How Meditation Changes The Brain

This topic will cover how meditation changes and impacts the brain positively. This will most likely be the first of many related talks I'll be creating as I love to learn and share the benefits of Meditation. Hopefully, this will inspire you to keep practicing!

Transcript

Hey this is Ish and today I wanted to talk to you about how meditation impacts the brain.

So this is going to be one of many talks that I do just because I feel that it's very fascinating about how meditation actually changes your neurology in the brain.

So just a quick disclaimer,

I'm not a neuroscientist but I am pulling evidence from studies done by psychologists and neuroscientists and I'm relaying that information out to you.

So before we actually get into the brain,

One thing that I found pretty interesting is that meditation can actually help remove bad habits.

So meditation helps build attention skills that slows down habits.

So this is very similar to a MBSR type practice where when you're sitting down you can notice when you have certain thought patterns and you just label it as thinking.

And this is similar to when habits form,

You typically get an urge to do something from a cue and it's from that urge that you react automatically and just do the habits such as binge eating or binge drinking and there isn't much moderation there or any restraint.

And basically what meditation does is that whenever you feel that urge you can now have the chance to respond rather than react and I found that was pretty interesting.

And going on to the brain,

Adults are able to generate new neurons in the hippocampus and this is related to learning and memory.

This is a study done in 1998 by Erickson.

So this is a meditation is perfect for everyone and especially students as well who have to memorize a lot of information.

I definitely wish I had started meditating a bit sooner.

And going on to the brain,

Let's talk about the prefrontal cortex.

So this is a part in the brain,

The frontal lobe which is associated with executive function,

Planning,

Thinking,

And goal setting and goal achievement.

And this is typically forms of in adults about at around the age of 25.

And when you're meditating you are sustaining your attention to your breath and this actually activates the region in the prefrontal cortex.

And when you're bringing that awareness,

Conscious awareness in the meditation you're also activating another part in the prefrontal cortex called the insula.

The insula basically just notices the temperature fluctuations and different things in the room and it's basically that noticing function that's going on in the brain.

It's basically that noticing function in the prefrontal cortex.

And whenever your mind wanders and you bring that awareness back to your breath or another point of focus,

You activate the prefrontal cortex and then also the parietal lobe and this handles sensory information.

So meditation enhances this prefrontal cortex part in your brain and it also decreases mind wandering.

So we have what is called a default mode network or DMN for short and it's responsible for mind wandering.

So you'll notice that especially people with anxiety or just in general if you have a lot of thoughts,

95% of those are just really random and doesn't really help you.

So your thoughts kind of go in a loop pattern and that causes stress.

What meditation does is that it decreases the activity in these networks at the same time also enhancing the prefrontal cortex.

So now if you look in the limbic system which is our reptilian brain which is very which is pretty ancient to us,

We have the nucleus incumbens which is the part in the limbic system which is associated with moving towards different things and attachments and cravings.

So this would be cravings to drugs or other habits,

Even positive ones as well and also rewards.

So it's more of a grasping type of energy if you will.

Then you also have the amygdala which I'm sure you're familiar with and this is the part of the limbic system which is associated with moving away from different things or aversions.

This is our fight or flight response.

So it's very reactive and basically they've done a study where they took participants who took an MBSR course for eight weeks and they found that they had increased gray matter in the amygdala which is associated with less stress.

So the amygdala was activated less and actually they found that in long-term meditators the amygdala actually shrinks in volume as well.

And something interesting that I just found out on my own is that in the heart sutra there's a saying that goes along the lines of may you be happy and may you be free from aversions and may you be free from attachments.

So this kind of relates to the nucleus accumbens and amygdala if you really think about it.

So long-term meditators are able to disassociate themselves from this pattern of moving towards and grasping attachments and also away from reacting as well.

And they've also done studies where they've shown people kind of horrific images,

People images of gunshot wounds and war and other kind of traumatic images and they found that a person's ability to bounce back to their baseline after seeing those images was correlated with how many hours,

Lifetime hours of meditation they had under their belt.

So the long-term meditators were able to bounce back to their normal level from before they saw the image.

They were still,

Don't get me wrong,

They still felt the emotions associated with seeing that image such as fear or disgust just like anyone else.

They're totally human in that regard but they bounce back a lot faster.

And they found that even this effect of bouncing back to baseline occurred in people who even had over 30,

000 hours of lifetime meditation hours.

So this keeps going up and up in a curve so the effects of meditation doesn't really stop and only increases as time goes on.

Now there's another study done by Dr.

Zaydan and he found that just 20 minutes of meditation can significantly reduce our perceived stress,

Tension,

Depression,

Confusion,

And also improve our overall mood.

And one 20 minute study,

Sorry one study has shown that 120 minute meditation session can reduce state anxiety by 22%.

Now granted in this study,

Now granted in this particular study,

The sample size was pretty small,

I think it was only about 15 or 20 people at most.

But however they did do fMRIs where they actually scanned the brains of these participants.

So these are actual brain scans and they were actually able to see the lasting effects of meditation and it really showed concrete evidence of how meditation helps.

And meditation can change different parts of your brain as well which I'll talk about in future talks.

So I thought this was really interesting to do my own research and and find these studies because it really shows that the practice that we do every day to not only find calm and peace can actually change the way our brain functions in a positive manner.

Thank you.

Reviews

Very interesting! Thank you!

excellent information. thank you so much!

Excellent review of systems. It would have boosted the "wow" factor even more (or so I think) if when you mentioned the "brain scan" (fMRI), you noted that "fMRI" refers to "functional MRI which means the MRI is actively scanning as the subject is engaged in the specified activity so there is a real-time image sequence generated of how the brain "lights up" corresponding to the different stages and activities. 😊

Looking forward to more of your talks in this area! Thanks for sharing with us here. I see you and the light within you. Be well. 🤲🏻❤️🤲🏻

So informative! Thank you! Namaste 🙏🏼🌟

Very interesting, thank you for sharing this knowledge. 🙏🏽

Very interesting, thank you looking forward to more talks with you! Sending blessings and gratitude 🙏

Very informative! Thank you!

Phenomenal! Thanks 😊

Very informative - so awesome to know science can now explain what we’ve known for so long about meditations benefits

Good information Ish! Thanks so much for sharing. Be well!

Excellent information presented in a concise way thank you 🙏

Very good. Thank you for the facts.