Does Meditation Change Your Brain?
Everyone has heard about meditation and told how it could greatly benefit you, but does meditation change your brain? Is there anything it does on a physical level or is it all in your head? If you want these questions answered, keep reading and learn how meditation changes your brain.
Areas of the Brain Meditation Changes
Regarding meditation and its effects on the human brain, there are four parts it targets and changes: Grey Matter, the Amygdala, the Prefrontal Cortex, and finally, the Hippocampus. While the changes can be small or large, they will depend entirely on how long, how often, and the type of meditation you do.
However, your brain will change somewhat even if you only meditate occasionally. So do not worry about meditating every day or for long periods at a time; even just once a week can have small effects on your brain.
Shrinking the Amygdala and Increasing the Cortical Thickness of the Hippocampus
There are two primary ways your brain structure changes after you have been doing meditation for a long time. Firstly, the Amygdala, the part of the brain that controls stress, fear, and anxiety, shrinks, and people generally feel less stressed—secondly, the cortical thickness of the hippocampus increases, which controls memory and focus.
Improving Memory and Focus
People say mediation helps improve a person’s memory and focus, but is that true? Turns out, yes. According to a study in 2012, scientists found that people who meditated saw an increase in stability in their ventral posteromedial cortex. That is the part of your brain that is affected by spontaneous thoughts and mind-wandering making it more difficult to focus.
Another 2013 study showed that meditation helped improve students’ memory in their Graduate Record Examinations, specifically the reading comprehension section. They stated they could more easily recall information and were less distracted during the testing. And that was only after two weeks of regular meditation!
Slows Mental Aging
One of the worst parts about aging is that the mind begins to deteriorate, and your memory begins to fail. In 2015, a group of researchers conducted a study over twenty years. Over those twenty years, they measured the loss of gray matter between 50 people who meditated regularly versus 50 people who did not.
They found that while both groups lost grey matter, the group that meditated regularly lost less than the group that did not. While this could show that in the long run, if you meditate regularly, you can prevent mental aging. However, researchers need more time to conduct further research on whether or not meditation can prevent mental aging.
Meditation Improves Focus and Memory
While the effects of meditation on the brain are not fully known, there is good evidence that while it does help you mentally, it can also change your brain’s structure. Even if it does not change your brain structure much, it reduces stress and improves focus and memory.
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