Super Mind: How to Boost Performance and Live a Richer and Happier Life Through Transcendental Meditation - Softcover

NORMAN E. ROSENTHAL, M.D., is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School and the New York Times-bestselling author of books including Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Transcendental Meditation and The Gift of Adversity: The Unexpected Benefits of Life's Difficulties, Setbacks, and Imperfections. He conducted research at the National Institute of Mental Health as a research fellow, researcher, and senior researcher for more than twenty years and was the first psychiatrist to describe and diagnose Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

Building a Better Brain
 
Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re
braver than you believe, and stronger than
you seem, and smarter than you think.
A. A. Milne
 
Are we smarter than we think, as A. A. Milne suggests? And if so, how do we gain access to the assets we have and make the most of them? Throughout this book, we will encounter people who say that TM has boosted their capacities, enabling them to live fuller, more successful, and more enjoyable lives. In this chapter we will examine some of the evidence, both anecdotal and experimental, suggesting that TM may indeed enhance certain brain functions. If so, that would explain some amazing stories.
 
REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST—AND PRESENT
 
The house was packed at the upscale Urban Zen in New York City, where Cameron Diaz was guest of honor at an event hosted by the David Lynch Foundation. Looking as radiant as ever, Diaz, a regular TM practitioner, was dressed casually in black, her blond hair swept across her cheek, as she engaged warmly with the audience about her experiences with TM—such as this one:
 
It was about ninety degrees in the Valley, at the Los Angeles Zoo parking lot, under a tent, in a car, under lights, with the windows up and no air-conditioning. It was about a thousand degrees in the car. And I had a monologue and I couldn’t remember my lines—lines that I knew. I knew I knew them. I’d said them a million times, and I couldn’t access them. They’re completely lost in . . . wherever they go. And I realized all of a sudden, I went, “No, I need twenty-five minutes. I just need twenty-five minutes.” I ran back to my trailer and I rebooted. I did my twenty-minute meditation. And I came back to the car and I could see all those poor grip guys—they’re all sweating, holding heavy equipment. They’re looking at me like, “I hate you. Get your lines right, woman, so we can get out of here.” I mean really like the evil eye. And I didn’t want to let them down, and I wanted to be able to do my lines. But after I had gone back to my trailer and rebooted, I came back and I nailed it. I was like, Done, thank you very much. And we were out of there, I have to say, in like twenty minutes.
 
Diaz held the audience at Urban Zen spellbound as she described the power of TM as a technique for mining memory.
 
Her description of retrieving her lost lines is at once foreign (After all, how many of us have been on a movie set at the Los Angeles Zoo?) and scarily familiar. How often have you searched for a word, telephone number, or the first line of a familiar poem, only to find that it is . . . sometimes there and . . . sometimes not. We are left asking: where did it go and how can we bring it back?
 
Diaz’s story also resonates because most of us have a sense that our brains hold a vast storehouse of buried treasure, and that if we could only unearth it more efficiently, we’d be far better off. It is this sense, perhaps, that has led to the urban myth (thoroughly debunked) that we use only 10 percent of our brains (though many are the self-help tomes that promise to unlock the missing 90 percent for the price of a few lattes). Although these percentages seem silly to anyone with even a modest knowledge of the brain, the idea contains a germ of truth that has perhaps given traction to the myth: we do have untapped potential, so perhaps we can be smarter than we think.
 
Although nobody can say for sure why a person forgets something at one moment, then remembers it later, we do know that stress can affect memory in ways both good and bad, and we have some ideas about the underlying brain structures at work. In fact, once again our old friend the prefrontal cortex (PFC) appears to be involved. Studies in animals have shown that specific neurochemical pathways, when activated by excess stress, cause profound impairment of the PFC.1 Specifically, too much dopamine and norepinephrine are implicated. By reducing stress, TM may lower the concentrations of these two key neurotransmitters in the PFC, thereby improving cognitive functions—such as remembering lost lines in a movie script.
 
This effect of improved brain function when stress is reduced may remind some of you of the so-called inverted U-shaped curve, which shows how small amounts of stress or anxiety can boost performance but large amounts can make it worse. If you consider the declining limb of the inverted U (that part of the curve where anxiety is increasing but performance is decreasing), it is easy to see how TM could decrease stress and reduce key neurotransmitters in the PFC, thereby making the brain work better.
 
Whatever brain mechanisms were at work on that memorable day at the LA Zoo, we will never know. But the bottom line is that twenty minutes of TM restored Cameron Diaz’s memory rapidly and completely. She had instinctively reached for the right remedy, and it worked.
 
Many other performers who practice TM have recommended doing meditation before tackling a stressful task. Megan Fairchild, principal dancer for the New York City Ballet, does her TM before every performance, as does Tony Award–winning actress Katie Finneran. So does actor, singer, and dancer Hugh Jackman, who says: “I meditated before I hosted the Oscars. I meditate before I go onstage. I meditate in the morning and lunchtime when I’m on a film set. It’s like it resets.” And director Martin Scorsese routinely meditates before facing another grueling day on the movie set.
 
But here is an obvious fact: You don’t have to be well-known or a performer for TM to work. Anybody who has learned TM can take advantage of these observations. I can imagine an architect, schoolteacher, first responder, librarian—anyone, really—benefiting from TM at the start of the day. If you are a regular meditator, you are already at an advantage because the stillness of the Super Mind is already part of you, residing alongside your everyday activities. And if a crisis comes up, you can expand that advantage by taking a TM time-out.
 
DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION: ADHD AND THE SUPER MIND
 
Before leaving the topic of memory, let’s consider a few other examples of improved memory apparently resulting from TM. A woman friend of mine, a medical student, has found that TM greatly improves her ability to remember the volumes of information her course work requires—but for a different reason. She has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, a condition that makes it hard to maintain focus. As you can imagine, if you have trouble focusing on something, you will not do well at remembering it. Problems with attention interfere with both storage and retrieval of memory. One benefit of TM has been to still her overactive mind—even when she is not meditating—which has helped her focus better and thereby be more successful in retaining what she studies.
 
Although there have been no large controlled studies of TM specifically for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at this time, one small pilot study on ten distractible students between the ages of eleven and fourteen was conducted by Sarina Grosswald, Bill Stixrud, and colleagues at a school in the Washington, D.C., area.2 Although the study was small and uncontrolled, its results drew rave reviews from the staff, who observed that the students not only concentrated better but were less impulsive. One boy, for example, who could barely sit still in his chair at the beginning of the study, was able to concentrate long enough to read an entire book—to the astonishment of his mother. Another boy told Bill Stixrud, a D.C.-area neuropsychologist and longtime TM practitioner, “Before learning TM, when someone would bump into me in the hall, I would hit him. Now I ask myself, ‘Should I hit him or not?’”
 
In a separate controlled study, Fred Travis and colleagues investigated the effects of TM on the EEG in eighteen students, ages eleven to fourteen, who had been diagnosed with ADHD .3 In prior work on ADHD in adolescents, it had been established that the severity of symptoms is highly correlated with a certain EEG function known as the theta/beta ratio (a simple ratio between two EEG wavelengths): the worse the symptoms, the higher the ratio.4 In the study by Travis and colleagues, the eighteen students were randomly assigned to practice TM or wait for three months before learning TM. Their EEGs were measured at the start of the study and at the end of three months (just before the controls learned TM). As predicted, the researchers found that the theta/beta ratios in the TM group declined significantly over the first three months compared to the control group (see figure 6 below). Once the control group learned TM (after three months), its theta/beta ratios also declined.
 
Bottom line: the effects of TM on both ADHD symptoms and the EEG are apparent after three months of practice.
 
THIS CRAZY WORLD OF OURS
 
You don’t need a formal diagnosis of ADHD, however, to lose focus in a world that offers so many distractions. As one of my friends puts it, “These days I think we all have a little ADHD.” The old adage, “More haste, less speed,” is part of the problem. In our attempts to “multitask,” we often get less done, not more. But inefficiency in multitasking may be the least of our worries. Worse still is a common tendency to sacrifice essentials when we try to juggle less important things at the same time—like making sure that the text we are sending our BFF (best friend forever) is sufficiently witty while driving through a red light. When you multitask, you lose perspective—a potentially fatal mistake. Research shows that we think we can multitask and stay effective, but we’re wrong. The fragmentary attention paid to each task makes it more likely that no task gets done correctly. And that’s where the Super Mind comes in: It slows us down, making us less frantic while sharpening our alertness and focus. The result is improved concentration and ability to prioritize.
 
Bill Stixrud rails against the “mind-racing, mind-scattering, and mind-numbing effects of our extensive use of technology” that he sees in his daily practice. He adds, “We need to build in antidotes to constant stimulation, and TM is a hugely important antidote.” He knows this not only from clinical observation but from his own experience. Here’s how he describes it:
 
As I meditate, I remember what’s important. Sometimes I think I should stop my program early to take care of urgent matters, but then I realize that there will be time to take care of everything, and the most important thing is for me to finish my meditation. As I do so, things sort themselves out in my mind and fall into better perspective. It always pays for me not to interrupt my meditation, but to see it through and reap its rewards.
 
On a personal level, I can’t believe how nowadays I can usually locate my cell phone and other important objects that once would have gone astray in a fog of distraction. While my ability to retrieve lost objects is still far from stellar, somehow I am more attentive and less often mislay them. Also, I enjoy slowing down enough to do things properly. It feels less frenetic, more satisfying. We will explore the issue of attentiveness further when we address the relationship between transcendence and mindfulness in chapter 14.
 
WORKING MEMORY
 
Even working memory, which many regard as difficult to improve, may yield to the powers of TM, as evidenced in a patient of mine, David, a successful businessman. David has always prided himself on his excellent working memory—a function required, for example, to remember a telephone number long enough to find a pencil (Where did that pencil go? I know it was here just a minute ago!) and write the number down. David came to me because he was depressed, and I treated him with antidepressants and psychotherapy. After a few months, both he and I considered him fully recovered in every way—except for his working memory, which had previously been excellent. Now his memory was perfectly adequate for everyday life, but when it came to remembering long strings of numbers for short intervals, he realized he had lost his old talent—until he learned TM. Within the first few weeks of practice, his memory skill came back, and the timing of its welcome return coincided exactly with his starting to meditate.
 
REMEMBERING THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW YOU’VE FORGOTTEN
 
My last example of the beneficial effects of TM practice on memory is quite unusual. How often have you remembered something that you didn’t know you had forgotten? That actually happened to a friend of mine who, along with her husband, had traded in their old car for a new one two days before the event I’m about to describe. Both highly competent professionals, they had methodically swept through the old car (once at home and once at the garage) and removed all trash and debris, as well as everything they wanted to keep—or so they thought. Two days later, while doing her morning TM, my friend suddenly remembered the E-Z Pass attached to the windshield, hidden behind the rearview mirror—and still in the car. It was a job to retrieve it, but well worthwhile to prevent further expenses from accruing.
 
I find this story a good example of Super Mind functioning because it is a simple and clear illustration of how things sometimes surface during meditation that elude us in the clear light of day. As the Super Mind develops, such insights occur more frequently even outside TM sessions. This story is a good bridge to our next section, on creativity, a function that depends in part on the unexpected insights and novel connections that arise unbidden and mysteriously, and may be critically important to solving problems.
 
THE SUPER MIND AND CREATIVITY
 
Creativity is intelligence having fun.   --source unknown
 
One highly prized aspect of intellectual functioning that many of us would love to cultivate is creativity. And certainly many creative people seem drawn to TM—raising the question of how this practice, and the resulting Super Mind, might contribute to creative development. By “creative” I mean having the ability to make unexpected connections, either to see commonplace things in new ways—or unusual things that escape the attention of others—and realize their importance. The next phase in the creative process is the audacity to hold on to this new realization—often in the face of opposition or ridicule—and then pursue and realize the idea despite obstacles.
 
I have had the good fortune to discuss creativity with some highly accomplished and creative TM practitioners. To a person, they credit TM with making them more creative—at timesdramatically so. Among others, I interviewed the great classical guitarist and longtime TM practitioner Sharon Isbin. She had told me exactly the best time to meet in her apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, overlooking ...