Braiding Neuroscience, Decolonization, and Mental Wellness

Emerging neuroscience and Indigenous knowledge systems converge on the idea that relationships, story, and ceremony are medicine. Mind-body interventions such as meditation, ritual, and kindness practices alter neural networks, immune signaling, and gene expression, echoing longstanding Indigenous teachings. A decolonization equation provides a structural framework for collective healing. Together, these strands indicate that increasing kindness and prioritizing decolonization are not only ethically essential but also biologically feasible and culturally rooted components of comprehensive mental health strategies.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Western neuroscience and Indigenous knowledge systems are often seen as separate worlds. However, when we examine emerging brain and molecular science alongside Indigenous teachings about land, story, ceremony, and relational responsibility, a powerful convergence emerges. Mind–body interventions, including meditation, reconceptualization, ritual, and kindness practices, are now demonstrated to alter neural networks, immune signaling, and gene expression in ways that echo what Indigenous peoples have known for generations: relationships, story, and ceremony are medicine. This paper braids three strands: Neuroscience and the biology of intensive mind–body practice (Jinich-Diamant et al., 2025). The Decolonization Equation as a structural and relational framework for collective healing (Yellow Bird & Luo, 2025). Indigenous teachings and practices that predate, and in many ways anticipate, today’s mind–body and kindness science (Basso, 1996; Indigenous Oral Scholars, Olson, 2025). Together, they indicate that increasing kindness and prioritizing decolonization are not only ethically essential but also biologically feasible and culturally rooted parts of comprehensive mental health strategies.