Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body

by Daniel Goleman

The moment the plate heated a bit—the cue for pain about to come—the control groups activated regions throughout the brain’s pain matrix as though they were already feeling the intense burn. The reaction to the “as if” pain—technically, “anticipatory anxiety”—was so strong that when the actual burning sensation began, their pain matrix activation became just a bit stronger. And in the ten-second recovery period, right after the heat subsided, that matrix stayed nearly as active—there was no immediate recovery. This sequence of anticipation-reactivity-recovery gives us a window on emotion regulation. For instance, intense worry about something like an upcoming painful medical procedure can in itself cause us anticipatory suffering, just imagining how bad we will feel. And after the real event we can continue to be upset by what we have gone through. In this sense our pain response can start well before and last long after the actual painful moment—exactly the pattern shown by those volunteers in the comparison group.