Harvard Neuroscientist: Meditation Reduces Stress, Really Changes Your Brain

The Power of Thought

In its most basic sense, meditation clears all thoughts from your head, or at least keeps you from trying to think. This method is used in cultural and religious activities around the world. While it's known for its spiritual uses, this spark of interest has recently sparked scientific research showing that meditation appears to change your brain on a fundamental biological level.

Many clinical psychologists, Dr. Robert Puff, in Psychology Today note that written records of meditation techniques date back at least 3000 years, in Indian scriptures around 1000 BC. However, the practice itself seems to go back much further. There is some evidence that humans meditated five thousand years ago. Unfortunately, the exact date of its beginning is unknown, but it didn't really begin to spread around the world until the 6th century BC. It wasn't until the 20th century that mainstream scientists began to study the effects of meditation on the human body, especially the human brain.

So far, meditation has found many medical uses. Perhaps the most obvious use is in stress management and stress reduction, which has been backed up by a wealth of scientific evidence. In a study published in Clinical Psychology Reviews, researchers at Boston University and Harvard Medical School found that the technique helps relieve anxiety and enables people to better cope with stressful situations.

Likewise, Fadel Zedan, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, found in 2011 that meditation helps individuals cope and better tolerate physical pain. The work was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. But this is only the beginning of research related to meditation.

Transforming the human brain

In a 2015 study published in Frontiers in Psychology, UCLA researchers found that people who meditated for a long time had more gray matter in their brains. The study looked at people who had been meditating for about 20 years. Study author Florian Kurth said: "We expected fairly small and varied effects in some areas previously associated with meditation. Instead, what we actually observed was a broad effect of meditation, covering regions of the entire brain."

Other findings support these findings. A 2011 National Academy of Sciences litigation study conducted at Yale University found that meditation reduced activity in the brain's default mode network (DMN). In the paper, the team noted that this influenced the actual biological effects of meditation and helped reveal "a unique understanding of the possible neural mechanisms of meditation."

And, the evidence isn't over yet.

Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, has recently done some work and found that people who meditate end up having more gray matter in the frontal cortex, most notably, despite aging. been preserved. As Lazar said in an interview with The Washington Post: "Our cortex shrinks as we age, and it's hard to count things and remember things. But in this area of ​​the prefrontal cortex, at age 50 of meditators have the same amount of gray matter as a 25-year-old."

In other words, people who meditate are better able to maintain memory function in old age because of changes in the brain. Moreover, personal gain is not too much. In her studies, Lazar said, the average meditation time was only 27 minutes a day, and it took eight weeks to start seeing results. So, how can you benefit from it?

Scientists assert that grinding the body using proprioceptive input (also known as "deep touch pressure") can be helpful when trying to achieve a meditative state. Studies have shown that this stress leads to lower cortisol levels, increased serotonin production, and lower heart rate and blood pressure.

Therefore, the input of proprioception, which allows people to achieve a relaxed physical state, makes it easier to achieve a calm mental state that is conducive to meditation. Also, through the use of a thick blanket, one of the most effective ways to get proprioceptive input.

Occupational therapist, Amber Martin, from Utica College, points out, "Proprioceptive input can be beneficial for anyone." By helping you reach a state of peace and relaxation more quickly, blankets can make it easier for you to use each A worthwhile moment of meditation before returning to the busy world outside of your mind.

There is little debate in science about the benefits of meditation. According to research published in the "Journal of Information and Clinical Psychology," meditation is associated with decreased sensations of depression, anxiety, and physical pain.

Other studies have explored the link between meditation and improved focus, lower blood pressure, better memory, reduced fatigue, and more. However, reaching a meditative state often requires a lot of work, and it's not easy to really let your mind go.