Meditation And NeuroFeedback: Turbo-Charging Your Mental & Spiritual development
COMBINING MEDITATION with NEUROFEEDBBACK will deepen your meditation practice because, just like meditation, neurofeedback trains your brain to come back to the present moment. The difference is that you don't have to do anything with neurofeedback—it works effortlessly at the level of the unconscious mind—whereas meditation is a conscious practice that requires substantial mental discipline, not to mention sitting on a cushion every morning. With neurofeedback all you have to do is enjoy the music coming through your headphones while the feedback teaches your brain to return to presence. This makes the process of learning how to meditate much, much easier because beginner meditators no longer have to struggle with ‘busy mind’!
Neurofeedback AMPLIFIES the meditative experience, effortlessly taking you into a deeper state of consciousness where thoughts just drop away.
Once your subconscious mind learns how to meditate with neurofeedback, you will be amazed by how much deeper your meditation practice becomes at home. Not only will your present-moment awareness be more stable (I think of it as sitting like a mountain where your mind is solid and cannot be shifted by turbulence) but neurofeedback helps dissolve fear and increases access to feelings of compassion and open-heartedness. My heart has felt significantly more tender after my own brain-training.
IF YOU WANT TO TAKE YOUR MEDITATION TO THE NEXT LEVEL; IF YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUT DEVELOPING SPIRITUALLY; IF YOUR HEART YEARNS TO KNOW TRUTH and DEVELOP GREATER WISDOM AND COMPASSION, THEN YOU WILL WANT TO TRAIN YOUR MIND WITH NEUROFEEDBACK.
By learning how to focus on the present moment, people who meditate establish new neural pathways that enable them to notice and put a stop to mind-wandering.
This leads to a decrease in stress–induced thoughts And consequently a decrease in illness.
The Benefits of Meditation
Several studies have shown that meditation decreases the size of the amygdala (the part of the brain responsible for anxiety, stress and fear) while at the same time increasing the neural connections to the pre-frontal cortex (the ‘executive function’ responsible for clear-thinking and feelings of happiness and wellbeing).
Other BENEFITS OF MEDITATION include improved mood, a decrease in symptoms of anxiety and depression, improved sleep, improved concentration, decreased reactivity leading to better relationships, and an increase in the desire to be kind to oneself and others.
To support the practice of mindfulness, I place special emphasis on teaching meditation techniques that AWAKEN SELF-COMPASSION and the tenderness of the heart. As our capacity to come into the moment with a kind heart increases, we become MORE RESILIENT, we feel less fearful of life and more energised to live from the fullness of who we truly are.
If you've never meditated before or you've tried it and found it difficult, the SELF-COMPASSION OR ‘HEART’ MEDITATION (in conjunction with neurofeedback) is a wonderful practice for beginners. Mindfulness meditation can sometimes feel stressful for the inexperienced meditator who expects a quiet mind but commonly encounters busy thinking. But in the Heart meditation we don't worry about trying to calm our thoughts — thoughts are a natural phenomenon of the mind and will happen anyway. Instead, we gently turn our attention to our heart and to cultivating feelings of compassion. This is sometimes defined as a tender and kindly attitude towards ourselves and others no matter how are lives are unfolding in this precious moment.