I once asked the Dalai Lama whether he used meditation to reduce stress. He shook his head and remained silent. His translator explained that stress was not a word in the Buddhist tradition.
I was moderating a panel at the Mind & Life Institute’s XIII conference exploring the “Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation.” My charge was to ask whether meditation could be used to reduce stress and reduce inflammatory illness. But minutes before we were to go on stage, I was told that I could not use the word stress. How, I thought, could I moderate a panel on stress without using that word?
I decided to confront the issue head-on. I asked the Dalai Lama what he used meditation for if he didn’t use it to reduce stress. Without hesitation, he answered: to enhance love and compassion. From the brain’s point of view, enhancing the positive—love and compassion—is a very effective way of countering and reducing stress. It works by activating the dopamine reward and anti-pain endorphin regions of the brain.
Another way to counter the stress response is to breathe deeply. Most forms of meditation start with deep breathing, which triggers the relaxation response by activating the vagus nerve and putting the brakes on the adrenalin component of the stress response.
Dr. Richard “Richie” Davidson, who pioneered neuroscientific studies of the Dalai Lama’s meditating monks and co-led the Mind & Life conferences, likes to say that the word “meditation” is like the word “sports.” There are many kinds of meditation, just as there are many kinds of sports. The Dalai Lama’s compassion meditation is one. There is also Jon Kabat-Zinn’s mindfulness meditation and Zen meditation.
They all start with deep, slow breathing. Simply paying attention to the breath can also reduce your stress. Or you can actively engage the breath with Dr. Andrew Weil’s 4-7-8 breathing........