How To Become A Power User Of Your Brain: Part 2

Image courtesy of ThreadingWater

Silencing incessant mental chatter (or ‘mind chatter’ in short) is similar to the way we make darkness disappear in a dark room. We can dispel the darkness with light. Likewise, we can silence mental chatter with mindfulness and concentration. When we turn on the light, the darkness disappears. Similarly, when we turn on mindfulness (means being mindful) and concentrate our mind on a chosen object (for example, mental or physical experiences or an activity we wish to focus our attention on such as eating, walking, solving a problem), mental chatter loses its force and becomes silenced. In order to achieve that, our mindfulness should be sensitive enough to immediately notice when the mental chatter occurs (or is about to occur) and our concentration should be strong enough to hold our mind on the object without being distracted (and the force of our concentration should be stronger than the force of the mental chatter).

Both mindfulness and concentration are built-in abilities of our brain. Mindfulness is the faculty of our mind that can detect mental chatter as well as perceiving other mental and physical experiences. For example, if you are aware of reading while reading this article, that awareness is an example of mindfulness. If an unrelated thought or other incessant chatter occurred in your mind while reading this article and you were aware of the mental chatter, that awareness is another example of mindfulness. Concentration is a faculty of the mind that focuses one’s attention single pointedly on a chosen object or directs one’s mind to a chosen object without any distraction for a period of time. Concentration is the force that allows our mind to remain on a chosen object. Both mindfulness and concentration are working together as a team to silence mental chatter. Mindfulness alerts our mind when mental chatter arises (or when it is about to arise) or a focus is lost, so that our mind can re-enforce the focus to prevent from being distracted or bring our mind back to the object if a focus is already lost.

If our mindfulness and concentration are weak, our mind won’t be able to notice when mental chatter arises and has no power to hold attention on a chosen object. Incessant mental chatter would easily steal our attention away and fill our brain with mental chatter. Hence, we can not silence the mental chatter when mindfulness and concentration are weak. If our mindfulness is weak and concentration is strong, we do not know when mental chatter arises or even when our mind is focused on the mental chatter itself instead of a chosen object. Thus, concentration alone can not silence mental chatter.

Let’s assume that our mindfulness is strong but concentration is weak even though it is unlikely or impossible. Then our mind will detect whenever mental chatter arises but our mind has no power to hold our attention to a chosen object. As a result, forceful mental chatter could steal away our attention. So, mindfulness alone can not silence the mental chatter. When both mindfulness and concentration are strong, our mind will know when mental chatter arises and our mind has power to hold the attention on a chosen object. When mental chatter occurs or about to occur, mindfulness will notice it. This awareness alone can weaken the force of the mental chatter, as a result the mental chatter may go away naturally. The sooner our mindfulness notices, the more likely the mental chatter will go away. Despite the obstacle, the mental chatter may still arise and try to steal the focus by force. If the mental chatter is not strong enough, the attempt is unlikely to succeed and disappear naturally. The stronger our concentration is, the less likely the mental chatter successfully steals the focus. If the mental chatter successfully steals the focus, mindfulness alerts our mind to re-focus. When we refocus, the mental chatter loses its force and disappears. The process is almost automatic. As a result, our mind can remain focused on the object without mental chatter when mindfulness and concentration are strong, especially when the force of concentration is stronger than the force of mental chatter. (If we want mental chatter to arise instead of be silenced, we can do so by intentionally shifting our focus from the chosen object to the mental chatter.)

The working relationship of mindfulness and concentration is somewhat comparable to vestibular system and muscles in our body. The vestibular system notices balance and movements. Similarly, mindfulness notices when mental chatter arises or a focus is lost. The muscles hold our body upright standing position without falling on the floor. In the same way concentration holds our mind on a chosen object. When we lose balance (or about to lose balance), the vestibular system and the muscles immediately work together to regain the balance. Likewise, when our mind loses a focus (or about to lose a focus), mindfulness and concentration immediately work together to regain the focus. The vestibular system and the muscles allow us to stand upright and maintain the balance. Equally, mindfulness and concentration allow our mind to remain focused without mental chatter. After the learning and development of standing upright skill, we can remain standing upright almost effortlessly. Similarly, after learning and development of mental chatter silencing technique, we can remain focused without mental chatter almost effortlessly.

We can build mindfulness and concentration muscles in our mind with mental training or exercise, just as we build muscles in our body. If you know an effective way to develop mindfulness and concentration, you can use the method, which you are familiar with. However if you do not know an effective way, you can do mindfulness exercise to develop mindfulness and concentration capacities. Mindfulness exercise is a simple mental exercise in which one pays attention on a chosen object and attempts to hold the attention for a period of time. For example, you pay attention on an object (e.g. taste of food while eating) however if your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back to the object. In fact, the mindfulness exercise is traditionally called mindfulness meditation. The mindfulness exercise has been being practiced for two thousand five hundreds years. The effectiveness of mindfulness and concentration in silencing mental chatter has been demonstrated repeatedly. Studies also showed that the brain area responsible for incessant mental chatter becomes inactive when the brain area associated with mindfulness is active in a deep concentrated mental state. In recent years, scientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists also joined the mindfulness exercise. Nowadays we can also learn mindfulness exercise from medical establishment.

You can also perform mindfulness exercise in almost any occasions while doing your activities like watching TV, walking, eating, driving, using a computer. You can also exercise mindfulness just about any places like home, office, school, street, a restaurant, a store.  The mindfulness exercise won’t steal away your attention from your activities but allows you to do the activities mindfully without mental chatter. The more mindful you are, the better decision and better response you probably make in the activities rather than doing things on autopilot with unrelated thoughts and other incessant chatter in your mind.

When we can stand upright, we can walk, run, dance, hike, travel, ski, and play sports instead of being bound to a wheelchair. Likewise when we can silence mental chatter, instead of being bound to a wheelchair of mental chatter, we can finally start to use potentials of our brain that we could not use before.

The part 3 (final) will discuss some advanced topics related to incessant mental chatter.

Sung Yang writes at MeditationGeek.org

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