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There is a bottomless well full of scientific research, peer reviewed journals, and fact outlining that meditation increases brain activity, lessens negative cognitive and physical effects, changes reaction to stimuli, and helps people in areas that we could only dream of. Seriously. Stop bashing it. I'm sick of people saying there's no scientific evidence when we conduct several studies each year on meditation only to prove them all right.
A group of neuroscientists went to visit the Dalai Lama and a few of his closest monk friends at their home in Dharamsala, India. What they wanted to know was whether meditation can expand or strengthen circuits in a person’s brain. It has already been demonstrated that outside stimulation can affect the brain. They wanted to verify whether the power of one’s own internal concentration can do the same.
Their findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were remarkable. The monks who participated had in excess of 10,000 hours of meditation experience. They were asked to meditate on specific ideas, like compassion. Their brain functioning was compared to inexperienced meditators focusing on the same subject. The increase in the activity of the monk’s brains was not only greater than that of the inexperienced people to whom they were compared; it was greater than anything previously recorded in similar research. The high-frequency brain activity called gamma waves of their brains dramatically increased during the experiment. These tests also relied on functional magnetic resonance imaging to document activity in the left prefrontal cortex of the participant’s brains.
The thought experiment actually overwhelmed activity in the right prefrontal cortex where negative emotions and anxiety dwell. It appears that their discipline has increased the level of their consciousness in a positive and measurable way.
Additional information gathered by research scientist Sara Lazar of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School revealed a thicker cortex in the brains of those who practiced Buddhist insight meditation.
A group of neuroscientists went to visit the Dalai Lama and a few of his closest monk friends at their home in Dharamsala, India. What they wanted to know was whether meditation can expand or strengthen circuits in a person’s brain. It has already been demonstrated that outside stimulation can affect the brain. They wanted to verify whether the power of one’s own internal concentration can do the same.
Their findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were remarkable. The monks who participated had in excess of 10,000 hours of meditation experience. They were asked to meditate on specific ideas, like compassion. Their brain functioning was compared to inexperienced meditators focusing on the same subject. The increase in the activity of the monk’s brains was not only greater than that of the inexperienced people to whom they were compared; it was greater than anything previously recorded in similar research. The high-frequency brain activity called gamma waves of their brains dramatically increased during the experiment. These tests also relied on functional magnetic resonance imaging to document activity in the left prefrontal cortex of the participant’s brains.
The thought experiment actually overwhelmed activity in the right prefrontal cortex where negative emotions and anxiety dwell. It appears that their discipline has increased the level of their consciousness in a positive and measurable way.
Additional information gathered by research scientist Sara Lazar of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School revealed a thicker cortex in the brains of those who practiced Buddhist insight meditation.
