Mindfulness, Stress, and How Your Brain Actually Works

As humans, we spend our lives thinking, moving, feeling, and communicating. We are creative, compassionate, and surprising creatures with unique personalities, relationships, and inner lives. Over many years, each of us makes billions of voluntary and involuntary choices that, counted together, ultimately comprise our lives. But most of the time, we don’t stop to consider, for even a moment, how it all happens. 

Enter: the brain. It is estimated that the human brain contains nearly 90 billion neurons, each forming thousands of connections, resulting in approximately 100 trillion synapses. Given such intricacy, even scientists admit that many things about the brain remain a complete mystery. Still, we discover more every day— and thanks to recent scientific advances, we have come to appreciate the deep connection between mindfulness practice and the brain. This knowledge offers new insights into our own minds and bodies and helps us better understand humans’ actions and reactions.

So, how does the brain really work? And where does mindfulness come into play?

The Parts of the Brain

Though the brain is complex, we can break it down into three main parts. These components are critical to how we interpret strong emotions and manage stress. 

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is at the front of your head. This part is responsible for executive functions, such as reasoning, making decisions, planning ahead, and complex thought. This is the part of the brain that develops last, not maturing fully until your mid-20’s. 

The hippocampus resides in the center of the brain and is responsible for encoding and storing memories and other information.

Finally, there is the amygdala: this tiny part of the brain has a big role, helping us to detect danger and prepare us for action. This is why our instructors often refer to it as the “watchdog.” When the amygdala activates, our thoughts and memories go “offline,” and our emotions come to the forefront, clouding our reasoning skills. In truly dangerous situations, this part of the brain is highly useful.

Your Autonomic Nervous System

Now that we understand the basics, let’s dive a little deeper. The Automatic Nervous System (ANS) controls our bodily functions that happen automatically, like digestion, heart rate, and breathing. It is divided into two parts: the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS).

The SNS takes on a protective role. When you sense a threat, the amygdala activates, and it tells the SNS to flood your body with stress hormones, preparing you to freeze, fight for your life, or bolt. As it continues working, heart rate increases, muscles begin to twitch, and any nonessential tasks, like the functioning of your prefrontal cortex or digestive system, temporarily cease.

The SNS, however, reacts the same whether the “danger” you face is life-threatening or simply an uncomfortable part of everyday life — like a job interview or a public speaking engagement. Either way, the amygdala sends distress signals, and the very same hormones are released. Your heart rate increases, and your body tenses.

On the other hand, the PNS takes charge of returning the body to a balanced state. It ensures that all your systems, including the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, are working normally. The PNS is activated by the vagus nerve, the longest nerve in your body. It stretches all the way from your brainstem to your abdomen. When your PNS regulates your body back to normal after a stressful event, your heart rate slows down, your breathing becomes level, and your muscles return to a relaxed state. 

But if the PNS never activates, our bodies never get the opportunity to return to balance and relaxation. Over time, this state of stress becomes our new normal and can lead to disease, cognitive impairment, depression, and other mental health issues.

How Does Mindfulness Help?

The amygdala—and the entire SNS—are essential. But while they work hard to protect us from danger… they don’t always get it right. They can overreact when we’re faced with situations that may be challenging emotionally but are far from life-threatening. As a result, it is possible to become stuck in “fight or flight” mode for long stretches of time. To become unstuck, we need to activate our PNS and regain control of our entire Autonomic Nervous System.

The key is mindfulness.

When we practice mindfulness, we cultivate present-moment awareness of our thoughts and feelings, including stress. Newly present, aware, and faced directly with our emotions, we can then take steps in the right direction to employ strategies that activate the vagus nerve. This might look like deep breathing or intentional, mindful movement.

Once activated, the vagus nerve triggers different hormones that counteract our stress and help calm us down, putting us in a better position to respond, rather than merely react. Consequently, the stress response is weakened and, ideally, the stress cycle ends altogether. Mindfulness practice also helps to strengthen both the PFC and hippocampus, reducing the reactivity of the amygdala in the first place.

Putting Theory into Practice

Each year, May marks Mental Health Awareness Month. As an organization dedicated to building community wellbeing through mindfulness, Shanthi Project puts mental health at the forefront of our mission. Since our founding, we have recognized the importance of robust mental health in creating healthy, vibrant, and resilient communities.

Through teaching mindfulness strategies to adults and children alike, we give our community members the skills to regulate their nervous systems. Practices that we bring to classrooms, workplaces, and community centers empower individuals to activate their vagus nerves, calm their bodies, and find peace in their day-to-day lives.

Mental Health Awareness Month offers an opportunity to and reflect. How do we prioritize wellbeing in our lives? Are we sitting back, allowing our amygdala to take the lead… or are we slowing down, pausing, and practicing the mindfulness skills that help our complex, one-of-a-kind brains thrive?