Quote “Meditation showed positive brain MRI changes in only two months of meditating”… I was alerted to this twitter post on meditation this week. I never truly saw the power of meditation in this light, that it can structurally change our brain…
Coincidentally this same week, while walking in Punggol Park, I took the above photo capturing someone in long deep meditation. When I walked past again after about 30 minutes, he was still in the same posture.
Both events triggered me immediately into full gear research to understand more deeply about meditation and the associated brain changes. Meditation is not completely new to me, I wrote about it in one of my earlier articles. However, I am still a novice practitioner with a lot of curiosity and I am excited to share my findings here.
There are quite a lot of materials online on this topic. I found this Ted Talk YouTube Video “How Meditation Can Reshape Our Brains” by Dr Sarah Lazar, a neuroscientist at Harvard and a meditator, simple to understand and highly relatable.
Meditation Can Literally Change Your Brain
Dr Sarah used to be skeptical about the lofty claim her yoga teacher made about the emotional benefits she should expect to experience from meditation. After attending several classes for two weeks, she indeed felt calmer, happier and more compassionate. She could not understand why and decided to refocus her research on the changes in the brain physical structure as a result of meditation.
She conclusively demonstrated that with just 30 minutes of consistent practice over a 8 weeks period, some brain changes seen in MRI scans show meditation can actually change the size of key regions of our brain and scientifically validated to…
1. Improve memory and make you more empathetic, compassionate and resilient under stress.
2. Reduce symptoms associated with anxiety, depression, pain and insomnia.
3. Help you to be less reactive and calm in dealing with difficult situations.
4. Help to slow down or prevent our natural age-related decline.
Stay Fit Mentally
So do you meditate ? If not, will you consider starting now that you are aware of its benefits ? Most of us are conscious about keeping fit physically via exercise but we often overlook the importance of keeping fit mentally too. Meditation is a mental exercise tailored for our brain and happiness is not a gift but a skill !
I would love to hear your feedback and experience in the comments section below. If you discover or are aware of any other great materials on this topic, I will be very happy if you can share them as well with me and my other readers.
Lyn 🌻😊
Thank you Lyn. Many people meditate for different reasons but all kinds of meditation definitely have benefits on ourselves…. physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
I like your blog for sharing ideas to keep your readers curious and interested in life…..
I teach myself often to expand further my understanding of whatever subject that captures my interest and your regular posts keep me engaged in my own search too … thank you Lyn.
I also look forward to reading your readers’ comments and I find them inspiring too…. so may I also say Thank You to your readers too as their comments add value to my search… . So thank you everyone….
Thank you so much Leanne, I always look forward to your thoughtful comments and added insights too !
I am just beginning to discover the benefits for meditation though my own practice and I hope my articles can motivate my readers to get started too, if not already. Exchanging views here is extremely value add as there will always be different experience, perspective and learnings we can tap from one another. So I want to thank you and my readers too for keeping the comments coming ❤️…
In yoga practices, I’d done some meditation. The benefits are there but I don’t do that enough.
Your article is great reminder for more mindfulness in this practice.
Thanks to your deep dive research into it, I’m surprised and not surprised at the same time about the results showing up on MRI scan. Mental health, phycological support and resilience are all hot topics as we survive COVID19. Great reminder of an asset in our Asian heritage that we should leverage in this dynamic situation.
Let’s meditate! Bring back peace and control of our lives!
Thank you Den ! Yes I have heard great benefits about Yoga practices too, been contemplating and good reminder for me to get going.
Indeed Covid19 has taught us a lot and has pushed extreme boundaries on many lives. I hope more people can experience the peace and calmness that meditation can bring. When we are calm and peaceful, we are also better able to help those around us.
Thanks for sharing and a good reminder about benefits of Meditation, Lynn !
I met one Buddhist monk who teaches meditation many years ago and one thing that he said stuck in my mind. He said everything we do must be for a purpose. Sometimes, we are already practicing meditation and we did not realised it. We always assume meditation is when we sit calmly with our legs crossed and empty our mind with our breath etc. I am sure we will all agree that we practice meditation is because we want to feel calm and relief. But, as the monk pointed out to me, ultimately purpose is to feel good and happy. If we saw an old lady try to walk across a busy street , do we automatically walk across and help ? If we without hesitation, we just walk across and help the old lady across the street, our mind actually is in subconscious meditation stage. At the end after we help the old lady, I am sure there will be some feeling of happiness and satisfaction internally. The more we are able to have such automatic meditation stage, the more happier and enlightenment we can achieved. Practicing meditation helps us get there . Thus, thank you so much for this reminder, Lynn !
Thank you so much for sharing your personal experience BT ! Great insights and perspective from the monk…
So true, meditation ultimately brings up our innate nature of compassion and kindness… and when this becomes our natural response, we will feel more fulfilled and happier. Great reminder… do everything with a purpose !
Mental health is so critical to our well being, now more than ever before. While you intuitively understand that meditation leads to calmness, the fact that it alters the brain physically is remarkable.
India has many centres that teach the art and science of meditation. Lyn, your next India trip should be to one such place…..thanks for sharing and best regards
Thanks Rajiv ! I hope more people can experience the benefit and enhance on their mental well being through meditation.
I miss India and look forward to be going back again, hopefully sometime soon. India is such an amazing country and believed to be the place where meditation originated from thousands of years ago. I would love to visit one of the meditation centers…
Dear Lyn,
Thank you.
Springxx
❤️
Thanks for sharing Lyn. I started mindfulness practice 6 years ago. This is the training of awareness of our body, emotion, thoughts and action impulse. Meditation is a formal way of mindfulness practice to clam our mind to have better clarity. Like you said, we often missed out mental training for our brain. Some other useful mindfulness practices include body scan and mindful eating.
Thank you so much Jimmy, really appreciate you sharing your personal experience and added insights. Especially with Covid19, many people are stressed and challenged mentally. I hope my reader will benefit from this sharing, encourage them to pause and invest time into some quiet sitting to help them calm their mind.