Dr. Fadel Zeidan studies the effects of brief sessions of meditation. His research shows positive effects such as increased multitasking abilities and better memory.
Dr. Fadel Zeidan is first in line to research how much a very brief course of meditation can change the way humans react to stimuli.
Zeidan graduated from Richmond Senior High School in 1997, and attended Sandhills Community College for two years where he was heavily influenced by psychology classes. He pursued his Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology, his Graduate Certificate in Cognitive Science, and his Ph. D. in Experimental Health Psychology, all at UNC Charlotte.
Zeidan’s family has been living in Richmond County for 16 years. His father, Dr. Zeidan Fadel Zeidan, practices general surgery in Rockingham. He says his son enjoys the research and being able to work with patients.
The younger Zeidan’s experiments have shown that brief meditation with minimal training can lessen the perception of pain, increase the ability to multitask, recall items in a series and complete tests on a deadline.
His studies involve research subjects who have had very little training in meditation. He uses magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, to capture images of a subject’s brain responding to pain while they meditate.
Zeidan has found through his research that the sensation of pain is linked to an emotion of pain, and that our brain responds to that emotion.
“Meditation doesn’t take the sensation of pain away,” said Zeidan. “It teaches people to cope with the pain. The emotional reaction to pain makes the feeling of pain worse.”
Although many scientific studies have examined meditation, they involve people who have practiced for many years. These people often meditate for hours at a time, and many are prescribed to this through religious practice, such as Buddhist monks. Meditation can be practiced by anyone, for any amount of time, no matter what their religious beliefs are.
Brief meditation can be done by sitting comfortably in a quiet and still room, and focusing on your breathing. You become aware of the subtle changes in your muscles and breathing as your body relaxes and clears your mind. If any disturbances occur in the room or a thought comes to mind, they should be acknowledged, but let go by returning the focus to your breathing.
“You can do this a million times in your practice,” Zeidan said. “Your brain becomes not only aware of its body and mind, it becomes more aware of your environment in a less stressful way.”
He suspects this ‘mindfulness meditation’ curbs pain by teaching the brain to prioritize what’s most important; in this case, the breathing and not the pain.
Zeidan performed a test that asked the subject to learn the next item in a series while remembering the previous item. It gets faster with each correct answer. On average, those who meditated got 10 correct answers in a row. Some tripled their improvement in performance.
“The mindfulness meditation group did significantly better with all the timed tests, which suggests they were better able to sustain their attention more efficiently,” said Zeidan. “Being in control of your emotions will probably help you do better on an attention task.”
This practice could help students succeed in standardized testing, especially at the college-entry level. Zeidan taught mindfulness meditation to fourth- and fifth-graders with emotional disturbances who were heavily medicated. They responded well.
“It helped them deal with and head off emotional meltdowns. It taught them how to cope with their problems,” Zeidan said.
Meditation has been practiced by people around the world, and many cultures have document the benefits of the practice.
“We now have the technology to examine how the meditative state is manifested,” said Zeidan.
He has traveled to the far reaches of northern India to gain a better understanding of the meditation practiced by Buddhist monks, and to partake in the practice himself.
Zeidan has also traveled extensively throughout Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East.
Dawn Kurry can be reached at dkurry@yourdailyjournal.com or by calling 997-3111 ext. 15.
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