As science turns its empirical eye to meditation, people around the world are benefiting from its findings. From concentration improvement and anxiety relief to assuaging conditions like chronic pain and substance abuse, the therapeutic and life-enhancing powers of training the mind seem nearly limitless. Meditate just 20 minutes a day to enjoy the advantages, with longer sessions and regular sessions over the long term only building on the positive changes.
Improving Concentration with Mindfulness Meditation
Scientific studies over the past several years have conclusively demonstrated the concentration-improving power of meditation. Researchers in one study following a group of meditators over a three-month retreat in the Colorado Rockies observed that as the retreat went on, the group's concentration and accuracy in their task only increased. Another study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison noted that after three months, participants were able to more quickly identify a different tone among a string of similar tones.
While the improved concentration in these studies was linked to intensive meditation practice, psychologist Fadel Zeidan has shown that concentration is enhanced by as little as 20 minutes of mindfulness meditation a day for several days. And other researchers discovered that meditation reduces the activity in the brain necessary for reacting to stimuli, suggesting that meditation's powerful benefits include making the brain more efficient – something desirable to every person with a hectic lifestyle.
Mindfulness Meditation and Stress Relief
Hand-in-hand with the evidence of meditation's ability to improve focus is its many benefits in the area of anxiety and managing emotions. The same researchers who worked with meditators in the Rockies conducted a second study which concluded that meditation also augments overall social and emotional health while reducing anxiety.
Meditation's effects in this area are apparently profound: a study which used an MRI to monitor subjects while meditating found that activity in the amygdala, which plays an important role in emotional processing, is significantly reduced in experienced meditators compared to beginners; this suggests veteran meditators feel a greater-than-normal calm. Mindfulness meditation's other proven benefits include reducing sensitivity to pain and increasing the function of telomerase, an enzyme able to ward off cellular aging which is conventionally inhibited by stress.
Learning Mindfulness Meditation
To experience improved concentration and stress relief from meditation, consider Learn More About Meditation. For support in establishing a daily meditation practice, see the article Meditation for Beginners.
Source
Bond, Michael. "Mind Gym: Putting Meditation to the Test." New Scientist 11 Jan 2011. 15 Jan 2011.
Josefine Cole - Josefine is a BA graduate of Naropa University's Religious Studies program, which emphasizes self-transformation through practice of ...
