Why Meditate? How Science says it's good for us
Meditation is an ancient practice that spans over 1000s of years. From ancient practices like Buddhism, to Hinduism, and in today’s modern world the yoga movement is growing in popularity and has made more people aware of meditation and it’s positive benefits it has on our minds.
We hear how meditation helps our minds stay focused, calms us down perhaps, but we don’t quite know how or understand why?
I think with the rise of social media, news is traveling quick about meditation benefits, the scientific facts perhaps not so much.
I got inspired to write this blog post after hearing a podcast episode on the science behind why and how meditation is good for our brains.
My personal experience with meditation, is that it calms me the fuck down. I myself have better coping mechanisms to manage my anxiety, and help my mind chill. My focus improves with tasks for work and I also find I’m less reactive to things that may annoy or anger me, but only when I’m meditating more regularly does this happen.
Meditation helps us tame our monkey mind…
Meditation is now mainstream due to mindfulness trends and the rise of popularity of yoga in general. More and more individuals are experiencing burn out. Social media use and overall overstimulation is causing people to have monkey minds, which is a fun way to describe an unfocused mind, and an easily distracted mind.
Meditation is a way to relax, watch our thoughts and help bring clarity into our worlds.
But there are still sceptics who think meditation doesn’t work, or you have to be monk to do it. Others say I can’t meditate as I can’t be still for that long and do nothing.
The truth is that these are the people who probably need it the most, the ones who are stressed, easily distracted, living on auto-pilot and are generally unhappy, or perhaps refer to themselves as being too “busy”.
I offer some links below to videos and my guided meditations to help you get into meditating to offer you a powerful tool to train your brain.
This blog post I will discuss the above, I’ve collected information from different articles and a podcast to summarize the benefits meditation can have on your life, body and mind. The episode from Speaking of Psychology Podcast How Meditation Can Help you Live a Flourishing Life, intrigued me to write about the science, and also summarize some key points from the episode that are key to overall wellness. Podcast episode link
Benefits beyond the Brain
Meditation isn’t limited to mindful or brain benefits, it has others as, “some research suggests that practicing meditation may reduce blood pressure, symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety and depression, and insomnia.” (1) Generally speaking it isn’t after a few times of doing meditation that you gain these benefits or how to manage stress, it’s over time. Long-term, consistent meditation does seem to increase resiliency to stress (6). In a sense its training ourselves and just like exercising our body, its something we need to do regularly rather than just once in a while to truly see a difference.
There are many reasons why meditation is good for us. The quote below from Dr. Davidson describes essentially when we know something is goof for us, why not try to do better to help us improve our lives (2). The more research that comes out about how meditation is so great for not just our minds, its interesting that more people aren’t convinced to do it regularly to see the benefits first hand.
“We can do better”
“A wandering mind is a unhappy mind”
“Loneliness is a predicator of early mortality, when compared to obesity”
Dr. Davidson
Recall, if you have tried meditation in some way, maybe during a yoga class.
How did it make you feel during?
How did you feel after practicing?
How Meditation can “Shape your Mind”
Okay here we go on the brain benefits. But first a background on Dr. Richard Davidson PhD. He has studied meditation for years.
He’s worked with the Dali Lama and Dr. Davidson is an avid meditation practitioner. But it was the Dali Lama that inspired him to study meditation’s benefits to people’s lives, body and mind. This encouraged him to practice meditation even more.
His research looked at how meditation can shape the mind and have an effect on the body and neural basis of meditation and what it does to our brain.
Brain, body and mind are changed through meditation, Dr. Davidson wants to show us research on how this occurs. His research on studying awareness brings to light how we can shape our brains simply by practising meditation regularly.
One thing to understand before we move on is that there are many different types of meditation practices. Loving kindness, analytic, thinking and reasoning meditation practices.
Mindfulness of meditation, is one that is well known due to historical reasons, it is one of the first forms of conditional ancient style that was taught in the West. Used as a stress reduction, packaged in a standardized format and taught easily, which has brought about popularity of mindfulness and meditation in general.
What is Meditation? Familiarization, the basic nature of our own minds.
What most practices of meditation share in common, is that it is a technology to learn the fundament skills of well being.
A study of awareness Dr. Davidson describes (2) from his research about meditation to shape our minds in the following ways:
All of our brains are aging but what age are we looking at, according to your brain age vs. chronological age, is the brain aging quickly or slowly. His research found that long term meditators have a brain that ages slower. This is beneficial for our brain’s health to age slowly. Preserving our brain health for longer rather than it depleting with age. Its in a sense training our brain to slow the degeneration that happens as we age.
Is your brain aging slowly vs. chronological age?
Regulation of attention. Circuits in our brain have self regulation, and regulate our attention. This is one of the things that meditation helps with and is so important to help us focus. That’s why individuals who meditate say it helps them with focus, even if its just after one time.
Attention is constantly being captured, by social media, technology, streaming services, THEY are all experts on attention capturing!
We need to educate our own minds and brains, so we can regulate our own minds attention. Not give it to anyone that tries to control it, whom we may have not consented to.
TAKE BACK CONTROL of our minds!
Meditation is learning self regulation!
Regulation of emotion - prevalence of disorders of emotions, is increasing, and is more apparent due to pandemic.
Meditation helps us regulate our emotions, provides us with simple tools to learn the regulation of our emotion. By noticing how we feel more regularly, meditation brings awareness to our emotional state.
Stress, anxiety, depression can be learned to better regulate these emotions, but must be done with a regular practice. Otherwise we can react or lead lives where our emotions rule us.
Stepping more into that money mind, rather than a focused one where we are more in control.
Learn to master your emotions, not allow your emotions to rule you!
Brain structure changes or gets larger. Caution in interpreting results with this one, as a certain area of our brain can increase in size while meditating. Dr Davidson explains that there is a “curvilinear relationships” that are very complex with an area of brain getting larger.
Self regulation is in the prefrontal cortex, the research says that this area may become enlarged, automatic skills learned at a greater level of expertise.
By meditating we activate the prefrontal cortex where it helps us self regulate.
With knowing how meditation can shape our minds, the next section is for the sceptics, which I loved how Dr. Davidson explains on who can learn to meditate…
Can Anyone Learn Meditation?
Short answer, yes!
Important question because anyone with a normal brain is capable of meditation. A brain without damage, or disease can meditate.
Dr. Davidson’s test to check if someone can meditate, he asks these questions which made me laugh, as he pretty much is calling out the bullshit around the perception of meditation (again for the sceptics) - Can you pay attention to breathing? Or hear this particular sound? Then you can meditate, he says!!
Attention can be scattered for some, but that’s okay minds are this way, meditation is fundamentally about awareness. The more you do the practice of awareness it will help with focus.
4 Pillars of Wellbeing, Dr. Davidson speaks about what they are in the podcast and his Ted Talks. Which meditation helps with attaining and in a sense training ourselves…
Awareness - mindfulness, regulate our attention, and meta awareness, knowing what our minds are doing.
Connection - about the quality of social relationships, gratitude, compassion, kindness, connection. Can be trained and helps shape brain
Insight - getting curious about self, wanting to know more about ourselves. Negative narrative or positive ones? What perception of self do you have? A deep understanding of our narrative is important. How insight liberates us in a way from these constraints and negative narratives we have about ourself
Purpose - discovering your sense of direction and orienting your life more to that sense of purpose. Even daily tasks matter to this purpose. Cleaning the house or chores contribute to your sense of purpose. Changing our minds about our purpose can shape our brains.
Plasticity of the brain
Our brains can be trained to learn and attain the 4 pillars of well being. 7 hours is all it takes to see beneficial changes. BUT it doesn’t mean these changes will stick, you have to keep going. Its just like exercise and how the muscles atrophy, so if we stop working out the body we get weaker. Same thing applies to meditation and the benefits you get from it, but you have to keep going and keep doing it to have long lasting benefits to shape our brains.
30 mins / day for 2 weeks - brain can change for better! Key thing is to keep going. Keep practicing.
Journey of wellbeing takes work and practice.
Value of meditation you’re looking at your distracted mind, it’s not about experience its about becoming aware.
It’s about how it effects every facet of your life.
Be well,
Marzena
Sources and Other Resources
Meditation in Depth https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/meditation-in-depth
Speaking of Psychology Podcast Apple lInk
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/speaking-of-psychology/id705934263?i=1000511414241
http://sopapa.apa.libsynpro.com/how-meditation-can-help-you-live-a-flourishing-life-with-richard-davidson-phd
https://www.richardjdavidson.com
Ted Talk with Richard Davidson; Mindfulness Changes the Emotional Life of our Brains
https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_j_davidson_how_mindfulness_changes_the_emotional_life_of_our_brains_jan_2019
https://centerhealthyminds.org/about/founder-richard-davidson
10 Things We Know About Meditation https://www.mindful.org/10-things-we-know-about-the-science-of-meditation/
Videos
Quotes on Meditation to inspire…
“When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a candle in a windless place. “
Bhagavad Gita (5)
“Your calm mind is the ultimate weapon against your challenges. So relax.”
Bryant McGill (5)
“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
Buddha (5)
“Learn to slow down. Get lost intentionally. Observe how you judge both yourself and those around you.”
Tim Ferriss (5)
“Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and listen. No more is needed.”
Eckhart Tolle (5)