I had the pleasure of attending the 2025 Neuroscience of Meditation Summit in Toronto yesterday. In the room was leading researchers, meditation practitioners, and technology innovators exploring the intersection of where science meets contemplative practice.
I’ve been pretty heavy on the conference circuit as of late. As I started to explicate in my recent piece, the act of getting out into public spaces to exchange ideas is something I am starting to see as fundamental to identity formation (and reformation).
Yesterday the Stage Manager decided Ali would be less of the confident entrepreneur, and more the curious seeker.
In this state of seeking, the work of neuroscientist Norman Farb on the relationship between depressive states and sensation sparked an interest in me that I just can’t contain. Let’s explore.
The Hidden Link Between Sadness and Brain Shutdown
Norman’s work alongside clinical psychologist Dr. Zindel Segal, challenges the long-held notion that depression is solely about negative thinking and rumination. Their findings suggest that the true risk factor for persistent mental distress isn’t just the persistent feeling of sadness, but what the brain does in response to that feeling: sensory inhibition.
The Problem: Sensory Inhibition
In their neuroimaging studies, Farb and Segal found that when participants, particularly those with a history of depression, were exposed to emotional stressors, like sad film clips, a distinct and maladaptive pattern emerged in the brain:
- Sensory Regions Shut Down: The brain actively works to shut down activity in sensory regions, most notably the insula, a crucial area for processing visceral signals and body feelings12. This is the brain’s attempt to avoid the unpleasant physical sensations that accompany sadness (e.g., chest tightness, raw throat).
- The Predictive Factor: Crucially, the researchers found that it was not the self-reported level of sadness or high levels of “conceptual” activity (rumination) that primarily predicted poor mental health. Instead, the degree of sensory shutdown was a more powerful associate of symptoms. The greater the suppression of sensation, the higher the individual scored on measures of depression2.
- Risk of Relapse: This tendency to block out physical sensations was identified as a significant vulnerability. In a follow-up study, individuals who exhibited a higher intensity of sensory shutdown during a sad mood induction were found to be up to 25 times more likely to relapse into depression over a two-year period, regardless of the therapy they had received3.
The Echo Chamber of Thought
Dr. Farb explains that this sensory avoidance has a disastrous consequence: it cuts off the mind from the very thing that can help update and regulate it. When we suppress the body’s dynamic flow of sensation, the brain is left with only its thoughts and established conceptual narratives to process the experience3.
As Farb notes, “Our thoughts are there to nail things down so you can hold onto them over time, and that’s fine as long as they keep getting updated—but the thing that updates it is new sensations”3.
By disabling sensation, we prevent the “prediction error” that new sensory information provides. We remain locked in an “echo chamber” of negative, rigid thought patterns, where the certainty of our sadness remains unchallenged by the reality of the present moment. This hidden inhibition locks our minds into states of suffering and prevents recovery2.
The Solution: “Sense Foraging”
The key to breaking this cycle lies not in avoiding negative emotions or trying to control one’s thoughts, but in counteracting sensory inhibition by deliberately engaging with the world through our senses. Farb and Segal call this simple yet powerful practice Sense Foraging.
Sense foraging involves purposefully and non-judgmentally shifting our attention to the sensory field—whether it’s the external world or internal bodily sensations.
| Core Principle | Application (Sense Foraging) |
|---|---|
| Receptivity over Agenda | Instead of trying to analyze, fix, or solve the emotion, we switch into a different mode that is receptive to new sensory information. We ask, “What does this feel like?” rather than “What is this feeling?“. |
| Widening the Lens | The practice encourages a broader, more inclusive awareness. By noticing simple, immediate sensations—the temperature on the skin, the sound of your heartbeat, or the pressure of your feet—we interrupt the fixation on the negative internal narrative |
| Building Resilience | By developing this sensory “muscle,” we get better at taking in new information. This helps to reawaken the neglected sensory regions of the brain, providing relief from rumination and building greater resilience to stress. |
| Source: Multiple2 4 |
Ultimately, Dr. Farb’s research suggests that well-being depends on the balance between thinking and sensing. When we stay with raw sensation, without immediately defaulting to judgment and conceptual narrative, we allow the dynamic flow of life to inform and restore us, reducing the risk of being trapped by mental habits and entrenched emotional distress. It’s a compelling scientific argument for why contemplative practices that emphasize bodily awareness, like mindfulness meditation, are so effective in promoting mental health.
The Senses as a Path to Seeking
As I reflect on the conference and the multi-faceted experiences that have guided me to the path of awareness I live today, Dr. Farb’s research offers a powerful mandate for the curious seeker. If our brain’s habitual response to stress is to shut down sensation - to pull inward and be trapped in an echo chamber of thought -then the act of sense foraging becomes a radical tool in the reformation of identity in alignment with more empowering narratives.
To deliberately choose to feel the world, the environment, and the full range of bodily sensations that accompany any experience (even the difficult ones) is to choose presence over avoidance. In a world where we live in an economy of distraction and numbing, this is a true act of rebellion.
It’s a mechanism for keeping the dialogue between self and world alive, for combating reductionism and ensuring the richness of new sense experience continues to update the script of who we are, and what we are becoming.
Footnotes
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Farb, N. A. S., Segal, Z. V., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D., & Anderson, A. K. (2010). Minding One’s Emotions: Mindfulness Training Alters the Neural Expression of Sadness. Emotion, 10(1), 25–33. ↩
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Farb, N. A. S., & Segal, Z. V. (2024, May 13). The Senses: A Pathway to Well-being. Mind & Life Institute. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
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University of Toronto. (2022, April 20). Feeling sensations – including ones connected to sadness – are key to depression recovery: U of T study.3 ↩ ↩2 ↩3
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Mindful Institute. (2024, July 20). The Four-Part Sensory Strategy to Manage Overwhelm. ↩