Since my mother tried to approach meditation when I was about 12 years old, I had been quite skeptical about this practice.
It always seemed to me that it was a difficult experience to understand and not so important, so I simply decided that it was not for me.
More recently, I have found how simple meditation can be (not easy, but simple) and the enormous benefit it can have for my daily happiness.
As an adult, I started my meditation practice with only two minutes per day, only two minutes! I got that idea from the Zen Habits blog by Leo Babauta, where he points out that starting with a small habit is the first step to achieve it consistently .
Whether you are skeptical as I used to be, or if you are more advanced than me in an incredible habit of meditation for several hours, I consider it always interesting to discover how new habits affect our brains.
I wanted to investigate a little, I took a look at the meditation and its actions in us, in order to observe what happens inside our brains when we do this, and what I found is quite interesting.
It could also interest you: And ... What is Meditation? What benefits does it bring to your life?
What is meditation?
There are different ways of understanding meditation, and since it is such a personal practice, probably many of us understand meditation from different approaches, or at least, we define it in different ways.
Many authors speak of meditation as an educational practice for the mind and heart, I feel and I witness that meditation is a real and personal experience that generates in the person that a change of mentality lives and to observe everything . As they would say in my homeland a change of chip. Did you change your chip yet?
However, there is a couple that I like quite a lot and that generally focuses largely on scientific research . Certainly, it is better to define from the verifiable with arguments and evidence, and maximum if there are skeptics.
It is focused attention, or conscious meditation, which is what focuses on a specific thing: it could be your breathing, a sensation in your body or a particular object outside of you.
The goal of this type of meditation is to focus strongly on a specific point, and continually attract your attention to that focal point when you wander.
The other type of meditation that is often used in research is open monitoring meditation . This is where you pay attention to all the things that happen around you: you simply notice everything without reacting.
Under this research “couple”, I will make you very briefly known, because the topic is quite broad, about what meditation is and its direct involvement in our brains.
What happens in your brain when you meditate?
This is where things get really interesting.
By using modern technology such as nuclear magnetic resonance scanners, scientists have developed a deeper understanding of what is happening in our brains when we meditate, similar to how scientists have previously analyzed creativity in our brains .
The general difference when using this scanner on a brain meditating, is that their brains stop processing the information as actively as they normally would.
Start by showing a decrease in beta waves, indicating that brains are processing information, even after a 20-minute meditation session if they had never tried it before.
In the image below you can see how the beta waves (shown in bright colors on the left) are drastically reduced during meditation (on the right).
How meditation affects your brain - beta waves
Below is the best explanation I found of what happens in each part of the brain during meditation :
Frontal lobe
This is the most evolved part of the brain, responsible for reasoning, planning, emotions and conscious awareness . During meditation, the frontal cortex tends to disconnect.
Parietal lobe
This part of the brain processes sensory information about the surrounding world, orienting you in time and space. During meditation, activity in the parietal lobe slows down.
Thalamus
The guardian of the senses, this organ concentrates its attention by channeling some sensory data deeper into the brain and stopping other signals in its path. Meditation reduces the flow of incoming information to a drip.
Reticular formation
As a sentinel of the brain, this structure receives incoming stimuli and puts the brain on alert, ready to respond. Meditation re-marks the excitation signal.
Surprising! Right? It is incredible what meditation can achieve in our brains.
You can also read: The Silence: Insatiable Search of the Self
How Meditation affects us
Now that we know what is going on inside our brain, let's take a look at the research on the ways in which it affects our health. In fact, it is very similar to how exercise affects our brain .
Better approach
Because meditation is a practice of focusing our attention and being aware of everything, this also improves our focus when we are not meditating .
It is a lasting effect that comes from regular episodes of meditation .
Focused attention is very similar to a muscle, one that needs to be strengthened through exercise.
Less anxiety
This point is quite technical, but it is really interesting.
The more we meditate, the less anxiety we are going to have, and it turns out that this is because we are actually loosening the connections of particular neural pathways.
What happens without meditating is that there is a section of our brains that is sometimes called Centro Yo (it is technically the medial pre-frontal cortex ). This is the part that processes information related to ourselves and our experiences.
Normally, the neural pathways that go from the centers of body sensation and fear of the brain to the I Center are really strong.
When you experience a terrifying or annoying sensation, you provoke a strong reaction in your Me Center, which makes you feel scared and under attack.
When we meditate, we weaken this neural connection. This means that we do not react so strongly to the sensations that could have illuminated our Self Centers.
As we weaken this connection, at the same time we strengthen the connection between what is known as our Evaluation Center (the part of our brain known for reasoning) and our centers of bodily sensation and fear.
So, when we experience feelings of fear or disturbance, we can look at them more easily in a rational way . Here is a good example:
When you experience pain, or feel anxious, and assuming that it means that something is wrong with you, you can see how the pain increases and decreases without getting caught in a story that could possibly ruin you, or that would lead you to madness or despair.
And all, thanks to the art of meditation! When will you start your little days of meditation ?
More creativity
As a writer, this is something I've always been interested in and I've tried to increase and explore in depth, it's about the science of creativity.
Unfortunately, it is not the easiest to study, but there is some research on how meditation can affect our creativity.
Researchers at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands studied the meditation of both focused attention and open monitoring, in order to see if there was any improvement in creativity.
They discovered that people who meditate with focused attention showed no obvious signs after their meditation on improving and increasing creativity.
However, for those who did open-ended meditation, they performed better in a creative task that they were asked for, were able to make new, revolutionary and novel ideas known.
More compassion
Research on meditation has shown that empathy and compassion are greater in those who practice meditation on a regular basis.
An experiment showed participants images of other people who were good, bad or neutral in what they called " compassionate meditation ."
Participants were able to focus their attention and reduce their emotional reactions to these images, even when they were not in a meditative state. They also experienced more compassion for others when they are shown disturbing images.
Part of this comes from the activity in the cerebral tonsil, the part of the brain that processes emotional stimuli.
During meditation, this part of the brain normally shows decreased activity, this experiment was exceptionally receptive when participants were shown images of people, and made their comparisons.
Another study conducted in 2008 found that people who meditated regularly had stronger activation levels at their temporal parietal junctions (a part of the brain linked to empathy) when they heard the sounds of people who suffer, than those who did not meditate.
Best memory
Having a very good memory and remembering memories more quickly has been another benefit linked to meditation .
Catherine Kerr, a researcher at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Images and the Osher Research Center, discovered that people who consciously meditated could adjust the brain wave that eliminates distractions, which would lead to increase their productivity more efficiently, far superior to those who do not meditate.
She said that this ability to ignore distractions could explain her superior ability to remember quickly and incorporate new facts . This seems to be very similar to the power of being exposed to new situations that will also dramatically improve our memory of things .
Less stress
Conscious meditation has been shown to help people work under pressure while feeling less stressed.
A 2012 study divided a group of human resources managers into three, one third participating in conscious meditation training, another third taking body relaxation training, and the last third without any training .
A stressful multitasking test was performed on all managers, within eight weeks, and before and after the experiment.
In the final test, the group that had participated in the training of meditation, reported having less stress during stressful tests, a reality that did not happen with the other two groups.
More gray matter
Meditation has been linked to large amounts of gray matter in the hippocampus and in the frontal areas of the brain .
I didn't know what this meant at first, but it turns out it's pretty good. More gray matter can lead to more positive emotions, more lasting emotional stability and greater concentration during daily life.
Meditation has also been shown to decrease the age-related effects on gray matter and reduce the decline in our cognitive functioning.
Meditation brings surprising benefits! What is meditation for you ? I wish you abundant successes and blessings, A Hug of Light!
Bibliographic References :
- Harvard University
- How Meditation May Change the Brain
- Meditation's Effects on Emotion Shown to Persist
- 4 scientific studies on how meditation can affect your heart, brain and creativity
Author : William Hernán Estrada Pérez, Editor in the Great Family of hermandadblanca.org
