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The positive effects of meditation on the brain

The practice of Meditation is nothing new – it has been around in recorded history for thousands of years.



Researchers even suggest that primitive hunting and gatherers may have been the ones to discover meditation and its many different states of consciousness while gazing into the flames of their fires.


The Buddha of course is known as one of the biggest meditation icons and he has been around since 500 B.C.


However, the popularity in the West started in the mid-20th century when researchers in the 60’s and 70s started to learn about the medical benefits.


In its simplest form Meditation is a practice that helps people achieve balance:


Mentally Physically Emotionally


We all know relaxation is beneficial to health yet we all know that you cannot just switch a switch and relax. Meditation is the key to that switch.


It is said if you are too busy to meditate for 10 mins a day then you should be meditating for 20. But in all honesty, even 2 mins a day will bring benefits over time – if you start with a tiny habit and consistently achieve it – it will grow.


There are different ways to meditate but there are two types which are the usual focus of scientific research.


1 Focused-attention which is where you focus on one specific thing—it could be your breathing, a sensation in your body or a particular object outside of you. The point of this type of meditation is to focus strongly on one point and continually bring your attention back to that focal point when it wanders.

2 Open-monitoring meditation more commonly known as mindfulness. An accepting awareness of the present moment ie paying attention to all of the things happening around you without reacting.


So what Happens in Your Brain When You Meditate?


This is where things get really interesting. Using MRI scans, scientists have developed a more thorough understanding of what’s taking place in our brains when we meditate. At a basic level, we stop thinking ie we stop processing information.


Via the scan, you can see Beta waves in action as we process information, and then during meditation, you can see these Beta waves physically decreasing.


Even if you have never tried meditation before or you have and you think you have failed – the scan will show that your Beta waves will have slowed down.


In the image below you can see how the beta waves (shown in bright colours on the left) are dramatically reduced during meditation (on the right).




In one of the largest studies of its kind to date, published in the journal NeuroImage, a team of researchers at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison examined brain activity in non-mediators, new mediators, and long-term meditators with thousands of hours of experience.


Using functional resonance imaging they were able to show the differences in the emotion networks of the brain in people who don’t meditate, people new to meditation, and people considered long-term meditators.


The researchers discovered differences in emotion networks of the brain among these groups.


“Overall these findings are important because they show that alterations in key brain circuits associated with emotion regulation can be produced by mindfulness meditation,”


Says Richard Davidson, William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at UW–Madison, who led the work.


Both long-term practitioners and new mediators – when compared to non-mediators – showed reduced activity in the Amygdala when they viewed emotionally positive images. The Amygdala is an area of the brain critical for emotion and detecting important information from the environment.


In addition, the team discovered that with just eight weeks of training, people new to meditation showed an increase in connectivity between the Amygdala and an area of the brain that supports executive function (which includes self-regulation and goal tracking) and emotion, the Ventromedial prefrontal cortex.


“These findings are important in demonstrating functional changes

in a key circuit underlying emotion regulation

after just eight weeks of mindfulness practice,”

says Davidson.


So what is happening throughout the brain.


Frontal lobe This is the most highly evolved part of the brain, responsible for reasoning, planning, emotions and self-conscious awareness. During meditation, the frontal cortex switches off.


Parietal lobe This part of the brain processes sensory information about the surrounding world, orienting you in time and space. During meditation, activity in this lobe slows down.


Thalamus The gatekeeper for the senses, this organ focuses your attention by funneling some sensory data deeper into the brain and stopping other signals in their tracks. Meditation reduces the flow of incoming information to a trickle.


Reticular formation As the brain’s sentry, this structure receives incoming stimuli and puts the brain on alert, ready to respond. Meditating dials back the arousal signal.

The real interesting thing is that over time when you mediate daily there comes a point where your brain continues in this state even when you are awake and going about your daily business – call it inner peace if you wish – but getting to this state takes time – but it’s a beautiful place to be in.

For the more technical-minded out there


The more we meditate, the less anxiety we have, this is because we are loosening the connections of particular neural pathways.


What happens without meditation is that these sections of our brain that are sometimes called the Me Center (ie the medial prefrontal cortex – the part that processes information relating to ourselves and our experiences) get tight.


Normally the neural pathways from the bodily sensation and fear centers of the brain to the Me Center are really strong. For example, when you experience a scary or upsetting sensation, it triggers a strong reaction in your Me Center, making you feel scared and under attack.


When we meditate, we weaken this neural connection. This means that we don’t react as strongly to sensations that might have once lit up our Me Centers. As we weaken this connection, we simultaneously strengthen the connection between what’s known as our Assessment Center (the part of our brains known for reasoning) and our bodily sensation and fear centres. So when we experience scary or upsetting sensations, we can more easily look at them rationally.


For example, when you experience pain, rather than becoming anxious and assuming it means something is wrong with you, you can watch the pain rise and fall without becoming ensnared in a story about what it might mean.



So as you can see you do have control over your physical, mental and emotional states and meditation is a strong key to finding balance.



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