Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Summary
On episode 608 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Ariel Garten, co-founder of Muse, a consumer neurotechnology and meditation company, and a neuroscientist who has spent years studying meditation's effect on the brain.
Ariel breaks down why meditation is so hard to stick with (it's not about making your mind go blank), what's actually changing in the brain when you practice consistently, and how it helps with everything from stress and sleep to impulse control around food.
They also dig into the Muse headband, a tool that gives real-time feedback on whether you're actually meditating, and the clinical research now happening around it at places like the Mayo Clinic.
Links
- https://choosemuse.com/40plus
Key Takeaways
- Meditation isn't about emptying your mind. It's about changing your relationship to your thoughts, learning to notice a thought or urge, and redirect your attention instead of automatically following it.
- Consistent meditation practice physically changes the brain. It helps maintain the thickness of the prefrontal cortex (responsible for attention, planning, and inhibition) as we age, preserves hippocampal volume (learning and memory), and can increase gray matter density in as little as eight weeks, based on research from Dr. Sara Lazar at Harvard.
- Meditation calms the amygdala, the brain's “lizard brain” threat detector. MRI studies show short-term meditators have less reactive amygdalas, and long-term meditators show an actual decrease in amygdala size, which translates to less chronic stress and better impulse control around cravings.
- Sitting with an urge instead of acting on it retrains the brain. During a meditation session, a craving (like the urge to eat a cookie) will rise and, if you don't follow it, eventually fall away on its own, proving to your brain that urges don't have to control your behavior.
- There's no single right way to meditate. Breath-focused, mantra-based, walking, and body-scan meditation are all valid approaches. Each one uses the same underlying skill: notice when your mind wanders and gently bring it back.
- Common misconceptions cause people to quit early. Your mind doesn't have to go blank, you don't need a special posture, and falling asleep during early sessions is normal, often a sign your body needs more actual sleep.
- Real-time neurofeedback solves the “am I doing this right” problem. The Muse headband reads brainwave and heart rate data and translates it into sound: calm ocean waves when you're focused, birds chirping when you're in the zone, and waves picking up when your mind has wandered, so you know instantly when to bring your attention back.
- Muse is being studied in real clinical settings. Mayo Clinic research found it reduced stress and fatigue in women awaiting breast cancer surgery and cut burnout by 54 percent among ER doctors during the pandemic, with additional studies underway for fibromyalgia, long COVID, and menopause.
- Meditation is also a legitimate pain management tool. Beyond stress relief and better sleep, it's worth exploring as a way to manage chronic pain alongside, or instead of, relying solely on medication.
“You can really learn to turn off those annoying voices in your own head and be able to just focus on what matters to you.”
Ariel Garten
Another Episode You May Enjoy
Episode 632 – Managing your alcohol consumption with Colleen Kachmann
Episode Notes
Podcast: 40+ Fitness
Episode: 608
Published: 2023-09-19
Host: Allan Misner (aka Coach Allan), author of The Wellness Roadmap
Guest(s): Ariel Garten, the co-founder of Muse, a leading consumer neurotechnology and meditation company
Listen & Subscribe: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube (audio only)
