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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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- [Driver] We're about 2 minutes
away from the main entrance.

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- How far away is the Syrian
border from here?

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- Syrian border is about
17 to 18 kilometres,

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north of the Za'atari camp.
- Yeah.

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- The border is completely
sealed off.

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Jordan is no longer accepting

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or able to take
any more refugees

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because of security issues.

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Unfortunately we cannot
film the main gate.

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- [Shannon] Ah ha.

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- So we will have to
turn cameras off.

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- [Shannon voiceover] When
I started my experiment

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to see what would happen to
my mental wellbeing

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if I meditated every
day for a year,

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I didn't plan to end up
in the Middle East,

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a region which is the front line

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of a global humanitarian crisis,

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and the heart of so
much suffering.

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None the less it was
here, on the dusty streets

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of one of the biggest
refugee camps in the world

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where the psychological
scars left by war

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and homelessness
are in plain sight,

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that the importance of my
first question finally hit home.

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But my story actually begins
half a world away,

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and more than a year ago.

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In my work as a journalist
and film maker,

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I had started to research
a new documentary

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on what can only be described
as a mental health crisis.

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And I don't just mean
the wellbeing

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of the 70 million people

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who have lost their homes
to war and famine.

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Despite living in a time
of unprecedented progress

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in science, technology,
and medicine,

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according to the leading
medical science journal,

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The Lancet, every country
in the world is facing

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and failing to tackle a host
of mental health disorders.

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- If economic affluence
was a recipe for happiness

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and freedom from
pain and suffering,

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then the developed
world should be

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about as happy as it gets.

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But it's not.

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- [Nick Van Dam] The rough
estimates suggest that,

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something like 20 to 25%
of people will experience

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mental illness within
their lifetime.

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So we're talking about
one in four people.

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And there's even more
interest in data more recently

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suggesting that that might
even be an underestimate

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which I find shocking.

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And if you think one in four
people, that's huge, right.

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And if that's an
underestimate, you know,

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what are we talking about?

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- Around the world there
about 300 million people,

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right now, suffering
with depression.

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And if you think
about depression as
a recurrent problem,

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that means it's a
1 billion person problem.

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- The statistics on kids
who are in college,

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who are taking
anti-depressant drugs.

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And it's almost so
high, it's unbelievable.

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It's a kind of
pharmaceutical madness.

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- We are definitely in an
epidemic of chronic stress.

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And we are not meant
to be under stress everyday

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for years at a time.

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And that's when
the damage occurs.

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- Because the number one thing
determining health is the mind.

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It affects us directly
because what goes on

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in our mental and
our emotional state

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influences us psychologically,

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but there's the indirect
affects, as well.

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So when we're not feeling
good in ourselves,

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we are not likely to look
after ourselves well,

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eat well, exercise

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and so everything's impacted
by our state of mind.

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That's why I say it's the
number one thing

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and we're just not
taking it seriously.

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- [Shannon voiceover] Above all,
there was one fact

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I couldn't get out of my head.

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Unless we change course,

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by 2030, depression will
overtake heart disease

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and be the single biggest
health problem we face.

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And it wasn't just my
future I was worried about.

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I wanted to be able
to teach my kids

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how to prepare themselves
for the world that is coming.

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As they faced a future of
disruption and uncertainty,

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how could they protect, nurture
and nourish their minds?

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The single filter through which
they will experience the world.

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While there was
tonnes of information

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on what we should all
be eating and drinking,

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how much sleep we
should be getting

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and how much exercise
we should be doing,

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when I looked for
a widely accepted,

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evidence-based recommendation
for our mental health,

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the brain's equivalent of a
30-minute jog around the block,

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or the mind's daily serving
of five fruit and vegetables.

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There was nothing.

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So I guess I just, I
wanted to show you this.

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These are my health records
since I first got sick.

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I had constant pain
all through my body.

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And I had insomnia.

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Yeah emotionally, I was
in a pretty dark place.

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This is the first letter
that was written

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after I was diagnosed.

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I thought I was
seeing this doctor

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because he was going
to tell me that I needed

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to take a couple
of weeks off work

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and put my feet up.

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But actually, he told me
that he suspected

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that I have an autoimmune
disease called lupus,

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for which there is
no known cause

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and there is no known cure.

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- [Interviewer]
How old were you?

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- So I was 24, then, 24.

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When you've got a chronic
disease and you're desperate,

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you will like, I would
hand over my money

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to anyone and everyone
who offered me a cure.

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I spent thousands and thousands
and thousands of dollars

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trying to find something
that would cure me.

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One of my symptoms was that I,
thought I had food allergies.

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So I went to this place called
Advanced Allergy Elimination

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that promised I would be
able to cure my allergy.

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I think I spent $700
with these guys.

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And yeah, here's this
news release from when

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the government took
them to court

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and they were found to
have misled consumers

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about the efficacy
of their treatments.

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And I was one of the
victims of that.

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And that's when I started
basically turning to science.

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[pensive music]

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- [Shannon voicover] Experiment
notes.

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If there's anyway that I
can prevent my kids

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from suffering in the
same way I have,

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I want to find it.

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And I suspect if
there is an answer,

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it will buried in the
latest scientific research.

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To me, any realistic solution

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has to meet some
key requirements.

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It has to be available to any
one, anywhere, at any time

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which means, it has to be
free or at least, low cost.

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It has to be available
to anyone regardless

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of their education
or life circumstances

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and it has to fit
into the busy schedules

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of people living
in the real world.

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My other key requirement
is that it has to be based

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on a solid foundation of
scientific evidence.

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Now all that sounds
like a lot to ask

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but there is one thing
that ticks all my boxes.

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Mindfulness meditation.

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I know we have decades of
research informing the advice

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on exercise, food and sleep.

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But in the last 10 years,

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new technology has enabled
scientists to peer inside

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our brains and bodies
while we sit quietly

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with our thoughts and feelings.

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In other words, meditate.

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And contemplative
science has exploded.

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Whilst there are a number

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of popular forms of meditation,

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mindfulness in particular has
captured scientific attention

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and gone from a few hundred
peer review papers

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to almost 6,000.

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From what I can tell,

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it's a simple yet adaptable
form of mental training

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that seems to work on a range

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of different
psychological levels.

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And in a similar
way to exercise,

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can sit quite comfortably

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alongside the best of
current medical practice.

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And this is what I find
really interesting

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in the context of my question.

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An eight-week programme
underpinned by mindfulness

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has repeatedly been found
equal to medication

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for preventing
recurrent depression.

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Given the mental health crisis,

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should we all be practising
mindfulness in the same way

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that we should exercise
and eat our vegetables?

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Or is this evidence too
good to be true?

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There's only one
way to find out.

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I'm going to do an experiment,

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My Year of Living Mindfully.

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Hi Marc. Okay, so you're
across what--

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You're across what the
film is, obviously?

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[Marc faintly talking on phone]

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Yeah.

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Specifically in a nut shell,
specifically, it's meditation.

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So, you probably maybe, unless
you've been under a rock,

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you've probably heard that
meditation is being sold

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as this cure all panacea.

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And so, this is kind of
a project that's looking

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at you know, is meditation,

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is it just self-report
quality of life that changes?

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Or is there something really
interesting that happens

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on a biological level?

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- Hey.
- Neil. Hello.

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- Welcome.
- Nice to meet you in person.

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- Yeah, come on through.

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- Well go down to this
lab, straight ahead here.

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- [Shannon] I'm thrilled that a
whole heap of scientists

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have come on board.

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Two neuroscientists,
I've got somebody looking

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at my telomeres.

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We're tracking my
stress hormones.

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That's where you
guys come into it

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with the gene expression
side of things.

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Especially from the perspective

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that I have an
autoimmune disease.

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Here's the sample.
- Excellent.

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Throw it in the freezer
to keep it nice and cold.

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- And then she has 30 minutes

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from when she's taken that blood

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to get it back to the lab.

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Has this ever been done before?

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- So, not at this
sort of intensity,

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in terms of the
scheduling of testing.

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- It says saliva.

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Who has saliva on
their to-do list?

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So that's why I'm so
grateful that

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you guys came on board
and said you're interested

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and I'm fascinated.

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Experiment notes.

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It's been a wirlwind
but I think I'm ready

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to put my hypothesis
to the test.

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I first got sick 13 years ago,

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during an especially
difficult time in my life.

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Although specialists have given

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my autoimmune disease
various labels,

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if the science is
anything to go by,

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then regular
mindfulness meditation

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should have positive affects

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on my mind, body and health.

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I've set up interviews with 18

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of the world's top
mindfulness scientists

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to guide me over the next year.

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And I now have
six researchers onboard

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to track every biomarker
linked to mindfulness

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as well as my
subjective wellbeing.

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Step one is to be poked,
prodded, scanned and screened

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to establish a baseline
before I start to meditate.

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- So we've already
done this scan once

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and now we're going to do
it with the meditation.

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- [Shannon] Okay.

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- So we have comparable data.

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- [Shannon] And how
does the brain look?

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- It looks great.
- There's a brain.

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- We were commenting on
it that there's a brain.

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It's very nice, well formed.

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No abnormalities.

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00:14:01,560 --> 00:14:04,560
This part is the hippocampus.

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And it's one of the
regions we're interested in.

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And we're interested
in the hippocampus

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because it's one
structure in the brain

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that we can measure
very well.

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It's sensitive to stress.

254
00:14:15,880 --> 00:14:18,520
It shrinks more with ageing.

255
00:14:18,560 --> 00:14:23,160
So if we want to see whether
some interventions decrease

256
00:14:23,200 --> 00:14:26,360
the effect of ageing,
that's one place we look at.

257
00:14:27,880 --> 00:14:30,320
- [Shannon voiceover] The theory
behind meditation's effect

258
00:14:30,360 --> 00:14:32,680
on the brain is that
when we do something,

259
00:14:32,720 --> 00:14:34,640
there's activity in our
brain and over time,

260
00:14:34,680 --> 00:14:37,160
if it's done over
and over again,

261
00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:40,440
those networks become stronger.

262
00:14:40,480 --> 00:14:42,600
It's the old neurons
that fire together,

263
00:14:42,640 --> 00:14:45,400
wire together catchphrase.

264
00:14:45,440 --> 00:14:47,520
And it doesn't matter if
I'm learning to navigate

265
00:14:47,560 --> 00:14:50,200
London's streets in a taxi cab,

266
00:14:50,240 --> 00:14:52,080
practising the piano,

267
00:14:52,120 --> 00:14:55,240
or training in
mindfulness meditation.

268
00:14:55,280 --> 00:15:00,160
If I do my exercises, my brain
should theoretically change.

269
00:15:01,400 --> 00:15:04,600
So far, several studies
have used MRI's

270
00:15:04,640 --> 00:15:08,200
to look at the brain structure
of long-term meditators.

271
00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:11,040
And there are
noticeable differences.

272
00:15:11,080 --> 00:15:14,840
Professor Nicolas Cherbuin
who's studying my brain

273
00:15:14,880 --> 00:15:17,520
was involved in one
experiment which found

274
00:15:17,560 --> 00:15:21,240
that at age 50, the brains
of meditators were seven

275
00:15:21,280 --> 00:15:24,360
and a half years younger
than non-meditators.

276
00:15:25,800 --> 00:15:28,720
This has huge implications
because brain ageing

277
00:15:28,760 --> 00:15:32,160
or atrophy is linked with
everything from dementia

278
00:15:32,200 --> 00:15:36,160
and alzheimers to
depression and addiction.

279
00:15:36,200 --> 00:15:39,600
So at first glance,
I'm thinking, younger brain?

280
00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:40,720
Sign me up.

281
00:15:41,680 --> 00:15:42,920
But there's a catch.

282
00:15:42,960 --> 00:15:45,480
Their findings led
to more questions,

283
00:15:45,520 --> 00:15:48,160
crucially were their
brains different

284
00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:50,880
because they were
long-term meditators?

285
00:15:50,920 --> 00:15:53,920
Or were they more inclined
to stick with meditation

286
00:15:53,960 --> 00:15:56,680
because they had different
brains to begin with?

287
00:15:56,720 --> 00:16:00,040
The missing link here
is scientific data

288
00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:03,400
that tracks people like
me over time.

289
00:16:12,240 --> 00:16:15,080
So, yeah, so I've just been
lying in bed thinking

290
00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:16,640
that maybe...

291
00:16:19,200 --> 00:16:24,040
Doing another low budget
feature documentary

292
00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:30,880
is a really silly idea.

293
00:16:32,440 --> 00:16:34,240
And I think to myself, okay,

294
00:16:34,280 --> 00:16:36,120
insomnia is back,

295
00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:39,200
it looks like my autoimmune
disease is presenting.

296
00:16:40,240 --> 00:16:41,600
Like, is making this film

297
00:16:41,640 --> 00:16:44,720
just the stupidest
idea in the world?

298
00:16:44,760 --> 00:16:47,240
Like, am I gonna pay
for this with my health?

299
00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:49,880
And I start catastrophising

300
00:16:49,920 --> 00:16:52,200
and I start thinking,
oh my God, like,

301
00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:56,800
how can be sick and
be a good mum?

302
00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:08,920
So, like I have been
chronically stressed lately.

303
00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:11,520
I've probably taken on a
bit more than I should have.

304
00:17:11,560 --> 00:17:13,160
- Hmm hmm.

305
00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:16,200
- If I was to keep this up

306
00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:19,119
and you know, my
insomnia has returned.

307
00:17:19,160 --> 00:17:22,680
would you think that
my symptoms could

308
00:17:22,720 --> 00:17:24,920
become worse?
- Yes.

309
00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:27,440
But I think we've talked
about this before.

310
00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:28,480
Having realistic expectations

311
00:17:28,520 --> 00:17:29,960
of how you manage that as well.

312
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:31,240
I think--
- What do you mean by that?

313
00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:33,040
- In a perfect world,

314
00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:36,360
we'd all be stress-free but,

315
00:17:36,400 --> 00:17:38,840
today's society, we're all so,

316
00:17:40,360 --> 00:17:41,640
have so many
different pressures.

317
00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:43,480
You as well, like you're
working full-time,

318
00:17:43,520 --> 00:17:44,480
you've got two young children,

319
00:17:44,520 --> 00:17:46,320
you've got a lot on your plate.

320
00:17:46,360 --> 00:17:49,720
It'll be interesting to see
this year of stress management,

321
00:17:49,760 --> 00:17:51,480
whether that's possible.
- Hmm, yeah.

322
00:17:51,520 --> 00:17:52,760
- And--

323
00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:53,840
- [Shannon] You're not even
sure it's possible.

324
00:17:53,880 --> 00:17:54,680
- No, no, no, I'm
not saying it's not.

325
00:17:54,720 --> 00:17:56,120
I'm not saying it's not.

326
00:17:56,160 --> 00:17:57,800
I'm just saying, you know,
like I think,

327
00:17:57,840 --> 00:18:00,760
it'll be interesting what
you achieve from that.

328
00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:04,680
- [Shannon] You're a scientist,

329
00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:07,880
but you're also a
working mother.

330
00:18:07,920 --> 00:18:11,560
Do you have any idea
how I am possibly going

331
00:18:11,600 --> 00:18:15,480
to find the time to
meditate everyday?

332
00:18:15,520 --> 00:18:17,480
- I think of this very similar

333
00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:20,120
to what dentists
say about flossing.

334
00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:21,680
Floss one tooth.

335
00:18:22,920 --> 00:18:25,640
If you can commit to
flossing one tooth,

336
00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:29,480
your dental health
will improve, why?

337
00:18:29,520 --> 00:18:31,400
Because nobody
flosses one tooth.

338
00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:32,720
You're there, you're
ready to go.

339
00:18:32,760 --> 00:18:35,600
You're going to do
the full routine.

340
00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:39,320
Just taking the
posture of practicing

341
00:18:39,360 --> 00:18:40,920
even if you get up after that,

342
00:18:40,960 --> 00:18:43,840
with that as your requirement
for your day,

343
00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:46,120
I think that you're likely
to have a lot of success

344
00:18:46,160 --> 00:18:47,160
with this in the next year.

345
00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:00,560
- [Shannon voiceover] Experiment
notes, methodology.

346
00:19:00,600 --> 00:19:03,880
To start, I'm aiming for 20
minutes a day using an app

347
00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:05,960
and I'll slowly
build from there.

348
00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:08,080
I've also signed up for
an eight-week course

349
00:19:08,120 --> 00:19:09,960
and a 10-day silent retreat.

350
00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:14,080
Apart from that, nothing
else will change.

351
00:19:14,120 --> 00:19:16,400
I'll still have my usual
parenting duties

352
00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:18,160
and full-time work commitments.

353
00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:20,280
As a journalist, that
means researching,

354
00:19:20,320 --> 00:19:22,400
writing and travelling
for interviews.

355
00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:25,000
And I won't change
my diet or exercise habits.

356
00:19:26,560 --> 00:19:28,480
As for the actual practice,

357
00:19:28,520 --> 00:19:30,000
I'm turning to the experts.

358
00:19:32,160 --> 00:19:35,880
I just want to get on tape
your definition of mindfulness.

359
00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:38,320
- [Jon Kabat-Zinn] So my working
definition of mindfulness,

360
00:19:38,360 --> 00:19:40,640
this is what I call an
operational definition

361
00:19:40,680 --> 00:19:43,720
is that it's the
awareness that arises

362
00:19:43,760 --> 00:19:46,680
from paying attention on purpose

363
00:19:46,720 --> 00:19:48,920
in the present moment,
non-judgmentally.

364
00:19:51,040 --> 00:19:53,640
And the non-judgemental
part is the kicker, so to speak

365
00:19:53,680 --> 00:19:55,600
and people need
to understand

366
00:19:55,640 --> 00:19:57,720
that non-judgmentally
doesn't mean

367
00:19:57,760 --> 00:19:59,560
that you won't
have any judgements,

368
00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:01,840
it means that you
will be mindful

369
00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:04,920
of how many judgements you have.

370
00:20:04,960 --> 00:20:08,640
How attached we all are to
wanting things to be this way

371
00:20:08,680 --> 00:20:10,880
and not wanting them
to be that way.

372
00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:12,680
So this is kind of,

373
00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:14,920
it's an operational definition

374
00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:17,160
because when you
put it into operation,

375
00:20:17,200 --> 00:20:20,280
then mindfulness
arises within you.

376
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:24,280
- [Joseph] You can begin the
meditation by settling

377
00:20:24,320 --> 00:20:26,840
into a comfortable posture.

378
00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:29,440
You begin to feel
your body breathing.

379
00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:32,080
- Mindfulness is a sort
of state or capacity,

380
00:20:32,120 --> 00:20:33,840
a way of being.

381
00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:36,760
And meditation is a
whole family of practices

382
00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:39,480
that are in the service
of cultivating mindfulness.

383
00:20:39,520 --> 00:20:41,160
So in Pali and Sanskrit,

384
00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:43,160
the word for meditation
is bhavana,

385
00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:45,600
which means to develop
or to cultivate.

386
00:20:45,640 --> 00:20:49,000
And so meditation is in
the service of cultivating

387
00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:50,240
and developing mindfulness.

388
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:53,520
- [Joseph] You become aware
of predominant sensations.

389
00:20:53,560 --> 00:20:56,680
- So mindfulness is
not a way of relaxing.

390
00:20:56,720 --> 00:20:58,920
When we pay attention
and look at our mind,

391
00:20:58,960 --> 00:21:00,240
we discover all sorts of things,

392
00:21:00,280 --> 00:21:02,400
which may be anything
but relaxing.

393
00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:07,600
- [Joseph] As we end the
meditation, you can open
your eyes.

394
00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:10,560
As you re-engage with
your life and the world,

395
00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:13,680
you can always come back
to the very simple feeling

396
00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:15,360
of the body.

397
00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:18,880
The body sitting, the body
standing, the body walking.

398
00:21:18,920 --> 00:21:21,920
In this way, we see that
meditation is not simply

399
00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:25,680
about sitting, it's not
simply about one posture.

400
00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:27,840
It's bringing awareness
and mindfulness

401
00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:30,440
to every aspect of our lives.

402
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:33,480
- The brain is changing
wittingly or unwittingly,

403
00:21:33,520 --> 00:21:36,480
constantly, and the
invitation in all this work

404
00:21:36,520 --> 00:21:40,080
is that we can actually
take more responsibility

405
00:21:40,120 --> 00:21:42,840
for the shaping of our brains

406
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:45,920
in ways which may underlie
positive qualities

407
00:21:45,960 --> 00:21:47,800
of the mind and wellbeing.

408
00:21:56,800 --> 00:22:00,200
- [Shannon Voiceover] Experiment
notes, day 14.

409
00:22:00,240 --> 00:22:03,600
I'm getting the gist that
mindfulness is essentially

410
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:06,040
a three and a half thousand
year old technique

411
00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:08,720
to teach me how my mind works.

412
00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:12,960
I'm really grateful for
the expert advice

413
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:16,160
because there's just so
much mindfulness on offer

414
00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:18,640
that it's hard to know
who to trust.

415
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:21,880
It's available in classrooms
and boardrooms,

416
00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:24,280
in studios and online.

417
00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:28,680
There are mindful books,
apps, gyms, buses

418
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:32,000
and even mayonnaise.

419
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:36,640
Meditation is now the
fastest growing health trend

420
00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:38,720
in the US and has transformed

421
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:41,160
from an ancient
Buddhist practise

422
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:44,880
into a 1.1 billion
dollar industry.

423
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:47,480
I'm starting to realise,
there's a big difference

424
00:22:47,520 --> 00:22:49,440
between the mindfulness
for mental health

425
00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:50,880
that I'm reading about

426
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:53,760
in the most prestigious
science journals

427
00:22:53,800 --> 00:22:56,480
and the chicken pot
pie-based meditation system

428
00:22:56,520 --> 00:22:59,720
that promises to nourish
my mind and body

429
00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:03,200
that was developed by the
rather cheeky marketing
department at KFC.

430
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:07,360
- [KFC Character] A system
that will ease your suffering.

431
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:10,400
And your hunger.

432
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:24,400
- So I'm on the road at the
moment doing some interviews

433
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:28,680
and I've just been sent
a scientific paper

434
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:32,040
that's been published
in a respected journal.

435
00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:34,160
The paper's called,
Mind the Hype.

436
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:36,920
So, listen to this.

437
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:40,680
As mindfulness has increasingly
pervaded every aspect

438
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:42,440
of contemporary society,

439
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:45,720
so have misunderstandings
about what it is,

440
00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:49,800
whom it helps and how it
affects the mind and brain.

441
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:53,760
At a practical level, this
misinformation and propagation

442
00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:57,640
of poor research
methodology has potentially

443
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:01,800
led to people being harmed,
cheated, disappointed

444
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:03,880
and or disaffected.

445
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:09,960
So I'm just going to try and get
in touch with the lead author

446
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:12,360
of the paper, Nicholas Van Dam.

447
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:14,960
He said he's available
to talk to me over Skype.

448
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:20,840
- The main story or the
main sort of thing

449
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:25,680
we want to convey is that
a lot of the portrayal

450
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:28,360
of meditation and
mindfulness research

451
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:31,320
is probably overly positive.

452
00:24:31,360 --> 00:24:32,680
That's not just the media,

453
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:36,120
that's also a lot of
scientific researchers

454
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:40,920
and you know, promoters of
mindfulness and meditation.

455
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:44,440
There's this sort of, this
idea or this sort of sentiment

456
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:46,960
that it can be used
as sort of a solution

457
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:51,080
or a treatment or a fix
for just about anything.

458
00:24:51,120 --> 00:24:55,080
And there's been this massive
growth in the marketisation

459
00:24:55,120 --> 00:24:56,560
of that idea, you know,

460
00:24:56,600 --> 00:24:58,760
that there's lots of
people now selling products

461
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:01,600
that promise and
offer mindfulness.

462
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:04,640
And one of my sort of, the
things I teach my students,

463
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:05,800
you know, when I'm
training clinical students

464
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:07,480
how to do psychotherapy,

465
00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:08,840
I always tell them
essentially you know,

466
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:11,480
if someone tells you that
this new intervention

467
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:13,160
will fix everything,

468
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:14,800
then you know, ask
them hard questions.

469
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:16,960
Because anyone who's
trying to tell you

470
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:19,080
that one thing works
100% of the time

471
00:25:19,120 --> 00:25:22,320
for 100% of the people, is not
telling you the whole story.

472
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,800
- So, do you think that the
public appetite for mindfulness

473
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:31,360
is outpacing the evidence
base that we have?

474
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:33,880
- Oh yeah, yeah.

475
00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:35,600
That's for sure.

476
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:37,960
- There is absolutely
hype that's exacerbated

477
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:39,880
by many press reports

478
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:42,880
that aren't necessarily
doing responsible delivery

479
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:44,960
of research findings.

480
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:46,640
- It's one of the struggles
of mindfulness science

481
00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:48,400
is just coming to
terms with the reality

482
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:52,480
that we are trying
to catch up

483
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:56,800
to what's happened
in terms of a dissemination

484
00:25:56,840 --> 00:25:58,160
and implementation of
mindfulness practices

485
00:25:58,200 --> 00:25:59,000
and interventions.

486
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:02,880
- It's interesting to see
that a lot of these very popular

487
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:05,440
mindfulness training
programmes don't particularly

488
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:06,840
have the science
behind them.

489
00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:09,960
And also don't
particularly get

490
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:11,800
at the core mechanistic
underpinnings

491
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:13,400
of how mindfulness works.

492
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,920
Maybe I'm just a scientist
but I really think

493
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:19,720
that that's a core piece
that we would want to bake

494
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:20,720
into the trainings.

495
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:22,000
If we're developing a pill

496
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:23,400
to help people lower
their blood pressure,

497
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:25,040
I would want to understand

498
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:27,880
how people's blood pressure
is rising in the first place

499
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:30,320
so that I could design a
pill specifically for that.

500
00:26:37,360 --> 00:26:40,360
- [Shannon] Is this still
a worthwhile experiment?

501
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:42,200
- [Marc Wilkins] I think,
I mean, part of me says that

502
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:44,400
as a scientist, I want
to know what will happen.

503
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:46,000
I'm excited by this.

504
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:47,720
I think it's really,
really interesting.

505
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:49,880
At the same time, we know
that there's a limitation

506
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:52,640
in the design of what
we're going to do.

507
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:54,480
But we'll need to work
with that as best we can

508
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:56,160
to see what the
data tells us.

509
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:00,040
- [Shannon] So I'm in
a situation now,

510
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,360
where I have committed tens
of thousands of dollars

511
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:07,920
towards lab time but I'm
seriously questioning

512
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:10,600
whether or not it's actually
going to tell us anything.

513
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:12,480
- At the end of the day,
the biggest limitation

514
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:14,000
and the biggest problem is,

515
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:15,800
it's hard to know whether
or not the findings

516
00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:19,360
that you would get from
one person will tell you,

517
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:21,120
you know, anything about
a different person.

518
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:22,600
Because essentially,
with one person,

519
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:24,040
we just can't draw
that conclusion

520
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:26,280
and that it'll generalise
to everyone.

521
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:27,920
And that's not to say
it's worthless, right.

522
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:30,440
I mean, there are lots
of case studies out there

523
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:32,720
and case studies are often
really important starts.

524
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:34,680
You know, what you
will typically observe

525
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:36,480
in most scientific fields
particularly in,

526
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:39,120
you know, the applied
sciences and medicine,

527
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:41,600
is we often start
with case studies.

528
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:08,480
- [Shannon] Today's interview
was all about interviewing

529
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:10,680
the people who are all like,

530
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:14,800
we don't know anything,
the science isn't there.

531
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:16,480
...like...

532
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,480
so, basically I left
today going,

533
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,680
hang on, why are we
doing this again?

534
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:34,440
- Well, let me just say,

535
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:36,680
this film certainly has
a lot of question marks.

536
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:01,880
- Oh God, I don't know
what we're doing Jules.

537
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:03,120
I think we're idiots.

538
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:07,800
I think the only way
forward here is

539
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:11,080
to accept that the scientists

540
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:13,320
might not have all the answers.

541
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:16,720
I think I need to go and find
some real life case studies.

542
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:24,680
♪ I have been searching
all of my days ♪

543
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:29,080
♪ All of my days

544
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:32,960
♪ Many road you know

545
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:35,440
♪ I've been walking on

546
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:39,800
♪ All of my days

547
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:45,360
♪ And I've been trying to find

548
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:50,080
♪ What's been in my mind

549
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:55,680
♪ As the days keep
turning into night ♪

550
00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:04,520
♪ yes even breathing

551
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:07,840
♪ Feels all right.

552
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:11,680
So it is just past one
o'clock in the morning.

553
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,920
And tomorrow I have got

554
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:21,280
one of the more important
interviews for the documentary.

555
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:25,640
My alarm is set to go
off at 20 past four,

556
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:27,880
so in about four hours from now

557
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:32,200
and I haven't slept a wink.

558
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:33,680
I just can't sleep.

559
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:37,080
I really wanted to be,

560
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:39,720
I wanted to bring my
A-game to this interview.

561
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:43,200
I've been really looking
forward to it

562
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:47,400
and I'm really well prepared

563
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:51,440
and in my mind,
I had all these great ideas

564
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:53,640
as to how it's going to flow.

565
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:01,680
And instead I am
going to be a zombie.

566
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:15,640
So, let's start at
the very beginning.

567
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:18,880
How many million people
saw you lose your mind

568
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:20,640
on television?

569
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:22,960
- 5.019 million,

570
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:24,920
according to the
Nielsen ratings.

571
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:32,800
I started in television and
news when I was 22

572
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:35,320
and then when I was 28,
I got a job at ABC News.

573
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:37,640
Shortly after I arrived,
9/11 happened

574
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,160
and I ended up
spending a lot of time

575
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:43,320
in Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Israel, the West Bank, Gaza.

576
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:45,160
I went to Iraq six times.

577
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:48,480
And I didn't spend a
lot of time thinking

578
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:50,760
about what the psychological
consequences might be.

579
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:55,160
And so when I came home,
I kind of bottomed out.

580
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:56,720
I got depressed,

581
00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:58,440
although I didn't even
know I was depressed.

582
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:00,440
I was having trouble
getting out of bed.

583
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:02,760
I felt like I had a low
grade fever all the time.

584
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:05,720
I went and consulted
a bunch of doctors.

585
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:09,440
And before I actually got
a diagnosis of depression,

586
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:11,360
I did something very dumb,

587
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:12,880
which is I started
to self-medicate

588
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:15,400
with recreational drugs
including cocaine and ecstasy.

589
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:18,120
The bottom for me was

590
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:20,160
freaking out on
national television.

591
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:23,480
June 2004, I was reading
the headlines.

592
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:26,360
May also lower their
risk for cancer,

593
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:28,440
but it is too early
to prescribe statins,

594
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:29,960
slowly for cancer production.

595
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:31,160
My lungs seized up.

596
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:32,680
My heart was racing.

597
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:34,720
I just couldn't talk

598
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:36,800
which is a problem

599
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:39,320
when talking is what you
need to do for a living

600
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:40,840
and it's a vicious cycle

601
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:43,400
between the thinking and
the physical manifestation.

602
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:45,400
So your body starts to mutiny

603
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:47,160
and your mind picks
up on that, obviously.

604
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:48,440
And is like,
"What the fuck is this?"

605
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:50,040
And you start thinking,

606
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:52,440
"Oh my God, I'm freaking out,
I'm having a panic attack

607
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:53,720
and I'm on television."

608
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:55,360
And then the body
reacts to all of that

609
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:56,920
and starts freaking
out even more.

610
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:59,560
The fight or flight response
was useful in the context

611
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:02,040
of when we were being chased
by saber-tooth tigers,

612
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:03,880
but in a modern context,

613
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:06,120
we are both the person
being chased by the tiger

614
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:07,520
and the tiger.

615
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:09,000
You know, we're doing
it to ourselves.

616
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:15,400
- People are worried
about the future.

617
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:17,200
They're worried about
the economy.

618
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,360
They're worried about
their personal finances.

619
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:20,600
They're worried about
their children.

620
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:22,160
They're worried about
everything.

621
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:25,080
We're living in this
inner mental world

622
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:28,920
where we're constantly
creating trouble for ourselves.

623
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:31,080
- And now we're seeing
anxiety problems

624
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:33,600
and mental health problems in
younger and younger age groups

625
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:34,960
and some people
could argue, well,

626
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:37,800
it was there but we just
weren't diagnosing it before.

627
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:40,160
But that only explains
a small part of it.

628
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:43,960
- So for people at risk
for depression,

629
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,360
sad mood and negative
thinking can be very powerful

630
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:48,880
and very potent.

631
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:51,720
Just a small negative thought
can very quickly spiral

632
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:55,040
into a downward spiral
of depressive thinking,

633
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:57,760
withdrawal and
depressive relapse.

634
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:01,960
- Evolutionarily, we
needed to stay safe.

635
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:03,560
So looking for threats,

636
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:05,200
the ability to
focus on problems

637
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:07,320
and hopefully either
avoid them or fix them

638
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:09,840
was actually very good
for our survival.

639
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:13,840
So, the fact that we
spend so much of our time

640
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:17,000
criticising ourselves or
thinking about what we did wrong

641
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:18,600
or what we might do wrong

642
00:34:18,639 --> 00:34:21,000
actually comes with a
very wholesome desire

643
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:22,639
and that's a desire to be safe.

644
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:26,040
- The stressful
experience may be

645
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:28,120
for let's say five minutes

646
00:34:28,159 --> 00:34:31,400
an exchange you had with
a colleague or your boss.

647
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:34,199
And if it were only
those five minutes

648
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:36,120
that the stress had
an impact on us,

649
00:34:36,159 --> 00:34:38,400
we probably wouldn't be
having this conversation.

650
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:40,199
But the way I think about
it is that the brain

651
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:43,760
is actually wonderful
at mental time travel.

652
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:46,159
And we can rewind the
mind back to experience

653
00:34:46,199 --> 00:34:48,679
that event for days and weeks.

654
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:52,800
- [Elissa Epal] In general
in stress research,

655
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:57,400
it has been found that
exposure to a situation

656
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,440
doesn't really determine
mental health,

657
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:02,600
let's say depression,

658
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,880
as much as how someone is
interpreting the situation.

659
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:08,720
So feelings of stress
are important

660
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:11,800
and what happens to
people is important too

661
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:13,640
but if I were to put
my money on one,

662
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:17,440
I would say it's
the psychological
response to situations

663
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:19,600
not just, does a
situation exists or not.

664
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,880
- So the first thing is to
realise that it is affecting you

665
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:28,640
and the second is that
there is something actually,

666
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:31,200
there are many things
that you can do about it

667
00:35:31,240 --> 00:35:34,040
and the potential is

668
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:37,800
of resolving it and coming to
a very different kind of place

669
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:41,480
where we look squarely
at the real dangers

670
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,680
as opposed to the
illusory dangers to us

671
00:35:44,720 --> 00:35:46,480
and we start dealing with them.

672
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:50,120
- [Dan Harris] I came
home one night

673
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:53,920
and my wife gave me a book by
a guy named Dr. Mark Epstein

674
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:56,800
who I liked right away because
he had actual credentials

675
00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:00,200
as opposed to some of
these self-help folks

676
00:36:00,240 --> 00:36:02,920
who don't, to put it kindly.

677
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:04,440
Epstein writes about the overlap

678
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:06,000
between psychology and Buddhism

679
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:11,400
and it was this very dry-eyed
to common sense diagnosis

680
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:12,960
of the human situation.

681
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,200
Buddha uses this term that
we have the monkey mind,

682
00:36:15,240 --> 00:36:17,640
hurling ourselves from one
hit of pleasant experience,

683
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:21,480
one movie, one vacation,
one latte to the next

684
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:23,280
and yet never fully satisfied.

685
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,360
The Buddha's description
of a human situation

686
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:28,480
was very compelling.

687
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:31,280
His prescription was repellent

688
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:34,160
which was that he says
you should meditate.

689
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:36,440
I did not want to do that.

690
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:37,880
I thought it was ridiculous

691
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:39,560
To the extent that I even
thought about meditation,

692
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:41,400
I thought it was for
people who are really

693
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:44,920
into you know, kombucha
and crystals and Enya.

694
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:47,160
But for me what changed
my mind was reading

695
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:48,480
about the science.

696
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:52,920
- For example, mindfulness-based
cognitive therapy

697
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:56,560
has been shown now to be as
good as gold standard treatment

698
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:58,440
for the treatment of depression.

699
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:01,560
It's only been around
for about 15 or so years,

700
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:03,080
whereas the medication
developments has been

701
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:05,480
around for 50, 75 years.

702
00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:07,520
And so it's already caught up.

703
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:09,600
So I think there's
a lot of interest

704
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:11,720
in helping people develop

705
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:13,960
their own natural
capacities to heal.

706
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:17,840
- And my study was one of
the first to look at whether

707
00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:20,680
you could use MBCT to
treat active depression.

708
00:37:20,720 --> 00:37:22,480
And we were really
interested in mechanisms,

709
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:23,840
so we looked at
stress reactivity.

710
00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:25,840
And so one of the best
ways to stress people out

711
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:28,160
is make them stand up
and give a speech.

712
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:31,280
And we found that the group
that received meditation,

713
00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:33,440
they still had a stress
response which is good

714
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:35,440
because you want to
have a stress response

715
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:37,280
but they recovered more quickly.

716
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:39,840
And the control group were
probably still kind of thinking

717
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:42,280
about like, oh that was
the worst experience ever

718
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:43,920
and like really
ruminating about it

719
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:46,800
whereas the mindfulness group
had learned to let go of that.

720
00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:49,360
- And so one of the ways
that mindfulness works

721
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:52,840
is by reducing that
reactivity, that automaticity

722
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:54,280
of the content of our thoughts.

723
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:55,880
So it's really amazing.

724
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:58,800
An amazing thing about humans
is the impact of language

725
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:01,200
and linguistic symbol
and verbal thought.

726
00:38:01,240 --> 00:38:02,280
I am unlovable.

727
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:03,880
I'm fat.

728
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:05,480
I am all sorts of things.

729
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:08,480
And just that content can
trigger other thoughts,

730
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:09,800
can trigger physiological
responses

731
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:11,680
like I can feel in my body now,

732
00:38:11,720 --> 00:38:13,280
emotions and so on.

733
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:15,600
And so reducing
that identification,

734
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:16,880
with those passing expriences,

735
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,600
just as events in
our consciousness

736
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:21,680
is one of the most
important ways through

737
00:38:21,720 --> 00:38:24,120
which mindfulness
leads to wellbeing

738
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:26,440
and reduced mental
health struggles.

739
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:29,360
- [Dan Harris] I would
say it was a couple weeks

740
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:32,400
before I started to
notice some differences.

741
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:34,320
The biggest one is mindfulness.

742
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:37,360
We spend so much of our time
just kind of yanked around

743
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:39,880
by the malevolent
puppeteer of our ego.

744
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:41,800
You know, where
the thought pops,

745
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:43,920
some neurotic obsession
pops into our head,

746
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,480
you know, I need a
sleeve of Oreos

747
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,640
or I need to say the
thing that's going to fuck

748
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:51,880
up the next 48 hours
of my marriage.

749
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:54,640
And we just do it, you know,

750
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:56,280
there's no buffer
between the stimulus

751
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:58,080
and our blind reaction.

752
00:38:58,120 --> 00:39:00,720
Mindfulness, it's like
this inner-meteorologist

753
00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:02,000
that can see, oh, yeah,

754
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:03,960
there's a hurricane
about to hit land

755
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:08,640
but I don't need to get carried
away by it automatically,

756
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:10,200
reflexively, habitually.

757
00:39:10,240 --> 00:39:11,680
I have some choice.

758
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:14,080
I'm still the same
person, right?

759
00:39:14,120 --> 00:39:17,200
So I still have a predisposition
toward anxiety

760
00:39:17,240 --> 00:39:18,800
and depression, panic.

761
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:22,120
But what I find is that
I'm less likely to believe

762
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:24,920
the bullshit that the
ego coughs up.

763
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:28,720
So what could be a
several day long trudge

764
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:31,000
through mopiness and despair

765
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,880
actually can be truncated
quite dramatically

766
00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:36,160
to a couple hours, a couple
of minutes, who knows,

767
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:38,080
depending on how mindful I am.

768
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:40,320
- Does the critical
thinking journalist in you

769
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:44,720
ever worry that you've just
bought massively into a cult?

770
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,080
- I mean I called it
10% Happier.

771
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:48,920
If the book was called
Be Happy Now

772
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:51,400
or like This Is The Solution
To All Of Your Problems,

773
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:53,240
yeah, I'd worry about that.

774
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:56,800
I think the vast swathe
of humanity could benefit

775
00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:59,360
from this very simple
thing of just sitting down,

776
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:02,080
closing your eyes or not,

777
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:04,600
trying to feel your breath
coming in and going out

778
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:06,000
and then when you
get distracted,

779
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:07,800
start again, and
again and again.

780
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:11,800
The lessons there from this
really simple little thing

781
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:14,640
are incredibly rich.

782
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:17,440
What follows on from
that is an empathy

783
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:19,480
with every other human

784
00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:21,600
who has the same
process going on.

785
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:23,240
And so now when
you see other people

786
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:25,920
who are losing their shit at
the aeroplane ticket counter

787
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:29,320
or whatever, you're like,
"Oh yeah, that's me, too."

788
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:44,560
- [Shannon] Okay, so this
feels utterly ridiculous.

789
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:48,440
I am about to
speak at an event.

790
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:50,240
And I thought I was running late

791
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:51,240
and I'm feeling rushed

792
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:52,280
and there was traffic

793
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:55,360
and people relying on me.

794
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:56,680
So I'm about to take
a mindful minute

795
00:40:56,720 --> 00:40:59,240
in the bathroom.

796
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:04,280
I'm really worried
somebody's going to come in.

797
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:05,600
I'm going to look like
an absolute bloody idiot.

798
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:21,680
- [Sharon] In this meditation,

799
00:41:21,720 --> 00:41:24,680
we're going to add the
element of recognising

800
00:41:24,720 --> 00:41:27,680
and noting those
things that arise

801
00:41:27,720 --> 00:41:28,800
which are not the breath.

802
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,640
- So day 51 of my
year of living mindfully

803
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:38,560
and here I am meditating
on the sidewalk.

804
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:42,680
- [Sharon] It may be
thinking that comes up.

805
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:46,880
It maybe imagery,
it may be emotion.

806
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:50,920
It may be sensations
in your body.

807
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:54,920
Whatever it is, it's
simply not the breath.

808
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:04,000
- There we go. A mindful minute

809
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:06,600
in the bathroom before an event.

810
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:13,720
Experiment notes, day 38.

811
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:17,680
I've realised that science
is only a small part

812
00:42:17,720 --> 00:42:19,200
of this story.

813
00:42:19,240 --> 00:42:20,880
Since meeting Dan Harris,

814
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:24,360
I've become aware of an
incessant mean voice in my head

815
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:26,960
that took up residence
sometime when I was a kid

816
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:29,240
and drives so much of what I do.

817
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:33,760
And it's making my meditation
practise almost intolerable.

818
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:36,960
Like I know this sounds crazy

819
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:38,880
because we're pretty
deep in already.

820
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:40,800
But I...

821
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:44,480
To be honest, I've been
hating it.

822
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:47,880
I'm struggling to find
the time to meditate

823
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,960
and I'm not like, it's...
meditation is not pleasant

824
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,760
until yesterday

825
00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:58,600
where something changed.

826
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,400
And I was doing it because
I was on a plane

827
00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:02,680
coming back from Melbourne

828
00:43:02,720 --> 00:43:04,400
where I'd just been
doing a presentation,

829
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:08,720
but for a very brief moment,

830
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:12,480
it was like just peace

831
00:43:13,720 --> 00:43:15,320
and I just sort of held it

832
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:18,160
and it wasn't like it
switched off suddenly.

833
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:23,080
It was like there was this
slow winding down of it

834
00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:27,000
until eventually I was back

835
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:29,600
to just how I am normally
which is you know,

836
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:32,600
lots of thoughts going on, lots
of crazy thinking happening.

837
00:43:35,240 --> 00:43:38,520
So I feel like that moment
was this kind of,

838
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:42,320
it was a beat of interest

839
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:45,800
that makes me think that
I want to keep going.

840
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:53,000
I interviewed the French-born
Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard

841
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:56,640
right at the end of what
was a four day,

842
00:43:56,680 --> 00:43:59,240
whirlwind tour for
him of Australia

843
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:03,000
and yet he still sparkled.

844
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:06,480
In order to have
that somethingness,

845
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:08,960
do I need to move
to the Himalaya

846
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:12,120
and meditate for
months on end?

847
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:15,200
- No, I don't think
you need to meditate

848
00:44:15,240 --> 00:44:17,720
in any specific place.

849
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:22,800
What I do believe based
on my own experiences

850
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:25,560
as a practitioner as
well as a scientist

851
00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:30,400
is that, that kind
of ever-present joy

852
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:35,360
and lightness and spontaneity

853
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:37,680
really comes from
long-term practice.

854
00:44:37,720 --> 00:44:39,640
- There's a saying in
the Tibetan lore,

855
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:42,640
Matthieu who's
been in that tradition,

856
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:45,320
they call it being
happy for no reason.

857
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:48,160
That is to say your
set point is joyous.

858
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:52,200
I saw Matthieu go into an MRI

859
00:44:52,240 --> 00:44:54,200
when they were trying
to develop the protocols

860
00:44:54,240 --> 00:44:56,120
that Richard Davidson used.

861
00:44:56,160 --> 00:44:57,600
He was the first subject

862
00:44:57,640 --> 00:44:59,560
but the thing was they
had some glitches

863
00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:02,800
and he stayed in the MRI
for about three hours.

864
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:05,120
The MRI is a human cigar box.

865
00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:06,920
Some people can't bear it.

866
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:09,400
He came out after three hours,

867
00:45:09,440 --> 00:45:10,720
sat up very cheery and said,

868
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,320
"Oh, that was like a
little mini retreat".

869
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:15,680
In other words, it didn't
affect him in the least.

870
00:45:15,720 --> 00:45:17,800
- My brain is nothing special,

871
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:21,600
different than any
other one except that,

872
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:25,600
what I've trained in
shows in the brain.

873
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:26,600
Doesn't matter.

874
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:28,200
It's not about Buddhist monk.

875
00:45:28,240 --> 00:45:29,720
Please give us a break.

876
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:32,640
It's about human beings
training their minds

877
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:34,360
and they have a
very common pattern

878
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:36,120
for instance compassion,

879
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,800
if you train a long time in
loving kindness and compassion,

880
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:43,200
when you are asked to do
so you activate your brains

881
00:45:43,240 --> 00:45:45,120
in a very strong way.

882
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:47,640
And if look at the control
group that did one week,

883
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:50,080
a little bit, it's
not their fault.

884
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:51,480
They have not trained their mind

885
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:53,920
so why should they
get the result?

886
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:58,080
It's like if you train
in running or whatever,

887
00:45:58,120 --> 00:45:59,440
you know, if you're a beginner,

888
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:01,200
you're not going
to run a marathon.

889
00:46:01,240 --> 00:46:03,960
So that means it is
the result of the training

890
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:05,600
not of coming from
here and there,

891
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:06,680
being a monk or not monk.

892
00:46:06,720 --> 00:46:08,200
This is irrelevant.

893
00:46:08,240 --> 00:46:09,600
You're training the mind.

894
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:13,000
What the matter the
colour of your dress.

895
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:15,480
- [Richard Davidson]
Matthieu and other
long-term practitioners

896
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,920
have helped us tremendously
in establishing

897
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:21,600
what our minds and our
brains are capable of.

898
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:23,480
We wanted to begin there

899
00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:26,080
because if we tested Matthieu

900
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:30,120
and other individuals like
him and didn't see very much,

901
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:32,640
there'd be no point in
evaluating beginners.

902
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,400
And what we saw is
something quite remarkable.

903
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:37,800
Their brains are
really very, very different.

904
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:40,160
And what was really amazing

905
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:43,000
was that these dramatic
differences were present

906
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:46,640
not simply when these
practitioners are meditating

907
00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:48,880
but also during
their baseline state.

908
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:52,720
That was the clue that
this is an altered trait.

909
00:46:57,720 --> 00:46:59,560
- So is this one
rolling now, Jules?

910
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:00,800
- [Julian] They should
both be rolling.

911
00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:01,760
- Both be rolling, okay.

912
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:02,960
You don't want to see,

913
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:05,960
I have this lamp like
balanced on my computer.

914
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:07,560
- You know what,
I can't see it on camera.

915
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:10,120
So therefore it
doesn't exist.

916
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:11,400
- Perfect.

917
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:15,320
- So like I don't know if
this is complete placebo,

918
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,880
but my insomnia
has just disappeared.

919
00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:21,160
- Before you started meditating,

920
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:22,480
what was your insomnia like?

921
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:26,440
- Once or twice a week, I would
be going through the night

922
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:27,480
unable to sleep.

923
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:29,400
- And your mind racing,

924
00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:31,920
you know thoughts, thoughts,
thoughts, thoughts, thoughts?

925
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:34,440
Yeah and one of the
simplest things that I give

926
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:38,360
to my patients who
have clinical insomnia

927
00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:39,640
is a body scan.

928
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:42,800
So if you think of
the habit loop,

929
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:44,440
there's the worry thought

930
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:48,280
that triggers getting
caught up in that anxiety

931
00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:50,320
and then you start looking
at your clock and saying,

932
00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:51,680
"Oh no, I can't sleep"

933
00:47:51,720 --> 00:47:53,000
and then it just
gets worse and worse.

934
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:54,320
- Exactly.

935
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:55,600
- I don't know if
that's your case.

936
00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:56,760
- That's exactly it, yeah.
- Yeah.

937
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:57,880
So what are you
noticing with mindfulness?

938
00:47:57,920 --> 00:47:59,880
Are you able to notice that

939
00:47:59,920 --> 00:48:01,120
and then let go of it

940
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:03,000
or is it not even coming up?

941
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:04,880
- Like, I'm really aware.

942
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:07,240
"Oh my god, I've got all
these anxious thoughts".

943
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:08,760
And so I'm kind of,

944
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:11,480
before I'm going to bed, I'm
kind of mitigating my behaviour.

945
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:13,920
- So how was that placebo?

946
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,320
You're describing an
actual behaviour change,

947
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:20,480
catching that worry
thinking, not feeding it

948
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:23,480
and by not feeding it,
not having insomnia.

949
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:25,640
So you can see a
causal link there.

950
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:29,680
- [Shannon] What I think is
really important

951
00:48:29,720 --> 00:48:33,080
is that mindfulness does
not cure your illnesses.

952
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:34,760
But what it does is it helps you

953
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:37,200
to change your relationship
to the illness.

954
00:48:37,240 --> 00:48:38,720
- Well, and it's also,

955
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:42,680
I think another important
potential mechanism

956
00:48:42,720 --> 00:48:46,280
is in helping people take
better care of themselves.

957
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:47,760
Having a healthier diet.

958
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:49,280
Getting enough sleep.

959
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:51,120
Getting enough
physical exercise.

960
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:52,800
All of these things
that are known

961
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:57,000
to be really important
aspects of being healthy

962
00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:00,080
and that we all struggle
with actually doing.

963
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:02,760
That's one of the things
that were studying.

964
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:06,280
How mindfulness training
could be an element

965
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:09,240
in helping people
change their behaviours

966
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:11,920
to healthier lifestyles.

967
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:14,560
- [Judson Brewer] It appears
that these trainings

968
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:16,320
can help people
change behaviour.

969
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:19,200
The other thing that we
can say is mechanistically

970
00:49:19,240 --> 00:49:20,880
it seems that mindfulness
is helping

971
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:24,200
to decouple the
craving and the behaviour.

972
00:49:24,240 --> 00:49:26,400
So that piece we've seen
multiple times as well.

973
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:29,440
So we've seen replicability
in that as well.

974
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:31,920
Where we might be able
to start applying this

975
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:34,960
is to other types of behaviours

976
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:38,160
where we're seeing similar
types of habit loops,

977
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:41,640
whether it's smoking
cigarettes, drinking alcohol,

978
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:44,720
smoking crack cocaine,
using heroin,

979
00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:48,840
eating food or even
going on social media.

980
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:50,600
That's been shown to activate

981
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:53,120
the same dopaminergic
reward system

982
00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:54,800
as all these known
drugs of abuse.

983
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:57,880
So, for example, we got
five times the quit rates

984
00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:00,120
of gold standard treatment
in our smoking programme

985
00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:01,960
when we did a
randomised controlled trial.

986
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:04,200
And mechanistically
we could see

987
00:50:04,240 --> 00:50:06,920
how the mindfulness training
was decoupling the craving

988
00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:08,160
from the behaviour.

989
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:10,160
- Sorry Jud, just stop.

990
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:12,800
You got five times the quit rate

991
00:50:12,840 --> 00:50:16,200
on gold standard treatments?
- Yes.

992
00:50:16,240 --> 00:50:18,800
So when we looked at four months
after we started treatment

993
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:21,560
with folks, so they got about
four weeks of treatment.

994
00:50:21,600 --> 00:50:23,680
And we looked for months later.

995
00:50:23,720 --> 00:50:25,960
We found that they were
five times more likely

996
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:28,280
to quit smoking than
gold standard treatment.

997
00:50:48,200 --> 00:50:52,720
- Ah, so, welcome
everybody.

998
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:56,040
It feels really good to
actually be here in the flesh.

999
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:59,760
- MBSR is basically,
was a proof of concept

1000
00:50:59,800 --> 00:51:03,560
and a kind of model for
how we could catch people

1001
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:06,400
just regular people, no
interest in meditation,

1002
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:07,800
but major suffering

1003
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:11,360
because the people
we were targeting,

1004
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:13,920
those who were falling through
the cracks as I like to say

1005
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:15,520
of the healthcare system.

1006
00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:20,920
- [Shannon voiceover] Experiment
notes, day 123.

1007
00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:24,680
I've stepped up to 45 minutes
a day for my MBSR course

1008
00:51:24,720 --> 00:51:27,000
mostly practising a
body scan technique

1009
00:51:28,240 --> 00:51:30,840
and I'm really noticing
a dose effect.

1010
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:33,720
I'm now even more
aware of my mental habits,

1011
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:36,800
the same thoughts happening
again and again

1012
00:51:36,840 --> 00:51:40,120
and I'm getting better at
noticing my emotions arising

1013
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:43,520
without automatically
reacting to them.

1014
00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:45,920
As intriguing as this is
anecdotally though,

1015
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:48,120
I'm surprised that
there's hardly any evidence

1016
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:51,760
that tells me how
long I should practise for

1017
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:55,400
or even what specific
techniques work best.

1018
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:57,960
One recent study by
Harvard neuroscientists,

1019
00:51:58,000 --> 00:52:02,000
did directly compare
the mindfulness in MBSR

1020
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:05,800
with another popular technique,
relaxation meditation.

1021
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:07,920
They split people
into two groups

1022
00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:10,440
and taught them
both a body scan.

1023
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:14,120
But while one group was taught
to systematically relax areas

1024
00:52:14,160 --> 00:52:15,080
in their body,

1025
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:17,440
the other was taught mindfulness

1026
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:21,200
being aware of each area without
trying to change anything.

1027
00:52:21,240 --> 00:52:24,640
Although both groups reported
feeling less stressed,

1028
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:27,160
it turned out this tiny tweak

1029
00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:30,920
in the mental training resulted
in noticeable differences

1030
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:32,600
in their brain activity.

1031
00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:34,160
In the same way that swimming

1032
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:37,800
and running are both called
exercise and can be good for me,

1033
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:42,280
different meditation techniques
might actually matter.

1034
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:46,560
And I suspect that particular
contemplative practices

1035
00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:49,640
will one day be prescribed
to different people

1036
00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:51,960
for specific reasons.

1037
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:53,800
When I look through
the current evidence

1038
00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:57,480
on high-quality mindfulness
programmes like MBSR,.

1039
00:52:57,520 --> 00:53:02,160
they seem to be particularly
effective for chronic pain.

1040
00:53:02,200 --> 00:53:03,440
Given that we're in the midst

1041
00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:05,320
of an opioid addiction epidemic

1042
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:07,840
on top of all the other
mental health concerns,

1043
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:09,600
this is no small thing.

1044
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:11,880
And I find the idea that
mental training

1045
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:15,440
could be a drug-free
option really interesting.

1046
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:19,880
Can I get a brief explanation

1047
00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:23,200
of what it is like to
be in your body today?

1048
00:53:23,240 --> 00:53:26,920
- A doctor would describe
my medical diagnosis today

1049
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:30,160
as having incomplete
paraplegia, paralysed bowel,

1050
00:53:30,200 --> 00:53:31,960
paralysed bladder,

1051
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:35,160
having chronic neuropathic
and musculoskeletal pain.

1052
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:39,600
So my lived experience of
being in this body today

1053
00:53:39,640 --> 00:53:41,160
is I've got pain all the time.

1054
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:45,880
So I was brought up in
New Zealand,

1055
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:50,120
very beautiful, free,
active childhood.

1056
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:51,840
I was very sporty.

1057
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:54,840
Then when I was 16, I was
doing life-saving practice

1058
00:53:54,880 --> 00:53:56,920
and I lifted someone out
of the swimming pool.

1059
00:53:56,960 --> 00:53:59,160
And it turned out that
I had a condition

1060
00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:00,320
called spondylolisthesis

1061
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:02,840
and that my vertebrae
had fractured.

1062
00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:06,080
So then in the beginning
of my 17th year in 1977,

1063
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:07,920
I had a spinal fusion operation.

1064
00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:10,200
Then when I was 23,

1065
00:54:10,240 --> 00:54:13,800
I was in a car and we ploughed
into a telegraph pole.

1066
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:16,600
[ambulance siren wailing]

1067
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:18,840
I'd fractured the middle
of my spine.

1068
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:22,320
So I ended up in a neurosurgical
intensive care ward.

1069
00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:24,720
The medical team
made it clear to me

1070
00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:27,800
there was not a
medical magical cure.

1071
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:29,560
My spine was a very,
very damaged.

1072
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:32,600
More surgery was wasn't
going to be helpful

1073
00:54:32,640 --> 00:54:35,560
and that I needed to learn
to live with it, somehow.

1074
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:38,200
I had, I suppose literally
a dark night of the soul.

1075
00:54:38,240 --> 00:54:42,480
So I had part of my mind
saying, "I can't bear this.

1076
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:44,640
I'm going to go crazy."

1077
00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:46,360
And another part of
my mind saying,

1078
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:47,960
"But you have to."

1079
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:51,200
And at a certain point,
another voice came in

1080
00:54:51,240 --> 00:54:53,720
and said very, very clearly,

1081
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:56,320
"You just have to
live this moment".

1082
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:58,400
And my experience
changed from one of this,

1083
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:03,120
you know, being in a
vice to greater ease.

1084
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:06,360
I still feel that that has been
the most profound moment

1085
00:55:06,400 --> 00:55:08,640
of my life and everything
that's followed since then,

1086
00:55:08,680 --> 00:55:10,800
all the meditation,
becoming a Buddhist,

1087
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:11,960
founding Breathworks,

1088
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:14,320
is still trying to make
sense of that.

1089
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:16,960
I came across the work of Jon
Kabat-Zinn around that time

1090
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:18,960
and also the work
of Stephen Levine

1091
00:55:19,000 --> 00:55:20,800
and what they both
talked about was turning

1092
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:22,720
towards your direct experience

1093
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:24,920
rather than trying to
escape your pain.

1094
00:55:26,680 --> 00:55:29,080
- Why does mindfulness
works so effectively

1095
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:30,560
with chronic pain?

1096
00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:32,880
- Well, the thing to
understand about pain,

1097
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:35,480
acute or chronic,
but especially chronic,

1098
00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:38,880
is that we experience
a sensation

1099
00:55:38,920 --> 00:55:41,840
and then there's all the
mental and emotional reaction

1100
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:43,120
to the sensation.

1101
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:44,480
And so with the same stimulus,

1102
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:46,640
the brain fires off more
pain messages.

1103
00:55:46,680 --> 00:55:48,360
The person is not making it up.

1104
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:49,960
It's not like a person's
imagining the pain.

1105
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:51,800
The person's experiencing it

1106
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:53,400
but there's an amplifying effect

1107
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:56,680
because of the mental and
emotional reaction to to it.

1108
00:55:56,720 --> 00:55:58,680
Now where mindfulness
seems to help

1109
00:55:58,720 --> 00:56:02,040
is it helps a person to
gently notice the sensation

1110
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:04,320
but to be less
emotionally reactive to it

1111
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:06,720
and to re-engage the
attention with what's going on

1112
00:56:06,760 --> 00:56:08,320
around the person.

1113
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:11,120
- One of the reasons
that we likely evolved

1114
00:56:11,160 --> 00:56:13,400
to have a human
attention system

1115
00:56:13,440 --> 00:56:14,960
is because the
brain faces

1116
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:17,800
an incredible
computational challenge.

1117
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:19,680
There's far more information
in the environment

1118
00:56:19,720 --> 00:56:22,080
than can possibly be processed.

1119
00:56:22,120 --> 00:56:23,720
Attention biases,

1120
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:26,200
virtually all of the
information processing.

1121
00:56:26,240 --> 00:56:30,840
So for example, if you show
somebody two circles on a page

1122
00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:32,760
just on a regular piece of
paper and you say to them,

1123
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:34,280
those are eyes of a face.

1124
00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:35,880
Now all of a sudden,

1125
00:56:35,920 --> 00:56:38,200
you can get face processing
systems that are engaged.

1126
00:56:38,240 --> 00:56:40,520
So it's incredibly powerful

1127
00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:43,200
to change the way
information is processed,

1128
00:56:43,240 --> 00:56:45,720
even at the earliest stages
in our visual system.

1129
00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:48,560
- So when one study looked

1130
00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:51,640
at mindfulness
compared to placebo,

1131
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:53,440
but they also did
MRI of the brain

1132
00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:55,960
to see which areas of the
brain are active in placebo

1133
00:56:56,000 --> 00:56:57,320
and which ones in mindfulness?

1134
00:56:57,360 --> 00:56:59,680
The area of the brain
that the mindfulness

1135
00:56:59,720 --> 00:57:01,480
was mostly working on
were the areas the brain

1136
00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:03,480
that decide whether or not
to let the message through

1137
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:05,560
to the higher centres.

1138
00:57:05,600 --> 00:57:06,920
We often do an experiment
with people

1139
00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:09,360
when we're teaching
them mindfulness.

1140
00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:12,880
And you can set a person down
or a group of people down

1141
00:57:12,920 --> 00:57:16,640
and you can just sort of
notice maybe some persistent,

1142
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:19,200
obvious noise, doesn't
have to be loud,

1143
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:20,480
but an obvious noise.

1144
00:57:20,520 --> 00:57:22,160
And you sit down and
close your eyes.

1145
00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:24,000
Now, I want you to
listen to that noise.

1146
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:28,160
Now, I want you to
block that noise out

1147
00:57:28,200 --> 00:57:29,320
so that you can't hear it.

1148
00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:31,400
Make that sound go away.

1149
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:34,880
If you can still hear it,

1150
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:37,360
I want you to try even
harder to block it out.

1151
00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:38,800
And of course what people notice

1152
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:40,640
is the harder they
try to block it out,

1153
00:57:40,680 --> 00:57:42,120
the louder it becomes

1154
00:57:43,240 --> 00:57:45,160
whereas in mindfulness,

1155
00:57:45,200 --> 00:57:46,800
there's no need to
block anything out.

1156
00:57:46,840 --> 00:57:49,320
But if the attention is
going to something else,

1157
00:57:49,360 --> 00:57:52,080
the other thing just
recedes into the background.

1158
00:57:52,120 --> 00:57:54,720
So it's like the brain
decides what messages

1159
00:57:54,760 --> 00:57:57,120
to let through and
which ones not to.

1160
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:08,760
- Welcome to the
class everybody.

1161
00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:09,920
Very lovely to see you all.

1162
00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:12,560
I have a very
effective life now.

1163
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:14,080
I travel globally.

1164
00:58:14,120 --> 00:58:15,440
I teach globally.

1165
00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:16,400
I've still got chronic pain.

1166
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:17,880
I'm still disabled.

1167
00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:19,600
I've still got a paralysed
bowel and bladder.

1168
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:21,440
My legs don't work properly

1169
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:23,680
but I have a really good life.

1170
00:58:23,720 --> 00:58:26,880
My story isn't one
of a miracle cure.

1171
00:58:26,920 --> 00:58:30,400
It's a story of healing
rather than cure.

1172
00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:32,160
And I think this is
very, very important

1173
00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:34,680
because for many, many years,
I felt I was a failure.

1174
00:58:34,720 --> 00:58:36,720
Can't manage to earn a living.

1175
00:58:36,760 --> 00:58:38,960
Can't manage to
sort my life out.

1176
00:58:39,000 --> 00:58:40,640
And I can't cure my pain.

1177
00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:44,880
And you know, meditation
isn't going to unfuse my spine

1178
00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:47,520
but meditation has enabled
me to profoundly heal

1179
00:58:47,560 --> 00:58:49,840
of my response to life as it is

1180
00:58:49,880 --> 00:58:52,040
and for me, that's a
much greater miracle

1181
00:58:52,080 --> 00:58:53,880
because we've all got
bodies that will age.

1182
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:56,160
We've all got bodies that
things will go wrong.

1183
00:58:56,200 --> 00:59:00,720
And if the paradigm is
you're only succeeding,

1184
00:59:00,760 --> 00:59:02,640
if you can have a
perfect body at all times

1185
00:59:02,680 --> 00:59:05,720
through all stages of life,
we're all going to fail.

1186
00:59:05,760 --> 00:59:08,560
So I'm not actually
very interested in cure.

1187
00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:11,080
I'm interested in learning
to live with my life,

1188
00:59:11,120 --> 00:59:13,360
with whatever arrives in any day

1189
00:59:13,400 --> 00:59:16,000
and we can't control
what arrives in our life,

1190
00:59:16,040 --> 00:59:17,200
but we can control
how we respond

1191
00:59:17,240 --> 00:59:18,680
to what arrives in our life.

1192
00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:27,200
[bell chiming]

1193
00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:31,200
- So, welcome everybody.

1194
00:59:32,840 --> 00:59:33,840
Our last class.

1195
00:59:36,480 --> 00:59:39,480
So maybe we'll just
take a moment to arrive.

1196
00:59:42,800 --> 00:59:46,760
Just feeling into what
it feels like to be here.

1197
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:52,560
- [Shannon] Today, I'm having
a seven out of ten day
with pain levels.

1198
00:59:52,600 --> 00:59:55,640
I'm having an arthritis
flare through my body.

1199
00:59:55,680 --> 01:00:00,080
I found the body scan
enormously difficult.

1200
01:00:00,120 --> 01:00:03,560
The word that's on the tip
of my tongue is unbearable,

1201
01:00:03,600 --> 01:00:05,840
but I was just so
conscious of the exercise

1202
01:00:05,880 --> 01:00:07,400
that we did a few weeks ago

1203
01:00:07,440 --> 01:00:11,640
where we connected with
the catastrophising story

1204
01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:13,240
that happens.

1205
01:00:13,280 --> 01:00:15,160
And I you know, you just
mentioned Vidyamala Burch

1206
01:00:15,200 --> 01:00:16,560
and it just so happens

1207
01:00:16,600 --> 01:00:18,080
that we interviewed Vidyamala

1208
01:00:18,120 --> 01:00:20,960
for the project that we're
working at the moment last week

1209
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:23,560
and she talks about
learning to be with

1210
01:00:23,600 --> 01:00:25,200
that emotional response
to the pain

1211
01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:29,040
which I've never in my
life been taught to do.

1212
01:00:30,080 --> 01:00:31,840
So um...

1213
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:34,400
Yeah.

1214
01:00:36,560 --> 01:00:39,400
Do you think that in many
ways part of the problem

1215
01:00:39,440 --> 01:00:43,000
is that we're not taught
how to suffer?

1216
01:00:45,400 --> 01:00:46,440
- Wow.

1217
01:00:47,960 --> 01:00:49,960
We're not taught how to suffer.

1218
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:00,240
You know, it's
really interesting.

1219
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:03,120
Maybe, I think in some ways,

1220
01:01:03,160 --> 01:01:05,560
we are taught how to suffer

1221
01:01:05,600 --> 01:01:08,520
but sometimes it doesn't
necessarily mean

1222
01:01:08,560 --> 01:01:10,960
that what we've learned
and what we've been taught

1223
01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:13,880
is the most adaptive way.

1224
01:01:13,920 --> 01:01:17,080
Mindfulness meditation and
these other interventions

1225
01:01:17,120 --> 01:01:21,000
aren't necessarily
about alleviating
suffering completely.

1226
01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:23,960
Maybe alleviating
unnecessary suffering

1227
01:01:24,000 --> 01:01:25,880
is one way of thinking about it

1228
01:01:25,920 --> 01:01:29,080
'cause I think that not only
but I think many people think

1229
01:01:29,120 --> 01:01:32,040
that meaning, meaning,

1230
01:01:33,200 --> 01:01:34,280
gratitude,

1231
01:01:35,280 --> 01:01:37,280
compassion,

1232
01:01:37,320 --> 01:01:38,880
good things

1233
01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:41,600
also come from suffering
and gives us perspective.

1234
01:01:41,640 --> 01:01:43,560
And so I think even this idea

1235
01:01:43,600 --> 01:01:45,440
that we should be
free of suffering,

1236
01:01:45,480 --> 01:01:48,720
maybe is just not the case.

1237
01:01:48,760 --> 01:01:52,600
♪ I blame you Hollywood

1238
01:01:52,640 --> 01:01:56,360
♪ For showing me things
you never should ♪

1239
01:01:56,400 --> 01:02:00,200
♪ Show a young girl

1240
01:02:00,240 --> 01:02:04,640
♪ In this cruel world

1241
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:10,360
♪ 'Cause life's not
a happy ending ♪

1242
01:02:10,400 --> 01:02:11,560
♪ Sure there are some

1243
01:02:11,600 --> 01:02:15,360
♪ Like Johnny and June

1244
01:02:15,400 --> 01:02:19,120
♪ Maybe other people too

1245
01:02:19,160 --> 01:02:22,640
♪ Like me and you

1246
01:02:26,680 --> 01:02:29,120
- [Shannon voiceover] Experiment
notes, day 143.

1247
01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:33,680
MBSR may have finished
but I have no doubt

1248
01:02:33,720 --> 01:02:36,400
that the experiences
and friendships

1249
01:02:36,440 --> 01:02:38,280
it kindled will stay with me.

1250
01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:42,720
And I'm now so aware of just
how powerful my attention is

1251
01:02:42,760 --> 01:02:45,640
in every aspect of my life.

1252
01:02:45,680 --> 01:02:49,480
Attention is one of my
most precious resources,

1253
01:02:49,520 --> 01:02:51,600
but I've never valued it before.

1254
01:02:51,640 --> 01:02:54,040
I feel a bit like
Neo in The Matrix

1255
01:02:54,080 --> 01:02:55,880
after he's just woken up.

1256
01:02:55,920 --> 01:02:58,000
I can see all the forces
around me trying

1257
01:02:58,040 --> 01:03:00,040
to hijack my attention.

1258
01:03:01,720 --> 01:03:04,200
Despite all the benefits
of new technology,

1259
01:03:04,240 --> 01:03:07,200
we now live in a world
full of distractions,

1260
01:03:07,240 --> 01:03:11,320
on our streets, in our homes
and at our very fingertips.

1261
01:03:12,920 --> 01:03:15,080
Has being distracted
become my default setting?

1262
01:03:16,600 --> 01:03:19,920
What would it be like
if I turned it all...

1263
01:03:21,120 --> 01:03:21,880
Off?

1264
01:03:32,400 --> 01:03:34,640
So here we go,
my first silent retreat.

1265
01:03:34,680 --> 01:03:36,120
I'm not scared.

1266
01:03:36,160 --> 01:03:40,680
I am maybe trepidatious,
could be the right word.

1267
01:03:40,720 --> 01:03:44,280
I've never in my life
been in a situation

1268
01:03:44,320 --> 01:03:46,440
where I haven't had
a book to read

1269
01:03:46,480 --> 01:03:48,240
or music to listen or
a movie to watch

1270
01:03:48,280 --> 01:03:49,720
or people to talk to.

1271
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:52,560
I've never, ever experienced

1272
01:03:52,600 --> 01:03:55,800
that kind of
sensory deprivation.

1273
01:03:55,840 --> 01:03:57,720
- [interviewer] So what day
will you lose your mind?

1274
01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:01,880
- Well, hopefully, I'm
not going to lose my mind.

1275
01:04:01,920 --> 01:04:04,440
The good meditation teachers
can recognise the signs

1276
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:05,640
of people who are in distress

1277
01:04:05,680 --> 01:04:07,560
and hopefully guide
them out of it

1278
01:04:07,600 --> 01:04:09,480
but I'm not going
to lose my mind.

1279
01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:12,520
I'm not going to lose my mind.

1280
01:04:14,000 --> 01:04:17,280
- When I was doing my
psychiatric internship,

1281
01:04:17,320 --> 01:04:19,880
two people the same
year were hospitalised

1282
01:04:19,920 --> 01:04:23,560
at my hospital from a 10-day
meditation retreat centre.

1283
01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:27,600
So it seemed like
as a responsible
clinical psychologist

1284
01:04:27,640 --> 01:04:30,840
something worthy of
following up with.

1285
01:04:30,880 --> 01:04:33,000
The variety of the contemplative
experience study

1286
01:04:33,040 --> 01:04:34,400
was an interview-based study,

1287
01:04:34,440 --> 01:04:36,360
about various difficulties
that can arise

1288
01:04:36,400 --> 01:04:38,120
in the context of practice.

1289
01:04:38,160 --> 01:04:42,120
The most common reported
category was increases in fear.

1290
01:04:42,160 --> 01:04:45,800
You can also see people
who lose all emotional tone

1291
01:04:45,840 --> 01:04:49,720
altogether including like
feelings for their children.

1292
01:04:49,760 --> 01:04:52,440
And then sense of
self almost always

1293
01:04:52,480 --> 01:04:53,880
at least the people that call us

1294
01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:55,640
are reporting with some
kind of disturbance

1295
01:04:55,680 --> 01:04:56,880
in their sense of self.

1296
01:04:56,920 --> 01:04:58,560
They don't feel like
they own their emotions

1297
01:04:58,600 --> 01:05:01,640
or their thoughts.

1298
01:05:01,680 --> 01:05:02,840
- [Shannon] So that's
depersonalization, right?

1299
01:05:02,880 --> 01:05:04,160
- [Willoughby] That's
depersonalization, yeah.

1300
01:05:04,200 --> 01:05:05,600
- You know,
I'm partly doing this

1301
01:05:05,640 --> 01:05:06,960
because I want to
be a better mother

1302
01:05:07,000 --> 01:05:09,600
and a better person, a
better wife, a better friend,

1303
01:05:09,640 --> 01:05:11,440
a better daughter,
a better sister.

1304
01:05:11,480 --> 01:05:13,040
Like I wanna be a better person

1305
01:05:13,080 --> 01:05:15,640
but what you're telling me
is that there are people

1306
01:05:15,680 --> 01:05:21,000
who are reporting experiences
of losing those relationships.

1307
01:05:21,040 --> 01:05:22,440
- Yes.

1308
01:05:22,480 --> 01:05:24,640
I mean, one of the
more encouraging things

1309
01:05:24,680 --> 01:05:27,160
about experience-dependent
neuroplasticity,

1310
01:05:27,200 --> 01:05:29,000
which is basically the
idea that you get good

1311
01:05:29,040 --> 01:05:31,680
at what you practise is
that it's fairly gradual.

1312
01:05:31,720 --> 01:05:34,440
You can monitor yourself.

1313
01:05:34,480 --> 01:05:37,640
And I think a lot of the
quote-unquote adverse effects

1314
01:05:37,680 --> 01:05:39,360
are really about mismatches

1315
01:05:39,400 --> 01:05:41,600
between the practises
and the teachers

1316
01:05:41,640 --> 01:05:44,200
and the programmes
and people's goals.

1317
01:05:44,240 --> 01:05:47,000
You know, they don't want
to lose their sense of self,

1318
01:05:47,040 --> 01:05:49,120
but that's what certain
practises are designed to do.

1319
01:05:49,160 --> 01:05:50,680
So don't do those practises.

1320
01:05:50,720 --> 01:05:53,920
Do ones that cultivate
positive emotions,

1321
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:55,920
you know, there are
practises like that.

1322
01:05:55,960 --> 01:05:57,760
Those are some of my favourites.

1323
01:05:57,800 --> 01:06:02,240
Going on a retreat can be
a very intense experience.

1324
01:06:02,280 --> 01:06:03,840
It's called a retreat.

1325
01:06:03,880 --> 01:06:06,840
That makes it
sound like it's a spa

1326
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:09,040
but it's actually
really difficult.

1327
01:06:25,480 --> 01:06:28,080
- My agreement with the
organisers of the retreat was

1328
01:06:28,120 --> 01:06:30,200
that once other people
started arriving,

1329
01:06:30,240 --> 01:06:32,720
I would stop using
the camera in public.

1330
01:06:32,760 --> 01:06:36,360
So I think yeah, the
arrival of that car there,

1331
01:06:36,400 --> 01:06:40,280
it pretty much symbolises the
arrival of the other people.

1332
01:06:40,320 --> 01:06:43,200
So, I guess for now,

1333
01:06:43,240 --> 01:06:46,800
it's going to be signing off

1334
01:06:46,840 --> 01:06:50,680
and I'll just be using
the diary cam in my room

1335
01:06:50,720 --> 01:06:54,120
and maybe during the chats
that I have with Patrick,

1336
01:06:54,160 --> 01:06:55,520
the teacher.

1337
01:06:57,000 --> 01:07:01,080
From seven o'clock tonight
when we start silence,

1338
01:07:02,440 --> 01:07:04,680
until the end of this retreat,

1339
01:07:04,720 --> 01:07:06,640
in 10 days time,

1340
01:07:06,680 --> 01:07:09,400
it's just going to be me
in the contents of my mind

1341
01:07:09,440 --> 01:07:12,720
and I guess that's really
just starting to hit me now.

1342
01:07:36,000 --> 01:07:38,640
- The resting state is a topic

1343
01:07:38,680 --> 01:07:41,360
of tremendously increased
scientific interest.

1344
01:07:41,400 --> 01:07:44,360
So, if you put a person
in an MRI scanner

1345
01:07:44,400 --> 01:07:47,040
and instruct them
to simply rest,

1346
01:07:47,080 --> 01:07:51,360
we see a pattern of brain
activity that is non-random.

1347
01:07:51,400 --> 01:07:54,920
What you actually see is
that there are circuits

1348
01:07:54,960 --> 01:07:58,800
which emerge as being more
activated than other circuits

1349
01:07:58,840 --> 01:08:02,960
and those circuits have been
called the default mode.

1350
01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:05,600
And one of the characteristics
of the default mode

1351
01:08:05,640 --> 01:08:08,800
is that it seems to
play some role

1352
01:08:08,840 --> 01:08:13,640
in the kind of self
narrative that we have

1353
01:08:14,840 --> 01:08:16,319
occurring in our
minds all the time.

1354
01:08:16,360 --> 01:08:18,200
And meditation seems to change

1355
01:08:18,240 --> 01:08:20,319
that in very interesting ways.

1356
01:08:20,360 --> 01:08:22,840
And so the parts of
the default mode that

1357
01:08:22,880 --> 01:08:26,360
may be particularly important
for this self narrative

1358
01:08:26,399 --> 01:08:28,880
become less strongly connected

1359
01:08:28,920 --> 01:08:30,399
to other areas of the brain.

1360
01:08:30,440 --> 01:08:32,680
And so what it suggests

1361
01:08:32,719 --> 01:08:35,680
is that the self narrative
is not hijacking

1362
01:08:35,719 --> 01:08:38,000
the other brain circuits
in the same way

1363
01:08:38,040 --> 01:08:40,840
where we can learn
through specific kinds

1364
01:08:40,880 --> 01:08:43,520
of meditation practises
like mindfulness

1365
01:08:43,559 --> 01:08:46,120
to regard the self
narrative for what it is.

1366
01:08:46,160 --> 01:08:49,360
They are thoughts rather
than getting hijacked by them

1367
01:08:49,399 --> 01:08:52,760
as if they are reality.

1368
01:09:04,719 --> 01:09:06,960
- The posterior cingulate
cortex is actually one

1369
01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:09,440
of the hubs of the
default mode network.

1370
01:09:09,479 --> 01:09:12,479
It seems to be a marker
of the experiential self

1371
01:09:12,520 --> 01:09:14,399
at least that's our hypothesis.

1372
01:09:14,440 --> 01:09:17,600
So the idea is there's
something in our experience

1373
01:09:17,639 --> 01:09:20,120
that says this is going
to set a boundary

1374
01:09:20,160 --> 01:09:22,680
between me and the
rest of the world.

1375
01:09:22,719 --> 01:09:24,440
When somebody's meditating,

1376
01:09:24,479 --> 01:09:27,440
those boundaries
start to dissolve

1377
01:09:27,479 --> 01:09:29,800
and on an experiential level,

1378
01:09:29,840 --> 01:09:32,399
we feel this often as
an expanding quality

1379
01:09:32,440 --> 01:09:34,000
of our experience.

1380
01:09:34,040 --> 01:09:37,120
And if that expansion goes
all the way to infinity,

1381
01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:41,440
we start to lose that boundary
between our self and others

1382
01:09:41,479 --> 01:09:43,840
and what we found was the
posterior cingulate cortex

1383
01:09:43,880 --> 01:09:45,160
gets really quiet

1384
01:09:45,200 --> 01:09:46,639
when we're meditating

1385
01:09:46,680 --> 01:09:49,200
or being curious or
even being grateful.

1386
01:10:08,120 --> 01:10:11,240
- The curriculum of mindfulness
is whatever is arising.

1387
01:10:11,280 --> 01:10:12,840
Now, you see that
more on, let's say,

1388
01:10:12,880 --> 01:10:16,120
a 10-day retreat because
like there's nothing going on

1389
01:10:16,160 --> 01:10:18,520
except in your mind,
there's a lot going on.

1390
01:10:18,559 --> 01:10:21,080
So, how are you going
to be in relationship

1391
01:10:21,120 --> 01:10:23,600
with whatever's running
through your mind?

1392
01:10:23,639 --> 01:10:26,320
And that's where the
liberation comes in,

1393
01:10:26,360 --> 01:10:28,080
that's where the
insight arises.

1394
01:10:28,120 --> 01:10:31,320
That's when you realise
that you are much bigger

1395
01:10:31,360 --> 01:10:34,880
than your narratives and that
changes the brain activity

1396
01:10:34,920 --> 01:10:38,240
in these narrative networks,
the default mode network.

1397
01:10:38,280 --> 01:10:40,840
And as I alluded to,

1398
01:10:40,880 --> 01:10:43,520
I think metaphorically
at least, we need

1399
01:10:43,559 --> 01:10:46,880
to do a lot more science
before we can know the degree

1400
01:10:46,920 --> 01:10:48,440
to which it's literally true,

1401
01:10:48,480 --> 01:10:50,080
we're shifting the default mode

1402
01:10:50,120 --> 01:10:54,760
from one of mindlessness and
mind wandering to mindfulness.

1403
01:11:09,120 --> 01:11:11,360
- [Shannon] I'm experiencing
these moments

1404
01:11:11,400 --> 01:11:14,360
of deep awareness.

1405
01:11:14,400 --> 01:11:17,440
How can I possibly
keep this going

1406
01:11:17,480 --> 01:11:21,320
in the craziness of the
so-called real world?

1407
01:11:21,360 --> 01:11:23,639
- You can't.
- You can't.

1408
01:11:23,680 --> 01:11:25,440
- You need all the
conditions to come together.

1409
01:11:25,480 --> 01:11:27,160
That's why people
do retreats.

1410
01:11:27,200 --> 01:11:29,440
Now, insight is interesting

1411
01:11:29,480 --> 01:11:31,200
in that it has
the characteristic

1412
01:11:31,240 --> 01:11:34,080
that once you see
something, you've seen it

1413
01:11:34,120 --> 01:11:36,400
and that never goes away.
- Okay.

1414
01:11:36,440 --> 01:11:38,160
So I'm not going to forget.

1415
01:11:38,200 --> 01:11:40,240
- You will forget your insights

1416
01:11:40,280 --> 01:11:44,320
but the effect that it has,
"Oh, this is what's going on",

1417
01:11:44,360 --> 01:11:45,639
that stays.

1418
01:11:45,680 --> 01:11:47,559
I like to call it the
Santa Claus effect.

1419
01:11:47,600 --> 01:11:49,600
So when we we're young

1420
01:11:49,639 --> 01:11:53,120
and every year this
magical figure turns up

1421
01:11:53,160 --> 01:11:57,120
and we always left out
some beer for him

1422
01:11:57,160 --> 01:11:59,160
and some cake because
you know by the time

1423
01:11:59,200 --> 01:12:00,960
he gets to Australia,
he's pretty tired.

1424
01:12:01,000 --> 01:12:03,440
And then one Christmas Eve,

1425
01:12:03,480 --> 01:12:05,480
you hear sounds
in the living room.

1426
01:12:05,520 --> 01:12:08,600
So you creep out
and have a look.

1427
01:12:08,639 --> 01:12:10,639
And there's your father
scoffing the beer and the cake

1428
01:12:10,680 --> 01:12:12,040
and you mother laying
out the presents.

1429
01:12:12,080 --> 01:12:13,719
But Christmas can
never be the same

1430
01:12:13,760 --> 01:12:15,559
because you've seen something

1431
01:12:15,600 --> 01:12:17,040
and the world is different now.

1432
01:12:17,080 --> 01:12:18,240
Insight works like this.

1433
01:12:18,280 --> 01:12:20,160
You forget your insight.

1434
01:12:20,200 --> 01:12:22,680
but there's a sense in which
your insight never forgets you.

1435
01:12:31,160 --> 01:12:32,200
- Hey.
- Hello.

1436
01:12:32,240 --> 01:12:33,719
- How you doing?

1437
01:12:33,760 --> 01:12:35,200
Welcome back.

1438
01:12:35,240 --> 01:12:38,080
- Thank you.
- How was it?

1439
01:12:39,000 --> 01:12:41,440
- It was extraordinary.

1440
01:12:41,480 --> 01:12:44,800
You know, what's in my
head right now, don't you?

1441
01:12:44,840 --> 01:12:46,320
- No, not all of it.

1442
01:12:46,360 --> 01:12:48,840
No, I get where you're
coming from.

1443
01:12:48,880 --> 01:12:51,360
- So are we going to see
that on a brain scan?

1444
01:12:51,400 --> 01:12:52,920
- Well, should we go
take a look?

1445
01:12:52,960 --> 01:12:53,639
- Let's go.

1446
01:13:02,200 --> 01:13:06,600
I've been home from the silent
retreat for just over a month

1447
01:13:06,639 --> 01:13:10,200
and I can honestly say
I feel amazing.

1448
01:13:10,240 --> 01:13:12,559
I feel amazing in my head

1449
01:13:12,600 --> 01:13:14,320
and I feel amazing in my body.

1450
01:13:14,360 --> 01:13:18,639
I have no symptoms of
my autoimmune disease.

1451
01:13:18,680 --> 01:13:21,360
The changes are so
monumental for me

1452
01:13:21,400 --> 01:13:23,960
that I can't help but wonder

1453
01:13:24,000 --> 01:13:28,960
if this is simply that I feel
differently about my illness

1454
01:13:29,000 --> 01:13:30,920
or if there's something
more going on

1455
01:13:30,960 --> 01:13:34,760
like under my skin
and in my cells.

1456
01:13:36,160 --> 01:13:38,639
Now, I do understand
that it's early days.

1457
01:13:38,680 --> 01:13:41,440
But, do you think this
research holds promise

1458
01:13:41,480 --> 01:13:44,360
for autoimmune diseases?

1459
01:13:44,400 --> 01:13:46,320
- It's a good question Shannon.

1460
01:13:46,360 --> 01:13:50,559
I think that mindfulness
and mind-body activities

1461
01:13:50,600 --> 01:13:52,760
are helpful to the immune system

1462
01:13:52,800 --> 01:13:56,639
regardless of whether it's
being overactive or underactive.

1463
01:13:56,680 --> 01:13:59,360
While genetics plays a huge role

1464
01:13:59,400 --> 01:14:03,120
when you want to know who's
living well to a hundred,

1465
01:14:03,160 --> 01:14:06,840
we think lifestyle plays
a tremendous role

1466
01:14:06,880 --> 01:14:09,960
and it's the
interaction of lifestyle

1467
01:14:10,000 --> 01:14:11,840
and experience with genetics.

1468
01:14:11,880 --> 01:14:13,880
It's not one or the other.

1469
01:14:13,920 --> 01:14:16,440
The action is in
the interaction.

1470
01:14:16,480 --> 01:14:18,840
- Whether or not mindfulness
actually cures a disease

1471
01:14:18,880 --> 01:14:19,880
remains to be seen.

1472
01:14:19,920 --> 01:14:21,480
There's some hopeful signs.

1473
01:14:21,520 --> 01:14:24,240
A study that Richie
Davidson did actually,,

1474
01:14:24,280 --> 01:14:28,840
where advanced meditators
in six hours of meditation

1475
01:14:28,880 --> 01:14:31,440
turned off or down
regulated the genes

1476
01:14:31,480 --> 01:14:33,800
that create inflammation
in the body.

1477
01:14:33,840 --> 01:14:35,680
Whether that's clinically
significant or not,

1478
01:14:35,719 --> 01:14:37,600
it's too early to say.

1479
01:14:37,639 --> 01:14:39,800
- And that does have important
health implications

1480
01:14:39,840 --> 01:14:42,880
because we know that
inflammatory processes

1481
01:14:42,920 --> 01:14:45,200
are at the root of
many chronic illnesses,

1482
01:14:45,240 --> 01:14:48,240
cardiovascular disease,
arthritis,

1483
01:14:48,280 --> 01:14:51,960
asthma and if meditation
can reduce inflammation,

1484
01:14:52,000 --> 01:14:53,960
that's a really
important finding.

1485
01:14:54,000 --> 01:14:56,200
- That's very exciting though

1486
01:14:56,240 --> 01:14:59,760
as somebody with an autoimmune
disease, I have to say.

1487
01:14:59,800 --> 01:15:02,400
- We're very interested
to see what would happen

1488
01:15:02,440 --> 01:15:05,600
if someone like you with
an autoimmune disease

1489
01:15:05,639 --> 01:15:08,120
were to become a very
serious meditator

1490
01:15:08,160 --> 01:15:12,080
and track what goes on
during that time genetically

1491
01:15:12,120 --> 01:15:14,240
and in terms of symptoms,
of course.

1492
01:15:14,280 --> 01:15:16,760
But that hasn't happened yet.

1493
01:15:18,880 --> 01:15:20,960
- [Shannon] What I'm
starting to realise is

1494
01:15:21,000 --> 01:15:22,960
how frontier this science is.

1495
01:15:23,000 --> 01:15:26,360
And that at the end
of my experiment,

1496
01:15:26,400 --> 01:15:31,080
I might not have scientific data

1497
01:15:31,120 --> 01:15:36,080
to explain my own
transformative experience.

1498
01:15:36,120 --> 01:15:38,760
How do I reconcile this?

1499
01:15:38,800 --> 01:15:40,080
- That's a hard one,
I don't know.

1500
01:15:40,120 --> 01:15:41,480
I mean, I think our assumption,

1501
01:15:41,520 --> 01:15:42,960
our default in science is often,

1502
01:15:43,000 --> 01:15:44,559
"Oh, we want to know whether

1503
01:15:44,600 --> 01:15:46,160
or not mindfulness
meditation works."

1504
01:15:46,200 --> 01:15:47,639
Let's hook the person
that's doing the meditation

1505
01:15:47,680 --> 01:15:49,400
up to every possible
thing we can think of

1506
01:15:49,440 --> 01:15:52,440
and it may be that the effects

1507
01:15:52,480 --> 01:15:54,240
are on the person as a whole

1508
01:15:54,280 --> 01:15:56,559
and that you may
have best observe those

1509
01:15:56,600 --> 01:15:58,200
in that person's life.

1510
01:15:58,240 --> 01:16:00,440
So the really cool studies
that I've seen have looked

1511
01:16:00,480 --> 01:16:03,600
at cases where they
randomised therapists

1512
01:16:03,639 --> 01:16:06,400
in training to either get
Zen meditation practice

1513
01:16:06,440 --> 01:16:08,120
or just relaxation.

1514
01:16:08,160 --> 01:16:10,639
So they taught the therapist
either to be more present

1515
01:16:10,680 --> 01:16:12,360
and more mindful

1516
01:16:12,400 --> 01:16:15,240
or just to relax and they
then looked at the clients

1517
01:16:15,280 --> 01:16:17,400
and what they found
in this study is that

1518
01:16:17,440 --> 01:16:21,520
the clients of the therapists
who got Zen training

1519
01:16:21,559 --> 01:16:24,960
got better faster and
stayed better longer.

1520
01:16:25,000 --> 01:16:27,200
And so I think for me,

1521
01:16:27,240 --> 01:16:29,240
we really need to
think carefully

1522
01:16:29,280 --> 01:16:31,280
about where are we
looking for the effects?

1523
01:16:31,320 --> 01:16:32,760
Where would we notice this?

1524
01:16:32,800 --> 01:16:34,600
If this is working, where
would we observe it?

1525
01:16:34,639 --> 01:16:37,880
And it might not necessarily
always be biology.

1526
01:16:45,400 --> 01:16:48,080
- [Shannon voiceover] Experiment
notes.

1527
01:16:48,120 --> 01:16:50,320
I'm now only starting to realise

1528
01:16:50,360 --> 01:16:54,639
what the last 283 days
have been about.

1529
01:16:54,680 --> 01:16:57,680
When I sat down to
meditate on day one,

1530
01:16:57,719 --> 01:17:00,760
I thought I was making a
film about getting happier.

1531
01:17:00,800 --> 01:17:04,480
But I've actually been
learning how to suffer.

1532
01:17:04,520 --> 01:17:07,440
I call this being
discomfortable,

1533
01:17:07,480 --> 01:17:11,600
comfortable with all of
life's inevitable discomfort.

1534
01:17:11,639 --> 01:17:13,440
I'm also coming to
terms with the fact

1535
01:17:13,480 --> 01:17:16,200
that I might not find any
black and white answers

1536
01:17:16,240 --> 01:17:18,680
and that the scientific
process is actually made up

1537
01:17:18,719 --> 01:17:20,680
of shades of grey.

1538
01:17:20,719 --> 01:17:22,680
I guess, I'm no longer
under any illusion

1539
01:17:22,719 --> 01:17:25,440
that my experiment alone
can possibly answer

1540
01:17:25,480 --> 01:17:27,639
my starting question.

1541
01:17:27,680 --> 01:17:29,840
Could mindfulness be
part of the solution

1542
01:17:29,880 --> 01:17:32,440
for the mental health epidemic?

1543
01:17:32,480 --> 01:17:36,480
Can it really ease the
suffering of anyone, anywhere,

1544
01:17:36,520 --> 01:17:39,120
in any circumstances?

1545
01:17:39,160 --> 01:17:42,639
As an educated white woman,
living in a peaceful country,

1546
01:17:42,680 --> 01:17:44,880
I don't know.

1547
01:17:44,920 --> 01:17:46,840
I've received a film
grant that allows me

1548
01:17:46,880 --> 01:17:50,600
to make one final trip
before the project finishes.

1549
01:17:50,639 --> 01:17:53,240
And while there are examples
of mindfulness being used

1550
01:17:53,280 --> 01:17:57,360
to help people in situations
far worse than my own,

1551
01:17:57,400 --> 01:18:01,559
in prisons, in disadvantaged
schools and communities,

1552
01:18:01,600 --> 01:18:04,760
my attention has been
drawn to the Middle East

1553
01:18:04,800 --> 01:18:08,760
and to the front line of the
global humanitarian crisis

1554
01:18:08,800 --> 01:18:12,040
that has caused more people
to be displaced by conflict

1555
01:18:12,080 --> 01:18:14,160
than after World War II.

1556
01:18:14,200 --> 01:18:17,680
If there was ever a place to
put mindfulness to the test,

1557
01:18:18,559 --> 01:18:20,680
this would be it.

1558
01:18:38,960 --> 01:18:43,760
- [Shannon] I am currently in
the Za'atari refugee camp

1559
01:18:45,280 --> 01:18:48,080
which is one of the largest
refugee camps in the world.

1560
01:18:50,600 --> 01:18:55,559
And it's really one thing to
read about places like this

1561
01:18:55,600 --> 01:18:59,360
on the Internet and to see
the images on the television,

1562
01:18:59,400 --> 01:19:01,559
but it is a completely
different thing

1563
01:19:01,600 --> 01:19:03,559
to actually come here
and see this for myself

1564
01:19:03,600 --> 01:19:06,960
and to meet the people

1565
01:19:07,000 --> 01:19:08,960
who now call this place home.

1566
01:19:35,280 --> 01:19:39,240
- [Shannon] When I met
Om Hamze today,

1567
01:19:39,280 --> 01:19:42,559
she is the single
mother of six children.

1568
01:19:42,600 --> 01:19:45,440
She told me that this is home

1569
01:19:45,480 --> 01:19:47,800
because there is no home
for her to go home to.

1570
01:19:49,040 --> 01:19:49,800
I really,

1571
01:19:51,160 --> 01:19:54,840
I can't see how
teaching meditation

1572
01:19:56,360 --> 01:19:58,920
is actually going to
change anything.

1573
01:20:02,200 --> 01:20:05,680
- There's no doubt that when
you have tens of millions

1574
01:20:05,719 --> 01:20:07,320
or even millions or even
hundreds of thousands of people

1575
01:20:07,360 --> 01:20:08,960
that are forcibly displaced,

1576
01:20:09,000 --> 01:20:13,120
there are governmental and
non-governmental organisations

1577
01:20:13,160 --> 01:20:17,760
that leap in to provide
assistance and care

1578
01:20:17,800 --> 01:20:19,480
and they have to deal with
all sorts of things like,

1579
01:20:19,520 --> 01:20:23,200
you know, housing, food, water

1580
01:20:23,240 --> 01:20:27,000
and later education,
all sorts of legal

1581
01:20:27,040 --> 01:20:29,920
and immigration, residency
issues and status.

1582
01:20:29,960 --> 01:20:31,920
And those things are really
important, there's no doubt,

1583
01:20:31,960 --> 01:20:35,000
they're critical but then,
you have those same hundreds

1584
01:20:35,040 --> 01:20:38,440
of thousands of people who
endured unimaginable pain

1585
01:20:38,480 --> 01:20:41,719
and experience of trauma
and ongoing chronic stress

1586
01:20:41,760 --> 01:20:45,320
of uncertainty about
what this means

1587
01:20:45,360 --> 01:20:47,680
and we can't see those scars.

1588
01:20:47,719 --> 01:20:52,600
And in terms of access
to mental health care,

1589
01:20:52,639 --> 01:20:56,680
it's just a tiny, tiny
fraction of the millions

1590
01:20:56,719 --> 01:20:58,680
who need care receive any care

1591
01:20:58,719 --> 01:21:00,800
and among those that
receive some care,

1592
01:21:00,840 --> 01:21:02,559
the truth is we don't
have a good understanding

1593
01:21:02,600 --> 01:21:04,160
of what they need.

1594
01:21:05,200 --> 01:21:08,800
- [Jim Gordon] So what happens
is people are living

1595
01:21:08,840 --> 01:21:10,080
with all this anger,

1596
01:21:10,120 --> 01:21:14,240
all this fear, all this
worry about the future

1597
01:21:14,280 --> 01:21:19,240
and if you wait these
patterns of extreme stress

1598
01:21:19,280 --> 01:21:23,680
become fixed, fixed in
physiology and biology,

1599
01:21:23,719 --> 01:21:27,400
fixed psychologically,
people's fear and anxiety

1600
01:21:27,440 --> 01:21:30,320
and depression,
fixed in behaviour.

1601
01:21:30,360 --> 01:21:32,960
So the best time to
work with people

1602
01:21:33,000 --> 01:21:35,639
is when the trauma is
actually happening.

1603
01:21:41,400 --> 01:21:43,760
- [Shannon voiceover] Experiment
notes, day 328.

1604
01:21:45,440 --> 01:21:49,120
There are over 75,000
people in the Za'atari camp

1605
01:21:49,160 --> 01:21:51,040
and 70 million displaced people

1606
01:21:51,080 --> 01:21:53,280
in similar situations worldwide.

1607
01:21:55,680 --> 01:21:57,719
What I just can't get
out of my head

1608
01:21:57,760 --> 01:22:01,559
is that only a tiny
minority are even in camps

1609
01:22:01,600 --> 01:22:05,440
and being supported by
organisations like the UNHCR.

1610
01:22:08,160 --> 01:22:09,520
Across the border in Israel,

1611
01:22:09,559 --> 01:22:12,559
in the ghettos
of South Tel Aviv,

1612
01:22:12,600 --> 01:22:14,480
there are thousands
of asylum seekers

1613
01:22:14,520 --> 01:22:16,400
with the highest
rates of trauma

1614
01:22:16,440 --> 01:22:18,559
and other mental health issues

1615
01:22:18,600 --> 01:22:21,480
ever recorded in a
community sample.

1616
01:22:22,680 --> 01:22:25,400
In the face of all of this,

1617
01:22:25,440 --> 01:22:28,960
how can mindfulness
possibly be anything more

1618
01:22:29,000 --> 01:22:30,960
than just a band-aid solution

1619
01:22:31,000 --> 01:22:34,200
for people who are
bleeding out on the inside?

1620
01:22:34,240 --> 01:22:36,559
I found a team of researchers

1621
01:22:36,600 --> 01:22:38,200
from the University of Haifa

1622
01:22:38,240 --> 01:22:40,080
who are asking the
same question.

1623
01:22:41,800 --> 01:22:43,760
What makes you think that
mindfulness could help?

1624
01:22:46,160 --> 01:22:47,920
- So it's a good,
it's a fair question.

1625
01:22:47,960 --> 01:22:50,320
Here in Israel, we've
been studying the refugees

1626
01:22:50,360 --> 01:22:53,800
that have come here,
asylum seekers from Eritrea

1627
01:22:53,840 --> 01:22:56,639
and from Sudan mostly.

1628
01:22:56,680 --> 01:22:59,080
And when we began,

1629
01:22:59,120 --> 01:23:02,080
we needed to identify
intervention approaches,

1630
01:23:03,480 --> 01:23:06,520
that there's evidence already,

1631
01:23:06,559 --> 01:23:08,960
that they're effective
for stress-related

1632
01:23:09,000 --> 01:23:11,240
and trauma-related symptoms,

1633
01:23:11,280 --> 01:23:13,240
that are low cost.

1634
01:23:13,280 --> 01:23:14,719
You have to be
able to deliver them

1635
01:23:14,760 --> 01:23:16,840
by like people in the
community, paraprofessionals.

1636
01:23:16,880 --> 01:23:19,360
You can't have a psychiatrist,

1637
01:23:19,400 --> 01:23:22,200
one or two or three or even
twenty treating a hundred

1638
01:23:22,240 --> 01:23:25,719
and fifty thousand
refugees in a refugee camp.

1639
01:23:25,760 --> 01:23:27,639
You can't do that.

1640
01:23:27,680 --> 01:23:31,760
And mindfulness
interventions, not a panacea.

1641
01:23:31,800 --> 01:23:36,440
But meet each and every
one of those criteria

1642
01:23:36,480 --> 01:23:40,000
and so we had a number
of good reasons to think

1643
01:23:40,040 --> 01:23:43,040
that it could actually work.

1644
01:23:46,280 --> 01:23:50,440
- My name is Mogos and I was
born in Dekemhare, Eritrea.

1645
01:23:50,480 --> 01:23:55,840
I left in 2009. The political
situation of Eritrea

1646
01:23:55,880 --> 01:24:00,440
it's one party, one president
almost for 28 years.

1647
01:24:01,440 --> 01:24:04,360
And there is no election.

1648
01:24:04,400 --> 01:24:05,960
There is no free press.

1649
01:24:06,000 --> 01:24:07,680
Your future is very dark

1650
01:24:07,719 --> 01:24:11,120
because you are
like their property.

1651
01:24:11,160 --> 01:24:12,719
You are not safe.

1652
01:24:12,760 --> 01:24:14,800
- So you left?
- Yeah.

1653
01:24:20,800 --> 01:24:22,840
There was someone, a smuggler,
it's all the same.

1654
01:24:22,880 --> 01:24:24,639
We paid him money.

1655
01:24:24,680 --> 01:24:26,320
They treat you very badly.

1656
01:24:26,360 --> 01:24:28,440
They only care about the money.

1657
01:24:28,480 --> 01:24:30,840
It's not that they
care about you.

1658
01:24:30,880 --> 01:24:34,559
For example, on the desert
you don't have water.

1659
01:24:34,600 --> 01:24:37,360
They put some
petrol into the water.

1660
01:24:37,400 --> 01:24:40,240
In order, not you to drink.

1661
01:24:40,280 --> 01:24:45,080
And everyone is screaming,
crying, vomiting

1662
01:24:46,480 --> 01:24:48,559
and most of it I
tried to forget it

1663
01:24:48,600 --> 01:24:50,680
because it's very bad memories.

1664
01:24:51,760 --> 01:24:53,719
But sometimes,

1665
01:24:53,760 --> 01:24:55,960
on the border

1666
01:24:56,000 --> 01:24:58,600
and on the Gulf.

1667
01:24:58,639 --> 01:25:01,400
And the Suez Gulf, I
remember it sometimes

1668
01:25:01,440 --> 01:25:04,240
because it was very
hard on the the sea.

1669
01:25:05,480 --> 01:25:07,200
So I remember it sometimes.

1670
01:25:09,680 --> 01:25:13,400
- [Amit Bernstein] Up to 70 or
80 percent of a given
East African population

1671
01:25:13,440 --> 01:25:17,000
in Israel has either survived
torture or witnessed torture.

1672
01:25:17,040 --> 01:25:19,440
Half of the population
has either suffered

1673
01:25:19,480 --> 01:25:21,559
or witnessed sexual
assault for example.

1674
01:25:21,600 --> 01:25:24,000
It's extraordinary high numbers.

1675
01:25:24,040 --> 01:25:25,520
In some of our samples,

1676
01:25:25,559 --> 01:25:28,719
these are community samples
not treatment seekers.

1677
01:25:28,760 --> 01:25:30,760
We're talking about rates of
post-traumatic stress symptoms,

1678
01:25:30,800 --> 01:25:34,600
elevated symptoms between
like 55 to 80 percent

1679
01:25:34,639 --> 01:25:38,840
and the consequences for them
in anxiety and depression,

1680
01:25:38,880 --> 01:25:41,240
not to mention the
consequences for generations

1681
01:25:41,280 --> 01:25:44,960
of that kind of damage to
human psyches, so yeah,

1682
01:25:45,000 --> 01:25:47,880
we have to act now.

1683
01:25:47,920 --> 01:25:51,400
- Things like psychological
stress, trauma, abuse

1684
01:25:51,440 --> 01:25:55,559
will actually not just change
us in terms of the brain

1685
01:25:55,600 --> 01:25:59,000
but will actually change the
way our DNA expresses itself.

1686
01:25:59,040 --> 01:26:01,680
So for example,
Holocaust survivors

1687
01:26:01,719 --> 01:26:06,400
and in very precise ways the
experience of that trauma

1688
01:26:06,440 --> 01:26:08,880
changes the DNA in ways that
are different for people

1689
01:26:08,920 --> 01:26:12,240
who experience, say child
abuse or other forms of trauma,

1690
01:26:12,280 --> 01:26:15,520
but those changes are
passed on directly

1691
01:26:15,559 --> 01:26:17,960
through the DNA not just
through the brain change

1692
01:26:18,000 --> 01:26:20,639
but through the DNA
into the offspring

1693
01:26:20,680 --> 01:26:23,920
leaving them more at risk
of mental health problems.

1694
01:26:23,960 --> 01:26:26,960
So it's not just about
helping somebody now.

1695
01:26:27,000 --> 01:26:29,080
Everything we do to
help somebody now

1696
01:26:29,120 --> 01:26:31,200
is also an investment
in the wellbeing

1697
01:26:31,240 --> 01:26:35,000
of future generations or when
we traumatise somebody now,

1698
01:26:35,040 --> 01:26:37,120
it's not just that
person that suffers,

1699
01:26:37,160 --> 01:26:38,520
it's the offspring as well.

1700
01:26:40,880 --> 01:26:43,920
- So yeah, we developed
what we're describing now

1701
01:26:43,960 --> 01:26:47,080
as a mindful trauma
recovery intervention

1702
01:26:47,120 --> 01:26:49,040
or program for refugees.

1703
01:26:49,080 --> 01:26:53,800
And we are now in the midst
of a randomised control study

1704
01:26:53,840 --> 01:26:55,760
of that intervention.

1705
01:27:00,760 --> 01:27:04,680
- Refugees here, we're
facing a lot of problems,

1706
01:27:04,719 --> 01:27:07,480
especially with the deportation.

1707
01:27:08,600 --> 01:27:10,639
It is the mind
that gets me crazy,

1708
01:27:10,680 --> 01:27:12,200
that gets me to be depressed

1709
01:27:12,240 --> 01:27:14,360
because all the time
think, think, thinking,

1710
01:27:14,400 --> 01:27:15,680
I'm addicted to it.

1711
01:27:15,719 --> 01:27:17,320
I don't know how to stop it.

1712
01:27:17,360 --> 01:27:18,880
When I stop it, I got peace.

1713
01:27:18,920 --> 01:27:21,440
When I not know how to stop it,

1714
01:27:21,480 --> 01:27:23,719
I got crazy or I get depressed.

1715
01:27:24,920 --> 01:27:27,680
It's like after you meditate,

1716
01:27:27,719 --> 01:27:29,639
you become like new person.

1717
01:27:29,680 --> 01:27:32,800
You start to ask
yourself, is that me,

1718
01:27:32,840 --> 01:27:34,800
that I'm walking on the street

1719
01:27:34,840 --> 01:27:37,800
like I had no problem.

1720
01:27:37,840 --> 01:27:39,760
And then after so many
hours so you get back,

1721
01:27:39,800 --> 01:27:42,600
where you have been,
it's obvious. But for some

1722
01:27:42,639 --> 01:27:46,440
more minutes, you become
someone very new.

1723
01:27:46,480 --> 01:27:48,320
I hope so, it
will be distributed

1724
01:27:48,360 --> 01:27:52,080
to all of the people and then to

1725
01:27:52,120 --> 01:27:56,800
become part of
the refugee system.

1726
01:28:01,400 --> 01:28:04,559
- So our first groups have
finished the intervention

1727
01:28:04,600 --> 01:28:07,200
and the feedback has
been pretty amazing.

1728
01:28:08,600 --> 01:28:12,120
People, men and women,
saying things like,

1729
01:28:12,160 --> 01:28:17,080
I relate to my experience
in a totally new way.

1730
01:28:17,120 --> 01:28:19,400
I didn't know
I was on autopilot.

1731
01:28:21,639 --> 01:28:24,639
And the preliminary
data is promising.

1732
01:28:24,680 --> 01:28:29,240
Compared to controls, we're
seeing an almost 50 percent drop

1733
01:28:29,280 --> 01:28:30,920
in stress and
trauma-related symptoms

1734
01:28:30,960 --> 01:28:32,920
after the nine
week intervention,

1735
01:28:32,960 --> 01:28:37,400
which means that it looks
like this intervention works,

1736
01:28:37,440 --> 01:28:38,880
for even the most vulnerable

1737
01:28:38,920 --> 01:28:41,600
and traumatised
people on the planet.

1738
01:28:41,639 --> 01:28:43,680
It's pretty amazing, it's
pretty amazing.

1739
01:28:45,000 --> 01:28:46,760
- [Shannon] This is incredible
for me, I have to say

1740
01:28:46,800 --> 01:28:49,760
because like you've
got so many worries

1741
01:28:49,800 --> 01:28:52,440
like meditation is
almost like a luxury.

1742
01:28:52,480 --> 01:28:53,800
- It's like a medicine for me.

1743
01:28:53,840 --> 01:28:55,840
Maybe a luxury for you,
it's like a medicine for me.

1744
01:28:55,880 --> 01:28:59,840
It's a different way of
interpretation for it.

1745
01:28:59,880 --> 01:29:02,760
I use it like a medicine.

1746
01:29:05,600 --> 01:29:08,719
♪ We could be the healing

1747
01:29:08,760 --> 01:29:11,120
♪ When you're
feeling all alone ♪

1748
01:29:11,160 --> 01:29:14,240
♪ We could be the reason

1749
01:29:14,280 --> 01:29:17,160
♪ To find the strength
to carry on ♪

1750
01:29:17,200 --> 01:29:20,160
♪ In the world
that's so divided ♪

1751
01:29:20,200 --> 01:29:22,320
♪ We shall overcome

1752
01:29:22,360 --> 01:29:25,360
♪ We can be the healing

1753
01:29:25,400 --> 01:29:27,920
♪ We can be the
flower in the gun ♪

1754
01:29:27,960 --> 01:29:30,960
♪ We can be the healing

1755
01:29:31,000 --> 01:29:34,360
♪ We can be the
flower in the gun ♪

1756
01:29:44,160 --> 01:29:49,040
- [Shannon] That's it, the
last EEG for the whole project.

1757
01:29:49,080 --> 01:29:50,080
We're done.

1758
01:29:51,480 --> 01:29:53,800
I don't know if these
little nodules

1759
01:29:53,840 --> 01:29:56,600
sitting on top of
my skull are able

1760
01:29:56,639 --> 01:29:59,320
to actually measure
those changes,

1761
01:29:59,360 --> 01:30:00,520
but I can tell you that

1762
01:30:01,680 --> 01:30:04,760
my experience is
different, yeah.

1763
01:30:10,280 --> 01:30:13,120
After more than
100 scientific tests,

1764
01:30:13,160 --> 01:30:17,960
365 days and 453 hours
of meditation practice,

1765
01:30:19,680 --> 01:30:23,880
I now know the results of my
year long self-experiment.

1766
01:30:23,920 --> 01:30:28,120
Using an EEG, we did seven
scans to test my attention

1767
01:30:28,160 --> 01:30:29,719
and working memory.

1768
01:30:29,760 --> 01:30:31,600
Whilst there were clear
differences between

1769
01:30:31,639 --> 01:30:34,559
my resting state and
meditating state,

1770
01:30:34,600 --> 01:30:38,440
there was too much noise in
the data to see any trends.

1771
01:30:38,480 --> 01:30:39,920
My conclusion?

1772
01:30:39,960 --> 01:30:42,160
You just can't meditate
away the impacts

1773
01:30:42,200 --> 01:30:46,360
of things like sleep
deprivation, jet lag or the flu

1774
01:30:46,400 --> 01:30:48,680
but my brain did change.

1775
01:30:48,719 --> 01:30:51,480
The MRI scans showed
structural changes

1776
01:30:51,520 --> 01:30:53,600
in a number of key regions

1777
01:30:53,639 --> 01:30:56,960
including the fact that while
most brains start shrinking

1778
01:30:57,000 --> 01:30:58,960
when we reach out early 20s,

1779
01:30:59,000 --> 01:31:02,240
areas in my brain that
relate to self-awareness,

1780
01:31:02,280 --> 01:31:06,760
memory and dealing with emotions
did the opposite and grew.

1781
01:31:08,320 --> 01:31:12,080
- What is very interesting is
that in the right hippocampus,

1782
01:31:12,120 --> 01:31:17,080
in your brain, there's an
increase in hippocampal volume

1783
01:31:17,120 --> 01:31:19,360
and quite a substantial one.

1784
01:31:19,400 --> 01:31:24,160
The hippocampus is used for
the modulation of emotions.

1785
01:31:24,200 --> 01:31:25,960
And so for instance,

1786
01:31:26,000 --> 01:31:28,440
those people who have depression

1787
01:31:28,480 --> 01:31:30,320
tend to have a
small hippocampus.

1788
01:31:30,360 --> 01:31:32,240
So it's an important structure.

1789
01:31:32,280 --> 01:31:35,840
- In terms of my experience
of what has been changing

1790
01:31:35,880 --> 01:31:38,760
as a result of the
meditation practice,

1791
01:31:38,800 --> 01:31:40,800
it's my emotion regulation.

1792
01:31:40,840 --> 01:31:43,000
So what you're saying is that,

1793
01:31:43,040 --> 01:31:47,040
that subjective experience

1794
01:31:47,080 --> 01:31:49,280
is being reflected there.

1795
01:31:49,320 --> 01:31:50,559
- That's right.
- In my brain.

1796
01:31:50,600 --> 01:31:52,400
- It's consistent with
what we see here.

1797
01:31:54,200 --> 01:31:56,000
- [Shannon voiceover] The
frontier of mindfulness science

1798
01:31:56,040 --> 01:31:58,320
is whether or not doing
something with our mind

1799
01:31:58,360 --> 01:32:01,320
could have downstream
effects throughout our body

1800
01:32:01,360 --> 01:32:03,480
and the answer is yes

1801
01:32:03,520 --> 01:32:05,480
but where and why?

1802
01:32:05,520 --> 01:32:07,480
That's where it
gets interesting.

1803
01:32:07,520 --> 01:32:10,400
My blood tests showed
that my autoimmune disease

1804
01:32:10,440 --> 01:32:13,840
hasn't vanished and
whilst there were trends

1805
01:32:13,880 --> 01:32:18,040
in my immune function,
inflammation and stress markers,

1806
01:32:18,080 --> 01:32:21,600
this experiment didn't occur
in a sterile laboratory.

1807
01:32:21,639 --> 01:32:23,080
The ups and downs of life

1808
01:32:23,120 --> 01:32:25,719
created a lot of
noise in the data.

1809
01:32:27,240 --> 01:32:30,200
At a cellular level when
we looked at my telomeres

1810
01:32:30,240 --> 01:32:33,160
which are the caps
on the end of my DNA,

1811
01:32:33,200 --> 01:32:36,960
the last sample showed
that they may have grown

1812
01:32:37,000 --> 01:32:39,719
which is interesting
because shorter telomeres

1813
01:32:39,760 --> 01:32:42,960
are associated with a
host of chronic illnesses

1814
01:32:43,000 --> 01:32:46,240
and while it's tempting
to sell this as good news,

1815
01:32:46,280 --> 01:32:49,600
we actually used three
different measuring techniques

1816
01:32:49,639 --> 01:32:53,520
on each sample and they all
showed different results,

1817
01:32:53,559 --> 01:32:57,880
which tells me that it's very
early days for this science.

1818
01:32:57,920 --> 01:33:01,240
As for the more than 17,000
genes that were analysed,

1819
01:33:01,280 --> 01:33:03,680
the blueprint of our body
that we often think

1820
01:33:03,719 --> 01:33:06,240
of as fixed and unchangeable.

1821
01:33:06,280 --> 01:33:08,440
Well, maybe it's not.

1822
01:33:09,719 --> 01:33:12,880
- There was something
which came up.

1823
01:33:12,920 --> 01:33:15,920
Out of the seventeen thousand
three hundred or so genes

1824
01:33:15,960 --> 01:33:17,480
that we looked at,

1825
01:33:17,520 --> 01:33:20,080
this was the one that
showed the biggest change.

1826
01:33:20,120 --> 01:33:22,800
The thing which I found
absolutely fascinating

1827
01:33:22,840 --> 01:33:24,920
is that this one happens
to be a master regulator

1828
01:33:24,960 --> 01:33:27,800
of inflammatory processes

1829
01:33:27,840 --> 01:33:29,840
on which you're showing
this greatest change

1830
01:33:29,880 --> 01:33:32,040
throughout your
mindfulness process.

1831
01:33:34,000 --> 01:33:36,000
- That big dip there.

1832
01:33:36,040 --> 01:33:38,800
That's the first sample after
I did the silent retreat.

1833
01:33:38,840 --> 01:33:40,200
- That's correct.

1834
01:33:40,240 --> 01:33:42,600
- And is that, that's
showing that that gene

1835
01:33:42,639 --> 01:33:44,639
is effectively switching off?

1836
01:33:44,680 --> 01:33:46,360
- It's being what we
call down-regulated.

1837
01:33:46,400 --> 01:33:47,719
That's right, it's
being turned down.

1838
01:33:47,760 --> 01:33:49,559
So if I was going to
do another experiment,

1839
01:33:49,600 --> 01:33:51,080
I'd certainly be saying well,

1840
01:33:51,120 --> 01:33:53,480
let's keep a careful
eye on this gene.

1841
01:33:53,520 --> 01:33:55,440
Because it did show some change.

1842
01:33:55,480 --> 01:33:57,000
The change isn't
what we would call

1843
01:33:57,040 --> 01:33:58,639
statistically significant,

1844
01:33:58,680 --> 01:34:00,719
but I think there's an
interesting trend there.

1845
01:34:02,240 --> 01:34:03,880
- [Shannon voiceover] But for
all the objective

1846
01:34:03,920 --> 01:34:06,320
biological markers I've thrown
at this project,

1847
01:34:06,360 --> 01:34:08,960
I now realise there's only
one measurement

1848
01:34:09,000 --> 01:34:10,080
that matters to me,

1849
01:34:11,719 --> 01:34:13,680
how I feel.

1850
01:34:15,400 --> 01:34:17,320
- If your subjective
experience of your life

1851
01:34:17,360 --> 01:34:19,520
is that this is
good for you,

1852
01:34:19,559 --> 01:34:22,240
do you need something,
someone else to tell you,

1853
01:34:22,280 --> 01:34:23,200
"Yes, it's good for you".

1854
01:34:23,240 --> 01:34:24,880
- No, I don't--

1855
01:34:24,920 --> 01:34:26,520
- That's the point of
subjective wellbeing research

1856
01:34:26,559 --> 01:34:29,680
is that it actually, the
subjective is so valid.

1857
01:34:29,719 --> 01:34:32,240
In fact, you could argue
it's the only valid tool.

1858
01:34:32,280 --> 01:34:34,240
If the person themselves

1859
01:34:34,280 --> 01:34:36,080
is having a better
experience of their life,

1860
01:34:36,120 --> 01:34:37,960
well, then that's
actually all we need.

1861
01:34:38,000 --> 01:34:39,680
- [Shannon voiceover] Over the
course of the year,

1862
01:34:39,719 --> 01:34:44,000
my subjective wellbeing
score went from 69.4

1863
01:34:44,040 --> 01:34:47,639
or just below average to 93,

1864
01:34:47,680 --> 01:34:50,160
well above the average
person's happiness

1865
01:34:50,200 --> 01:34:52,719
and wellbeing set point.

1866
01:34:54,880 --> 01:34:58,040
As I head out of the lab
and into the real world,

1867
01:34:58,080 --> 01:35:01,320
I can't help but wonder how
different my life would be

1868
01:35:01,360 --> 01:35:04,639
if I'd been taught this
skill at a much younger age.

1869
01:35:06,200 --> 01:35:08,840
And what the impact would be
for my children's generation

1870
01:35:08,880 --> 01:35:12,800
on things like education,
healthcare and politics

1871
01:35:12,840 --> 01:35:17,639
if more people learned to notice
deeply and respond wisely.

1872
01:35:19,240 --> 01:35:21,920
Now, I don't think
for one second

1873
01:35:21,960 --> 01:35:25,400
that mindfulness will solve
all of the world's problems,

1874
01:35:25,440 --> 01:35:27,480
but it is a simple skill

1875
01:35:27,520 --> 01:35:31,160
that helps us to understand
how our minds work

1876
01:35:32,280 --> 01:35:34,880
and that changes everything.

1877
01:35:39,639 --> 01:35:41,600
I started this
looking for something

1878
01:35:41,639 --> 01:35:44,480
that I could do
every day to protect,

1879
01:35:44,520 --> 01:35:47,680
nurture and nourish my mind.

1880
01:35:47,719 --> 01:35:50,800
It's now day 543 of
what was supposed

1881
01:35:50,840 --> 01:35:53,680
to be a year-long experiment,

1882
01:35:53,719 --> 01:35:55,559
but I don't think of
this as my year

1883
01:35:55,600 --> 01:35:57,960
of living mindfully anymore.

1884
01:35:58,000 --> 01:36:01,960
It's simply living mindfully,
every day,

1885
01:36:02,000 --> 01:36:04,040
for the rest of my life.

1886
01:36:09,000 --> 01:36:14,000
♪