A few weeks back I participated in an adults only evening at TELUS World of Science. Amongst the many amazing educational games, such as: stuff yourself in a box...
And, run human run! Make electricity!...
There was also, use your brainwaves to move a little plastic ball.
It was actually really cool. Two people, at opposite ends of each other sit down, with between them, a plastic tube housing a little grey ball. The objective is to have the ball pushed away from you towards the other person. To do this, each person puts their head up agains little electrodes that measure brain activity. The more relaxed the person, the stronger the effect on moving the ball to the other end.
As I stood in the crowd watching the battle underway, the instruction I was given was, "focus" and that will be what does the trick. Well, being a meditator I have a general sense of how relaxation works. And so, simplistically speaking, if the game measures relaxation, then the deeper someone's meditative state, the more relaxed they typically are!
Sitting across from my friend Mark (seen shamelessly trying to stuff himself into a box earlier in this post), he noted his approach would be to focus on moving the ball. Forget focusing! I'm going to close my eyes and meditate.
Whereas the other pairs ahead of us took minutes of wrestling the ball back and forth, back and forth until it eventually gave way and landed in an end zone, our game... well, ended in about 15 seconds. With the excitement of the crowd rising up around us (yes, it created quite a stir!), I had at first thought I had lost. But no, there it was plain as day, the little grey ball looking back at me from across the table.
Mark argues my side works better. But I knew there was something to this meditation thing. And so, I reached out to my Transcendental Meditation teachers here in Vancouver and asked if they could help me take a look inside my brain.
Fast forward to this week. I am hooked up to an EEG machine in a room of spectators. Oh yes, very relaxing to have everyone staring at me...
The goal: to see how during meditation, my alpha waves change; the relaxation indicator and the game changer in winning the Mindball game.
But also, the EEG can measure the synchronicity between my 2 hemispheres; the creative, memory improved, decision making and overall healthy functioning indicator.
So lets jump in! Below are the before and "after" (during) shots of my brain activity.
So lets jump in! Below are the before and "after" (during) shots of my brain activity.
---->The top section shows the left and right hemispheres, respectively. For each hemisphere, the blue line represents my alpha wave. The greater the waves, the more relaxed the person.
---->In the bottom section, the thick white horizontal bar shows the similarity in form between the 2 alpha waves. The longer the bar, the more closely they resemble each other. This is part 1 of coherence. Similarity of the waves.
---->The two vertical bars are the phases, measuring the synchronicity of the alpha waves. The closer together the 2 bars, the more in time are the alpha waves. This is part 2 of coherence. Timing of the waves.
Let's look!
Before: Minimum alpha waves with large fluctuations in electrical impulses (white squiggly line). And, relatively short horizontal bar showing limited similarity with phases showing relatively independent timing of neuron firing between the 2 hemispheres.
During: Much more frequent and greater size of alpha waves! This is so relaxing... And, much MUCH stronger similarity and timing of neuronal activity.
Aaaaaaa-mazing! Looks like I'm super relaxed and my high coherence shows I'm tapping into my well of creativity, patience, inner peace and well being. I'll take it!
For the full show - go straight to 2:24min for the best part!:
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