Meditation Heals Trauma

today's journey. I want to tell you a story about a middle school student, I'll call him Joey, who learned to meditate as part of a stress reducing quiet time program that we offer for free to students and teachers in tough urban schools. Joey came from a broken home and had a well established reputation as the school bully. But when he heard he could learn transcendental meditation and practice it as part of his regular school day, he got genuinely intrigued. He said he wanted to give it

a try. After a week or so of meditating, his teacher asked him how the practice was going. Joey thought for a moment, smiled just a bit, and said, I used to walk down the hall and if someone bumped into me, I get so angry. I just hit him. Now, since I'm doing the meditation, when I walk down the hall and someone bumps into me, I stop and I think to myself, do I want to hit him? As funny and as perhaps inconsequential as that story may sound,

it is in fact extremely significant. Why Because no one told Joey during his meditation course that hitting someone was bad and that he shouldn't do it. No one told him how to behave But that pause that Joey experienced, that momentary, split second pause between being hit and hitting back, can be the difference between a non event that passes unnoticed in the course of a school day, or something that triggers a violent outburst that can escalate into who

knows what damage. How many men and women are in prison today because they didn't have that split second pause before blind rage took over. What caused that pause in Joey's behavior, His brain did. Research shows that meditation helped to calm his brain helped to heal the trauma. There are two key parts of your brain that dictate so much of what we experience in the course of a day. The first is called the amygdala. This is two small almond shaped clusters of brain cells that sit towards the

base of the brain. They process strong emotions like fear and pleasure. When you feel threatened and afraid, the amigdala kicks in instantaneously, activating what scientists call the fight or flight response. Signals are sent to other parts of your brain to release stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline and prepare your body literally for battle or else to run for your life. The second key player is the prefrontal

cortex of your brain. This is about the size of a clenched fist and is located right behind your forehead. This part of the brain runs decision making, planning, judgment, ethical thinking, even your sense of self. This is your

rational filter against impulsive decisions. I like to call this the grown up part of your brain that's in use when you're not flying off the handle at the slightest provocation under ordinary conditions, which means unless you're being chased by a lion or under attack in a combat zone, the amigala should take a back seat to pretty much everything in your life, and the prefrontal cortex should run the show, except these days, that's not the case really

for most of us. Why because stress, the daily, irritating, aggravating stresses of life, can take your prefrontal cortex offline. Think about it. Does a stressed person make good decisions, have good judgment, plan well, have a good sense of self. When that kid would bump into Joey in the days before he started meditating, Joey's amigla would light up like fireworks and activate the fight or flight response. But Joey's ten or fifteen minutes of meditation at the beginning of

the school day had a spillover effect. It kept his prefinneal cortex is grown up part of the brain, connected and online. He was able to pause, even for a moment, to make a rational decision whether or not to hit the guy back. So here's my health tip of the day. Breathe when things get intense. Doctors say that's the moment to remember to breathe in slowly and evenly through your nose to fill up your lungs and bring the air

up into your brain and into your head. Then hold it for a second and then let all the air out slowly through your lips, and then hold that for a second, in and out, in and out, do that

a few times. When you breathe them through your nose rather than anxiously gulping air through your mouth, you are bringing oxygen up into your brain and that will help calm your amignalant for a moment, and that calm can help give your prefrontal cortex the split second it needs to take back control of the moment and maybe even your life. All right, let's end this time together doing something that I think should be a feature of our

everyday life, and that's appreciation and gratitude. So let's take thirty seconds of quiet, thirty seconds to take a break, just take a moment. It turns out when we do that, it's good for our health as well. I'll be right back, all right. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you heard something that inspires, that uplifts you and that you can incorporate into your own life. This is Bob Roth. Stay calm, hey, all of you out there, I'd love to hear from you. You can send me your stories,

your questions, or anything else on your mind. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at meditation Bob. You can also send me an email at meditationbobrothat gmail dot com. I look forward to hearing from you, oh,