A word about the amygdala, which has a privileged role as the brain’s radar for

threat: it receives immediate input from our senses, which it scans for safety or
danger.
If it perceives a threat, the amygdala circuitry triggers the brain’s freeze-fight-
or-flight response, a stream of hormones like cortisol and adrenaline that mobilize
us for action.
The amygdala also responds to anything important to pay attention to, whether we
like or dislike it.

The amygdala connects strongly to brain circuitry for both focusing our attention
and for intense emotional reactions.
This dual role explains why, when we are in the grip of anxiety, we are also very
distracted, especially by whatever is making us anxious.
As the brain’s radar for threat, the amygdala rivets our attention on what it finds
troubling.
So when something worries or upsets us, our mind wanders over and over to that
thing, even to the point of fixation—like the viewers of the shop accident film
when they saw Al’s thumb approach that wicked saw blade.

About the same time as Alan’s findings that mindfulness calms the amygdala, other
researchers had volunteers who had never meditated before practice mindfulness for
just twenty minutes a day over one week, and then have an fMRI scan.
During the scan they saw images ranging from gruesome burn victims to cute bunnies.
They watched these images in their everyday state of mind, and then while
practicing mindfulness.

During mindful attention their amygdala response was significantly lower (compared
to nonmeditators) to all the images.
This sign of being less disturbed, tellingly, was greatest in the amygdala on the
brain’s right side (there are amygdalae in both right and left hemispheres), which
often has a stronger response to whatever upsets us than the one on the left.

In this second study, lessened amygdala reactivity was found only during mindful
attention and not during ordinary awareness, indicating a state effect, not an
altered trait.
A trait change, remember, is the “before,” not the “after.”