Just eight weeks of meditation studies can make your brain quicker, according to new research. 

Millions of people around the world seek mental clarity through meditation, most of them following or inspired by the centuries-old practices of Buddhism.

Anecdotally, those who meditate say it helps to calm their minds, recenter their thoughts and cut through the “noise” to show what really matters. Scientifically, though, showing the effects of meditation on the human brain have proved to be tricky.

A new study tracked how practicing meditation for just a couple of months changed the brain patterns of 10 students in the University’s Scholars Program.

The authors took the participants to Cornell University for MRI scans of their brains. They taught students how to meditate, told them to practice five times a week for 10 or 15 minutes, and asked them to keep a journal record of their practice. (The syllabus also included other lessons about the cultural transmissions of meditation and its applications for wellness.)

The results, recently published in the journal Scientific Reports, show that meditation training led to faster switching between the brain’s two general states of consciousness.

One is called the default mode network, which is active when the brain is at wakeful rest and not focused on the outside world, such as during daydreaming and mind-wandering. The other is the dorsal attention network, which engages for attention-demanding tasks.

The findings of the study demonstrate that meditation can enhance the brain connection among and within these two brain networks, indicating the effect of meditation on fast switching between the mind wandering and focusing its attention as well as maintaining attention once in the attentive state.

“Tibetans have a term for that ease of switching between states — they call it mental pliancy, an ability that allows you to shape and mold your mind,” the author said. “They also consider the goal of concentration one of the fundamental principles of self-growth.”

The authors are still parsing through the data taken from the 2017 MRI scans, so they have yet to test other Scholars Program students. Because Alzheimer’s disease and autism could be caused by problems with the dorsal attention network, the authors ate making plans for future research that could use meditation to mitigate those problems.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-90729-y

http://sciencemission.com/site/index.php?page=news&type=view&id=publications%2Flongitudinal-efects-of&filter=22