Mindfulness Meditation—When the Cortical Brain Overrides the Midbrain and Activates the Limbic Brain for Positive Emotions

Our brain has three parts—midbrain, limbic brain, and cortical brain. They have developed evolutionarily, each being a seat of a different set of neurophysiological responses. Mindfulness meditation helps override the midbrain and activate the limbic brain for elevated emotions.  

The midbrain (the reptilian brain)—the seat of our stress response 

The human brain is a very fascinating, three-pound, soft, jello-like organ inside the skull, which is more complicated than anything else in the universe. We have three parts to our brain. The first part of the brain is called the midbrain. It's also called the reptilian brain. The reptilian brain evolved 300 million years ago. The reason it's called the reptilian brain is that when you go next to a reptile and you either make a sudden movement or a sudden noise—if you're very close—the reptile will attack you. If you're a little further away, it will slither away.  

This is the beginning of what we call the fight-or-flight response, and this then becomes, in our society, the stress response. You're not trying to save yourself from a saber-toothed tiger, but somebody blows the horn at you or somebody says something that triggers, and all the hurt pushes your buttons and you attack or you run. And sometimes you're not attacking or running, but you feel frustrated, and that raises your blood pressure. Heart rate goes up. Cortisol goes up. Adrenaline goes up.  

Stress is linked to almost every major epidemic of civilization. Whether it is cancer heart disease infections premature aging, or sudden death from cardiovascular illness, all are linked to stress. And this is what the stress is, the midbrain reacting as it has done for 300 million years.  

The limbic brain (the emotional brain)—the seat of our self-regulation and self-repair mechanisms 

The second part of your brain is called the limbic brain, which is about 100 million years old. This is our emotional brain. So we have five emotions, and everything else is a variant of them. The first emotion is happiness—love, compassion, kindness. They all fit in happiness. It makes you happy when you're in love. The second emotion is sadness. The third is anger and hostility. The fourth is fear. The fifth is shame, and what do you call— guilt? And every other emotion—disgust, jealousy— is a variant of these.  

Reptiles don't have an emotional life. But all mammals form social groups. All mammals nurture their young. Believe it or not, all mammals sing. All mammals play, and this is the experience of what we call love, that occurs immediately after a child is born and even in the anticipation of a child. It turns out that our feedback loops, self-repair mechanisms in the body, are matured and come into existence as a result of the experience of love. The child needs attention, affection, appreciation, cooing cuddling, kissing, touching, and the dance between an adult and a child, which is eye movements, facial expressions, body language, and voice tone—a child doesn't understand rational language but understands that language from day one.  

And that is responsible for the maturation of self-repair mechanisms and self-regulation. If you're deprived of that, you will be a sick adult. When you grow up, everything will be affected because self-repair is linked to hormone levels, body temperature regulation, autonomic responses, and everything that keeps the body healthy. That's our limbic brain.  

Most people have dysfunctional limbic systems, in that they're resentful or angry about the past. They're anticipating something fearful in the future. They have shame and guilt about things that they regret that they shouldn't have done. As a result, their biological systems are disrupted. But on the other hand, when you have what the Buddhists call loving-kindness, joy, peace of mind, and compassion—the Buddhists call them divine attributes—in that state, your body is the best it could be.  

The cortical brain—the seat of our rationality 

And then you have this cortical brain, which is huge, and which is only four million years old. The cortical brain houses rationality. It's also responsible for orchestrating intention, and it seems this is the place we use for imagination insight intuition, and creativity.  

The Power of Mindfulness Meditation to regulate the three brains 

Now, here's the secret. In mindfulness, what you can learn to do—and this is proven scientifically—you can override your midbrain. Take, for example, a person like Thich Nhat Hahn—for all practical purposes, his midbrain is no longer functioning. You can't get him to be angry or feel hostility or resentful. He has quieted it through mindfulness practice. And if you sustain that mindfulness practice, you feel so connected to that spontaneously, that your limbic system starts to get activated, so you nurture only healthy emotions, like love, compassion, joy, et cetera, that come from that place of equanimity.  

So you're using your cortical brain to, first of all, override the detrimental, destructive tendencies of the midbrain, which is no longer relevant in modern society, and you're also activating the limbic brain for nurturing relationships. You're rewiring your nervous system. In neuroscience, we say neurons that fire together wire together. You're an intelligent human being who has subdued the reptilian brain, who knows how to activate the limbic brain, who knows how to self-repair and heal, who has more intuition, insight, imagination, creativity, and choice-making. It's a new evolution of the human species.  

Source

~An excerpt from the talk by Deepak Chopra featured in the documentary “Mindfulness—Be Happy Now” (2015)~