This article is completely devoted to the topic of the benefits of meditation in three aspects - physiological, psychological and spiritual. You will find answers not only to the benefits of meditation, but also its relationship with other states.
Is there any benefit to meditation
Let's ask the question: "Is there any benefit from meditation?" Well, this question is rhetorical, and the answer is obvious. Yes, of course there is, and it has been proven in practice. If it was a waste of time, then people would not practice it. At the same time, note that not backward individuals are engaged in meditation, but highly developed and highly gifted people. Often they are very busy, running companies, negotiating and making multi-million dollar deals. This is the kind of audience that is not accustomed to wasting time in vain. Even if they, seemingly quite far from spiritual teachings, understand the benefits of meditation, then it makes sense to listen.
It is one thing when spiritual leaders or the same Buddhist monks promote meditation and present it as one of the the best means work on oneself, improving the process of self-knowledge and. This is their element, they know what they are talking about; however, they are often disconnected from the world: they live near temples, for them there is no routine, since it is completely excluded from their lives. They dedicated themselves to the work of the ministry. You can call it service to the Highest, knowledge and merging with the Absolute, understanding the true essence and final disidentification with.
Whatever word you express the essence of their activity, it always bears the imprint of something mystical, echoes of higher spheres.
In contrast, business people look at business with more practical side and they find in meditation a means of calming nervous system bringing emotions into balance. Ability to readjust and disconnect from business realities in order to recover emotional sphere and replenish energy reserves, learn to concentrate on one thing, directing attention along a given channel instead of jumping from one problem to another in search of an answer - this is what busy people learn through the practice of meditation.
They may not fully realize the full benefit of the practice they perform, but they receive it, even if they do not fully understand what it is and how it works.
When we talk about the mechanism of the meditation process, such terms as “rhythms of brain activity”, “synchronization of the work of both hemispheres of the brain” and others immediately come into play. In the next section, we'll talk about that as well.
In the meantime, we invite you to familiarize yourself with the meditation course for beginners with Andrey Verba
Benefits of meditation for the brain. Scientific Benefits of Meditation
Since we have touched on the topic of the effect of meditation on the human brain, it is worth considering it in more depth. Scientists conducted research and found that in the process of meditation, the amygdala, which is responsible for emotional reactions, is significantly reduced in size, which has a positive effect on the state of the human psyche, that is, it becomes more balanced, less reactive in its responses to stimuli emanating from the external environment.
The connections between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex of the brain are weakened, which also leads to more calmness and stimulates higher brain activity, responsible for increased levels of concentration and attention.
The post-meditation effects include the balanced work of both hemispheres of the brain. Usually the activity of one of the hemispheres prevails. Thus, more analytically oriented people are dominated by left hemisphere, which is responsible for logical thinking, verbal processes etc., and those who are called artistic natures, the right hemisphere prevails. It is capable of intuitive perception outside world, and therefore it is associated, first of all, with creative processes such as painting, playing instruments, writing and composing music, etc., that is, with those activities that require imagination and use non-standard solutions and tricks. By the way, energy and spiritual practices also belong to the right hemisphere, because they are associated with the development of fantasy, the ability to visualize and other similar abilities.
Meditation exercises have great advantage over other types of practices in that with their help you can balance the work of the left and right hemispheres - this will add order to your life. It is important to note that the concept of meditation must be correctly interpreted. People sometimes mistakenly assume that meditation is the process of silently contemplating some abstract point in front of you, and that it goes on for hours and so on.
This is partly true and partly not. The fact is that there are many types of meditation in the world. Among them there are not only those that are performed from a sitting position, but also standing, there are also dynamic meditations, when the meditative process occurs at the moment of movement. Perhaps people associate meditation with the Lotus position because the Vipassana course, aimed at developing concentration skills with a gradual immersion in the meditation process itself, just involves many hours of sitting in padmasana (Lotus position).
Of course, those of you who have an idea of what the state of samadhi is will probably think that it just takes a person beyond the limits of physical reality. The state of consciousness changes so much that the very awareness of consciousness does not exist when you experience samadhi. The ego has dissolved. On such high steps When a person has reached the level of samadhi, the concept of ego, one might say, dies off. Man, his consciousness merges with the universe, he does not perceive himself as a separate constituent unit of the world. On the contrary, there comes an understanding of unity with everything and that, apart from individual consciousness is the very universal, which is Brahman and Atman at the same time, the Absolute and the Higher Mind.
The names may be different, but the essence does not change. What happens is what is called self-realization in its purest form. However, samadhi, like meditation top level, are not designed to help a person avoid meeting reality. On the contrary, when a person's consciousness has reached such a level, he is able to perceive reality in a different way, as well as to influence it.
Benefits of meditation for consciousness, meditation and samadhi
In the process of practicing meditation, the consciousness of a person was transformed. The value system has changed. Now he is not interested in what could have plunged him into ecstasy in the past. But he fully realized his involvement in nature as a creator, a person felt unity with it, in fact, he merged with the universe itself, of course, with psychological point vision. The physical form is still there. The only goal of those who have achieved real samadhi is to fulfill their mission, for which they incarnated on earth. Therefore, the experience of samadhi allows them to return to ordinary life, to ordinary duties, but the nature of actions, motivation will be completely different, even if a person, it would seem, performs routine tasks.
A person is no longer driven by external motivation, based mostly on incentives addressed to our feelings and ego, but internal. To some extent, it is even difficult to call it motivation, because the concept of duty also does not exist, because it is also somehow connected with the substance of the ego. But when the ego has dissolved, a person is controlled by something else - awareness of the connection with God, with the Absolute, inner unity, when he realized that he and the Absolute are one. Atman is equal to Brahman, as the Vedas say. This ancient thesis has long been learned and lived by those who have really experienced nirvikalpa samadhi.
In the process of meditation, not everyone manages to achieve the state of samadhi, and one should not strive for this, because the goal of meditation is self-observation, contemplation of everything from the outside, as if leaving the body. However, meditation is not introspection. The difference between these two practices is huge. Meditation is a detached contemplation, without making critical assessments, without trying to change or correct anything, it is neutral. It is precisely because of its neutrality that meditation is objective and at the same time inactive, because only the Western mind is used to solving everything, relying on planning, developing strategies, creating a vain circle out of life.
The consciousness opposite to the Western one functions differently in many ways, and its coordinate points are located in a different plane. This is where inaction becomes the best "action". For the Western mentality, this makes no sense, there is no strong-willed beginning. Perhaps this is so, but the emptiness, the “thoughtlessness” of the mind that meditation practices, is the very engine of meditation, which, not being an engine in the literal sense of the word, nevertheless performs its function no worse than the very strategy " thousands of steps" that the average Westerner takes when he is in search and achievement of desired goals.
Meditation, not being an action in the literal sense of the word, is nevertheless a powerful tool for preparing actions, but at the subconscious level. This is its uniqueness. The subconscious guides a person, and if we can work with him and even change him, then the external attributes of our consciousness will also change. Meditation is basically reprogramming yourself. How you act and who you become in life depends on working with the subconscious. Meditation opens doors to this world, you just need to learn how to use them and not put off until tomorrow. Then you will feel the real benefit from the practice of meditation very soon after the start of classes, and your life will come out on a qualitatively new level: you will really learn to be aware of it, and not just think about these topics.
Hello, Dear friends! I never thought about how meditation affects our body. And yesterday I read an interesting study that was conducted on 4,000 participants in a Massachusetts hospital. They determined that in just 8 weeks, meditation literally rebuilds the gray matter in the brain. This is the first time such a large study has been carried out. It recorded changes in areas of the brain associated with memory, sensations and empathy ( 1 ).
Meditation here means simple technique from yoga, prayer or just sitting in silence with yourself.
Scientists have proven that well-being affects our organs. When a person feels good, he is full of positive emotions (love, gratitude or appreciation). Our heart begins to beat out a certain message, which is encoded in its electromagnetic field. In turn, this provides positive impact on the health of the body as a whole. It turns out that emotions affect our physical state.
The positive aspects of meditation, yoga, prayers and other relaxation techniques are now clearly proven by research. When practiced regularly, such techniques affect our physiological factors such as:
- heart rate,
- arterial pressure,
- stress, anxiety,
- oxygen consumption, etc.
Scientists have found that people participating in "relax programs" seek medical services much less. Compared to how much they handled the previous year.
The study involved about 4,000 participants. Comparing their performance with the control group, the participants said they had fewer visits to hospitals.
The soothing response of our body to such techniques reduces the need for medical services by 43%. If only 8 weeks.
Personally, I think a common misconception about meditation is that it has to be done in a special way. Or you need to sit in an uncomfortable position for several hours.
All you have to do is get into a comfortable position and focus on your breathing. Inhale-exhale. Don't try to empty your mind of thoughts. Empty they come and go. As they pass, start focusing on your breath again. When you tell yourself not to think, it does the opposite and has the opposite effect. You can choose how to feel and react to incoming thoughts.
You do not need to spend half a day on such a simple meditation. Enough to start 20 minutes.
recently read interesting article about who wants to change the field of activity. And what should be done. So, one of the lessons was just to sit for 1 hour in silence. Listen to what your body is saying and calm down.
After all, we are surrounded by so much "extra emotional noise" that has a strong influence on us. Rising prices for oil, buckwheat, salt. Or a flood in a distant country, which you hear about for the first time only from this news. And we begin to hear ourselves when the body just screams in pain and immediately rushes to the hospital. To be given some pain medication.
At first, I was also skeptical of such advice. Like "sit still, listen to what thoughts are spinning." Let them through you. Even the worst and worst. I first noticed that I felt lighter and calmer when I stopped watching TV. For whom it is not clear - I removed the remote control from the telly and have not turned it on for 2 years. And you know, I began to hear something completely different and notice the people around me. Even my husband began to say that I became calmer about many things. And this is the highest praise from native person 🙂
There is even such a Vipasana practice - you are silent for 10 days. You don't even talk to the members. You only listen to yourself. Sit in a comfortable position or on a chair, close your eyes and listen. Those who passed say that the first 3 days were hard. Immediately it started to itch somewhere, something to annoy. And then it let go. Didn't get to go last year. But I will definitely try this technique.
Therefore, try to turn off your computer, phone and TV now. Take a comfortable position for you. You can sit or lie down. Set a timer for 20 minutes. And listen to what thoughts are spinning in your head. Then you can leave feedback about what you heard. May the force be with you! 🙂
Practicing meditation can help you fight depression
Every day everything more people discovers positive effects. In addition to ordinary people and the curious, neurophysiologists, psychologists and other scientists have been interested in ancient practice for many years. They conduct research on meditation, finding out its effect on a person. There is a connection between the brain and meditation, and the possibilities of practice are amazing. What conclusions did scientists come to by researching, we wrote earlier.
Research has just begun, many amazing discoveries await us
Scientists have found a way to slow down the aging of the brain
Age-related changes affect absolutely all body systems, including the brain. Over time, memory becomes weaker, some skills are forgotten, and it becomes more difficult to learn new things.
Disease risk Alzheimer's declines many times
A UCLA meditation study found that the brains of people who practice regularly change much more slowly with age. This is probably due to the fact that during the training and practice of meditation, areas of the brain that are rarely activated during daily activity are activated.
In the East, the practice has been known for several millennia.
Meditation helps the brain "gather"
Researchers from Yale University received intriguing research results. It turned out that regular meditation practices reduce the activity of the so-called "monkey mind" or "network passive mode work".
Getting rid of external noise is much easier than internal noise.
This part of consciousness is constantly active, but uses very few resources. An example is a computer in sleep mode. "Monkey mind" - these are the thoughts that are constantly spinning in my head: snippets of conversations, obsessive songs, fragmentary memories. In people who are predisposed to anxiety disorders, such a thought can become looped and cause another attack. One of basic principles technique consists precisely in completely clearing the mind of the “messenger” in the brain.
Control of the "talker" is the task of any conscious person
The practice of meditation saves from depression
Johns Hopkins University recently held large-scale study meditation, dedicated to comparing the effectiveness of meditation and antidepressants.
According to WHO statistics, 350 million suffer from depression every year.
It turned out that both the practice of meditation and the drugs have approximately the same effect in strength. But not easy. This is one of the reasons why people suffering from anxiety and depressive disorders more often choose easy way taking medications.
Meditation or medication? The choice is obvious
Boost your brain with meditation
And the results of this study will be very popular with students on the eve of the session. It turned out that it is worth meditating for only a few days, as the ability to process information and concentration increases. This happens because:
- through practice, the level of anxiety, which prevents adequate processing of information, is reduced
- even a short-term training of various areas of the cerebral cortex improves its work in general, which means that memory capabilities also improve
- constant mental noise in the head interferes with concentration in the same way that the hum of the crowd interferes with conversation. And mindfulness meditation helps to get rid of unnecessary thoughts.
Daily meditation throughout the semester will give the best results.
Addictions and ways to get rid of them
As you know, man is weak. Many of us have harmful addictions: smoking, alcohol, computer games, serials and even the habit of basking in bed until the middle of the day is harmful.
Every day alcohol takes the lives of 1400 Russians
The American Lung Association, leading the fight against smoking, conducted an interesting study. In summary, those who have mastered the mindfulness meditation technique are more likely to quit smoking than the non-meditating control group. This is because mindfulness meditation helps to isolate the harmful desire from the stream of thoughts and effectively suppress it. Perhaps that is why this technique was chosen for the experimental program of rehabilitation and socialization of prisoners.
A good habit of meditation will help get rid of the bad ones.
Meditation for children and adults
The training of one's own consciousness is no less useful for children than for adults. An experimental program of meditation and , introduced in some schools in San Francisco, showed amazing results.
Children who meditate improve their academic performance
As you know, students lower grades and adolescents, due to changes in the environment and physiology, experience great emotional stress. And if we add to this the intellectual load during study and exams, it becomes clear that the life of an ordinary student is far from sugar.
Practice affects the psychological and physical health human
Studies of meditation have confirmed that a two-week course of daily practice in schools reduces anxiety levels in children and promotes discipline. In addition, the relationship "meditation - the brain" was confirmed - schoolchildren have increased academic performance in all subjects.
The benefits of meditation are undeniable.
Meditation is not just a fashionable whim, but a really useful tool for working on yourself. Employees of the penitentiary system of India know about this like no one else. Courses have been held there since 1994. Vipassana has helped tens of thousands of prisoners find their way back home and reduce the number of relapses.
Today, when serious researchers and scientific institutes took up research human brain in connection with spiritual practices, we can learn a lot about the work of consciousness and apply this knowledge in practice. Don't be afraid of new things, learn different points of view and don't stop on the way of self-improvement.
Review article by Alice Walton from Forbes, translated into Russian for FCI: overcoming social phobia and addictions, changes in gray matter volumes, passing exams. A picture with blue brains - in the appendage.
Research in the field of "meditation and the brain" has been steadily going on for several years; almost every week new studies come out illustrating some new benefits of meditation - or rather, some ancient benefits that have just been confirmed by fMRI and EEG. The practice of meditation seems to produce a bewildering array of positive neurological effects, from changes in gray matter volume to decreased activity in the brain's "self" centers and improved connectivity between brain regions.
Below are some of the most exciting studies published in the past few years showing that meditation does indeed produce measurable changes in our most important organ. Skeptics, of course, may ask: what is the use of several changes in the brain if the psychological consequences are not simultaneously described?
Luckily, these psychological effects are also confirmed by many - studies show that meditation helps reduce our subjective levels of anxiety and depression and improve attention, focus and overall psychological well-being.
Meditation can save the aging brain
Last week, a UCLA study found that those who long time engages in meditation, the brain is better preserved with aging than in those who do not practice meditation.
Participants who meditated for an average of 20 years had greater volume of gray matter in all parts of the brain - although older practitioners lost some volume compared to younger practitioners, this loss was not as pronounced as in those who does not meditate.
"We expected to find some minor and isolated manifestations, concentrated in areas that were previously found to be associated with meditation," says study author Florian Kurt. “Instead, what we actually saw was broad-based effects of meditation covering areas throughout the brain.”
Meditation reduces activity in the brain's "I" center
One of the most interesting studies in the past few years, conducted at Yale University, found that mindfulness meditation reduces activity in the default mode network (DMN) - the brain network responsible for mind wandering and thought with reference to its own "I" - that is, for the "monkey mind." The dormant mode network is "on" or active when we are not thinking about anything in particular, when our minds are just jumping from thought to thought. Because mental wandering is commonly associated with less happiness, rumination, and worry about the past and future, the goal of many people is to ease it. Several studies have shown that meditation - due to its calming effect on DMN - seems to do just that; and even when the mind begins to wander, because of the new connections that form, meditators are better able to stop this wandering.
The impact of meditation on depression and anxiety is comparable to antidepressants
An expert meta-study conducted last year at Johns Hopkins University looked at the relationship between mindfulness meditation and its ability to reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety and pain. Researcher Madhav Goyal and his team found that the effect size of meditation was moderate, with a score of 0.3. If this seems modest, remember that the effect size of antidepressants is also 0.3 - in light of which meditation seems like a pretty good option. After all, meditation is active form brain training. “A lot of people have the idea that to meditate is to sit down and do nothing,” Goyal notes. “But it's not. Meditation is the active training of the mind to develop awareness, and various programs meditation approaches this with different sides". Meditation is not a magic pill for depression (like any other treatment), but one of the tools that can help with symptoms.
Meditation can lead to volume changes in key areas of the brain
In 2011, Sarah Lazar and her team at Harvard found that mindfulness meditation can actually change brain structure: Eight weeks of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) appeared to increase the cortical thickness of the hippocampus, which controls learning and memory, and certain areas of the brain, which play a role in the management of emotions and the processes of determining one's own "I". There was also a decrease in the volume of brain cells in the amygdala, which is responsible for fear, anxiety and stress - and these changes were consistent with the participants' own reports of their stress levels (showing that meditation does not just change the brain, but also changes our subjective perception and feelings). In fact, in a follow-up study, Lazar's team found that after training in meditation, changes in brain regions associated with mood and arousal were also consistent with how participants described feeling better—ie. their psychological well-being. So for those who claim that the turned-on bumps in the brain do not necessarily mean anything: our subjective experience - improved mood and well-being - thanks to meditation, apparently, also really changes.
Just a few days of training improves focus and attention
Having trouble concentrating is not just a child's problem; it also affects millions of adults, diagnosed with or without attention deficit disorder. Interestingly (but not surprisingly), one of the main benefits of meditation is that it improves attention and concentration: one recent research showed that just a couple of weeks of meditative training improved focus and memory in people (revealed during the GRE verbal logical thinking tests). In fact, the increase in points was equivalent to 16 percent - and this is no small matter. Since a powerful focus of attention (on an object, idea, or activity) is one of the key goals in meditation, it's not surprising that meditation should also enhance the cognitive skills of people at work - but it's good that science confirms this. In addition, a little support in passing standardized exams would not hurt anyone.
Meditation reduces anxiety - and social phobia
Many people start meditating to reduce stress, and there is a lot of evidence to support this logic. There is a whole new subset of meditation mentioned earlier called mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the Mindfulness Center of the University of Massachusetts and now available throughout the US. The purpose of this method is to reduce the level of stress (physical and mental) in specific person. Studies have demonstrated its benefit in reducing anxiety even years after the initial 8-week course. Research has also shown that mindfulness meditation - as opposed to focusing solely on the breath - can reduce anxiety, and that these changes appear to be mediated through the brain regions associated with self-referential ("me") thoughts.
Mindfulness meditation has also been shown to help people suffering from social phobia: a team from Stanford University found that MBSR produced changes in the areas of the brain involved in attention, and also found a reduction in the symptoms of social phobia.
Meditation can help addiction sufferers
A growing body of research shows that meditation (given its effect on the parts of the brain responsible for self-control) can be very effective in helping people get rid of different kind dependencies. One study, for example, contrasted mindfulness training with the American Lung Association's "Smoking Free" program and found that people who practiced mindfulness were much more likely to quit smoking at the end of the training and during 17 weeks of follow-up than those who did. conventional treatment. The reason for this may be that meditation helps people "separate" the state of desire from the act of smoking, so that one does not have to lead to the other - instead, you fully experience and ride the "wave" of craving until it passes. Another study found that mindfulness training, cognitive therapy mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) and mindfulness-based relapse prevention (MBRP) can be helpful in dealing with other types of addiction.
Brief meditation breaks can help children in school
For the developing brain, meditation is just as - or perhaps even more - promising as it is for adults. Educators and researchers are increasingly interested in introducing meditation and yoga to students who face common sources of stress in school, and often additional stress and trauma outside of school. Some schools have begun introducing meditation into their daily schedules, with success: One area in San Francisco has started a twice-daily meditation program in some of the schools since increased risk- and children were less likely to be suspended from classes, and the average scores and attendance increased. Studies have confirmed the cognitive and emotional benefit that meditation brings to schoolchildren, but more work will likely need to be done before it is widely accepted.
Worth a try?
Meditation is not a panacea, but there is certainly plenty of evidence that it can bring some benefits to those who practice it regularly. Everyone from Anderson Cooper and Congressman Tim Ryan to companies like Google, Apple and Target are building meditation into their schedule; and its benefits seem to begin to be felt after a relatively short amount of practice. Some researchers warn that under certain circumstances, meditation can lead to negative effects (the so-called phenomenon " dark night”), but for most people - especially if you have good teacher Meditation is beneficial, not harmful. Definitely worth a try: if you have a few minutes in the morning or evening (or both), instead of turning on your phone or going online, see what happens if you try to calm your mind or at least pay attention to your thoughts and let them go without reacting to them. If the research is correct, just a few minutes of meditation can make all the difference.
The practice of meditation - the rest of the brain from relentless processing endless stream information. Thanks to her, you can gain complete control over your own emotions and consciousness. The benefits of meditation are beneficial effect on the body, in particular brain training. Thanks to her, he daily learns to do better what you require of him. Through daily meditation, you will be able to use its hidden potential, which scientists talk about so much.
The simple concentration of attention seems to many to be an idle sitting in the lotus position or even a whim. But meditation is a real brain training, the effect of which can be felt and even fixed. For more than half a century, scientists have been seriously studying it, surprising skeptics with the results of their research. Meditation is able to restore brain cells, improve physical and mental health person, to improve his social life and worldview.
The positive impact of meditation on the human body
The information below is not flattering verbiage. The benefits of meditation are tangible and observable, as proven by hundreds of scientific studies involving eminent laboratories, universities and scientific minds. A long-term trend of positive changes in the human body can be fixed after a few weeks of daily meditation practice. For her, you do not need to look for an enlightened guru, memorize the aphorisms of the Dalai Lama, or buy an “individual” talisman in a feng shui store. Set aside 20 minutes a day for self-improvement.
Meditation is brain training. It is he who manages the work of a well-coordinated multifunctional human body. By meditating, you increase the concentration of your attention, learn to be more rational and independent of emotions. The practice of daily relaxation allows you to clear your mind, master absolute self-control. In rough language, meditation can be called "reflashing the brain", "resetting the memes of consciousness."
Effect on the brain
Changes in thought direction, different reactions to familiar situations, increased productivity are the result of regular meditation. It is achieved through daily brain training. The essence of meditation is absolute concentration of attention, all-consuming concentration. Its result is a change in brain reactions, the interaction of its parts.
Meditation practice involves:
medial prefrontal cortex or
"Center I"
This is the part of the brain that focuses on your personality, keeping you life experience that forms your point of view. It is this area of the brain that reaches peak activity when you think about yourself, dream, make plans for yourself and other people, try to "try on" other people's victories and defeats - to share someone's joys and sorrows. This part of the brain is formed by 2 cortex: ventromedial and dorsomedial. The first one processes information and allows you to interact with people whom you evaluate as similar to yourself. It is here that impulses of sympathy, pity, anxiety, anxiety and stress are born. The second is also responsible for empathy and social interaction, but in relation to people rated as your opposites in most human characteristics. In everyday life, these 2 parts of the brain cannot actively function simultaneously.
Lateral Prefrontal Cortex or "Evaluation Center"
This part of the brain converts impulses received from other parts of the cortex into emotional reactions. In this zone, a person's behavior is automatically modulated, based on his habits, experienced situations. The named part of the brain allows you not to take everything to heart, for the most part to look at things rationally.
Island
Part of the brain responsible for bodily and spiritual sensations. He is involved in all your experiences about yourself and other people.
Cerebellar amygdala or "Center of fear"
From this part of the brain come "complaints" about the discomfort received human body inside and outside. This is an alarm that requires you to take action to eliminate the cause of concern.
Each person has their own active neural connections between the above parts of the brain center. But there is often a strong connection between the medial prefrontal cortex and the insula. For this reason, a person reacts sharply to almost all the events of his every day, takes many banal things to heart, gets hung up on his feelings, becomes overly emotional. At the same time, his lateral prefrontal cortex does not work at full capacity - the individual rarely evaluates events rationally, reacts to unpleasant things with an understanding of other people.
The benefit of meditation for the brain lies precisely in the fact that a 20-minute concentration of attention allows you to ease the stress of the mind. A person becomes more collected, he gets into a mental loop less and less, he gets hung up on his feelings. Connections that are too strong are weakened, and connections that are too weak are strengthened. This will help you evaluate potential danger, force pain, find faster optimal solutions for difficult situations. A meditating person is less anxious, prone to tantrums and panic.
In addition, the ability to understand other people increases, regardless of their race, upbringing, cultural component, mood and actions. Meditation harms the unhealthy tension of the human brain, bringing it back to normal. You are able change your mind, make life easier and more interesting.
Impact on the body
Everything you read below explains why meditation is needed. You can talk endlessly about how useful it is to repeat relaxation daily, to give rest to your mind, but without specific facts these are all empty claims. The benefits of meditation for the human body are enormous, but let's not talk more:
- increased concentration and memory;
- increase in productivity and speed of decision-making;
- development of the ability to simultaneously process flows of different information;
- elimination of the internal causes of mental disorders, addictions and recurring depressions;
- gradual suppression of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder;
- production creativity and creativity;
- prevention of diseases resulting from psychological disorders;
- reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases and inflammatory processes;
- raising immunity and life expectancy;
- less need for sleep;
- raising the pain threshold;
- competent consumption of the resources of the human body.
Meditation will help you deal with multitasking, learn to prioritize, saving your time and energy. You will no longer be tormented by dissatisfaction with your life and work. You will learn to do everything without living your life at your desk. Everything you are reading now has been repeatedly proven by scientists, so think about it.
Personal change
What does meditation give besides all of the above? You probably missed the most important thing - increasing empathy. Before each of us, after the desire to be healthy, the goal is to enjoy interaction with other people. We are all tired in one way or another from our parents, children, friends, colleagues, neighbors and even indifferent passers-by. Each of them is interesting in its own way, but few of us manage to build a connection with a person that is not burdened with empty conflicts.
Meditation will help you:
- gain a positive attitude towards strangers;
- become more benevolent and tolerant;
- develop a desire to help others;
- start empathizing;
- get rid of deep-rooted resentment in the soul, groundless anger;
- learn to avoid feelings of disappointment by calmly accepting life's checks;
- love yourself, reducing self-criticism and moderately cultivating self-esteem.
By eliminating your inner negativity, you will become more free, open and healthy. After all, as proven, most diseases are born in the head. Almost all ailments are the result of our grievances, stress, useless struggle with nature and our personality. Bad weather cannot be turned into good overnight, there is no way to buy a money machine in an online store, you can’t choose other parents. All this is the truth need to be accepted. Resentment and anger are useless emotions that take away your life force.
Scientific research
For more than 50 years, the Western world has been studying the effects of meditation on the human body. Research is conducted with people of different age groups, gender and health status. For most of our compatriots, meditation and science are incompatible, because idle obsession with one's breath is not worth the attention of "normal" people. However, scientific minds have long proved that meditation causes changes in the physical structure of the brain. It provides tremendous opportunities for self-improvement.
Whatever meditation technique you choose, you can improve. In varying degrees, the quality of your memory, attentiveness, restraint, productivity will increase. All this is proven by thousands of scientific studies, from which we have selected the 7 most discussed. Each subject underwent MRI before, during or after meditation. And here is what has been repeatedly confirmed by science:
Researchers | Participants of the experiment | results |
|---|---|---|
Harvard Scholars | 16 people | Just a few weeks of everyday short meditation practice led to restructuring of the brain structure, increasing the density of gray matter. |
Employees University of California in Los Angeles | 100 elderly people:
| It has been proven that with age, the brain loses volume and mass. Meditation allows you to constantly increase gray matter density why in the first group of subjects its mass turned out to be much larger than expected. |
Belgian scientists | 400 schoolchildren aged 13-20 | The subjects became less prone to stress, anxiety and depressive moods. |
Johns Hopkins University staff | Over 3,500 people suffering from panic disorder, stress, depression and addictions | Regular meditation practice can help you deal with mental disorders, significantly reduce anxiety. The effect is achieved without taking antidepressants, a positive trend persists for many months. |
Scientists from the University of Montreal | 26 people:
| All subjects were subjected to the same pain exposure. MRI has shown that regular meditation allows you to raise the pain threshold. |
Scientists from the Universities of Washington and Arizona | 75 HR managers divided into 3 separate groups | An 8-week meditation course allowed the control group to successfully pass the stress test. The participants showed increased concentration, improved memory, less exposure to stress if necessary, perform several tasks at the same time. |
Prof. Zoran Josipovic (New York University) | Meditating monks | It was noted above that the ventromedial and dorsomedial parts of the cerebral cortex are almost never activated at the same time so that the individual can keep his attention on a certain action. A person, as a rule, is absorbed in solving everyday problems or in his dreams and plans. In the process of meditation, a phenomenal thing happens - Both areas of the medial prefrontal cortex are activated. This creates a feeling of harmony of one's own I with the World. The effect of the found life balance is the prevention of mental disorders. |
AT Western world meditation and science go hand in hand. In Europe, the USA, and even more so in Eastern countries the question has not arisen for a long time whether it is useful or not. Meditation continues to be studied and practiced because it certainly works for the benefit of humanity.
Training willpower through meditation
Coping with your desires, mastering self-control - tasks for some incomprehensible. You can strengthen your willpower by practicing the basics of meditation. By training your brain, you become more focused, collected, and learn to cope with stress. The technique of increasing willpower is easily explained by the example of meditation practice.
In the process of focusing your attention on breathing, your task is to abstract from thoughts. Of course, they cannot be eliminated from the head, but you need to return to the work of your lungs all the time, watching the inflow and outflow of air. Such training allows you to be more collected in everyday life - minimal distraction to extraneous things, constantly returning to unfinished business.
Yes, strengthening your willpower is much easier than you previously thought. There is no need to read specialized literature, create provocative traps for yourself, or give up your favorite hobbies, seeing them as temptations to break loose. Whether your goal is to cut back on sweets, get up at 5 a.m. every day, or achieve a promotion within 3 months, these simple basics of meditation will help you maximize your focus on what you want without distractions.
A simple meditation practice
5 minutes a day is enough for you to master this relaxation exercise. Its health benefits are in no way dependent on the simplicity and duration of the session. Setting up for meditation is simple: choose a quiet place in your house, turn off your phone and disappear for all these 5 minutes.
Meditate:
- Sit comfortably, don't fidget. The back should be straight, arms relaxed, hands placed on the knees with palms up. The legs either completely touch the floor with the feet, or are crossed (Lotus position). The training of your willpower and consciousness begins now, because immobility is a must. Even if something is numb or itchy, do not give in to provocations. So you learn to ignore the "secondary" impulses of your brain and body, not to be led, gain control over your mind.
- Focus on your breath. Close your eyes or fix your gaze somewhere. Track your breath by mentally saying "inhale" and "exhale." When you realize that you are distracted by extraneous thoughts, then back to breathing again.
- Focus on your feelings. Instead of mentally verbalizing the processes in your lungs, try to follow the flow of air filling and leaving you. Is always come back from extraneous thoughts to this activity.
The duration of meditation can be increased if desired, but the main thing is to observe the regularity of classes. It is best to repeat the practice every day at the same time. If this is not possible, then adapt to the circumstances, remembering to include meditation in your schedule.
Summary
A few years later, our compatriots also realize what meditation is for. By that time, you will personally perceive it as part of your life, accepting yourself renewed and free. It is you who will become that example for friends and relatives who will say that it is easy to cultivate willpower, improve the quality of your life and become a full-fledged person who is in demand by everyone. By instilling in your children the desire to meditate, you can improve the future generations of this world.
