. 324 00:17:56,160 --> 00:17:57,800 I'm just saying, you know, like I think, 325 00:17:57,840 --> 00:18:00,760 it'll be interesting what you achieve from that. 326 00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:04,680 - [Shannon] You're a scientist, 327 00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:07,880 but you're also a working mother. 328 00:18:07,920 --> 00:18:11,560 Do you have any idea how I am possibly going 329 00:18:11,600 --> 00:18:15,480 to find the time to meditate everyday? 330 00:18:15,520 --> 00:18:17,480 - I think of this very similar 331 00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:20,120 to what dentists say about flossing. 332 00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:21,680 Floss one tooth. 333 00:18:22,920 --> 00:18:25,640 If you can commit to flossing one tooth, 334 00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:29,480 your dental health will improve, why? 335 00:18:29,520 --> 00:18:31,400 Because nobody flosses one tooth. 336 00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:32,720 You're there, you're ready to go. 337 00:18:32,760 --> 00:18:35,600 You're going to do the full routine. 338 00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:39,320 Just taking the posture of practicing 339 00:18:39,360 --> 00:18:40,920 even if you get up after that, 340 00:18:40,960 --> 00:18:43,840 with that as your requirement for your day, 341 00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:46,120 I think that you're likely to have a lot of success 342 00:18:46,160 --> 00:18:47,160 with this in the next year. 343 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:00,560 - [Shannon voiceover] Experiment notes, methodology. 344 00:19:00,600 --> 00:19:03,880 To start, I'm aiming for 20 minutes a day using an app 345 00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:05,960 and I'll slowly build from there. 346 00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:08,080 I've also signed up for an eight-week course 347 00:19:08,120 --> 00:19:09,960 and a 10-day silent retreat. 348 00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:14,080 Apart from that, nothing else will change. 349 00:19:14,120 --> 00:19:16,400 I'll still have my usual parenting duties 350 00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:18,160 and full-time work commitments. 351 00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:20,280 As a journalist, that means researching, 352 00:19:20,320 --> 00:19:22,400 writing and travelling for interviews. 353 00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:25,000 And I won't change my diet or exercise habits. 354 00:19:26,560 --> 00:19:28,480 As for the actual practice, 355 00:19:28,520 --> 00:19:30,000 I'm turning to the experts. 356 00:19:32,160 --> 00:19:35,880 I just want to get on tape your definition of mindfulness. 357 00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:38,320 - [Jon Kabat-Zinn] So my working definition of mindfulness, 358 00:19:38,360 --> 00:19:40,640 this is what I call an operational definition 359 00:19:40,680 --> 00:19:43,720 is that it's the awareness that arises 360 00:19:43,760 --> 00:19:46,680 from paying attention on purpose 361 00:19:46,720 --> 00:19:48,920 in the present moment, non-judgmentally. 362 00:19:51,040 --> 00:19:53,640 And the non-judgemental part is the kicker, so to speak 363 00:19:53,680 --> 00:19:55,600 and people need to understand 364 00:19:55,640 --> 00:19:57,720 that non-judgmentally doesn't mean 365 00:19:57,760 --> 00:19:59,560 that you won't have any judgements, 366 00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:01,840 it means that you will be mindful 367 00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:04,920 of how many judgements you have. 368 00:20:04,960 --> 00:20:08,640 How attached we all are to wanting things to be this way 369 00:20:08,680 --> 00:20:10,880 and not wanting them to be that way. 370 00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:12,680 So this is kind of, 371 00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:14,920 it's an operational definition 372 00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:17,160 because when you put it into operation, 373 00:20:17,200 --> 00:20:20,280 then mindfulness arises within you. 374 00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:24,280 - [Joseph] You can begin the meditation by settling 375 00:20:24,320 --> 00:20:26,840 into a comfortable posture. 376 00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:29,440 You begin to feel your body breathing. 377 00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:32,080 - Mindfulness is a sort of state or capacity, 378 00:20:32,120 --> 00:20:33,840 a way of being. 379 00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:36,760 And meditation is a whole family of practices 380 00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:39,480 that are in the service of cultivating mindfulness. 381 00:20:39,520 --> 00:20:41,160 So in Pali and Sanskrit, 382 00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:43,160 the word for meditation is bhavana, 383 00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:45,600 which means to develop or to cultivate. 384 00:20:45,640 --> 00:20:49,000 And so meditation is in the service of cultivating 385 00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:50,240 and developing mindfulness. 386 00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:53,520 - [Joseph] You become aware of predominant sensations. 387 00:20:53,560 --> 00:20:56,680 - So mindfulness is not a way of relaxing. 388 00:20:56,720 --> 00:20:58,920 When we pay attention and look at our mind, 389 00:20:58,960 --> 00:21:00,240 we discover all sorts of things, 390 00:21:00,280 --> 00:21:02,400 which may be anything but relaxing. 391 00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:07,600 - [Joseph] As we end the meditation, you can open your eyes. 392 00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:10,560 As you re-engage with your life and the world, 393 00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:13,680 you can always come back to the very simple feeling 394 00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:15,360 of the body. 395 00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:18,880 The body sitting, the body standing, the body walking. 396 00:21:18,920 --> 00:21:21,920 In this way, we see that meditation is not simply 397 00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:25,680 about sitting, it's not simply about one posture. 398 00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:27,840 It's bringing awareness and mindfulness 399 00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:30,440 to every aspect of our lives. 400 00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:33,480 - The brain is changing wittingly or unwittingly, 401 00:21:33,520 --> 00:21:36,480 constantly, and the invitation in all this work 402 00:21:36,520 --> 00:21:40,080 is that we can actually take more responsibility 403 00:21:40,120 --> 00:21:42,840 for the shaping of our brains 404 00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:45,920 in ways which may underlie positive qualities 405 00:21:45,960 --> 00:21:47,800 of the mind and wellbeing. 406 00:21:56,800 --> 00:22:00,200 - [Shannon Voiceover] Experiment notes, day 14. 407 00:22:00,240 --> 00:22:03,600 I'm getting the gist that mindfulness is essentially 408 00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:06,040 a three and a half thousand year old technique 409 00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:08,720 to teach me how my mind works. 410 00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:12,960 I'm really grateful for the expert advice 411 00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:16,160 because there's just so much mindfulness on offer 412 00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:18,640 that it's hard to know who to trust. 413 00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:21,880 It's available in classrooms and boardrooms, 414 00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:24,280 in studios and online. 415 00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:28,680 There are mindful books, apps, gyms, buses 416 00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:32,000 and even mayonnaise. 417 00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:36,640 Meditation is now the fastest growing health trend 418 00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:38,720 in the US and has transformed 419 00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:41,160 from an ancient Buddhist practise 420 00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:44,880 into a 1.1 billion dollar industry. 421 00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:47,480 I'm starting to realise, there's a big difference 422 00:22:47,520 --> 00:22:49,440 between the mindfulness for mental health 423 00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:50,880 that I'm reading about 424 00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:53,760 in the most prestigious science journals 425 00:22:53,800 --> 00:22:56,480 and the chicken pot pie-based meditation system 426 00:22:56,520 --> 00:22:59,720 that promises to nourish my mind and body 427 00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:03,200 that was developed by the rather cheeky marketing department at KFC. 428 00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:07,360 - [KFC Character] A system that will ease your suffering. 429 00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:10,400 And your hunger. 430 00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:24,400 - So I'm on the road at the moment doing some interviews 431 00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:28,680 and I've just been sent a scientific paper 432 00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:32,040 that's been published in a respected journal. 433 00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:34,160 The paper's called, Mind the Hype. 434 00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:36,920 So, listen to this. 435 00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:40,680 As mindfulness has increasingly pervaded every aspect 436 00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:42,440 of contemporary society, 437 00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:45,720 so have misunderstandings about what it is, 438 00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:49,800 whom it helps and how it affects the mind and brain. 439 00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:53,760 At a practical level, this misinformation and propagation 440 00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:57,640 of poor research methodology has potentially 441 00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:01,800 led to people being harmed, cheated, disappointed 442 00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:03,880 and or disaffected. 443 00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:09,960 So I'm just going to try and get in touch with the lead author 444 00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:12,360 of the paper, Nicholas Van Dam. 445 00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:14,960 He said he's available to talk to me over Skype. 446 00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:20,840 - The main story or the main sort of thing 447 00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:25,680 we want to convey is that a lot of the portrayal 448 00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:28,360 of meditation and mindfulness research 449 00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:31,320 is probably overly positive. 450 00:24:31,360 --> 00:24:32,680 That's not just the media, 451 00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:36,120 that's also a lot of scientific researchers 452 00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:40,920 and you know, promoters of mindfulness and meditation. 453 00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:44,440 There's this sort of, this idea or this sort of sentiment 454 00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:46,960 that it can be used as sort of a solution 455 00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:51,080 or a treatment or a fix for just about anything. 456 00:24:51,120 --> 00:24:55,080 And there's been this massive growth in the marketisation 457 00:24:55,120 --> 00:24:56,560 of that idea, you know, 458 00:24:56,600 --> 00:24:58,760 that there's lots of people now selling products 459 00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:01,600 that promise and offer mindfulness. 460 00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:04,640 And one of my sort of, the things I teach my students, 461 00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:05,800 you know, when I'm training clinical students 462 00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:07,480 how to do psychotherapy, 463 00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:08,840 I always tell them essentially you know, 464 00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:11,480 if someone tells you that this new intervention 465 00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:13,160 will fix everything, 466 00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:14,800 then you know, ask them hard questions. 467 00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:16,960 Because anyone who's trying to tell you 468 00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:19,080 that one thing works 100% of the time 469 00:25:19,120 --> 00:25:22,320 for 100% of the people, is not telling you the whole story. 470 00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,800 - So, do you think that the public appetite for mindfulness 471 00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:31,360 is outpacing the evidence base that we have? 472 00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:33,880 - Oh yeah, yeah. 473 00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:35,600 That's for sure. 474 00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:37,960 - There is absolutely hype that's exacerbated 475 00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:39,880 by many press reports 476 00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:42,880 that aren't necessarily doing responsible delivery 477 00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:44,960 of research findings. 478 00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:46,640 - It's one of the struggles of mindfulness science 479 00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:48,400 is just coming to terms with the reality 480 00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:52,480 that we are trying to catch up 481 00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:56,800 to what's happened in terms of a dissemination 482 00:25:56,840 --> 00:25:58,160 and implementation of mindfulness practices 483 00:25:58,200 --> 00:25:59,000 and interventions. 484 00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:02,880 - It's interesting to see that a lot of these very popular 485 00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:05,440 mindfulness training programmes don't particularly 486 00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:06,840 have the science behind them. 487 00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:09,960 And also don't particularly get 488 00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:11,800 at the core mechanistic underpinnings 489 00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:13,400 of how mindfulness works. 490 00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,920 Maybe I'm just a scientist but I really think 491 00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:19,720 that that's a core piece that we would want to bake 492 00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:20,720 into the trainings. 493 00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:22,000 If we're developing a pill 494 00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:23,400 to help people lower their blood pressure, 495 00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:25,040 I would want to understand 496 00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:27,880 how people's blood pressure is rising in the first place 497 00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:30,320 so that I could design a pill specifically for that. 498 00:26:37,360 --> 00:26:40,360 - [Shannon] Is this still a worthwhile experiment? 499 00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:42,200 - [Marc Wilkins] I think, I mean, part of me says that 500 00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:44,400 as a scientist, I want to know what will happen. 501 00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:46,000 I'm excited by this. 502 00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:47,720 I think it's really, really interesting. 503 00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:49,880 At the same time, we know that there's a limitation 504 00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:52,640 in the design of what we're going to do. 505 00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:54,480 But we'll need to work with that as best we can 506 00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:56,160 to see what the data tells us. 507 00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:00,040 - [Shannon] So I'm in a situation now, 508 00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,360 where I have committed tens of thousands of dollars 509 00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:07,920 towards lab time but I'm seriously questioning 510 00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:10,600 whether or not it's actually going to tell us anything. 511 00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:12,480 - At the end of the day, the biggest limitation 512 00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:14,000 and the biggest problem is, 513 00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:15,800 it's hard to know whether or not the findings 514 00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:19,360 that you would get from one person will tell you, 515 00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:21,120 you know, anything about a different person. 516 00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:22,600 Because essentially, with one person, 517 00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:24,040 we just can't draw that conclusion 518 00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:26,280 and that it'll generalise to everyone. 519 00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:27,920 And that's not to say it's worthless, right. 520 00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:30,440 I mean, there are lots of case studies out there 521 00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:32,720 and case studies are often really important starts. 522 00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:34,680 You know, what you will typically observe 523 00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:36,480 in most scientific fields particularly in, 524 00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:39,120 you know, the applied sciences and medicine, 525 00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:41,600 is we often start with case studies. 526 00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:08,480 - [Shannon] Today's interview was all about interviewing 527 00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:10,680 the people who are all like, 528 00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:14,800 we don't know anything, the science isn't there. 529 00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:16,480 ...like... 530 00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,480 so, basically I left today going, 531 00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,680 hang on, why are we doing this again? 532 00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:34,440 - Well, let me just say, 533 00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:36,680 this film certainly has a lot of question marks. 534 00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:01,880 - Oh God, I don't know what we're doing Jules. 535 00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:03,120 I think we're idiots. 536 00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:07,800 I think the only way forward here is 537 00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:11,080 to accept that the scientists 538 00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:13,320 might not have all the answers. 539 00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:16,720 I think I need to go and find some real life case studies. 540 00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:24,680 ♪ I have been searching all of my days ♪ 541 00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:29,080 ♪ All of my days 542 00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:32,960 ♪ Many road you know 543 00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,440 ♪ I've been walking on 544 00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:39,800 ♪ All of my days 545 00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:45,360 ♪ And I've been trying to find 546 00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:50,080 ♪ What's been in my mind 547 00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:55,680 ♪ As the days keep turning into night ♪ 548 00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:04,520 ♪ yes even breathing 549 00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:07,840 ♪ Feels all right. 550 00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:11,680 So it is just past one o'clock in the morning. 551 00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,920 And tomorrow I have got 552 00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:21,280 one of the more important interviews for the documentary. 553 00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:25,640 My alarm is set to go off at 20 past four, 554 00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:27,880 so in about four hours from now 555 00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:32,200 and I haven't slept a wink. 556 00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:33,680 I just can't sleep. 557 00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:37,080 I really wanted to be, 558 00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:39,720 I wanted to bring my A-game to this interview. 559 00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:43,200 I've been really looking forward to it 560 00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:47,400 and I'm really well prepared 561 00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:51,440 and in my mind, I had all these great ideas 562 00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:53,640 as to how it's going to flow. 563 00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:01,680 And instead I am going to be a zombie. 564 00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:15,640 So, let's start at the very beginning. 565 00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:18,880 How many million people saw you lose your mind 566 00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:20,640 on television? 567 00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:22,960 - 5.019 million, 568 00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:24,920 according to the Nielsen ratings. 569 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:32,800 I started in television and news when I was 22 570 00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:35,320 and then when I was 28, I got a job at ABC News. 571 00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:37,640 Shortly after I arrived, 9/11 happened 572 00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,160 and I ended up spending a lot of time 573 00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:43,320 in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza. 574 00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:45,160 I went to Iraq six times. 575 00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:48,480 And I didn't spend a lot of time thinking 576 00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:50,760 about what the psychological consequences might be. 577 00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:55,160 And so when I came home, I kind of bottomed out. 578 00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:56,720 I got depressed, 579 00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:58,440 although I didn't even know I was depressed. 580 00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:00,440 I was having trouble getting out of bed. 581 00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:02,760 I felt like I had a low grade fever all the time. 582 00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:05,720 I went and consulted a bunch of doctors. 583 00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:09,440 And before I actually got a diagnosis of depression, 584 00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:11,360 I did something very dumb, 585 00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:12,880 which is I started to self-medicate 586 00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:15,400 with recreational drugs including cocaine and ecstasy. 587 00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:18,120 The bottom for me was 588 00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:20,160 freaking out on national television. 589 00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:23,480 June 2004, I was reading the headlines. 590 00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:26,360 May also lower their risk for cancer, 591 00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:28,440 but it is too early to prescribe statins, 592 00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:29,960 slowly for cancer production. 593 00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:31,160 My lungs seized up. 594 00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:32,680 My heart was racing. 595 00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:34,720 I just couldn't talk 596 00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:36,800 which is a problem 597 00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:39,320 when talking is what you need to do for a living 598 00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:40,840 and it's a vicious cycle 599 00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:43,400 between the thinking and the physical manifestation. 600 00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:45,400 So your body starts to mutiny 601 00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:47,160 and your mind picks up on that, obviously. 602 00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:48,440 And is like, "What the fuck is this?" 603 00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:50,040 And you start thinking, 604 00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:52,440 "Oh my God, I'm freaking out, I'm having a panic attack 605 00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:53,720 and I'm on television." 606 00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:55,360 And then the body reacts to all of that 607 00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:56,920 and starts freaking out even more. 608 00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:59,560 The fight or flight response was useful in the context 609 00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:02,040 of when we were being chased by saber-tooth tigers, 610 00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:03,880 but in a modern context, 611 00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:06,120 we are both the person being chased by the tiger 612 00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:07,520 and the tiger. 613 00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:09,000 You know, we're doing it to ourselves. 614 00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:15,400 - People are worried about the future. 615 00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:17,200 They're worried about the economy. 616 00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,360 They're worried about their personal finances. 617 00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:20,600 They're worried about their children. 618 00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:22,160 They're worried about everything. 619 00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:25,080 We're living in this inner mental world 620 00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:28,920 where we're constantly creating trouble for ourselves. 621 00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:31,080 - And now we're seeing anxiety problems 622 00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:33,600 and mental health problems in younger and younger age groups 623 00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:34,960 and some people could argue, well, 624 00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:37,800 it was there but we just weren't diagnosing it before. 625 00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:40,160 But that only explains a small part of it. 626 00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:43,960 - So for people at risk for depression, 627 00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,360 sad mood and negative thinking can be very powerful 628 00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:48,880 and very potent. 629 00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:51,720 Just a small negative thought can very quickly spiral 630 00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:55,040 into a downward spiral of depressive thinking, 631 00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:57,760 withdrawal and depressive relapse. 632 00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:01,960 - Evolutionarily, we needed to stay safe. 633 00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:03,560 So looking for threats, 634 00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:05,200 the ability to focus on problems 635 00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:07,320 and hopefully either avoid them or fix them 636 00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:09,840 was actually very good for our survival. 637 00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:13,840 So, the fact that we spend so much of our time 638 00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:17,000 criticising ourselves or thinking about what we did wrong 639 00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:18,600 or what we might do wrong 640 00:34:18,639 --> 00:34:21,000 actually comes with a very wholesome desire 641 00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:22,639 and that's a desire to be safe. 642 00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:26,040 - The stressful experience may be 643 00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:28,120 for let's say five minutes 644 00:34:28,159 --> 00:34:31,400 an exchange you had with a colleague or your boss. 645 00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:34,199 And if it were only those five minutes 646 00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:36,120 that the stress had an impact on us, 647 00:34:36,159 --> 00:34:38,400 we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. 648 00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:40,199 But the way I think about it is that the brain 649 00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:43,760 is actually wonderful at mental time travel. 650 00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:46,159 And we can rewind the mind back to experience 651 00:34:46,199 --> 00:34:48,679 that event for days and weeks. 652 00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:52,800 - [Elissa Epal] In general in stress research, 653 00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:57,400 it has been found that exposure to a situation 654 00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,440 doesn't really determine mental health, 655 00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:02,600 let's say depression, 656 00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,880 as much as how someone is interpreting the situation. 657 00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:08,720 So feelings of stress are important 658 00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:11,800 and what happens to people is important too 659 00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:13,640 but if I were to put my money on one, 660 00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:17,440 I would say it's the psychological response to situations 661 00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:19,600 not just, does a situation exists or not. 662 00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,880 - So the first thing is to realise that it is affecting you 663 00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:28,640 and the second is that there is something actually, 664 00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:31,200 there are many things that you can do about it 665 00:35:31,240 --> 00:35:34,040 and the potential is 666 00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:37,800 of resolving it and coming to a very different kind of place 667 00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:41,480 where we look squarely at the real dangers 668 00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,680 as opposed to the illusory dangers to us 669 00:35:44,720 --> 00:35:46,480 and we start dealing with them. 670 00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:50,120 - [Dan Harris] I came home one night 671 00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:53,920 and my wife gave me a book by a guy named Dr. Mark Epstein 672 00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:56,800 who I liked right away because he had actual credentials 673 00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:00,200 as opposed to some of these self-help folks 674 00:36:00,240 --> 00:36:02,920 who don't, to put it kindly. 675 00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:04,440 Epstein writes about the overlap 676 00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:06,000 between psychology and Buddhism 677 00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:11,400 and it was this very dry-eyed to common sense diagnosis 678 00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:12,960 of the human situation. 679 00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,200 Buddha uses this term that we have the monkey mind, 680 00:36:15,240 --> 00:36:17,640 hurling ourselves from one hit of pleasant experience, 681 00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:21,480 one movie, one vacation, one latte to the next 682 00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:23,280 and yet never fully satisfied. 683 00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,360 The Buddha's description of a human situation 684 00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:28,480 was very compelling. 685 00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:31,280 His prescription was repellent 686 00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:34,160 which was that he says you should meditate. 687 00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:36,440 I did not want to do that. 688 00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:37,880 I thought it was ridiculous 689 00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:39,560 To the extent that I even thought about meditation, 690 00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:41,400 I thought it was for people who are really 691 00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,920 into you know, kombucha and crystals and Enya. 692 00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:47,160 But for me what changed my mind was reading 693 00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:48,480 about the science. 694 00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:52,920 - For example, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy 695 00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:56,560 has been shown now to be as good as gold standard treatment 696 00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:58,440 for the treatment of depression. 697 00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:01,560 It's only been around for about 15 or so years, 698 00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:03,080 whereas the medication developments has been 699 00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:05,480 around for 50, 75 years. 700 00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:07,520 And so it's already caught up. 701 00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:09,600 So I think there's a lot of interest 702 00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:11,720 in helping people develop 703 00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:13,960 their own natural capacities to heal. 704 00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:17,840 - And my study was one of the first to look at whether 705 00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:20,680 you could use MBCT to treat active depression. 706 00:37:20,720 --> 00:37:22,480 And we were really interested in mechanisms, 707 00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:23,840 so we looked at stress reactivity. 708 00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:25,840 And so one of the best ways to stress people out 709 00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:28,160 is make them stand up and give a speech. 710 00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:31,280 And we found that the group that received meditation, 711 00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:33,440 they still had a stress response which is good 712 00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:35,440 because you want to have a stress response 713 00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:37,280 but they recovered more quickly. 714 00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:39,840 And the control group were probably still kind of thinking 715 00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:42,280 about like, oh that was the worst experience ever 716 00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:43,920 and like really ruminating about it 717 00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:46,800 whereas the mindfulness group had learned to let go of that. 718 00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:49,360 - And so one of the ways that mindfulness works 719 00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:52,840 is by reducing that reactivity, that automaticity 720 00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:54,280 of the content of our thoughts. 721 00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:55,880 So it's really amazing. 722 00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:58,800 An amazing thing about humans is the impact of language 723 00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:01,200 and linguistic symbol and verbal thought. 724 00:38:01,240 --> 00:38:02,280 I am unlovable. 725 00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:03,880 I'm fat. 726 00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:05,480 I am all sorts of things. 727 00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:08,480 And just that content can trigger other thoughts, 728 00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:09,800 can trigger physiological responses 729 00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:11,680 like I can feel in my body now, 730 00:38:11,720 --> 00:38:13,280 emotions and so on. 731 00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:15,600 And so reducing that identification, 732 00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:16,880 with those passing expriences, 733 00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,600 just as events in our consciousness 734 00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:21,680 is one of the most important ways through 735 00:38:21,720 --> 00:38:24,120 which mindfulness leads to wellbeing 736 00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:26,440 and reduced mental health struggles. 737 00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:29,360 - [Dan Harris] I would say it was a couple weeks 738 00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:32,400 before I started to notice some differences. 739 00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:34,320 The biggest one is mindfulness. 740 00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:37,360 We spend so much of our time just kind of yanked around 741 00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:39,880 by the malevolent puppeteer of our ego. 742 00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:41,800 You know, where the thought pops, 743 00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:43,920 some neurotic obsession pops into our head, 744 00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,480 you know, I need a sleeve of Oreos 745 00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,640 or I need to say the thing that's going to fuck 746 00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:51,880 up the next 48 hours of my marriage. 747 00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:54,640 And we just do it, you know, 748 00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:56,280 there's no buffer between the stimulus 749 00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:58,080 and our blind reaction. 750 00:38:58,120 --> 00:39:00,720 Mindfulness, it's like this inner-meteorologist 751 00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:02,000 that can see, oh, yeah, 752 00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:03,960 there's a hurricane about to hit land 753 00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:08,640 but I don't need to get carried away by it automatically, 754 00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:10,200 reflexively, habitually. 755 00:39:10,240 --> 00:39:11,680 I have some choice. 756 00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:14,080 I'm still the same person, right? 757 00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:17,200 So I still have a predisposition toward anxiety 758 00:39:17,240 --> 00:39:18,800 and depression, panic. 759 00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:22,120 But what I find is that I'm less likely to believe 760 00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:24,920 the bullshit that the ego coughs up. 761 00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:28,720 So what could be a several day long trudge 762 00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:31,000 through mopiness and despair 763 00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,880 actually can be truncated quite dramatically 764 00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:36,160 to a couple hours, a couple of minutes, who knows, 765 00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:38,080 depending on how mindful I am. 766 00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:40,320 - Does the critical thinking journalist in you 767 00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:44,720 ever worry that you've just bought massively into a cult? 768 00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,080 - I mean I called it 10% Happier. 769 00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:48,920 If the book was called Be Happy Now 770 00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:51,400 or like This Is The Solution To All Of Your Problems, 771 00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:53,240 yeah, I'd worry about that. 772 00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:56,800 I think the vast swathe of humanity could benefit 773 00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:59,360 from this very simple thing of just sitting down, 774 00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:02,080 closing your eyes or not, 775 00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:04,600 trying to feel your breath coming in and going out 776 00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:06,000 and then when you get distracted, 777 00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:07,800 start again, and again and again. 778 00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:11,800 The lessons there from this really simple little thing 779 00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:14,640 are incredibly rich. 780 00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:17,440 What follows on from that is an empathy 781 00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:19,480 with every other human 782 00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:21,600 who has the same process going on. 783 00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:23,240 And so now when you see other people 784 00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:25,920 who are losing their shit at the aeroplane ticket counter 785 00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:29,320 or whatever, you're like, "Oh yeah, that's me, too." 786 00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:44,560 - [Shannon] Okay, so this feels utterly ridiculous. 787 00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:48,440 I am about to speak at an event. 788 00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:50,240 And I thought I was running late 789 00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:51,240 and I'm feeling rushed 790 00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:52,280 and there was traffic 791 00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:55,360 and people relying on me. 792 00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:56,680 So I'm about to take a mindful minute 793 00:40:56,720 --> 00:40:59,240 in the bathroom. 794 00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:04,280 I'm really worried somebody's going to come in. 795 00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:05,600 I'm going to look like an absolute bloody idiot. 796 00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:21,680 - [Sharon] In this meditation, 797 00:41:21,720 --> 00:41:24,680 we're going to add the element of recognising 798 00:41:24,720 --> 00:41:27,680 and noting those things that arise 799 00:41:27,720 --> 00:41:28,800 which are not the breath. 800 00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,640 - So day 51 of my year of living mindfully 801 00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:38,560 and here I am meditating on the sidewalk. 802 00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:42,680 - [Sharon] It may be thinking that comes up. 803 00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:46,880 It maybe imagery, it may be emotion. 804 00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:50,920 It may be sensations in your body. 805 00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:54,920 Whatever it is, it's simply not the breath. 806 00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:04,000 - There we go. A mindful minute 807 00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:06,600 in the bathroom before an event. 808 00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:13,720 Experiment notes, day 38. 809 00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:17,680 I've realised that science is only a small part 810 00:42:17,720 --> 00:42:19,200 of this story. 811 00:42:19,240 --> 00:42:20,880 Since meeting Dan Harris, 812 00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:24,360 I've become aware of an incessant mean voice in my head 813 00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:26,960 that took up residence sometime when I was a kid 814 00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:29,240 and drives so much of what I do. 815 00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:33,760 And it's making my meditation practise almost intolerable. 816 00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:36,960 Like I know this sounds crazy 817 00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:38,880 because we're pretty deep in already. 818 00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:40,800 But I... 819 00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:44,480 To be honest, I've been hating it. 820 00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:47,880 I'm struggling to find the time to meditate 821 00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,960 and I'm not like, it's... meditation is not pleasant 822 00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,760 until yesterday 823 00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:58,600 where something changed. 824 00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,400 And I was doing it because I was on a plane 825 00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:02,680 coming back from Melbourne 826 00:43:02,720 --> 00:43:04,400 where I'd just been doing a presentation, 827 00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:08,720 but for a very brief moment, 828 00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:12,480 it was like just peace 829 00:43:13,720 --> 00:43:15,320 and I just sort of held it 830 00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:18,160 and it wasn't like it switched off suddenly. 831 00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:23,080 It was like there was this slow winding down of it 832 00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:27,000 until eventually I was back 833 00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:29,600 to just how I am normally which is you know, 834 00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:32,600 lots of thoughts going on, lots of crazy thinking happening. 835 00:43:35,240 --> 00:43:38,520 So I feel like that moment was this kind of, 836 00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:42,320 it was a beat of interest 837 00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:45,800 that makes me think that I want to keep going. 838 00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:53,000 I interviewed the French-born Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard 839 00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:56,640 right at the end of what was a four day, 840 00:43:56,680 --> 00:43:59,240 whirlwind tour for him of Australia 841 00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:03,000 and yet he still sparkled. 842 00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:06,480 In order to have that somethingness, 843 00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:08,960 do I need to move to the Himalaya 844 00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:12,120 and meditate for months on end? 845 00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:15,200 - No, I don't think you need to meditate 846 00:44:15,240 --> 00:44:17,720 in any specific place. 847 00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:22,800 What I do believe based on my own experiences 848 00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:25,560 as a practitioner as well as a scientist 849 00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:30,400 is that, that kind of ever-present joy 850 00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:35,360 and lightness and spontaneity 851 00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:37,680 really comes from long-term practice. 852 00:44:37,720 --> 00:44:39,640 - There's a saying in the Tibetan lore, 853 00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:42,640 Matthieu who's been in that tradition, 854 00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:45,320 they call it being happy for no reason. 855 00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:48,160 That is to say your set point is joyous. 856 00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:52,200 I saw Matthieu go into an MRI 857 00:44:52,240 --> 00:44:54,200 when they were trying to develop the protocols 858 00:44:54,240 --> 00:44:56,120 that Richard Davidson used. 859 00:44:56,160 --> 00:44:57,600 He was the first subject 860 00:44:57,640 --> 00:44:59,560 but the thing was they had some glitches 861 00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:02,800 and he stayed in the MRI for about three hours. 862 00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:05,120 The MRI is a human cigar box. 863 00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:06,920 Some people can't bear it. 864 00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:09,400 He came out after three hours, 865 00:45:09,440 --> 00:45:10,720 sat up very cheery and said, 866 00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,320 "Oh, that was like a little mini retreat". 867 00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:15,680 In other words, it didn't affect him in the least. 868 00:45:15,720 --> 00:45:17,800 - My brain is nothing special, 869 00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:21,600 different than any other one except that, 870 00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:25,600 what I've trained in shows in the brain. 871 00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:26,600 Doesn't matter. 872 00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:28,200 It's not about Buddhist monk. 873 00:45:28,240 --> 00:45:29,720 Please give us a break. 874 00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:32,640 It's about human beings training their minds 875 00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:34,360 and they have a very common pattern 876 00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:36,120 for instance compassion, 877 00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,800 if you train a long time in loving kindness and compassion, 878 00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:43,200 when you are asked to do so you activate your brains 879 00:45:43,240 --> 00:45:45,120 in a very strong way. 880 00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:47,640 And if look at the control group that did one week, 881 00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:50,080 a little bit, it's not their fault. 882 00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:51,480 They have not trained their mind 883 00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:53,920 so why should they get the result? 884 00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:58,080 It's like if you train in running or whatever, 885 00:45:58,120 --> 00:45:59,440 you know, if you're a beginner, 886 00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:01,200 you're not going to run a marathon. 887 00:46:01,240 --> 00:46:03,960 So that means it is the result of the training 888 00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:05,600 not of coming from here and there, 889 00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:06,680 being a monk or not monk. 890 00:46:06,720 --> 00:46:08,200 This is irrelevant. 891 00:46:08,240 --> 00:46:09,600 You're training the mind. 892 00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:13,000 What the matter the colour of your dress. 893 00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:15,480 - [Richard Davidson] Matthieu and other long-term practitioners 894 00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,920 have helped us tremendously in establishing 895 00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:21,600 what our minds and our brains are capable of. 896 00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:23,480 We wanted to begin there 897 00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:26,080 because if we tested Matthieu 898 00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:30,120 and other individuals like him and didn't see very much, 899 00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:32,640 there'd be no point in evaluating beginners. 900 00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,400 And what we saw is something quite remarkable. 901 00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:37,800 Their brains are really very, very different. 902 00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:40,160 And what was really amazing 903 00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:43,000 was that these dramatic differences were present 904 00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:46,640 not simply when these practitioners are meditating 905 00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:48,880 but also during their baseline state. 906 00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:52,720 That was the clue that this is an altered trait. 907 00:46:57,720 --> 00:46:59,560 - So is this one rolling now, Jules? 908 00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:00,800 - [Julian] They should both be rolling. 909 00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:01,760 - Both be rolling, okay. 910 00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:02,960 You don't want to see, 911 00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:05,960 I have this lamp like balanced on my computer. 912 00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:07,560 - You know what, I can't see it on camera. 913 00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:10,120 So therefore it doesn't exist. 914 00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:11,400 - Perfect. 915 00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:15,320 - So like I don't know if this is complete placebo, 916 00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,880 but my insomnia has just disappeared. 917 00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:21,160 - Before you started meditating, 918 00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:22,480 what was your insomnia like? 919 00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:26,440 - Once or twice a week, I would be going through the night 920 00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:27,480 unable to sleep. 921 00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:29,400 - And your mind racing, 922 00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:31,920 you know thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts? 923 00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:34,440 Yeah and one of the simplest things that I give 924 00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:38,360 to my patients who have clinical insomnia 925 00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:39,640 is a body scan. 926 00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:42,800 So if you think of the habit loop, 927 00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:44,440 there's the worry thought 928 00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:48,280 that triggers getting caught up in that anxiety 929 00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:50,320 and then you start looking at your clock and saying, 930 00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:51,680 "Oh no, I can't sleep" 931 00:47:51,720 --> 00:47:53,000 and then it just gets worse and worse. 932 00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:54,320 - Exactly. 933 00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:55,600 - I don't know if that's your case. 934 00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:56,760 - That's exactly it, yeah. - Yeah. 935 00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:57,880 So what are you noticing with mindfulness? 936 00:47:57,920 --> 00:47:59,880 Are you able to notice that 937 00:47:59,920 --> 00:48:01,120 and then let go of it 938 00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:03,000 or is it not even coming up? 939 00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:04,880 - Like, I'm really aware. 940 00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:07,240 "Oh my god, I've got all these anxious thoughts". 941 00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:08,760 And so I'm kind of, 942 00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:11,480 before I'm going to bed, I'm kind of mitigating my behaviour. 943 00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:13,920 - So how was that placebo? 944 00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,320 You're describing an actual behaviour change, 945 00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:20,480 catching that worry thinking, not feeding it 946 00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:23,480 and by not feeding it, not having insomnia. 947 00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:25,640 So you can see a causal link there. 948 00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:29,680 - [Shannon] What I think is really important 949 00:48:29,720 --> 00:48:33,080 is that mindfulness does not cure your illnesses. 950 00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:34,760 But what it does is it helps you 951 00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:37,200 to change your relationship to the illness. 952 00:48:37,240 --> 00:48:38,720 - Well, and it's also, 953 00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:42,680 I think another important potential mechanism 954 00:48:42,720 --> 00:48:46,280 is in helping people take better care of themselves. 955 00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:47,760 Having a healthier diet. 956 00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:49,280 Getting enough sleep. 957 00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:51,120 Getting enough physical exercise. 958 00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:52,800 All of these things that are known 959 00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:57,000 to be really important aspects of being healthy 960 00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:00,080 and that we all struggle with actually doing. 961 00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:02,760 That's one of the things that were studying. 962 00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:06,280 How mindfulness training could be an element 963 00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:09,240 in helping people change their behaviours 964 00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:11,920 to healthier lifestyles. 965 00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:14,560 - [Judson Brewer] It appears that these trainings 966 00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:16,320 can help people change behaviour. 967 00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:19,200 The other thing that we can say is mechanistically 968 00:49:19,240 --> 00:49:20,880 it seems that mindfulness is helping 969 00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:24,200 to decouple the craving and the behaviour. 970 00:49:24,240 --> 00:49:26,400 So that piece we've seen multiple times as well. 971 00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:29,440 So we've seen replicability in that as well. 972 00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:31,920 Where we might be able to start applying this 973 00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:34,960 is to other types of behaviours 974 00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:38,160 where we're seeing similar types of habit loops, 975 00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:41,640 whether it's smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, 976 00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:44,720 smoking crack cocaine, using heroin, 977 00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:48,840 eating food or even going on social media. 978 00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:50,600 That's been shown to activate 979 00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:53,120 the same dopaminergic reward system 980 00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:54,800 as all these known drugs of abuse. 981 00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:57,880 So, for example, we got five times the quit rates 982 00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:00,120 of gold standard treatment in our smoking programme 983 00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:01,960 when we did a randomised controlled trial. 984 00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:04,200 And mechanistically we could see 985 00:50:04,240 --> 00:50:06,920 how the mindfulness training was decoupling the craving 986 00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:08,160 from the behaviour. 987 00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:10,160 - Sorry Jud, just stop. 988 00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:12,800 You got five times the quit rate 989 00:50:12,840 --> 00:50:16,200 on gold standard treatments? - Yes. 990 00:50:16,240 --> 00:50:18,800 So when we looked at four months after we started treatment 991 00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:21,560 with folks, so they got about four weeks of treatment. 992 00:50:21,600 --> 00:50:23,680 And we looked for months later. 993 00:50:23,720 --> 00:50:25,960 We found that they were five times more likely 994 00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:28,280 to quit smoking than gold standard treatment. 995 00:50:48,200 --> 00:50:52,720 - Ah, so, welcome everybody. 996 00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:56,040 It feels really good to actually be here in the flesh. 997 00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:59,760 - MBSR is basically, was a proof of concept 998 00:50:59,800 --> 00:51:03,560 and a kind of model for how we could catch people 999 00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:06,400 just regular people, no interest in meditation, 1000 00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:07,800 but major suffering 1001 00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:11,360 because the people we were targeting, 1002 00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:13,920 those who were falling through the cracks as I like to say 1003 00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:15,520 of the healthcare system. 1004 00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:20,920 - [Shannon voiceover] Experiment notes, day 123. 1005 00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:24,680 I've stepped up to 45 minutes a day for my MBSR course 1006 00:51:24,720 --> 00:51:27,000 mostly practising a body scan technique 1007 00:51:28,240 --> 00:51:30,840 and I'm really noticing a dose effect. 1008 00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:33,720 I'm now even more aware of my mental habits, 1009 00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:36,800 the same thoughts happening again and again 1010 00:51:36,840 --> 00:51:40,120 and I'm getting better at noticing my emotions arising 1011 00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:43,520 without automatically reacting to them. 1012 00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:45,920 As intriguing as this is anecdotally though, 1013 00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:48,120 I'm surprised that there's hardly any evidence 1014 00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:51,760 that tells me how long I should practise for 1015 00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:55,400 or even what specific techniques work best. 1016 00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:57,960 One recent study by Harvard neuroscientists, 1017 00:51:58,000 --> 00:52:02,000 did directly compare the mindfulness in MBSR 1018 00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:05,800 with another popular technique, relaxation meditation. 1019 00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:07,920 They split people into two groups 1020 00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:10,440 and taught them both a body scan. 1021 00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:14,120 But while one group was taught to systematically relax areas 1022 00:52:14,160 --> 00:52:15,080 in their body, 1023 00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:17,440 the other was taught mindfulness 1024 00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:21,200 being aware of each area without trying to change anything. 1025 00:52:21,240 --> 00:52:24,640 Although both groups reported feeling less stressed, 1026 00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:27,160 it turned out this tiny tweak 1027 00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:30,920 in the mental training resulted in noticeable differences 1028 00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:32,600 in their brain activity. 1029 00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:34,160 In the same way that swimming 1030 00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:37,800 and running are both called exercise and can be good for me, 1031 00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:42,280 different meditation techniques might actually matter. 1032 00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:46,560 And I suspect that particular contemplative practices 1033 00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:49,640 will one day be prescribed to different people 1034 00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:51,960 for specific reasons. 1035 00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:53,800 When I look through the current evidence 1036 00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:57,480 on high-quality mindfulness programmes like MBSR,. 1037 00:52:57,520 --> 00:53:02,160 they seem to be particularly effective for chronic pain. 1038 00:53:02,200 --> 00:53:03,440 Given that we're in the midst 1039 00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:05,320 of an opioid addiction epidemic 1040 00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:07,840 on top of all the other mental health concerns, 1041 00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:09,600 this is no small thing. 1042 00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:11,880 And I find the idea that mental training 1043 00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:15,440 could be a drug-free option really interesting. 1044 00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:19,880 Can I get a brief explanation 1045 00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:23,200 of what it is like to be in your body today? 1046 00:53:23,240 --> 00:53:26,920 - A doctor would describe my medical diagnosis today 1047 00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:30,160 as having incomplete paraplegia, paralysed bowel, 1048 00:53:30,200 --> 00:53:31,960 paralysed bladder, 1049 00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:35,160 having chronic neuropathic and musculoskeletal pain. 1050 00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:39,600 So my lived experience of being in this body today 1051 00:53:39,640 --> 00:53:41,160 is I've got pain all the time. 1052 00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:45,880 So I was brought up in New Zealand, 1053 00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:50,120 very beautiful, free, active childhood. 1054 00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:51,840 I was very sporty. 1055 00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:54,840 Then when I was 16, I was doing life-saving practice 1056 00:53:54,880 --> 00:53:56,920 and I lifted someone out of the swimming pool. 1057 00:53:56,960 --> 00:53:59,160 And it turned out that I had a condition 1058 00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:00,320 called spondylolisthesis 1059 00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:02,840 and that my vertebrae had fractured. 1060 00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:06,080 So then in the beginning of my 17th year in 1977, 1061 00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:07,920 I had a spinal fusion operation. 1062 00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:10,200 Then when I was 23, 1063 00:54:10,240 --> 00:54:13,800 I was in a car and we ploughed into a telegraph pole. 1064 00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:16,600 [ambulance siren wailing] 1065 00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:18,840 I'd fractured the middle of my spine. 1066 00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:22,320 So I ended up in a neurosurgical intensive care ward. 1067 00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:24,720 The medical team made it clear to me 1068 00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:27,800 there was not a medical magical cure. 1069 00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:29,560 My spine was a very, very damaged. 1070 00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:32,600 More surgery was wasn't going to be helpful 1071 00:54:32,640 --> 00:54:35,560 and that I needed to learn to live with it, somehow. 1072 00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:38,200 I had, I suppose literally a dark night of the soul. 1073 00:54:38,240 --> 00:54:42,480 So I had part of my mind saying, "I can't bear this. 1074 00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:44,640 I'm going to go crazy." 1075 00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:46,360 And another part of my mind saying, 1076 00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:47,960 "But you have to." 1077 00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:51,200 And at a certain point, another voice came in 1078 00:54:51,240 --> 00:54:53,720 and said very, very clearly, 1079 00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:56,320 "You just have to live this moment". 1080 00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:58,400 And my experience changed from one of this, 1081 00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:03,120 you know, being in a vice to greater ease. 1082 00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:06,360 I still feel that that has been the most profound moment 1083 00:55:06,400 --> 00:55:08,640 of my life and everything that's followed since then, 1084 00:55:08,680 --> 00:55:10,800 all the meditation, becoming a Buddhist, 1085 00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:11,960 founding Breathworks, 1086 00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:14,320 is still trying to make sense of that. 1087 00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:16,960 I came across the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn around that time 1088 00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:18,960 and also the work of Stephen Levine 1089 00:55:19,000 --> 00:55:20,800 and what they both talked about was turning 1090 00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:22,720 towards your direct experience 1091 00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:24,920 rather than trying to escape your pain. 1092 00:55:26,680 --> 00:55:29,080 - Why does mindfulness works so effectively 1093 00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:30,560 with chronic pain? 1094 00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:32,880 - Well, the thing to understand about pain, 1095 00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:35,480 acute or chronic, but especially chronic, 1096 00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:38,880 is that we experience a sensation 1097 00:55:38,920 --> 00:55:41,840 and then there's all the mental and emotional reaction 1098 00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:43,120 to the sensation. 1099 00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:44,480 And so with the same stimulus, 1100 00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:46,640 the brain fires off more pain messages. 1101 00:55:46,680 --> 00:55:48,360 The person is not making it up. 1102 00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:49,960 It's not like a person's imagining the pain. 1103 00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:51,800 The person's experiencing it 1104 00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:53,400 but there's an amplifying effect 1105 00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:56,680 because of the mental and emotional reaction to to it. 1106 00:55:56,720 --> 00:55:58,680 Now where mindfulness seems to help 1107 00:55:58,720 --> 00:56:02,040 is it helps a person to gently notice the sensation 1108 00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:04,320 but to be less emotionally reactive to it 1109 00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:06,720 and to re-engage the attention with what's going on 1110 00:56:06,760 --> 00:56:08,320 around the person. 1111 00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:11,120 - One of the reasons that we likely evolved 1112 00:56:11,160 --> 00:56:13,400 to have a human attention system 1113 00:56:13,440 --> 00:56:14,960 is because the brain faces 1114 00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:17,800 an incredible computational challenge. 1115 00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:19,680 There's far more information in the environment 1116 00:56:19,720 --> 00:56:22,080 than can possibly be processed. 1117 00:56:22,120 --> 00:56:23,720 Attention biases, 1118 00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:26,200 virtually all of the information processing. 1119 00:56:26,240 --> 00:56:30,840 So for example, if you show somebody two circles on a page 1120 00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:32,760 just on a regular piece of paper and you say to them, 1121 00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:34,280 those are eyes of a face. 1122 00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:35,880 Now all of a sudden, 1123 00:56:35,920 --> 00:56:38,200 you can get face processing systems that are engaged. 1124 00:56:38,240 --> 00:56:40,520 So it's incredibly powerful 1125 00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:43,200 to change the way information is processed, 1126 00:56:43,240 --> 00:56:45,720 even at the earliest stages in our visual system. 1127 00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:48,560 - So when one study looked 1128 00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:51,640 at mindfulness compared to placebo, 1129 00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:53,440 but they also did MRI of the brain 1130 00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:55,960 to see which areas of the brain are active in placebo 1131 00:56:56,000 --> 00:56:57,320 and which ones in mindfulness? 1132 00:56:57,360 --> 00:56:59,680 The area of the brain that the mindfulness 1133 00:56:59,720 --> 00:57:01,480 was mostly working on were the areas the brain 1134 00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:03,480 that decide whether or not to let the message through 1135 00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:05,560 to the higher centres. 1136 00:57:05,600 --> 00:57:06,920 We often do an experiment with people 1137 00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:09,360 when we're teaching them mindfulness. 1138 00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:12,880 And you can set a person down or a group of people down 1139 00:57:12,920 --> 00:57:16,640 and you can just sort of notice maybe some persistent, 1140 00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:19,200 obvious noise, doesn't have to be loud, 1141 00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:20,480 but an obvious noise. 1142 00:57:20,520 --> 00:57:22,160 And you sit down and close your eyes. 1143 00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:24,000 Now, I want you to listen to that noise. 1144 00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:28,160 Now, I want you to block that noise out 1145 00:57:28,200 --> 00:57:29,320 so that you can't hear it. 1146 00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:31,400 Make that sound go away. 1147 00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:34,880 If you can still hear it, 1148 00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:37,360 I want you to try even harder to block it out. 1149 00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:38,800 And of course what people notice 1150 00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:40,640 is the harder they try to block it out, 1151 00:57:40,680 --> 00:57:42,120 the louder it becomes 1152 00:57:43,240 --> 00:57:45,160 whereas in mindfulness, 1153 00:57:45,200 --> 00:57:46,800 there's no need to block anything out. 1154 00:57:46,840 --> 00:57:49,320 But if the attention is going to something else, 1155 00:57:49,360 --> 00:57:52,080 the other thing just recedes into the background. 1156 00:57:52,120 --> 00:57:54,720 So it's like the brain decides what messages 1157 00:57:54,760 --> 00:57:57,120 to let through and which ones not to. 1158 00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:08,760 - Welcome to the class everybody. 1159 00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:09,920 Very lovely to see you all. 1160 00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:12,560 I have a very effective life now. 1161 00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:14,080 I travel globally. 1162 00:58:14,120 --> 00:58:15,440 I teach globally. 1163 00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:16,400 I've still got chronic pain. 1164 00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:17,880 I'm still disabled. 1165 00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:19,600 I've still got a paralysed bowel and bladder. 1166 00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:21,440 My legs don't work properly 1167 00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:23,680 but I have a really good life. 1168 00:58:23,720 --> 00:58:26,880 My story isn't one of a miracle cure. 1169 00:58:26,920 --> 00:58:30,400 It's a story of healing rather than cure. 1170 00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:32,160 And I think this is very, very important 1171 00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:34,680 because for many, many years, I felt I was a failure. 1172 00:58:34,720 --> 00:58:36,720 Can't manage to earn a living. 1173 00:58:36,760 --> 00:58:38,960 Can't manage to sort my life out. 1174 00:58:39,000 --> 00:58:40,640 And I can't cure my pain. 1175 00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:44,880 And you know, meditation isn't going to unfuse my spine 1176 00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:47,520 but meditation has enabled me to profoundly heal 1177 00:58:47,560 --> 00:58:49,840 of my response to life as it is 1178 00:58:49,880 --> 00:58:52,040 and for me, that's a much greater miracle 1179 00:58:52,080 --> 00:58:53,880 because we've all got bodies that will age. 1180 00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:56,160 We've all got bodies that things will go wrong. 1181 00:58:56,200 --> 00:59:00,720 And if the paradigm is you're only succeeding, 1182 00:59:00,760 --> 00:59:02,640 if you can have a perfect body at all times 1183 00:59:02,680 --> 00:59:05,720 through all stages of life, we're all going to fail. 1184 00:59:05,760 --> 00:59:08,560 So I'm not actually very interested in cure. 1185 00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:11,080 I'm interested in learning to live with my life, 1186 00:59:11,120 --> 00:59:13,360 with whatever arrives in any day 1187 00:59:13,400 --> 00:59:16,000 and we can't control what arrives in our life, 1188 00:59:16,040 --> 00:59:17,200 but we can control how we respond 1189 00:59:17,240 --> 00:59:18,680 to what arrives in our life. 1190 00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:27,200 [bell chiming] 1191 00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:31,200 - So, welcome everybody. 1192 00:59:32,840 --> 00:59:33,840 Our last class. 1193 00:59:36,480 --> 00:59:39,480 So maybe we'll just take a moment to arrive. 1194 00:59:42,800 --> 00:59:46,760 Just feeling into what it feels like to be here. 1195 00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:52,560 - [Shannon] Today, I'm having a seven out of ten day with pain levels. 1196 00:59:52,600 --> 00:59:55,640 I'm having an arthritis flare through my body. 1197 00:59:55,680 --> 01:00:00,080 I found the body scan enormously difficult. 1198 01:00:00,120 --> 01:00:03,560 The word that's on the tip of my tongue is unbearable, 1199 01:00:03,600 --> 01:00:05,840 but I was just so conscious of the exercise 1200 01:00:05,880 --> 01:00:07,400 that we did a few weeks ago 1201 01:00:07,440 --> 01:00:11,640 where we connected with the catastrophising story 1202 01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:13,240 that happens. 1203 01:00:13,280 --> 01:00:15,160 And I you know, you just mentioned Vidyamala Burch 1204 01:00:15,200 --> 01:00:16,560 and it just so happens 1205 01:00:16,600 --> 01:00:18,080 that we interviewed Vidyamala 1206 01:00:18,120 --> 01:00:20,960 for the project that we're working at the moment last week 1207 01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:23,560 and she talks about learning to be with 1208 01:00:23,600 --> 01:00:25,200 that emotional response to the pain 1209 01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:29,040 which I've never in my life been taught to do. 1210 01:00:30,080 --> 01:00:31,840 So um... 1211 01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:34,400 Yeah. 1212 01:00:36,560 --> 01:00:39,400 Do you think that in many ways part of the problem 1213 01:00:39,440 --> 01:00:43,000 is that we're not taught how to suffer? 1214 01:00:45,400 --> 01:00:46,440 - Wow. 1215 01:00:47,960 --> 01:00:49,960 We're not taught how to suffer. 1216 01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:00,240 You know, it's really interesting. 1217 01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:03,120 Maybe, I think in some ways, 1218 01:01:03,160 --> 01:01:05,560 we are taught how to suffer 1219 01:01:05,600 --> 01:01:08,520 but sometimes it doesn't necessarily mean 1220 01:01:08,560 --> 01:01:10,960 that what we've learned and what we've been taught 1221 01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:13,880 is the most adaptive way. 1222 01:01:13,920 --> 01:01:17,080 Mindfulness meditation and these other interventions 1223 01:01:17,120 --> 01:01:21,000 aren't necessarily about alleviating suffering completely. 1224 01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:23,960 Maybe alleviating unnecessary suffering 1225 01:01:24,000 --> 01:01:25,880 is one way of thinking about it 1226 01:01:25,920 --> 01:01:29,080 'cause I think that not only but I think many people think 1227 01:01:29,120 --> 01:01:32,040 that meaning, meaning, 1228 01:01:33,200 --> 01:01:34,280 gratitude, 1229 01:01:35,280 --> 01:01:37,280 compassion, 1230 01:01:37,320 --> 01:01:38,880 good things 1231 01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:41,600 also come from suffering and gives us perspective. 1232 01:01:41,640 --> 01:01:43,560 And so I think even this idea 1233 01:01:43,600 --> 01:01:45,440 that we should be free of suffering, 1234 01:01:45,480 --> 01:01:48,720 maybe is just not the case. 1235 01:01:48,760 --> 01:01:52,600 ♪ I blame you Hollywood 1236 01:01:52,640 --> 01:01:56,360 ♪ For showing me things you never should ♪ 1237 01:01:56,400 --> 01:02:00,200 ♪ Show a young girl 1238 01:02:00,240 --> 01:02:04,640 ♪ In this cruel world 1239 01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:10,360 ♪ 'Cause life's not a happy ending ♪ 1240 01:02:10,400 --> 01:02:11,560 ♪ Sure there are some 1241 01:02:11,600 --> 01:02:15,360 ♪ Like Johnny and June 1242 01:02:15,400 --> 01:02:19,120 ♪ Maybe other people too 1243 01:02:19,160 --> 01:02:22,640 ♪ Like me and you 1244 01:02:26,680 --> 01:02:29,120 - [Shannon voiceover] Experiment notes, day 143. 1245 01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:33,680 MBSR may have finished but I have no doubt 1246 01:02:33,720 --> 01:02:36,400 that the experiences and friendships 1247 01:02:36,440 --> 01:02:38,280 it kindled will stay with me. 1248 01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:42,720 And I'm now so aware of just how powerful my attention is 1249 01:02:42,760 --> 01:02:45,640 in every aspect of my life. 1250 01:02:45,680 --> 01:02:49,480 Attention is one of my most precious resources, 1251 01:02:49,520 --> 01:02:51,600 but I've never valued it before. 1252 01:02:51,640 --> 01:02:54,040 I feel a bit like Neo in The Matrix 1253 01:02:54,080 --> 01:02:55,880 after he's just woken up. 1254 01:02:55,920 --> 01:02:58,000 I can see all the forces around me trying 1255 01:02:58,040 --> 01:03:00,040 to hijack my attention. 1256 01:03:01,720 --> 01:03:04,200 Despite all the benefits of new technology, 1257 01:03:04,240 --> 01:03:07,200 we now live in a world full of distractions, 1258 01:03:07,240 --> 01:03:11,320 on our streets, in our homes and at our very fingertips. 1259 01:03:12,920 --> 01:03:15,080 Has being distracted become my default setting? 1260 01:03:16,600 --> 01:03:19,920 What would it be like if I turned it all... 1261 01:03:21,120 --> 01:03:21,880 Off? 1262 01:03:32,400 --> 01:03:34,640 So here we go, my first silent retreat. 1263 01:03:34,680 --> 01:03:36,120 I'm not scared. 1264 01:03:36,160 --> 01:03:40,680 I am maybe trepidatious, could be the right word. 1265 01:03:40,720 --> 01:03:44,280 I've never in my life been in a situation 1266 01:03:44,320 --> 01:03:46,440 where I haven't had a book to read 1267 01:03:46,480 --> 01:03:48,240 or music to listen or a movie to watch 1268 01:03:48,280 --> 01:03:49,720 or people to talk to. 1269 01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:52,560 I've never, ever experienced 1270 01:03:52,600 --> 01:03:55,800 that kind of sensory deprivation. 1271 01:03:55,840 --> 01:03:57,720 - [interviewer] So what day will you lose your mind? 1272 01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:01,880 - Well, hopefully, I'm not going to lose my mind. 1273 01:04:01,920 --> 01:04:04,440 The good meditation teachers can recognise the signs 1274 01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:05,640 of people who are in distress 1275 01:04:05,680 --> 01:04:07,560 and hopefully guide them out of it 1276 01:04:07,600 --> 01:04:09,480 but I'm not going to lose my mind. 1277 01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:12,520 I'm not going to lose my mind. 1278 01:04:14,000 --> 01:04:17,280 - When I was doing my psychiatric internship, 1279 01:04:17,320 --> 01:04:19,880 two people the same year were hospitalised 1280 01:04:19,920 --> 01:04:23,560 at my hospital from a 10-day meditation retreat centre. 1281 01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:27,600 So it seemed like as a responsible clinical psychologist 1282 01:04:27,640 --> 01:04:30,840 something worthy of following up with. 1283 01:04:30,880 --> 01:04:33,000 The variety of the contemplative experience study 1284 01:04:33,040 --> 01:04:34,400 was an interview-based study, 1285 01:04:34,440 --> 01:04:36,360 about various difficulties that can arise 1286 01:04:36,400 --> 01:04:38,120 in the context of practice. 1287 01:04:38,160 --> 01:04:42,120 The most common reported category was increases in fear. 1288 01:04:42,160 --> 01:04:45,800 You can also see people who lose all emotional tone 1289 01:04:45,840 --> 01:04:49,720 altogether including like feelings for their children. 1290 01:04:49,760 --> 01:04:52,440 And then sense of self almost always 1291 01:04:52,480 --> 01:04:53,880 at least the people that call us 1292 01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:55,640 are reporting with some kind of disturbance 1293 01:04:55,680 --> 01:04:56,880 in their sense of self. 1294 01:04:56,920 --> 01:04:58,560 They don't feel like they own their emotions 1295 01:04:58,600 --> 01:05:01,640 or their thoughts. 1296 01:05:01,680 --> 01:05:02,840 - [Shannon] So that's depersonalization, right? 1297 01:05:02,880 --> 01:05:04,160 - [Willoughby] That's depersonalization, yeah. 1298 01:05:04,200 --> 01:05:05,600 - You know, I'm partly doing this 1299 01:05:05,640 --> 01:05:06,960 because I want to be a better mother 1300 01:05:07,000 --> 01:05:09,600 and a better person, a better wife, a better friend, 1301 01:05:09,640 --> 01:05:11,440 a better daughter, a better sister. 1302 01:05:11,480 --> 01:05:13,040 Like I wanna be a better person 1303 01:05:13,080 --> 01:05:15,640 but what you're telling me is that there are people 1304 01:05:15,680 --> 01:05:21,000 who are reporting experiences of losing those relationships. 1305 01:05:21,040 --> 01:05:22,440 - Yes. 1306 01:05:22,480 --> 01:05:24,640 I mean, one of the more encouraging things 1307 01:05:24,680 --> 01:05:27,160 about experience-dependent neuroplasticity, 1308 01:05:27,200 --> 01:05:29,000 which is basically the idea that you get good 1309 01:05:29,040 --> 01:05:31,680 at what you practise is that it's fairly gradual. 1310 01:05:31,720 --> 01:05:34,440 You can monitor yourself. 1311 01:05:34,480 --> 01:05:37,640 And I think a lot of the quote-unquote adverse effects 1312 01:05:37,680 --> 01:05:39,360 are really about mismatches 1313 01:05:39,400 --> 01:05:41,600 between the practises and the teachers 1314 01:05:41,640 --> 01:05:44,200 and the programmes and people's goals. 1315 01:05:44,240 --> 01:05:47,000 You know, they don't want to lose their sense of self, 1316 01:05:47,040 --> 01:05:49,120 but that's what certain practises are designed to do. 1317 01:05:49,160 --> 01:05:50,680 So don't do those practises. 1318 01:05:50,720 --> 01:05:53,920 Do ones that cultivate positive emotions, 1319 01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:55,920 you know, there are practises like that. 1320 01:05:55,960 --> 01:05:57,760 Those are some of my favourites. 1321 01:05:57,800 --> 01:06:02,240 Going on a retreat can be a very intense experience. 1322 01:06:02,280 --> 01:06:03,840 It's called a retreat. 1323 01:06:03,880 --> 01:06:06,840 That makes it sound like it's a spa 1324 01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:09,040 but it's actually really difficult. 1325 01:06:25,480 --> 01:06:28,080 - My agreement with the organisers of the retreat was 1326 01:06:28,120 --> 01:06:30,200 that once other people started arriving, 1327 01:06:30,240 --> 01:06:32,720 I would stop using the camera in public. 1328 01:06:32,760 --> 01:06:36,360 So I think yeah, the arrival of that car there, 1329 01:06:36,400 --> 01:06:40,280 it pretty much symbolises the arrival of the other people. 1330 01:06:40,320 --> 01:06:43,200 So, I guess for now, 1331 01:06:43,240 --> 01:06:46,800 it's going to be signing off 1332 01:06:46,840 --> 01:06:50,680 and I'll just be using the diary cam in my room 1333 01:06:50,720 --> 01:06:54,120 and maybe during the chats that I have with Patrick, 1334 01:06:54,160 --> 01:06:55,520 the teacher. 1335 01:06:57,000 --> 01:07:01,080 From seven o'clock tonight when we start silence, 1336 01:07:02,440 --> 01:07:04,680 until the end of this retreat, 1337 01:07:04,720 --> 01:07:06,640 in 10 days time, 1338 01:07:06,680 --> 01:07:09,400 it's just going to be me in the contents of my mind 1339 01:07:09,440 --> 01:07:12,720 and I guess that's really just starting to hit me now. 1340 01:07:36,000 --> 01:07:38,640 - The resting state is a topic 1341 01:07:38,680 --> 01:07:41,360 of tremendously increased scientific interest. 1342 01:07:41,400 --> 01:07:44,360 So, if you put a person in an MRI scanner 1343 01:07:44,400 --> 01:07:47,040 and instruct them to simply rest, 1344 01:07:47,080 --> 01:07:51,360 we see a pattern of brain activity that is non-random. 1345 01:07:51,400 --> 01:07:54,920 What you actually see is that there are circuits 1346 01:07:54,960 --> 01:07:58,800 which emerge as being more activated than other circuits 1347 01:07:58,840 --> 01:08:02,960 and those circuits have been called the default mode. 1348 01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:05,600 And one of the characteristics of the default mode 1349 01:08:05,640 --> 01:08:08,800 is that it seems to play some role 1350 01:08:08,840 --> 01:08:13,640 in the kind of self narrative that we have 1351 01:08:14,840 --> 01:08:16,319 occurring in our minds all the time. 1352 01:08:16,360 --> 01:08:18,200 And meditation seems to change 1353 01:08:18,240 --> 01:08:20,319 that in very interesting ways. 1354 01:08:20,360 --> 01:08:22,840 And so the parts of the default mode that 1355 01:08:22,880 --> 01:08:26,360 may be particularly important for this self narrative 1356 01:08:26,399 --> 01:08:28,880 become less strongly connected 1357 01:08:28,920 --> 01:08:30,399 to other areas of the brain. 1358 01:08:30,440 --> 01:08:32,680 And so what it suggests 1359 01:08:32,719 --> 01:08:35,680 is that the self narrative is not hijacking 1360 01:08:35,719 --> 01:08:38,000 the other brain circuits in the same way 1361 01:08:38,040 --> 01:08:40,840 where we can learn through specific kinds 1362 01:08:40,880 --> 01:08:43,520 of meditation practises like mindfulness 1363 01:08:43,559 --> 01:08:46,120 to regard the self narrative for what it is. 1364 01:08:46,160 --> 01:08:49,360 They are thoughts rather than getting hijacked by them 1365 01:08:49,399 --> 01:08:52,760 as if they are reality. 1366 01:09:04,719 --> 01:09:06,960 - The posterior cingulate cortex is actually one 1367 01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:09,440 of the hubs of the default mode network. 1368 01:09:09,479 --> 01:09:12,479 It seems to be a marker of the experiential self 1369 01:09:12,520 --> 01:09:14,399 at least that's our hypothesis. 1370 01:09:14,440 --> 01:09:17,600 So the idea is there's something in our experience 1371 01:09:17,639 --> 01:09:20,120 that says this is going to set a boundary 1372 01:09:20,160 --> 01:09:22,680 between me and the rest of the world. 1373 01:09:22,719 --> 01:09:24,440 When somebody's meditating, 1374 01:09:24,479 --> 01:09:27,440 those boundaries start to dissolve 1375 01:09:27,479 --> 01:09:29,800 and on an experiential level, 1376 01:09:29,840 --> 01:09:32,399 we feel this often as an expanding quality 1377 01:09:32,440 --> 01:09:34,000 of our experience. 1378 01:09:34,040 --> 01:09:37,120 And if that expansion goes all the way to infinity, 1379 01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:41,440 we start to lose that boundary between our self and others 1380 01:09:41,479 --> 01:09:43,840 and what we found was the posterior cingulate cortex 1381 01:09:43,880 --> 01:09:45,160 gets really quiet 1382 01:09:45,200 --> 01:09:46,639 when we're meditating 1383 01:09:46,680 --> 01:09:49,200 or being curious or even being grateful. 1384 01:10:08,120 --> 01:10:11,240 - The curriculum of mindfulness is whatever is arising. 1385 01:10:11,280 --> 01:10:12,840 Now, you see that more on, let's say, 1386 01:10:12,880 --> 01:10:16,120 a 10-day retreat because like there's nothing going on 1387 01:10:16,160 --> 01:10:18,520 except in your mind, there's a lot going on. 1388 01:10:18,559 --> 01:10:21,080 So, how are you going to be in relationship 1389 01:10:21,120 --> 01:10:23,600 with whatever's running through your mind? 1390 01:10:23,639 --> 01:10:26,320 And that's where the liberation comes in, 1391 01:10:26,360 --> 01:10:28,080 that's where the insight arises. 1392 01:10:28,120 --> 01:10:31,320 That's when you realise that you are much bigger 1393 01:10:31,360 --> 01:10:34,880 than your narratives and that changes the brain activity 1394 01:10:34,920 --> 01:10:38,240 in these narrative networks, the default mode network. 1395 01:10:38,280 --> 01:10:40,840 And as I alluded to, 1396 01:10:40,880 --> 01:10:43,520 I think metaphorically at least, we need 1397 01:10:43,559 --> 01:10:46,880 to do a lot more science before we can know the degree 1398 01:10:46,920 --> 01:10:48,440 to which it's literally true, 1399 01:10:48,480 --> 01:10:50,080 we're shifting the default mode 1400 01:10:50,120 --> 01:10:54,760 from one of mindlessness and mind wandering to mindfulness. 1401 01:11:09,120 --> 01:11:11,360 - [Shannon] I'm experiencing these moments 1402 01:11:11,400 --> 01:11:14,360 of deep awareness. 1403 01:11:14,400 --> 01:11:17,440 How can I possibly keep this going 1404 01:11:17,480 --> 01:11:21,320 in the craziness of the so-called real world? 1405 01:11:21,360 --> 01:11:23,639 - You can't. - You can't. 1406 01:11:23,680 --> 01:11:25,440 - You need all the conditions to come together. 1407 01:11:25,480 --> 01:11:27,160 That's why people do retreats. 1408 01:11:27,200 --> 01:11:29,440 Now, insight is interesting 1409 01:11:29,480 --> 01:11:31,200 in that it has the characteristic 1410 01:11:31,240 --> 01:11:34,080 that once you see something, you've seen it 1411 01:11:34,120 --> 01:11:36,400 and that never goes away. - Okay. 1412 01:11:36,440 --> 01:11:38,160 So I'm not going to forget. 1413 01:11:38,200 --> 01:11:40,240 - You will forget your insights 1414 01:11:40,280 --> 01:11:44,320 but the effect that it has, "Oh, this is what's going on", 1415 01:11:44,360 --> 01:11:45,639 that stays. 1416 01:11:45,680 --> 01:11:47,559 I like to call it the Santa Claus effect. 1417 01:11:47,600 --> 01:11:49,600 So when we we're young 1418 01:11:49,639 --> 01:11:53,120 and every year this magical figure turns up 1419 01:11:53,160 --> 01:11:57,120 and we always left out some beer for him 1420 01:11:57,160 --> 01:11:59,160 and some cake because you know by the time 1421 01:11:59,200 --> 01:12:00,960 he gets to Australia, he's pretty tired. 1422 01:12:01,000 --> 01:12:03,440 And then one Christmas Eve, 1423 01:12:03,480 --> 01:12:05,480 you hear sounds in the living room. 1424 01:12:05,520 --> 01:12:08,600 So you creep out and have a look. 1425 01:12:08,639 --> 01:12:10,639 And there's your father scoffing the beer and the cake 1426 01:12:10,680 --> 01:12:12,040 and you mother laying out the presents. 1427 01:12:12,080 --> 01:12:13,719 But Christmas can never be the same 1428 01:12:13,760 --> 01:12:15,559 because you've seen something 1429 01:12:15,600 --> 01:12:17,040 and the world is different now. 1430 01:12:17,080 --> 01:12:18,240 Insight works like this. 1431 01:12:18,280 --> 01:12:20,160 You forget your insight. 1432 01:12:20,200 --> 01:12:22,680 but there's a sense in which your insight never forgets you. 1433 01:12:31,160 --> 01:12:32,200 - Hey. - Hello. 1434 01:12:32,240 --> 01:12:33,719 - How you doing? 1435 01:12:33,760 --> 01:12:35,200 Welcome back. 1436 01:12:35,240 --> 01:12:38,080 - Thank you. - How was it? 1437 01:12:39,000 --> 01:12:41,440 - It was extraordinary. 1438 01:12:41,480 --> 01:12:44,800 You know, what's in my head right now, don't you? 1439 01:12:44,840 --> 01:12:46,320 - No, not all of it. 1440 01:12:46,360 --> 01:12:48,840 No, I get where you're coming from. 1441 01:12:48,880 --> 01:12:51,360 - So are we going to see that on a brain scan? 1442 01:12:51,400 --> 01:12:52,920 - Well, should we go take a look? 1443 01:12:52,960 --> 01:12:53,639 - Let's go. 1444 01:13:02,200 --> 01:13:06,600 I've been home from the silent retreat for just over a month 1445 01:13:06,639 --> 01:13:10,200 and I can honestly say I feel amazing. 1446 01:13:10,240 --> 01:13:12,559 I feel amazing in my head 1447 01:13:12,600 --> 01:13:14,320 and I feel amazing in my body. 1448 01:13:14,360 --> 01:13:18,639 I have no symptoms of my autoimmune disease. 1449 01:13:18,680 --> 01:13:21,360 The changes are so monumental for me 1450 01:13:21,400 --> 01:13:23,960 that I can't help but wonder 1451 01:13:24,000 --> 01:13:28,960 if this is simply that I feel differently about my illness 1452 01:13:29,000 --> 01:13:30,920 or if there's something more going on 1453 01:13:30,960 --> 01:13:34,760 like under my skin and in my cells. 1454 01:13:36,160 --> 01:13:38,639 Now, I do understand that it's early days. 1455 01:13:38,680 --> 01:13:41,440 But, do you think this research holds promise 1456 01:13:41,480 --> 01:13:44,360 for autoimmune diseases? 1457 01:13:44,400 --> 01:13:46,320 - It's a good question Shannon. 1458 01:13:46,360 --> 01:13:50,559 I think that mindfulness and mind-body activities 1459 01:13:50,600 --> 01:13:52,760 are helpful to the immune system 1460 01:13:52,800 --> 01:13:56,639 regardless of whether it's being overactive or underactive. 1461 01:13:56,680 --> 01:13:59,360 While genetics plays a huge role 1462 01:13:59,400 --> 01:14:03,120 when you want to know who's living well to a hundred, 1463 01:14:03,160 --> 01:14:06,840 we think lifestyle plays a tremendous role 1464 01:14:06,880 --> 01:14:09,960 and it's the interaction of lifestyle 1465 01:14:10,000 --> 01:14:11,840 and experience with genetics. 1466 01:14:11,880 --> 01:14:13,880 It's not one or the other. 1467 01:14:13,920 --> 01:14:16,440 The action is in the interaction. 1468 01:14:16,480 --> 01:14:18,840 - Whether or not mindfulness actually cures a disease 1469 01:14:18,880 --> 01:14:19,880 remains to be seen. 1470 01:14:19,920 --> 01:14:21,480 There's some hopeful signs. 1471 01:14:21,520 --> 01:14:24,240 A study that Richie Davidson did actually,, 1472 01:14:24,280 --> 01:14:28,840 where advanced meditators in six hours of meditation 1473 01:14:28,880 --> 01:14:31,440 turned off or down regulated the genes 1474 01:14:31,480 --> 01:14:33,800 that create inflammation in the body. 1475 01:14:33,840 --> 01:14:35,680 Whether that's clinically significant or not, 1476 01:14:35,719 --> 01:14:37,600 it's too early to say. 1477 01:14:37,639 --> 01:14:39,800 - And that does have important health implications 1478 01:14:39,840 --> 01:14:42,880 because we know that inflammatory processes 1479 01:14:42,920 --> 01:14:45,200 are at the root of many chronic illnesses, 1480 01:14:45,240 --> 01:14:48,240 cardiovascular disease, arthritis, 1481 01:14:48,280 --> 01:14:51,960 asthma and if meditation can reduce inflammation, 1482 01:14:52,000 --> 01:14:53,960 that's a really important finding. 1483 01:14:54,000 --> 01:14:56,200 - That's very exciting though 1484 01:14:56,240 --> 01:14:59,760 as somebody with an autoimmune disease, I have to say. 1485 01:14:59,800 --> 01:15:02,400 - We're very interested to see what would happen 1486 01:15:02,440 --> 01:15:05,600 if someone like you with an autoimmune disease 1487 01:15:05,639 --> 01:15:08,120 were to become a very serious meditator 1488 01:15:08,160 --> 01:15:12,080 and track what goes on during that time genetically 1489 01:15:12,120 --> 01:15:14,240 and in terms of symptoms, of course. 1490 01:15:14,280 --> 01:15:16,760 But that hasn't happened yet. 1491 01:15:18,880 --> 01:15:20,960 - [Shannon] What I'm starting to realise is 1492 01:15:21,000 --> 01:15:22,960 how frontier this science is. 1493 01:15:23,000 --> 01:15:26,360 And that at the end of my experiment, 1494 01:15:26,400 --> 01:15:31,080 I might not have scientific data 1495 01:15:31,120 --> 01:15:36,080 to explain my own transformative experience. 1496 01:15:36,120 --> 01:15:38,760 How do I reconcile this? 1497 01:15:38,800 --> 01:15:40,080 - That's a hard one, I don't know. 1498 01:15:40,120 --> 01:15:41,480 I mean, I think our assumption, 1499 01:15:41,520 --> 01:15:42,960 our default in science is often, 1500 01:15:43,000 --> 01:15:44,559 "Oh, we want to know whether 1501 01:15:44,600 --> 01:15:46,160 or not mindfulness meditation works." 1502 01:15:46,200 --> 01:15:47,639 Let's hook the person that's doing the meditation 1503 01:15:47,680 --> 01:15:49,400 up to every possible thing we can think of 1504 01:15:49,440 --> 01:15:52,440 and it may be that the effects 1505 01:15:52,480 --> 01:15:54,240 are on the person as a whole 1506 01:15:54,280 --> 01:15:56,559 and that you may have best observe those 1507 01:15:56,600 --> 01:15:58,200 in that person's life. 1508 01:15:58,240 --> 01:16:00,440 So the really cool studies that I've seen have looked 1509 01:16:00,480 --> 01:16:03,600 at cases where they randomised therapists 1510 01:16:03,639 --> 01:16:06,400 in training to either get Zen meditation practice 1511 01:16:06,440 --> 01:16:08,120 or just relaxation. 1512 01:16:08,160 --> 01:16:10,639 So they taught the therapist either to be more present 1513 01:16:10,680 --> 01:16:12,360 and more mindful 1514 01:16:12,400 --> 01:16:15,240 or just to relax and they then looked at the clients 1515 01:16:15,280 --> 01:16:17,400 and what they found in this study is that 1516 01:16:17,440 --> 01:16:21,520 the clients of the therapists who got Zen training 1517 01:16:21,559 --> 01:16:24,960 got better faster and stayed better longer. 1518 01:16:25,000 --> 01:16:27,200 And so I think for me, 1519 01:16:27,240 --> 01:16:29,240 we really need to think carefully 1520 01:16:29,280 --> 01:16:31,280 about where are we looking for the effects? 1521 01:16:31,320 --> 01:16:32,760 Where would we notice this? 1522 01:16:32,800 --> 01:16:34,600 If this is working, where would we observe it? 1523 01:16:34,639 --> 01:16:37,880 And it might not necessarily always be biology. 1524 01:16:45,400 --> 01:16:48,080 - [Shannon voiceover] Experiment notes. 1525 01:16:48,120 --> 01:16:50,320 I'm now only starting to realise 1526 01:16:50,360 --> 01:16:54,639 what the last 283 days have been about. 1527 01:16:54,680 --> 01:16:57,680 When I sat down to meditate on day one, 1528 01:16:57,719 --> 01:17:00,760 I thought I was making a film about getting happier. 1529 01:17:00,800 --> 01:17:04,480 But I've actually been learning how to suffer. 1530 01:17:04,520 --> 01:17:07,440 I call this being discomfortable, 1531 01:17:07,480 --> 01:17:11,600 comfortable with all of life's inevitable discomfort. 1532 01:17:11,639 --> 01:17:13,440 I'm also coming to terms with the fact 1533 01:17:13,480 --> 01:17:16,200 that I might not find any black and white answers 1534 01:17:16,240 --> 01:17:18,680 and that the scientific process is actually made up 1535 01:17:18,719 --> 01:17:20,680 of shades of grey. 1536 01:17:20,719 --> 01:17:22,680 I guess, I'm no longer under any illusion 1537 01:17:22,719 --> 01:17:25,440 that my experiment alone can possibly answer 1538 01:17:25,480 --> 01:17:27,639 my starting question. 1539 01:17:27,680 --> 01:17:29,840 Could mindfulness be part of the solution 1540 01:17:29,880 --> 01:17:32,440 for the mental health epidemic? 1541 01:17:32,480 --> 01:17:36,480 Can it really ease the suffering of anyone, anywhere, 1542 01:17:36,520 --> 01:17:39,120 in any circumstances? 1543 01:17:39,160 --> 01:17:42,639 As an educated white woman, living in a peaceful country, 1544 01:17:42,680 --> 01:17:44,880 I don't know. 1545 01:17:44,920 --> 01:17:46,840 I've received a film grant that allows me 1546 01:17:46,880 --> 01:17:50,600 to make one final trip before the project finishes. 1547 01:17:50,639 --> 01:17:53,240 And while there are examples of mindfulness being used 1548 01:17:53,280 --> 01:17:57,360 to help people in situations far worse than my own, 1549 01:17:57,400 --> 01:18:01,559 in prisons, in disadvantaged schools and communities, 1550 01:18:01,600 --> 01:18:04,760 my attention has been drawn to the Middle East 1551 01:18:04,800 --> 01:18:08,760 and to the front line of the global humanitarian crisis 1552 01:18:08,800 --> 01:18:12,040 that has caused more people to be displaced by conflict 1553 01:18:12,080 --> 01:18:14,160 than after World War II. 1554 01:18:14,200 --> 01:18:17,680 If there was ever a place to put mindfulness to the test, 1555 01:18:18,559 --> 01:18:20,680 this would be it. 1556 01:18:38,960 --> 01:18:43,760 - [Shannon] I am currently in the Za'atari refugee camp 1557 01:18:45,280 --> 01:18:48,080 which is one of the largest refugee camps in the world. 1558 01:18:50,600 --> 01:18:55,559 And it's really one thing to read about places like this 1559 01:18:55,600 --> 01:18:59,360 on the Internet and to see the images on the television, 1560 01:18:59,400 --> 01:19:01,559 but it is a completely different thing 1561 01:19:01,600 --> 01:19:03,559 to actually come here and see this for myself 1562 01:19:03,600 --> 01:19:06,960 and to meet the people 1563 01:19:07,000 --> 01:19:08,960 who now call this place home. 1564 01:19:35,280 --> 01:19:39,240 - [Shannon] When I met Om Hamze today, 1565 01:19:39,280 --> 01:19:42,559 she is the single mother of six children. 1566 01:19:42,600 --> 01:19:45,440 She told me that this is home 1567 01:19:45,480 --> 01:19:47,800 because there is no home for her to go home to. 1568 01:19:49,040 --> 01:19:49,800 I really, 1569 01:19:51,160 --> 01:19:54,840 I can't see how teaching meditation 1570 01:19:56,360 --> 01:19:58,920 is actually going to change anything. 1571 01:20:02,200 --> 01:20:05,680 - There's no doubt that when you have tens of millions 1572 01:20:05,719 --> 01:20:07,320 or even millions or even hundreds of thousands of people 1573 01:20:07,360 --> 01:20:08,960 that are forcibly displaced, 1574 01:20:09,000 --> 01:20:13,120 there are governmental and non-governmental organisations 1575 01:20:13,160 --> 01:20:17,760 that leap in to provide assistance and care 1576 01:20:17,800 --> 01:20:19,480 and they have to deal with all sorts of things like, 1577 01:20:19,520 --> 01:20:23,200 you know, housing, food, water 1578 01:20:23,240 --> 01:20:27,000 and later education, all sorts of legal 1579 01:20:27,040 --> 01:20:29,920 and immigration, residency issues and status. 1580 01:20:29,960 --> 01:20:31,920 And those things are really important, there's no doubt, 1581 01:20:31,960 --> 01:20:35,000 they're critical but then, you have those same hundreds 1582 01:20:35,040 --> 01:20:38,440 of thousands of people who endured unimaginable pain 1583 01:20:38,480 --> 01:20:41,719 and experience of trauma and ongoing chronic stress 1584 01:20:41,760 --> 01:20:45,320 of uncertainty about what this means 1585 01:20:45,360 --> 01:20:47,680 and we can't see those scars. 1586 01:20:47,719 --> 01:20:52,600 And in terms of access to mental health care, 1587 01:20:52,639 --> 01:20:56,680 it's just a tiny, tiny fraction of the millions 1588 01:20:56,719 --> 01:20:58,680 who need care receive any care 1589 01:20:58,719 --> 01:21:00,800 and among those that receive some care, 1590 01:21:00,840 --> 01:21:02,559 the truth is we don't have a good understanding 1591 01:21:02,600 --> 01:21:04,160 of what they need. 1592 01:21:05,200 --> 01:21:08,800 - [Jim Gordon] So what happens is people are living 1593 01:21:08,840 --> 01:21:10,080 with all this anger, 1594 01:21:10,120 --> 01:21:14,240 all this fear, all this worry about the future 1595 01:21:14,280 --> 01:21:19,240 and if you wait these patterns of extreme stress 1596 01:21:19,280 --> 01:21:23,680 become fixed, fixed in physiology and biology, 1597 01:21:23,719 --> 01:21:27,400 fixed psychologically, people's fear and anxiety 1598 01:21:27,440 --> 01:21:30,320 and depression, fixed in behaviour. 1599 01:21:30,360 --> 01:21:32,960 So the best time to work with people 1600 01:21:33,000 --> 01:21:35,639 is when the trauma is actually happening. 1601 01:21:41,400 --> 01:21:43,760 - [Shannon voiceover] Experiment notes, day 328. 1602 01:21:45,440 --> 01:21:49,120 There are over 75,000 people in the Za'atari camp 1603 01:21:49,160 --> 01:21:51,040 and 70 million displaced people 1604 01:21:51,080 --> 01:21:53,280 in similar situations worldwide. 1605 01:21:55,680 --> 01:21:57,719 What I just can't get out of my head 1606 01:21:57,760 --> 01:22:01,559 is that only a tiny minority are even in camps 1607 01:22:01,600 --> 01:22:05,440 and being supported by organisations like the UNHCR. 1608 01:22:08,160 --> 01:22:09,520 Across the border in Israel, 1609 01:22:09,559 --> 01:22:12,559 in the ghettos of South Tel Aviv, 1610 01:22:12,600 --> 01:22:14,480 there are thousands of asylum seekers 1611 01:22:14,520 --> 01:22:16,400 with the highest rates of trauma 1612 01:22:16,440 --> 01:22:18,559 and other mental health issues 1613 01:22:18,600 --> 01:22:21,480 ever recorded in a community sample. 1614 01:22:22,680 --> 01:22:25,400 In the face of all of this, 1615 01:22:25,440 --> 01:22:28,960 how can mindfulness possibly be anything more 1616 01:22:29,000 --> 01:22:30,960 than just a band-aid solution 1617 01:22:31,000 --> 01:22:34,200 for people who are bleeding out on the inside? 1618 01:22:34,240 --> 01:22:36,559 I found a team of researchers 1619 01:22:36,600 --> 01:22:38,200 from the University of Haifa 1620 01:22:38,240 --> 01:22:40,080 who are asking the same question. 1621 01:22:41,800 --> 01:22:43,760 What makes you think that mindfulness could help? 1622 01:22:46,160 --> 01:22:47,920 - So it's a good, it's a fair question. 1623 01:22:47,960 --> 01:22:50,320 Here in Israel, we've been studying the refugees 1624 01:22:50,360 --> 01:22:53,800 that have come here, asylum seekers from Eritrea 1625 01:22:53,840 --> 01:22:56,639 and from Sudan mostly. 1626 01:22:56,680 --> 01:22:59,080 And when we began, 1627 01:22:59,120 --> 01:23:02,080 we needed to identify intervention approaches, 1628 01:23:03,480 --> 01:23:06,520 that there's evidence already, 1629 01:23:06,559 --> 01:23:08,960 that they're effective for stress-related 1630 01:23:09,000 --> 01:23:11,240 and trauma-related symptoms, 1631 01:23:11,280 --> 01:23:13,240 that are low cost. 1632 01:23:13,280 --> 01:23:14,719 You have to be able to deliver them 1633 01:23:14,760 --> 01:23:16,840 by like people in the community, paraprofessionals. 1634 01:23:16,880 --> 01:23:19,360 You can't have a psychiatrist, 1635 01:23:19,400 --> 01:23:22,200 one or two or three or even twenty treating a hundred 1636 01:23:22,240 --> 01:23:25,719 and fifty thousand refugees in a refugee camp. 1637 01:23:25,760 --> 01:23:27,639 You can't do that. 1638 01:23:27,680 --> 01:23:31,760 And mindfulness interventions, not a panacea. 1639 01:23:31,800 --> 01:23:36,440 But meet each and every one of those criteria 1640 01:23:36,480 --> 01:23:40,000 and so we had a number of good reasons to think 1641 01:23:40,040 --> 01:23:43,040 that it could actually work. 1642 01:23:46,280 --> 01:23:50,440 - My name is Mogos and I was born in Dekemhare, Eritrea. 1643 01:23:50,480 --> 01:23:55,840 I left in 2009. The political situation of Eritrea 1644 01:23:55,880 --> 01:24:00,440 it's one party, one president almost for 28 years. 1645 01:24:01,440 --> 01:24:04,360 And there is no election. 1646 01:24:04,400 --> 01:24:05,960 There is no free press. 1647 01:24:06,000 --> 01:24:07,680 Your future is very dark 1648 01:24:07,719 --> 01:24:11,120 because you are like their property. 1649 01:24:11,160 --> 01:24:12,719 You are not safe. 1650 01:24:12,760 --> 01:24:14,800 - So you left? - Yeah. 1651 01:24:20,800 --> 01:24:22,840 There was someone, a smuggler, it's all the same. 1652 01:24:22,880 --> 01:24:24,639 We paid him money. 1653 01:24:24,680 --> 01:24:26,320 They treat you very badly. 1654 01:24:26,360 --> 01:24:28,440 They only care about the money. 1655 01:24:28,480 --> 01:24:30,840 It's not that they care about you. 1656 01:24:30,880 --> 01:24:34,559 For example, on the desert you don't have water. 1657 01:24:34,600 --> 01:24:37,360 They put some petrol into the water. 1658 01:24:37,400 --> 01:24:40,240 In order, not you to drink. 1659 01:24:40,280 --> 01:24:45,080 And everyone is screaming, crying, vomiting 1660 01:24:46,480 --> 01:24:48,559 and most of it I tried to forget it 1661 01:24:48,600 --> 01:24:50,680 because it's very bad memories. 1662 01:24:51,760 --> 01:24:53,719 But sometimes, 1663 01:24:53,760 --> 01:24:55,960 on the border 1664 01:24:56,000 --> 01:24:58,600 and on the Gulf. 1665 01:24:58,639 --> 01:25:01,400 And the Suez Gulf, I remember it sometimes 1666 01:25:01,440 --> 01:25:04,240 because it was very hard on the the sea. 1667 01:25:05,480 --> 01:25:07,200 So I remember it sometimes. 1668 01:25:09,680 --> 01:25:13,400 - [Amit Bernstein] Up to 70 or 80 percent of a given East African population 1669 01:25:13,440 --> 01:25:17,000 in Israel has either survived torture or witnessed torture. 1670 01:25:17,040 --> 01:25:19,440 Half of the population has either suffered 1671 01:25:19,480 --> 01:25:21,559 or witnessed sexual assault for example. 1672 01:25:21,600 --> 01:25:24,000 It's extraordinary high numbers. 1673 01:25:24,040 --> 01:25:25,520 In some of our samples, 1674 01:25:25,559 --> 01:25:28,719 these are community samples not treatment seekers. 1675 01:25:28,760 --> 01:25:30,760 We're talking about rates of post-traumatic stress symptoms, 1676 01:25:30,800 --> 01:25:34,600 elevated symptoms between like 55 to 80 percent 1677 01:25:34,639 --> 01:25:38,840 and the consequences for them in anxiety and depression, 1678 01:25:38,880 --> 01:25:41,240 not to mention the consequences for generations 1679 01:25:41,280 --> 01:25:44,960 of that kind of damage to human psyches, so yeah, 1680 01:25:45,000 --> 01:25:47,880 we have to act now. 1681 01:25:47,920 --> 01:25:51,400 - Things like psychological stress, trauma, abuse 1682 01:25:51,440 --> 01:25:55,559 will actually not just change us in terms of the brain 1683 01:25:55,600 --> 01:25:59,000 but will actually change the way our DNA expresses itself. 1684 01:25:59,040 --> 01:26:01,680 So for example, Holocaust survivors 1685 01:26:01,719 --> 01:26:06,400 and in very precise ways the experience of that trauma 1686 01:26:06,440 --> 01:26:08,880 changes the DNA in ways that are different for people 1687 01:26:08,920 --> 01:26:12,240 who experience, say child abuse or other forms of trauma, 1688 01:26:12,280 --> 01:26:15,520 but those changes are passed on directly 1689 01:26:15,559 --> 01:26:17,960 through the DNA not just through the brain change 1690 01:26:18,000 --> 01:26:20,639 but through the DNA into the offspring 1691 01:26:20,680 --> 01:26:23,920 leaving them more at risk of mental health problems. 1692 01:26:23,960 --> 01:26:26,960 So it's not just about helping somebody now. 1693 01:26:27,000 --> 01:26:29,080 Everything we do to help somebody now 1694 01:26:29,120 --> 01:26:31,200 is also an investment in the wellbeing 1695 01:26:31,240 --> 01:26:35,000 of future generations or when we traumatise somebody now, 1696 01:26:35,040 --> 01:26:37,120 it's not just that person that suffers, 1697 01:26:37,160 --> 01:26:38,520 it's the offspring as well. 1698 01:26:40,880 --> 01:26:43,920 - So yeah, we developed what we're describing now 1699 01:26:43,960 --> 01:26:47,080 as a mindful trauma recovery intervention 1700 01:26:47,120 --> 01:26:49,040 or program for refugees. 1701 01:26:49,080 --> 01:26:53,800 And we are now in the midst of a randomised control study 1702 01:26:53,840 --> 01:26:55,760 of that intervention. 1703 01:27:00,760 --> 01:27:04,680 - Refugees here, we're facing a lot of problems, 1704 01:27:04,719 --> 01:27:07,480 especially with the deportation. 1705 01:27:08,600 --> 01:27:10,639 It is the mind that gets me crazy, 1706 01:27:10,680 --> 01:27:12,200 that gets me to be depressed 1707 01:27:12,240 --> 01:27:14,360 because all the time think, think, thinking, 1708 01:27:14,400 --> 01:27:15,680 I'm addicted to it. 1709 01:27:15,719 --> 01:27:17,320 I don't know how to stop it. 1710 01:27:17,360 --> 01:27:18,880 When I stop it, I got peace. 1711 01:27:18,920 --> 01:27:21,440 When I not know how to stop it, 1712 01:27:21,480 --> 01:27:23,719 I got crazy or I get depressed. 1713 01:27:24,920 --> 01:27:27,680 It's like after you meditate, 1714 01:27:27,719 --> 01:27:29,639 you become like new person. 1715 01:27:29,680 --> 01:27:32,800 You start to ask yourself, is that me, 1716 01:27:32,840 --> 01:27:34,800 that I'm walking on the street 1717 01:27:34,840 --> 01:27:37,800 like I had no problem. 1718 01:27:37,840 --> 01:27:39,760 And then after so many hours so you get back, 1719 01:27:39,800 --> 01:27:42,600 where you have been, it's obvious. But for some 1720 01:27:42,639 --> 01:27:46,440 more minutes, you become someone very new. 1721 01:27:46,480 --> 01:27:48,320 I hope so, it will be distributed 1722 01:27:48,360 --> 01:27:52,080 to all of the people and then to 1723 01:27:52,120 --> 01:27:56,800 become part of the refugee system. 1724 01:28:01,400 --> 01:28:04,559 - So our first groups have finished the intervention 1725 01:28:04,600 --> 01:28:07,200 and the feedback has been pretty amazing. 1726 01:28:08,600 --> 01:28:12,120 People, men and women, saying things like, 1727 01:28:12,160 --> 01:28:17,080 I relate to my experience in a totally new way. 1728 01:28:17,120 --> 01:28:19,400 I didn't know I was on autopilot. 1729 01:28:21,639 --> 01:28:24,639 And the preliminary data is promising. 1730 01:28:24,680 --> 01:28:29,240 Compared to controls, we're seeing an almost 50 percent drop 1731 01:28:29,280 --> 01:28:30,920 in stress and trauma-related symptoms 1732 01:28:30,960 --> 01:28:32,920 after the nine week intervention, 1733 01:28:32,960 --> 01:28:37,400 which means that it looks like this intervention works, 1734 01:28:37,440 --> 01:28:38,880 for even the most vulnerable 1735 01:28:38,920 --> 01:28:41,600 and traumatised people on the planet. 1736 01:28:41,639 --> 01:28:43,680 It's pretty amazing, it's pretty amazing. 1737 01:28:45,000 --> 01:28:46,760 - [Shannon] This is incredible for me, I have to say 1738 01:28:46,800 --> 01:28:49,760 because like you've got so many worries 1739 01:28:49,800 --> 01:28:52,440 like meditation is almost like a luxury. 1740 01:28:52,480 --> 01:28:53,800 - It's like a medicine for me. 1741 01:28:53,840 --> 01:28:55,840 Maybe a luxury for you, it's like a medicine for me. 1742 01:28:55,880 --> 01:28:59,840 It's a different way of interpretation for it. 1743 01:28:59,880 --> 01:29:02,760 I use it like a medicine. 1744 01:29:05,600 --> 01:29:08,719 ♪ We could be the healing 1745 01:29:08,760 --> 01:29:11,120 ♪ When you're feeling all alone ♪ 1746 01:29:11,160 --> 01:29:14,240 ♪ We could be the reason 1747 01:29:14,280 --> 01:29:17,160 ♪ To find the strength to carry on ♪ 1748 01:29:17,200 --> 01:29:20,160 ♪ In the world that's so divided ♪ 1749 01:29:20,200 --> 01:29:22,320 ♪ We shall overcome 1750 01:29:22,360 --> 01:29:25,360 ♪ We can be the healing 1751 01:29:25,400 --> 01:29:27,920 ♪ We can be the flower in the gun ♪ 1752 01:29:27,960 --> 01:29:30,960 ♪ We can be the healing 1753 01:29:31,000 --> 01:29:34,360 ♪ We can be the flower in the gun ♪ 1754 01:29:44,160 --> 01:29:49,040 - [Shannon] That's it, the last EEG for the whole project. 1755 01:29:49,080 --> 01:29:50,080 We're done. 1756 01:29:51,480 --> 01:29:53,800 I don't know if these little nodules 1757 01:29:53,840 --> 01:29:56,600 sitting on top of my skull are able 1758 01:29:56,639 --> 01:29:59,320 to actually measure those changes, 1759 01:29:59,360 --> 01:30:00,520 but I can tell you that 1760 01:30:01,680 --> 01:30:04,760 my experience is different, yeah. 1761 01:30:10,280 --> 01:30:13,120 After more than 100 scientific tests, 1762 01:30:13,160 --> 01:30:17,960 365 days and 453 hours of meditation practice, 1763 01:30:19,680 --> 01:30:23,880 I now know the results of my year long self-experiment. 1764 01:30:23,920 --> 01:30:28,120 Using an EEG, we did seven scans to test my attention 1765 01:30:28,160 --> 01:30:29,719 and working memory. 1766 01:30:29,760 --> 01:30:31,600 Whilst there were clear differences between 1767 01:30:31,639 --> 01:30:34,559 my resting state and meditating state, 1768 01:30:34,600 --> 01:30:38,440 there was too much noise in the data to see any trends. 1769 01:30:38,480 --> 01:30:39,920 My conclusion? 1770 01:30:39,960 --> 01:30:42,160 You just can't meditate away the impacts 1771 01:30:42,200 --> 01:30:46,360 of things like sleep deprivation, jet lag or the flu 1772 01:30:46,400 --> 01:30:48,680 but my brain did change. 1773 01:30:48,719 --> 01:30:51,480 The MRI scans showed structural changes 1774 01:30:51,520 --> 01:30:53,600 in a number of key regions 1775 01:30:53,639 --> 01:30:56,960 including the fact that while most brains start shrinking 1776 01:30:57,000 --> 01:30:58,960 when we reach out early 20s, 1777 01:30:59,000 --> 01:31:02,240 areas in my brain that relate to self-awareness, 1778 01:31:02,280 --> 01:31:06,760 memory and dealing with emotions did the opposite and grew. 1779 01:31:08,320 --> 01:31:12,080 - What is very interesting is that in the right hippocampus, 1780 01:31:12,120 --> 01:31:17,080 in your brain, there's an increase in hippocampal volume 1781 01:31:17,120 --> 01:31:19,360 and quite a substantial one. 1782 01:31:19,400 --> 01:31:24,160 The hippocampus is used for the modulation of emotions. 1783 01:31:24,200 --> 01:31:25,960 And so for instance, 1784 01:31:26,000 --> 01:31:28,440 those people who have depression 1785 01:31:28,480 --> 01:31:30,320 tend to have a small hippocampus. 1786 01:31:30,360 --> 01:31:32,240 So it's an important structure. 1787 01:31:32,280 --> 01:31:35,840 - In terms of my experience of what has been changing 1788 01:31:35,880 --> 01:31:38,760 as a result of the meditation practice, 1789 01:31:38,800 --> 01:31:40,800 it's my emotion regulation. 1790 01:31:40,840 --> 01:31:43,000 So what you're saying is that, 1791 01:31:43,040 --> 01:31:47,040 that subjective experience 1792 01:31:47,080 --> 01:31:49,280 is being reflected there. 1793 01:31:49,320 --> 01:31:50,559 - That's right. - In my brain. 1794 01:31:50,600 --> 01:31:52,400 - It's consistent with what we see here. 1795 01:31:54,200 --> 01:31:56,000 - [Shannon voiceover] The frontier of mindfulness science 1796 01:31:56,040 --> 01:31:58,320 is whether or not doing something with our mind 1797 01:31:58,360 --> 01:32:01,320 could have downstream effects throughout our body 1798 01:32:01,360 --> 01:32:03,480 and the answer is yes 1799 01:32:03,520 --> 01:32:05,480 but where and why? 1800 01:32:05,520 --> 01:32:07,480 That's where it gets interesting. 1801 01:32:07,520 --> 01:32:10,400 My blood tests showed that my autoimmune disease 1802 01:32:10,440 --> 01:32:13,840 hasn't vanished and whilst there were trends 1803 01:32:13,880 --> 01:32:18,040 in my immune function, inflammation and stress markers, 1804 01:32:18,080 --> 01:32:21,600 this experiment didn't occur in a sterile laboratory. 1805 01:32:21,639 --> 01:32:23,080 The ups and downs of life 1806 01:32:23,120 --> 01:32:25,719 created a lot of noise in the data. 1807 01:32:27,240 --> 01:32:30,200 At a cellular level when we looked at my telomeres 1808 01:32:30,240 --> 01:32:33,160 which are the caps on the end of my DNA, 1809 01:32:33,200 --> 01:32:36,960 the last sample showed that they may have grown 1810 01:32:37,000 --> 01:32:39,719 which is interesting because shorter telomeres 1811 01:32:39,760 --> 01:32:42,960 are associated with a host of chronic illnesses 1812 01:32:43,000 --> 01:32:46,240 and while it's tempting to sell this as good news, 1813 01:32:46,280 --> 01:32:49,600 we actually used three different measuring techniques 1814 01:32:49,639 --> 01:32:53,520 on each sample and they all showed different results, 1815 01:32:53,559 --> 01:32:57,880 which tells me that it's very early days for this science. 1816 01:32:57,920 --> 01:33:01,240 As for the more than 17,000 genes that were analysed, 1817 01:33:01,280 --> 01:33:03,680 the blueprint of our body that we often think 1818 01:33:03,719 --> 01:33:06,240 of as fixed and unchangeable. 1819 01:33:06,280 --> 01:33:08,440 Well, maybe it's not. 1820 01:33:09,719 --> 01:33:12,880 - There was something which came up. 1821 01:33:12,920 --> 01:33:15,920 Out of the seventeen thousand three hundred or so genes 1822 01:33:15,960 --> 01:33:17,480 that we looked at, 1823 01:33:17,520 --> 01:33:20,080 this was the one that showed the biggest change. 1824 01:33:20,120 --> 01:33:22,800 The thing which I found absolutely fascinating 1825 01:33:22,840 --> 01:33:24,920 is that this one happens to be a master regulator 1826 01:33:24,960 --> 01:33:27,800 of inflammatory processes 1827 01:33:27,840 --> 01:33:29,840 on which you're showing this greatest change 1828 01:33:29,880 --> 01:33:32,040 throughout your mindfulness process. 1829 01:33:34,000 --> 01:33:36,000 - That big dip there. 1830 01:33:36,040 --> 01:33:38,800 That's the first sample after I did the silent retreat. 1831 01:33:38,840 --> 01:33:40,200 - That's correct. 1832 01:33:40,240 --> 01:33:42,600 - And is that, that's showing that that gene 1833 01:33:42,639 --> 01:33:44,639 is effectively switching off? 1834 01:33:44,680 --> 01:33:46,360 - It's being what we call down-regulated. 1835 01:33:46,400 --> 01:33:47,719 That's right, it's being turned down. 1836 01:33:47,760 --> 01:33:49,559 So if I was going to do another experiment, 1837 01:33:49,600 --> 01:33:51,080 I'd certainly be saying well, 1838 01:33:51,120 --> 01:33:53,480 let's keep a careful eye on this gene. 1839 01:33:53,520 --> 01:33:55,440 Because it did show some change. 1840 01:33:55,480 --> 01:33:57,000 The change isn't what we would call 1841 01:33:57,040 --> 01:33:58,639 statistically significant, 1842 01:33:58,680 --> 01:34:00,719 but I think there's an interesting trend there. 1843 01:34:02,240 --> 01:34:03,880 - [Shannon voiceover] But for all the objective 1844 01:34:03,920 --> 01:34:06,320 biological markers I've thrown at this project, 1845 01:34:06,360 --> 01:34:08,960 I now realise there's only one measurement 1846 01:34:09,000 --> 01:34:10,080 that matters to me, 1847 01:34:11,719 --> 01:34:13,680 how I feel. 1848 01:34:15,400 --> 01:34:17,320 - If your subjective experience of your life 1849 01:34:17,360 --> 01:34:19,520 is that this is good for you, 1850 01:34:19,559 --> 01:34:22,240 do you need something, someone else to tell you, 1851 01:34:22,280 --> 01:34:23,200 "Yes, it's good for you". 1852 01:34:23,240 --> 01:34:24,880 - No, I don't-- 1853 01:34:24,920 --> 01:34:26,520 - That's the point of subjective wellbeing research 1854 01:34:26,559 --> 01:34:29,680 is that it actually, the subjective is so valid. 1855 01:34:29,719 --> 01:34:32,240 In fact, you could argue it's the only valid tool. 1856 01:34:32,280 --> 01:34:34,240 If the person themselves 1857 01:34:34,280 --> 01:34:36,080 is having a better experience of their life, 1858 01:34:36,120 --> 01:34:37,960 well, then that's actually all we need. 1859 01:34:38,000 --> 01:34:39,680 - [Shannon voiceover] Over the course of the year, 1860 01:34:39,719 --> 01:34:44,000 my subjective wellbeing score went from 69.4 1861 01:34:44,040 --> 01:34:47,639 or just below average to 93, 1862 01:34:47,680 --> 01:34:50,160 well above the average person's happiness 1863 01:34:50,200 --> 01:34:52,719 and wellbeing set point. 1864 01:34:54,880 --> 01:34:58,040 As I head out of the lab and into the real world, 1865 01:34:58,080 --> 01:35:01,320 I can't help but wonder how different my life would be 1866 01:35:01,360 --> 01:35:04,639 if I'd been taught this skill at a much younger age. 1867 01:35:06,200 --> 01:35:08,840 And what the impact would be for my children's generation 1868 01:35:08,880 --> 01:35:12,800 on things like education, healthcare and politics 1869 01:35:12,840 --> 01:35:17,639 if more people learned to notice deeply and respond wisely. 1870 01:35:19,240 --> 01:35:21,920 Now, I don't think for one second 1871 01:35:21,960 --> 01:35:25,400 that mindfulness will solve all of the world's problems, 1872 01:35:25,440 --> 01:35:27,480 but it is a simple skill 1873 01:35:27,520 --> 01:35:31,160 that helps us to understand how our minds work 1874 01:35:32,280 --> 01:35:34,880 and that changes everything. 1875 01:35:39,639 --> 01:35:41,600 I started this looking for something 1876 01:35:41,639 --> 01:35:44,480 that I could do every day to protect, 1877 01:35:44,520 --> 01:35:47,680 nurture and nourish my mind. 1878 01:35:47,719 --> 01:35:50,800 It's now day 543 of what was supposed 1879 01:35:50,840 --> 01:35:53,680 to be a year-long experiment, 1880 01:35:53,719 --> 01:35:55,559 but I don't think of this as my year 1881 01:35:55,600 --> 01:35:57,960 of living mindfully anymore. 1882 01:35:58,000 --> 01:36:01,960 It's simply living mindfully, every day, 1883 01:36:02,000 --> 01:36:04,040 for the rest of my life. 1884 01:36:09,000 --> 01:36:14,000 ♪ 141946

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