How Meditation Changes Your Brain

Call Toll Free: 877-985-2695

SEARCH:

FREE Subscription

The World’s Most Popular Natural Health Newsletter

ARTICLE TOOLS:

Current Newsletter

Share Your Comment

Print this Page

Podcasts

Save as Favorites

Submit My Story

Newsletter Feed

Health Blog Feed

TRANSLATE THIS PAGE:

Aging Allergies Alzheimers Arthritis Artificial Sweeteners Asthma Autism Back Pain Book Reviews Brain/Memory Health Cancer Cardiovascular Health Children’s Health Cholesterol Chronic Fatigue Conflict of Interest Conventional Medicine Corporate Greed Death And Dying Diabetes Digestive Disorders Digestive Health Drug Companies Drugs EFT EMF Emotional Health Energy Support Entertainment Environmental Exercise and Fitness Fats Fibromyalgia Finances Food GMO Government Abuses Health Concerns Health Support Healthy Aging Healthy Recipes Heart Diseases Hormones Immune Support Infectious Disease Internal Special Report Iron Excess/Hemochromatosis Joint Support Looking and Feeling Younger Men’s Health Mental Health Obesity Online Tests Osteoporosis Pain Management Personal Development Personal Improvement Pet Health Pets Raw Food Seizure Disorders Senior Health Sexual Health Sleep/Insomnia Smoking Soy Spiritual Health Substance Abuse Sugar Sunlight Supplements Swine Flu Technology Television Thyroid Disease Toxicity/Detoxification Toxins/Pollution Vaccines Vision Health Water Weight Management Women’s Health

Share this article

How Meditation Changes Your Brain

Posted by: Dr. Mercola
July 12 2008 | 44,634 views

There is growing evidence to show that meditation can make people healthier and happier. It may even increase lifespan, alter brain structure and change personality.

Now, mainstream medicine is beginning to take notice of meditation’s effects. For example, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), which is about 80 percent meditation, has been approved in Britain for use with people who have experienced three or more episodes of depression.

MRI scans of long-term meditators have shown greater activity in brain circuits involved in paying attention. Long-term meditation can also cause changes in the actual structure of your cortex, the outer layer of your brain. Brain regions associated with attention and sensory processing have been shown to be thicker in meditators.

Studies suggest that meditation can help you to train your attention and focus, even in the midst of distractions. For instance, when disturbing noises were played to a group of experienced meditators undergoing an MRI, they had little effect on the brain areas involved in emotion and decision-making.

About 10 million people meditate every day in the West, and many more in other parts of the world.

Sources:

The London Times March 14, 2008

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

Before you brush off meditation as something only for Buddhist monks or hippies, it would serve you well to find out what you may be missing.

Meditation is the equivalent of giving your mind an escape valve to blow off steam.

This is such a necessary tool in today’s 24/7 society that many people naturally engage in some form of meditation whenever they feel stressed -- listening to music, journaling, prayer, soaking in a bath, all of these work similarly to meditation in that they focus your mind and help promote a state of calm.

In so doing, your pulse, breathing and heart rate are likely to slow down, and your muscles will begin to relax. Your mind, too, will begin to unwind and forget about its racing thoughts.

At its most basic level, meditation helps you take a deliberate break from the stream of thoughts that are constantly flowing in and out of your mind. Some people use it to promote spiritual growth or find inner peace, while others use it as a relaxation and stress-reduction tool.

And while it’s not unusual for the most experienced meditators to have spent decades, even a lifetime, perfecting this art, you can gain benefits just from meditating in your home for 20 minutes a day.

What Can 20 Minutes a Day do for You?

Meditation has been shown to alter the workings of your brain not only in the short-term, but quite possibly permanently. Meditating thickens the areas of your brain where memory and attention reside, according to a Harvard study, and although the aging process lightens the brain in certain sectors, 20 minutes of meditation a day slows that down a bit.

Meditation can also improve your attention span, even while you’re performing mundane tasks in the mid-afternoon, a time when people typically have problems concentrating. Interestingly enough, according to one study the benefits of meditation remained strong even after patients lost a night's sleep in follow-up research.

Meanwhile, because meditation works so well to relieve stress, it can benefit all types of stress-related illness … and as you regular newsletter readers know, just about every illness is stress-related. This may explain why meditation can help to relieve:

High blood pressure
Chronic pain, including headaches
Respiratory problems such as emphysema and asthma
Sleep disturbances and fatigue
Gastrointestinal distress and irritable bowel syndrome
Skin disorders
Mild depression and premenstrual syndrome

Clearly, meditation ranks right up there with exercising and eating right when it comes to improving your health. And it’s something that just about everyone can carve out the time to do.

Simple Guidelines to Start Meditating

If you’d like to give meditation a try, sit quietly, perhaps with some soothing music, breathe rhythmically and focus on something such as your breathing, a flower, an image, a candle, a mantra or even just being in the moment. Some people prefer to close their eyes to block out visual stimulation. If you find that your mind starts to wander, direct it back to your focus point and continue from there.

Ideally, set aside 15-20 minutes a day to practice meditation. You can also try it in shorter segments, but ultimately try to work your way up to 20 minutes.

I’m also a major fan of brainwave entrainment technology, which is usually available in CD form. When you listen, you’re exposed to a combination of frequencies that induce powerful states of focused concentration or deep relaxing meditation while stimulating various parts of your brain to work together.

The benefit is that you can begin experiencing the deep frequencies right away, as opposed to having to work up to that level with traditional meditation.

However you choose to do it, just make sure you are giving your mind some down time to relax, regroup and recharge on a regular basis.