Can Meditation Reduce Shyness? - Ian Williams Goddard
While meditation is logical therapy for anxiety due
to its propensity for inducing calm, it might also
be therapeutic for shyness (or social anxiety). The
following research leads me to such a hypothesis...
The New Scientist reports that researchers at Harvard
Medical School examined the brains of adults who were
extremely shy as children. They found that
"adults who had been unusually shy in childhood
... displayed significantly higher activity in
the amygdala than people who had been unusually
outgoing as children. The amygdala is a brain
structure involved in vigilance and fear." [1]
So increased amygdala activity may promote shyness.
Now consider recent research that found meditation
REDUCES amygdala activity. According to Reuters:
"research by Paul Ekman, of the University
of California San Francisco Medical Center,
suggests that meditation and mindfulness can
tame the amygdala, an area of the brain which
is the hub of fear memory." [2]
Ergo: IF shyness (or social anxiety) has a causal link
to increased amygdala activity, and IF meditation can
reliably decreases amygdala activity, then meditation
might help people to overcome excessive shyness. Apart
from the cited research, such a hypothesis might not
seem to be indicated given that both shyness and
meditation tend to be associated with more passive
behaviors. Yet meditation might counter shy neurology.
_________________________________________________________
[1] "Shyness linked to brain differences."
NewScientist.com News Service. June 19, 2003.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993853
[2] "Meditation Shown to Light Up Brains of Buddhists."
Reuters. May 21, 2003.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyID=2787394http://IanGoddard.net
"Our greatest illusion is to believe that we are what
we think ourselves to be." Henri Amiel (1821-1881)
