Meditation has been shown to thicken the prefrontal cortex. This brain center manages higher-order brain functions, such as increasing awareness, concentration and decision-making. Changes in the brain show that, with meditation, higher-order functions are strengthened, while lower-order brain activities decrease. Neuroscientists at Mass General and Harvard Medical School have been studying meditation and its positive effects on the brain for several years.
One of their studies looked at long-term meditators compared to a regular control group. The amazing results revealed that meditators had increased gray matter in several areas of the brain, including the auditory and sensory cortex. Clinical trials have shown that mindfulness meditation reduces chronic pain by 57 percent and that experienced meditators can reduce it by more than 90 percent. They found that two brain regions were larger in meditators than in non-meditators, while non-meditators showed no advantage in any region of the brain.
In addition to all these incredible benefits of meditation, meditation is easy to do and you can do it right now. This means that the more you meditate, the faster and more efficient your brain will be at processing information, which can be especially useful at times when you need to think quickly. The prefrontal cortex is the region of the brain associated with attention planning, higher-order processing, and organization. Long-term meditators have been shown to have a greater amount of gyrification compared to those who don't practice meditation.
Neurons, the cells that process information in the brain, connect to create neural pathways, which are responsible for your thoughts, feelings, and actions.
When sixty-three students from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, with no experience in meditation, volunteered for an experiment that studied the effects of meditation on their verbal fluency, the results showed that there was a significant improvement in verbal fluency in those who were engaged in mindfulness
. meditation against those who didn't. A fascinating study confirms that after an eight-week course of mindfulness practice, the brain's “fight or flight” center, the amygdala, shrinks.This is possible because the auditory cortices are located in different cerebral hemispheres and have to work together to decode the 40 Hz binaural signal you hear on Synctuition trips. Try different meditation styles to find the one that works best for you and fits your lifestyle. Here are 15 ways in which regular meditation has been shown to significantly improve brain function and mood. Meditators performed significantly better than non-meditators, as examined in a study in which participants performed exercises that tested cognitive flexibility.
While mindfulness meditation can cause incredible changes in the brain and perspective, this doesn't happen overnight and isn't a panacea. Still, there are some key areas, such as depression, chronic pain and anxiety, where well-designed and well-directed studies have demonstrated benefits for patients participating in a mindfulness meditation program, with effects similar to those of other existing treatments.
