Dr Ekaterina Denkova - Mental Health Strategies for Adaptive Thinking
Jun 19, 2024
Science & Wisdom Live
In this video, Neuroscience Researcher Dr Ekaterina Denkova discusses effective mental health strategies for adaptive thinking. By exploring mental time travel and mindfulness, she reveals how our memories influence our future and the significance of staying present. She delves into the benefits and potential pitfalls of remembering and ruminating, demonstrating how mindfulness can help us break free from maladaptive thought patterns and enhance our well-being.
Join as she explores the dynamic interplay between memory, mindfulness, and brain function to improve mental health.
Science & Wisdom LIVE brings meditation practitioners in conversation with scientists to address the problems of contemporary society and come to new possible solutions.
In this video, Neuroscience Researcher Dr Ekaterina Denkova discusses effective mental health strategies for adaptive thinking. By exploring mental time travel and mindfulness, she reveals how our memories influence our future and the significance of staying present. She delves into the benefits and potential pitfalls of remembering and ruminating, demonstrating how mindfulness can help us break free from maladaptive thought patterns and enhance our well-being.
Join as she explores the dynamic interplay between memory, mindfulness, and brain function to improve mental health.
Science & Wisdom LIVE brings meditation practitioners in conversation with scientists to address the problems of contemporary society and come to new possible solutions.
Welcome to Science and wisdom live, where scientists and meditators meet. Remembering has, has benefits, because basically it tells us who we are there is a continuity from something that is happening to us in the past, and then we are moving forward. And in order to moving forward, using what happened in the past, we can construct potential eventual experiences. Like for instance, for me today, I never presented in a meeting in such a meeting, but based on my experience of prior my prior presentations, I can kind of think about what will happen. And so basically, that's where we are saying, remembering and having memories can be helpful, because it allows us to think about and plan to plan in a constructive way. Or some future scenarios, and choose different scenarios, for instance, or choose which path to take. So that's on the aspect of why that capacity that we have remembering, it's important. And it shares, it's really, that what we're calling mental time travel. So basically, we have that capacity to think about past experiences, as well as to think about potentially future experiences that might happen to us. So from that aspect, is something that it's very, very beneficial for, for all of us to think about. But now there is a moment when, think about past experiences, may not be so fruitful. And that's a little bit of a different category now that I'm talking about. And it's not so much about, I'm not talking about a memory, I'm just talking about the process itself. Sometimes we might be stuck on a given top. Let's say I had an accident this morning. And I go to work and start thinking and thinking about that accident, repetitively, repetitively. And I'm fixating on that. So it's the process itself. Of course, it's something that bad that happened. But what is more destructive distractive to me is that entering in that cycle of repetitive thinking about something negative that happened. And that's where my interest is going. Because yeah, of course, we were able to show remembering is something beneficial, it helps us construct the future. And not only that, we were able to see that the same brain networks, the configuration of the brain is very similar, when we're thinking about any past experiences. And when we are trying to project and think about any future events that might happen to us. So, again, the dynamics of the brain, the strength might be less are more strong in both cases. But the pattern, the configuration is there for both, which means that there is an underlying basic mechanisms in place. And so that's the beneficial aspect. Now, unfortunately, we are human beings. And sometimes we can easily go in that I would call it maladaptive pattern, thinking and repetitively thinking about something, that it's not critical, or it's not what is happening in the current moment in the now. Because we have an activity, we have to do something, let's say, Oh, I have an important paper that I need to submit that day. But that accident for the morning, it's coming and coming and the processes of engaging with it. That's where the maladaptive process This is is happening. And why I'm saying maladaptive is just because at that moment in the now, there is another task that my attention needs to be focused. But instead of that, I'm going in that repetitive or repetitive thinking. And I'm giving the simple example the accident. But I think, in everyday life, we have so many aspects, we had the hard conversation with a friend. And then we continue thinking about that hard conversation, not in a constructive way, not in a way of thinking how we can solve the problem. It's more about ruminating. And that's kind of the scientific ruminating on that idea, or that thought, and being stuck not being able to pull away or go away of that, staying clean that in what is happening in that moment. In that moment, let's say if I'm writing my paper, my paper will not be so great. Or, if you need to engage in an activity, let's say, pay attention for friend that it's next to, you're not really paying attention to the friend next to you or just chill in your thoughts. And that's where the problem is coming. And as I said, it's not about the content, it's not that it was something negative. It's really about the stance that we are taking, or the process that we are engaging with. Because as, as neuroscientists, we have seen that, let's say if people are asked to reflect on their past experiences, through different instruction, either focusing on that emotional feeling like the butterflies in the stomach, the sweaty hands, one hand, so asking them to really to focus on those emotional aspects and getting stuck with them, or asking them to just think about something else, not think about the emotional aspect. But more thinking about the event, when it happened, who was in that event, then we are seeing that they remembering that same memory in a different way, which is for us an indication, memories, they're not static, they're not pictures, the memories, we're constructing them in the now. And that's where it's important. So what we are doing at that moment, and how we are reacting to what is happening in that moment. That's what is important. And so I was saying we can take different stances, and that's what we're seeing. So let's say people who have that capacity, or skill, I will call it skill, that skill to detach themselves and see more than an event from an observer type of perspective and being aware. Yes, this happened. But this is just happening. So that kind of stance, which we are trying also now to examine with brain neuroimaging tools, being cabled to the centre. From that experience. That's a very important aspect. And the centering is also a key component of mindfulness. And so I think that's where the transition is. So there might be people who have that tendency or that skill to the centre. But the key here is how we can cultivate it, so that everyone can do it, and whether that's beneficial. And so that's how we are moving towards something that can be at the moment, let's say individual differences in people who can differently react to different situation. Now, it identify those strategies or those skills, that really helpful. And one of the helpful skills is exactly that. aspect of centering, being able to detach and being aware of that situation of the situation. And so that's where I would say we can go from goal now towards mindfulness and practising practising mindfulness. So here again, I'm a neuroscientist. So I will be talking more from that. I would say, perspective and seeing mindfulness training as a cognitive training, basically, how we can train the brain to process the current moment in a different way. in a beneficial way because what I was referring to rumination and those are tendency that we are trying to figure out how we can cope with them for the reason because people who are engaging in those ruminative thoughts, usually, or typically, they don't feel very well there is a decrease while being decreased resilience. So, what we are trying to do is identify the mechanism and the skill that can be trainable so that we can achieve that change and I told you the brain is dynamic, and it has that capacity neuroplasticity. So, it's the same with us how we can have one skill and then call TV that skill. So, that can it can be helpful and adaptive. And we can react in a very, we can be in a very attentive state to what is happening to us at that present moment.
