How Meditation Can Help Your Chess

Ego

The Ego. We feel the need to compete with each other. The development of the ego transformed the world. Now we want something for ourselves. Animals also want food but it's not the ego since they can't reflect on what they want. The ego developed through the default network, a constellation of brain regions which are much developed in humans, compared to macaque monkeys. The default network are a series of brain regions that activate when you mindwander, remember memories, try to come up with a creative story etc.

Ego involves particularly the medial prefrontal cortex (right under your forehead) which forms a part of social cognition and has connections to the nucleus accumbens which releases dopamine during positive social interaction, also during beating opponents in chess games. Dopamine can help increase motivation and pleasure. But dopamine isn't the motivation itself, it just gives rise to it. The feeling of motivation and pleasure is given by the actions of the fronto-parietal network (the network that's involves in cognitive actions and behaviour, it's your conscious experience). The dopamine drives the actions.

It is important to understand this transformative development in history. The ego gave rise to the concept of putting others down and enjoying feeling superior to another. A dark reason, but necessary to understand for the development of chess in humans, and other competitive activities. If you feel bad after losing a chess game, that means you have an ego. If you didn't, you wouldn't feel bad and you would just take it a learning opportunity with no bad feeling.

There are three subsystems of the default network, shown in the diagram below:

Dark blue are the main hubs. They integrate the default network with other networks. They also activate most strongly during self-referential thought, providing the basis for the ego. Purple are your memories, HF is the hippocampal formation, which indexes the memories. It provides a pattern which can activate various regions of the brain to relive the memory. If your experience of a memory is a video, then the hippocampal formation is the mp4 file which encodes the info. The light blue is to do with language. This is a simplified, general overview. From Christoff et al. (2016). Mind-wandering as spontaneous thought: a dynamic framework

Meditation

Meditation reduces the ego through increasing the connection between the fronto-parietal network and the salience network, so that your mind becomes clear. This is done because the salience network is responsible for alerting you when something important happens. The salience network then tells the fronto-parietal network that you're mindwandering. This allows the fronto-parietal network to suppress the default network. When you mindwander, the medial prefrontal cortex activates as well as the PCC (Posterior cingulate cortex) as they are the main hubs of the default network. That is why meditating reduces the ego.

Fun Fact: During dreams the PCC is deactivated, that's why dreams feel like an alternate version of your life. Because the PCC encodes episodic memory.

Meditation is backed by the evidence as a very effective tool for decreasing stress and increasing concentration. It simply stops your mind from wandering. The mind wandering is caused by the default network.

There are two main types of meditation: Focused Awareness and Open Monitoring. Focused Awareness is when you focus on something like your breath or counting in your head. Open Monitoring is simply when you let your thoughts flow without trying to change anything or actively think about something. Focused Awareness is good for beginners to get started.

A Four Stage Model of Meditation (Focus Awareness Type)

1. Focusing (Focusing on breath or counting etc.)

2. Mind wandering (Losing concentration and start mind wandering)

3. Noticing (Noticing you are not focusing)

4. Refocusing (Focusing on breath or counting again)

These steps have been shown in brain imagery studies. Different parts of the brain activate corresponding to these steps. When focusing, the prefrontal cortex is activated. When mind wandering, the default network becomes more active. When noticing, the salience network activates which is a network responsible for alerting when a stimuli should be paid attention to. Refocusing causes the fronto-parietal network (involved in attention) to become active.

Adapted from Hasenkemp & Barsalou. (2012). Effects of meditation experience on functional connectivity of distributed brain networks

That study found that in more experienced meditators, there was more connectivity between the R DLPRC (Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex) and the Insula. This finding has also been replicated. The Insula is part of the salience network. The salience network alerts the brain when something important happens. If you're playing chess and your about to flag, the salience network would activate to alert the brain. This causes bodily changes like increased heart rate as the body is prepared for action. So increased connection between the prefrontal cortex (part of the frontal parietal network) and the salience network allows the default network (mindwandering) to be suppressed more effectively, resulting in greater focus.

They also found that the default network had greater connectivity to the ventromedial PFC. The ventromedial PFC is involved in functions like assessing value of things, reward and bodily feelings. The idea is that the greater connectivity allows more awareness of mind wandering because the mindwandering would feel more emotional/real due to the increased connectivity to the ventromedial PFC. This would further improve focus, as mindwandering would be much more easily detected.

Chess

If you lose in chess, you might keep thinking about it. That's because the default network forces you to as it keeps a catalogue of all things that affect the self. Then it bothers you about it. It's time to leave the default network on voicemail. You can do this through meditation. 5 minutes of daily meditation is a good start. Just lie down and focus on your breath with a 5 min timer or count to 300. You will feel better, and you will play better due to increased concentration. Meditation also reduces stress, and promotes health. So it's a good idea no matter what.

Sources

Hasenkemp & Barsalou. (2012). Effects of meditation experience on functional connectivity of distributed brain networks
Christoff et al. (2016). Mind-wandering as spontaneous thought: a dynamic framework