Our counselors in Missoula, Butte, and Kalispell find themselves intrigued by the science, philosophy, and psychology of happiness. Using parallel logic, I know that when I was much younger, I had some serious depression at times, and wondered at the time if I would ever be happy. I even joked to myself that my 20s were my midlife crisis. It was a tough several years. But I did emerge from it relatively happy.
Three things helped spark that emergence. One was getting help in the form of therapy and medications. The second was building a healthy lifestyle with good exercise habits and regular meditation. And third was a complete change in my life that occurred when I moved to England for graduate school. Not everyone can jet off to England for a new life, but most of us can seek out the first two.
Help from Science
As I practiced meditation, I naturally wondered how it was helping me. I was a philosophy student, so I explored the philosophy of meditation. This meant studying Buddhist philosophy of mind and Buddhist psychology.
At the time, meditation was just beginning to catch on to popular American consciousness. Many comparisons with yoga in the 1970s were made. Just as yoga moved from a hippie fringe activity 50 years ago to a booming business in the 1990s and onward, mindfulness was catching on as a practice that could improve health, increase performance, and drive happiness.
But what can science tell us about the power of mindfulness and finding happiness?
Dr. Amishi Jha, Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Contemplative Neuroscience, Mindfulness Research & Practice Initiative at the University of Miami, has been doing research on correlations between the brain and behavioral traits such as attention, working memory, and mindfulness. Specifically, she has looked at how we can become more aware of our wandering mind to create periods of stable attention.
As she has discovered, the wandering mind is an unhappy mind. On the contrary, when we are focused on tasks, we are actually happier. We are also happy when absorbed in a sunset or activity with others such as dancing, playing sports, card games, or video games. All of these activities help draw together our attention and abilities to a somewhat singular focus. In doing them, the world around us can seemingly fade into the background and joy emerges.
Attention in these activities helps orient us like a flashlight. Right now, you can point it at a screen or phone in front of you, reading these words. You can also turn your attention inward, to memories of the last time you were fully absorbed in an activity and felt joy arise from it.
Attention can also act as a warning system, scanning for trouble in our surroundings. One of my favorite activities is to climb the hills and mountains around Missoula, Montana where I live. In so many places on these hills, I can faintly hear the city and roads below. At the same time, I can notice the wind through the grass and trees around me, as well as birds fluttering and singing. My awareness can offer me this dynamic, 360-degree field of perception. Remaining in that field of perception, I am able to notice dangers, large and small, quickly and accurately.
Third, attention acts as an executive guide for our intentions. I can set my intention to climb up the hill and then my attention is set forth on the path below me. It scans the hillside above for any obstacles or problems from time to time. It’s only when I intentionally stop to take in that 360-degree field of awareness that my attention loosens and spreads out.
Experiencing this with Mindfulness of Breathing
We can practice this right now with a short mindfulness of breathing exercise.
First, set the intention to engage in the practice for a minute or two. Then orient your attention to your breath. It’s like aiming a mental flashlight. Where does it go? To your nose? Throat? Chest as it rises and falls? Perhaps it follows the full path, slowly scanning down and back up as you breathe in and out.
Next, open your awareness to a 360-degree field of perception. If your eyes are open, you can gently take in your visible surroundings. You can also notice the sounds around you. In my office I can hear a fan whirring to my right and now an airplane passing by my right, now overhead. . . I can feel my full belly after having just finished lunch. I can feel one foot resting on the ground beneath me and the other tucked up under my leg. The air is still cool but I can see the sun shining bright and warm outside.
All of this awareness scanning allows joy and peace to arise. It’s only when the mind wanders that I begin to lose that joy.
Finally, if your mind does wander off, bring it back to the body as a centering-point. This practice, developed over time, helps hone our attention.
Dr. Gary Weber, who has also extensively researched our brain-awareness connection, has a fascinating video worth watching, called “The End of Suffering and the Default Mode Network.” Put briefly, certain experiences such as states of awe or intense joy help to silence the Default Mode Network (DMN) in the brain. So do certain drugs. Both of these, however, can be unstable and fleeting.
Another thing that helps silence the DMN is meditation, a practice that can lead to lasting changes in the brain and the ability to elicit joy and calm virtually at will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX1IFUDNtto&ab_channel=GaryWeber
Justin Whitaker, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in Buddhist ethics from the University of London. He has given lectures, and taught Buddhist studies and Philosophy at Oxford University, the University of Hong Kong, the University of Montana, and at Antioch University’s intensive study-abroad program in India. A certified meditation teacher, he is a regular contributor to Patheos.com, and Senior Correspondent for Buddhistdoor Global. Justin is the official blog writer for Sunflower Counseling in Missoula, Butte, Kalispell, Billings, and surrounding areas. He lives in Missoula with his family.