What Meditation Is For: Effects on the Brain and Research. Helps Deal With Stress

Meditation is Latin for meditation. The origins of this practice go back to ancient times. As long as mankind lives on earth so much and this practice of self-knowledge exists. But only in recent decades, research institutes began to study it. There are dozens of directions for this spiritual practice. These are zazen, transcendental meditation, kundalini - meditation, trataka and many others.

Scientists have absolutely proven that meditation contributes to the work of the brain in a different state. And thanks to this, many physiological processes in the body are normalized: functioning nervous system, sleep, digestion. Research conducted by the American Heart Center has proven that meditation practice prolongs life, reduces the risk of death from cardiovascular diseases up to 30%, from cancer up to 50%. And the British doctors state system health officials are considering recommending meditation practices for people with depression.

What's going on with a man inmeditation time? Specialists at the Massachusetts Hospital, located in Boston, conducted research among people who practice meditation. 15 people with different practice experience, from 1 to 30 years old, and 15 people who had not practiced meditation before took part. The results were overwhelming, as it became very clear that in people practicing meditation, certain structures of the brain increase in thickness. The aging process of the body as a whole slows down.

The head of the study, Sarah Lazar, summing up the experience, said: “You train your brain during meditation, so it grows. After all, it is known that in musicians, linguists, athletes, the corresponding areas of the brain are enlarged. The growth of the cerebral cortex is not due to the growth of neurons, but due to the proliferation of blood vessels, glial cells, astrocytes - the entire system that feeds the brain. "

British scientists in their studies have found that through meditation, a person improves concentration, increases attention, improves memory.

All the positive changes that occur to a person at the physical level can be called secondary effects. I would like to more accurately determine which the main objective meditation.

People who view meditation primarily as a spiritual practice see a little more in it. In reality, man is not prepared to explore the innermost depths of himself. Most of us see the world only in its external manifestations. This is how our parents taught us both at school and at the institute.

You could say we were given guidance on how to look for things outside of us. And they did not teach how to turn their gaze inward. The first steps in this can be done by meditation. Why is the word "enlightenment" so often found next to the word meditation? Practicing meditation, a person can find answers to many questions and we can say with confidence that wisdom begins to awaken in a person.

Do you want to understand this issue deeper and find out simple techniques the most effective meditations? How and why meditation practices can radically change a person's life in better side? Why are there so many trends and trends in the world that advocate that their meditation techniques are better, and what are the main goals of these schools? Find out what kind of meditative practice is at the source, where did it come from on Earth?

You can read about all this, as well as gain many other valuable knowledge by reading the books by Anastasia Novykh, which can be downloaded from our website for free. These books will fill your life with innermost meaning and change your destiny for the better. Checked! You will not regret!

The positive effects of meditation on the human body

The information below is not flattering unfounded words. The benefits of meditation are tangible and observable, as proven by hundreds of scientific studies involving renowned laboratories, universities and scientific minds. The long-term trend of positive changes in the human body can be recorded after several weeks of daily meditation practice. She does not need to look for an enlightened guru, memorize the Dalai Lama's aphorisms or buy an "individual" talisman in a Feng Shui store. Set aside 20 minutes of time per day for self-improvement.

Meditation is brain training. It is he who controls the work of a well-coordinated multifunctional human body. By meditating, you increase the concentration of your attention, learn to be more rational and independent of emotions. The practice of daily relaxation allows you to clear your mind, master absolute self-control. Roughly speaking, meditation can be called "rewiring the brain", "dumping the memes of consciousness."

Effects on the brain

Changes in thought direction, different reactions to familiar situations, increased productivity are the result of regular meditation. It is achieved through daily brain training. The essence of meditation is absolute concentration of attention, all-consuming concentration. Its result is changes in brain reactions, the interaction of its parts.

Meditative practice involves:

Medial prefrontal cortex or
"Center I"

It is the part of the brain that focuses on your personality, stores your experiences, shapes your point of view. It is this area of the brain that reaches its peak activity when you think about yourself, dream, make plans for yourself and other people, try to "try on" other people's victories and defeats - to share someone's joys and sorrows. This part of the brain is formed by 2 cortex: ventromedial and dorsomedial. The first processes information and allows you to interact with people whom you rate as similar to yourself. This is where impulses of empathy, pity, worry, anxiety and stress originate. The second is also responsible for empathy and social interaction, but for people who are judged to be your opposites in most human characteristics. In everyday life, these 2 parts of the brain cannot function actively at the same time.

Lateral prefrontal cortex or Evaluation Center

This part of the brain converts impulses received from other parts of the cortex into emotional responses. In this zone, a person's behavior is automatically modulated, based on his habits, experienced situations. The named part of the brain allows you not to take everything to heart, for the most part to look at things rationally.

Island

The part of the brain responsible for bodily and spiritual sensations. He gets involved in all your experiences about yourself and other people.

Cerebellar amygdala or "Fear Center"

From this part of the brain "complaints" come from the discomfort received by the human body inside and outside. This is an alarm that requires action to be taken to eliminate the cause of the concern.

Each person has their own way of active neural connections between the above parts of the brain center. But there is often a strong connection between the medial prefrontal cortex and the insula. For this reason, a person reacts sharply to almost all the events of each of his days, takes many banal things to heart, dwells on his feelings, becomes overly emotional. At the same time, his lateral prefrontal cortex does not work at full capacity - the individual rarely evaluates events rationally, reacts to unpleasant things with the understanding of other people.

The benefits of meditation for the brain lie precisely in the fact that a 20-minute concentration of attention allows ease the tension of the mind. A person becomes more collected, he falls into a mental loop less and less often, becomes obsessed with his sensations. Too strong neural connections are weakened, and too weak are strengthened. This will help you to soberly assess the potential danger, the strength of pain, quickly find optimal solutions for difficult situations. The meditator is less anxious, prone to tantrums and panic.

In addition, the ability to understand other people increases, regardless of their race, upbringing, cultural component, mood and actions. Meditation harms the unhealthy strain of the human brain, bringing it back to normal. You can change your mind, make life easier and more interesting.

Effects on the body

Everything you read below explains why meditation is needed. You can endlessly talk about how useful it is to repeat relaxation every day, to give rest to your mind, but without concrete facts, all these are empty statements. The benefits of meditation for the human body are enormous, but let's not go on and on:

increased concentration and memory;
increase in productivity and speed of decision-making;
development of the ability to simultaneously process streams of different information;
elimination internal reasons mental disorders, addictions and recurrent depression;
gradual suppression of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder;
the production of creativity and creativity;
prevention of diseases resulting from psychological disorders;
reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and inflammation;
raising immunity and life expectancy;
less need for sleep;
raising the pain threshold;
competent use of the resources of the human body.

Through meditation, you will be able to cope with multitasking, learn to prioritize, saving your time and effort. You will no longer be tormented by dissatisfaction with your life and work. You will learn to do everything without living your life at your desk. Everything that you are reading now has been repeatedly proven by scientists, so think about it.

Personality changes

What is the benefit of meditation in addition to all of the above? You probably missed the most important thing - increase empathy. After the desire to be healthy, each of us has a goal - to enjoy interaction with other people. We are all tired to one degree or another of our parents, children, friends, colleagues, neighbors and even indifferent passers-by. Each of them is interesting in its own way, but few of us manage to build a connection with a person, not burdened with empty conflicts.

Meditation will help you:

to acquire positive attitude in relation to strangers;
become more friendly and tolerant;
develop a desire to help others;
start to empathize;
free from deeply rooted grievances, baseless anger;
learn to avoid feelings of disappointment by calmly accepting life's checks;
love yourself by reducing self-criticism and moderately cultivating self-esteem.

By eliminating your inner negativity, you will become more free, open and healthy. After all, as has been proven, most diseases are born in the head. Almost all ailments are the result of our resentment, stress, useless struggle with nature and our personality. Bad weather cannot be turned into good weather overnight, you cannot buy a money machine in an online store, you cannot choose other parents. All this is the truth that must be taken. Resentment and anger are useless emotions that take away your vitality.

Scientific research

For over 50 years, the Western world has been studying the effects of meditation on the human body. Research is carried out with people of different age groups, gender and health status. For most of our compatriots, meditation and science are incompatible, because idle obsession with your breath is not worth the attention of "normal" people. However, scientists have long proven that meditation causes changes in the physical structure of the brain. It provides tremendous opportunities for self-improvement.

Whichever meditation technique you choose, you can become better. To one degree or another, the quality of your memory, attentiveness, restraint, productivity will increase. All this is proven by thousands of scientific studies, of which we have selected 7 of the most discussed. Each subject underwent an MRI scan before, during, or after meditation. And this is what has been repeatedly confirmed by science:

Researchers	Experiment participants	results
Harvard Scholars	16 people	Just a few weeks of daily short meditation practice resulted in restructuring of the brain, increasing the density of the gray matter.
UCLA Staff	100 elderly people: 50 have practiced meditation for years; 50 have never done it.	It has been proven that with age, the brain loses in volume and mass. Meditation allows you to constantly increase the density of gray matter, why in the first group of subjects its mass turned out to be much greater than expected.
Belgian scientists	400 schoolchildren aged 13-20 years	The subjects became less prone to stress, anxiety and depressive moods.
Johns Hopkins University Staff	More than 3500 people suffering from panic disorder, stress, depression and addictions	Regular meditation practice can help you cope with mental disorders, substantially reduce anxiety. The effect is achieved without taking antidepressants, the positive trend persists for many months.
Scientists from the University of Montreal	26 people: 13 practitioners of meditation; 13 non-practitioners	All subjects were exposed to the same pain effects. MRI has shown that regular meditation allows increase the pain threshold.
University of Washington and Arizona Scientists	75 HR managers, divided into 3 separate groups	The 8-week meditation course allowed the control group to pass the stress test successfully. Its participants showed increased concentration, improved memory, less exposure to stress if necessary, perform several tasks at the same time.
Prof. Zoran Iosipovich (New York University)	Meditating monks	It was noted above that the ventromedial and dorsomedial parts of the cerebral cortex are almost never activated at the same time, so that the individual can keep his attention on a certain action. A person, as a rule, is absorbed in solving everyday problems or his own dreams and plans. In the process of meditation, a phenomenal thing happens - both zones of the medial prefrontal cortex are activated. This creates a feeling of harmony of your own I with the World. The effect of the found life balance is the prevention of mental disorders.

In the Western world, meditation and science work together perfectly. In Europe, the USA, and even more so in eastern countries the question has not been raised for a long time whether there is any benefit from it or not. Meditation continues to be studied and practiced because it certainly works for the benefit of humanity.

Training willpower through meditation

Cope with your desires, master self-control - tasks for some incomprehensible. You can strengthen your willpower by practicing the basics of meditation. By training your brain, you become more focused, collected, and learn to cope with stress. The technique of increasing willpower is easily explained by the example of meditative practice.

In the process of focusing your attention on the breath, your task is to abstract from thoughts. Of course, they cannot be eliminated from the head, but you need to return to the work of your lungs all the time, watching the inflow and outflow of air. Such training allows you to be more collected in everyday life - minimally distracted by extraneous things, constantly returning to unfinished business.

Yes, strengthening your willpower is much easier than you previously imagined. There is no need to read specialized literature, create provocative traps for yourself or give up your favorite hobbies, seeing in them temptations to break loose. Whatever your goal: quitting sweets, getting up at 5 a.m. every day, or achieving a promotion in 3 months - simple basics meditations will help you focus on what you desire as much as possible, without being distracted by anything else.

Simple meditation practice

5 minutes a day will be enough for you to master this relaxation exercise. Its health benefits are in no way dependent on the simplicity and duration of the exercise. It's easy to tune in to meditation: choose a quiet place in your home, turn off your phone and disappear for everyone for these 5 minutes.

We meditate:

Sit comfortably, do not fidget. The back should be straight, arms relaxed, hands placed on the knees, palms up. The legs are either fully touching the floor with the feet, or crossed ("Lotus" pose). The training of your willpower and consciousness begins now, because immobility is a prerequisite. Even if something is numb or combed, do not succumb to provocations. So you will learn to ignore the "secondary" impulses of your brain and body, not to be led, gain control over your consciousness.
Focus on breathing. Close your eyes or fix your gaze at some point. Track your breathing by mentally saying "inhale" and "exhale". When you realize that you are distracted by extraneous thoughts, then return to breathing again.
Concentrate on your feelings. Instead of mentally vocalizing the processes in your lungs, try to follow the flow of air as it fills and leaves you. Is always come back from extraneous thoughts to this lesson.

The duration of meditation can be increased if desired, but the main thing is to observe the regularity of the sessions. It is best to repeat the practice at the same time every day. If this is not possible, then adapt to the circumstances, remembering to include meditation in your schedule.

Summary

A few years later, our compatriots also realize what meditation is for. By that time, you personally will already perceive it as a part of your life, accepting yourself renewed and free. It is you who will become that example for friends and loved ones who will say that it is easy to develop willpower, improve the quality of your life and become a full-fledged person in demand. By instilling in your children the desire to meditate, you can improve future generations of this world.

Practicing meditation will save you from depression

Every day more and more people are discovering the positive effects. In addition to ordinary people and the curious, neurophysiologists, psychologists and other scientists have been interested in ancient practice for many years. They are doing research on meditation to find out its effect on a person. There is a connection between the brain and meditation, and the possibilities of the practice are amazing. We wrote earlier what conclusions scientists came to while researching.

Research has just begun, many amazing discoveries await us

Scientists have found a way to slow brain aging

Age-related changes affect absolutely all systems of the body, including the brain. Over time, memory becomes weaker, some skills are forgotten, and learning new things becomes more difficult.

The risk of developing the disease Alzheimer's decreases many times

A study on meditation from the University of California, Los Angeles has shown that the brains of people who regularly practice change much more slowly with age. This is probably due to the fact that during the training and practice of meditation, those parts of the brain are activated that rarely work during daily activity.

In the East, the practice has been known for several millennia.

Meditation helps the brain to "collect"

Researchers at Yale University have received intriguing research results. It turned out that regular practice of meditation reduces the activity of the so-called "monkey mind" or "passive mode network."

It is much easier to get rid of external noise than internal noise.

This part of the consciousness is constantly active, but uses very few resources. An example is a computer in sleep mode. "Monkey mind" - these are the thoughts that constantly revolve in the head: snatches of conversations, obsessive songs, fragmentary memories. In people predisposed to anxiety disorders, such a thought can go in cycles and cause another attack. One of basic principles technique consists precisely in completely clearing the mind of the "word mixer" in the brain.

Control of the "word mixer" is the task of any conscious person

Practicing meditation cures depression

Johns Hopkins University recently conducted a large meditation study comparing the effectiveness of meditation and antidepressants.

According to WHO statistics, 350 million suffer from depression annually

It turned out that both the practice of meditation and the drugs have approximately the same effect in strength. But it's not easy. This is one reason why people with anxiety and depressive disorders are more likely to take the easy route of medication.

Meditation or Medicine? The choice is clear

Boost Your Brain With Meditation

And the results of this research will be very pleasant for students on the eve of the session. It turned out that it takes only a few days to meditate, as the ability to process information and concentrate increases. This is because:

thanks to practice, the level of anxiety is reduced, which interferes with the adequate processing of information
even short-term training of various areas of the cerebral cortex improves its work in general, which means that memory capabilities also improve
constant mental noise in the head interferes with concentration in the same way as the hum of a crowd interferes with conversation. And mindfulness meditation helps to get rid of unnecessary thoughts.

Daily meditation throughout the semester will give the best results.

Addictions and ways to get rid of them

As you know, a person is weak. Many of us have addictions: smoking, alcohol, computer games, TV shows and even the habit of basking in bed until the middle of the day is harmful.

Alcohol kills 1,400 Russians every day

The American Lung Association, which is leading the fight against smoking, has done an interesting study. In summary: mastered the technique mindfulness meditation quit smoking more likely than a non-meditating control group. This is because mindfulness meditation helps to isolate harmful desire from the stream of thoughts and effectively suppress it. This is probably why this technique was chosen for an experimental program of rehabilitation and socialization of prisoners.

A good habit of meditation can help you get rid of bad ones.

Meditation for children and adults

Training your own consciousness for children is no less useful than for adults. An experimental meditation program introduced in some schools in San Francisco has shown amazing results.

Meditating Children Improve Academic Performance

As you know, primary schoolchildren and adolescents, due to changes in the environment and physiology, experience great emotional stress. And if we add to this the intellectual load during studies and exams, it becomes clear that the life of an ordinary schoolchild is far from sugar.

Practice affects the psychological and physical health of a person

Research on meditation has confirmed that a two-week course of daily practice in schools reduces anxiety levels in children and promotes discipline. In addition, the relationship "meditation - brain" was confirmed - schoolchildren improved their performance in all subjects.

The benefits of meditation are undeniable

Meditation is not just a fancy fad, but really useful tool to work on yourself. Workers of the penitentiary system in India know this better than anyone else. Courses have been held there since 1994. Vipassana has helped tens of thousands of prisoners find their way to their homes and reduce the number of relapses.

Today, when serious researchers and scientific institutions have taken up the study of the human brain in connection with spiritual practices, we can learn a lot about the work of consciousness and apply this knowledge in practice. Do not be afraid of new things, learn different points of view and do not stop on the path of improving yourself.

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The Power of Meditation and Its Effect on Our Brain

Ever since my father tried to persuade me to meditate when I was 12, I seriously doubted the benefits of this activity. Meditation has always been something so obscure and incomprehensible to me that I just decided that it was not for me.

More recently, I realized how simple (not easy, but simple) meditation can be, and how beneficial it is for my everyday well-being. And so, as an adult, I began to practice, starting with just two minutes of meditation a day. Two minutes! I borrowed this idea from Leo Babaut's Zen Habits blog, where Leo notes that a small habit is the first step towards constantly moving towards a desired goal. And although two minutes doesn't really change anything, that's where I started.

It doesn't matter if you doubt meditation as I doubted it, or if you have long developed a long-term habit of meditation, you will still be interested to know how such new habits affect our brains. I studied meditation to understand what happens in our head when we do it, and what I discovered turned out to be very interesting.

What is meditation?

Exists different ways meditate, and since meditation is a very personal exercise, there are probably more ways to do it than we will ever know. Science pays a couple of them Special attention... One of them is called the Attention Concentration (Mindfulness Meditation) method. This method consists in the fact that you completely focus on one thing, specific - your breath, some sensation in your body or a specific object in the world around you. The purpose of such meditation is to direct all your attention to one point and return to it whenever attention begins to wander.

Another type of meditation that is often used in scientific research is the Free Observation Meditation. It lies in the fact that you pay attention to everything that is happening around you, but do not react to it in any way.

What happens in our brain when we meditate?

This is where things get really interesting. Using modern equipment such as fMRI scanners, scientists have developed a deeper understanding of what happens in our brains during meditation (just as they previously measured the level of creativity).

The main difference is that during meditation, our brain stops processing information as actively as it usually does. There is a decrease in beta waves, which indicates that even after twenty minutes of meditation, the brain processes information whether you have been meditating before or not.

In the picture below, you can see how beta waves (multicolored spots on the left) are almost absent during meditation (in the picture on the right).

Below is the best explanation of what is happening in each part of the brain separately, what I came across.

Frontal lobe- the most developed part of the brain, responsible for logic, planning, emotions and self-awareness. During meditation, it turns off.

Parietal lobe- this part of the brain processes sensory information, telling us our position in space and time. During meditation, its activity slows down.

Thalamus- the gatekeeper of sensations, this organ focuses our attention, sending information about sensations deeper into the brain, simultaneously inhibiting other signals that come across it on the way. Meditation reduces the amount of incoming information to a speck.

Reticular formation- like a brain guard, this organ accepts incoming commands and puts the brain on alert. Meditation cancels these commands.

How does meditation affect ourselves?

Now that we know what's going on inside our brains, let's take a look at how meditation affects our health. And this, as it turns out, is not very different from its effect on our brains.

Great concentration.

Because meditation is the practice of focusing our attention and capturing the moments of its dissipation, it also strengthens our concentration in Everyday life... This is the lasting effect that comes with consistent meditation.

Focused attention is a muscle and needs to be strengthened with regular exercise.

Less worries.

This is quite a technical point, but no less interesting. The more we meditate, the less we experience and, as it turns out, this is all because the connections of individual nerve pathways weaken. It sounds bad, but in reality it is not at all like that.

The part of our brain, which is also called the Self-Center (Prefrontal cortex of the brain), is engaged in processing information regarding us and our experience. Without meditation, the neural pathways from body sensations and fear centers to this part of the brain remain very strong, and when we experience a frightening or upsetting situation, we in turn elicit a strong response in the Self Center, as well as a sense of fear and threat.

When we meditate, we weaken these nerve connections and, due to this, we react less to previously strong stimuli. By weakening these connections, we at the same time strengthen the pathways leading to what is called the Assessment Center of the brain (the part responsible for logical reasoning), as well as to our body's sensations and centers of fear. Thus, when we experience frightening or upsetting situations, it becomes easier for us to assess them rationally. Here's a good example:

While experiencing pain, instead of worrying and thinking that something is wrong with you, you can observe how the pain intensifies and goes away without getting lost in possible reasons its origin.

More creativity.

As a writer, this part has always been the most interesting to me, and we have already covered the science of creativity in depth before. Unfortunately, this is not the easiest area to study, but some research does exist. Researchers at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands studied Attention and Observation Meditations to see if it improved Creative skills or not. Research has concluded that Attention Concentration meditation practitioners have shown no progress in performing creative tasks. Those who did the Observation Meditation did better at performing tasks requiring the introduction of new ideas.

More compassion

Research has shown that empathy and compassion are predominant in those who practice meditation regularly. In one experiment course for the practice of so-called "compassion meditation," participants were shown photographs of good, bad, and neutral people. The participants managed to focus their attention and reduce the level of reaction to what is happening in the photographs, not only during meditation, but also after it. They also began to have more compassion for the people in the photographs.

This is in part due to the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for processing emotional signals. During meditation, this part usually showed reduced activity, but during this experiment it reacted particularly actively to the photographs shown.

Another study in 2008 showed that patients who meditate on a regular basis show increased activity in the temporo-parietal joints (the part of the brain responsible for compassion) when listening to recordings of sounds of suffering people, which is not typical for patients who are not engaged in meditation.

Improving memory

One of the most frequently attributed merit to meditation is the improvement of fast-acting memory. Katherine Kerr, a researcher at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and the Osher Research Center, noticed that people who practice Mindfulness Meditation are able to self-tune their brain waves responsible for trapping distractions and quickly increase their effectiveness, unlike those who do not meditate. She notes that the ability to ignore distracting objects may explain their increased ability to “quickly memorize and use new information". This is by nature close to the effect that unfamiliar situations have on us. Finding ourselves in such situations, we also significantly improve our ability to remember.

Less stress

Mindfulness meditation has been shown to be effective when people have to act in a stressful, stressful situation. In a 2012 study, a group of HR (human resources) managers was divided into three subgroups, one of which was engaged in Mindfulness Meditation, the other was in body relaxation training, and the latter did not take any part in either. A stressful multitasking test was presented to managers before and after the eight-week experiment. In the final test, the meditation group showed less stress than the other two groups.

More gray matter

Meditation is often associated with a predominance of gray matter in the hippocampus and frontal regions of the brain. At first I didn't understand what that meant, but as it turns out, it's pretty cool! An increase in the amount of gray matter leads to an increase in positive emotions, long-term emotional stability and daily increase in concentration.

Meditation has also been shown to slow the aging process of gray matter and cognitive decline.

How to start meditating

Here is a great infogram outlining the main types of meditation and tips on how to fit meditation into your work schedule.