Written by: Shannon McNiece, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
This is your brain on meditation ‒ By the end of this article, you’ll have a clear guide to understanding of what changes occur within your brain in a meditation practice. And you’ll learn a little about the tree bark, seahorse, and almond inside your brain.
Meditation is quickly becoming an integral part of a modern lifestyle for its numerous mental, physical, cognitive, and well-being benefits. Recent research shows that meditation can relieve anxiety and depression at levels rivaling antidepressants, as well as increase emotional health, resiliency, and self-esteem. Meditation has been linked to improved focus, concentration, and attention, as well as enhanced intuition and creativity. Meditation can strengthen work productivity, help control pain tolerance, and even aid in fighting substance addiction. Brief exposure to mindfulness meditation can significantly affect helping behavior ‒ suggesting that even short moments of stillness can encourage profound shifts toward healthy practices, promoting compassion, kindness, and awareness.
When you think about meditation, you may have a specific image that comes to mind. Many people picture a person sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, with a serene face, maybe with hands in a specific pose (mudra). The truth is there are many kinds of meditation. Some wide-ranging categories include focused attention meditation (also called closed concentration meditation), open monitoring meditation (also called open awareness meditation), compassion meditation, loving-kindness meditation, mantra meditation, transcendental meditation, spiritual meditation, movement meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, body scans, visualization meditation, and mindfulness. Furthermore, within each of these categories, there are numerous practices. Hundreds of practices have been documented across different cultures, continents, and religious traditions.
The way “meditation” is characterized across time and societies has varied. Broadly speaking, meditation can be defined as any practice that trains the mind to focus. Your specific focus can be oriented in different directions – not just the absence of thought – as new practitioners may believe. A focal point could be an external stimulus (such as sound), affect/ emotion, physical sensations (such as the breath), an experience, or thoughts.
One of the greatest lightbulb moments along my meditation journey was recognizing that not all meditations were focused attention practices. This recognition made meditation much more accessible and interesting to me as a naturally creative, daydreamer type of person. The realization opened me up to entirely different ways of meditating, allowing me to explore other styles more freely.
Meditation does more than just provide a momentary respite from stress; it can lead to lasting changes in both brain structure and function. Meditation can change your brain’s shape and size, rewire it (connectivity), shift brain wave states, improve performance, and help you feel better. Several studies suggest that meditation affects every part of your brain. Overall, regular meditation practice has incredible positive long-term effects on the brain and overall well-being – read on for five specific examples of how meditation enhances the brain.
Cognition and the Pre-Frontal Cortex
The pre-frontal cortex lies at the very front of your brain, behind your forehead. The word “cortex” is derived from the Latin word for bark, or outer covering (picture the wrinkly sulci folds of the outer brain). This part of the brain is involved in much of what we tend to conceptualize as “thinking.” It is a big part of what adds so much richness to our human experience; it is central to cognitive control and higher-order thought. Specifically, the prefrontal cortex is involved in attention, impulse control (inhibition), cognitive flexibility (reasoning), problem-solving, planning complex behaviors, comprehension, creativity, and perseverance.
Meditation increases activation in the pre-frontal cortex leading to heightened concentration and focused attention. Who couldn’t use a little more concentration and attention? Additionally, a pattern of enhanced activation in the pre-frontal cortex leads to improvements in clear, rational thinking, greater problem-solving, and decision-making capacities.
Self-Regulation and the Cingulate Cortex
If you’ve been meditating for a while, you’re familiar with that “oh shoot” feeling when you catch your mind wandering and bring it back. Then “oh, I did it again,” and “oh, there it went again,” and “again.” That is you observing your thoughts. The witness state, meta-state, or “thinking about your thinking” is part of cultivating a meditation practice. Remember, that wandering thoughts are completely normal. Learning to witness the “monkey mind” is part of best practice.
Meditation increases activation in the cingulate cortex, your brain’s self-regulation center. Different areas of the cingulate cortex engage in diverse and specialized processing. Much like the ability to catch yourself during meditation and bring yourself back, strengthening your brain’s cingulate cortex can help you catch yourself when you’re triggered or caught up in high-intensity emotions. Meditation can improve emotional regulation and help us develop our ability to press pause momentarily.
Improved monitoring helps us recognize distressing thoughts or emotions in the moment before they completely sweep us away. The capacity to self-soothe and down-regulate negative emotions helps us respond appropriately instead of reacting impulsively. This healthy interface helps us to implement behaviors that are more conscious, and values aligned.
Memory and the Hippocampus
Meditation has been shown to have incredible benefits for the brain in general, but one significant area that stands out is the hippocampus, the memory center of the brain. “Hippocampus” derives from the Greek hippos (horse) and kampos (sea monster) due to the structure’s resemblance to a sea horse. Meditation increases the activation and volume of the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory formation, learning, emotion regulation, and protection against anxiety.
For those dealing with the aftereffects of trauma, meditation can lead to a heightened sense of safety, as well as reduced fear responses when faced with triggers. This allows the brain to correctly process triggers related to distant past events rather than events that are happening in the present. Moreover, people who meditate have been known to experience fewer negative memories and the ability to better cope with them if they do occur.
Meditation can even boost memory-related test scores. After only a couple of weeks of meditation training, one study illustrated improved verbal reasoning scores equivalent to sixteen percentile points on the GRE. Meditation is a powerful tool for anyone seeking to ignite their memory center and improve its function.
Fear and the Amygdala
The amygdala is an emotion-processing center and plays a key role in affective states such as anxiety, stress, as well as fearful (or trauma-based) memories. The name “amygdala” is derived from the Greek for almond, due to its shape. Meditation reduces the level of activation and the overall volume of the amygdala.
Decreased activation in the amygdala helps to reduce the reactivity that can arise from emotional stimuli. Reduced reactivity impacts how intensely meditators may react when faced with a trauma trigger. Meditators may also experience decreased feelings of hypervigilance, or always having to be “on guard.”
The amygdala is structurally smaller in the brains of experienced meditators. But it doesn’t necessarily have to take a long time to see results; MRI scans reveal amygdala volume changes after just eight weeks of mindfulness training. Meditation also increases the connectivity between the amygdala and higher cortical regions, leading to greater present-moment awareness, self-control, and psychological well-being.
Connectivity throughout the brain
Meditation has a tremendous effect on connectivity within the brain. Research has revealed that connectivity ‒ neuronal pathway networks ‒ between key regions of the brain (e.g., prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, basal ganglia, thalamus, and prefrontal cortex) are strengthened with regular meditation.
Increased connectivity alters the communication between critical brain areas, leading to better integration and functioning. Not only does meditation speed up communication between certain parts of the brain but it also serves as an important interface between emotions, sensing, and action.
Conclusion
In conclusion, meditation is a powerful tool that can transform your health, functioning, and mind. Its practice has been proven to expand cognition, increase self-regulation skills, enhance our memories, and help us cope with fear more effectively. At the heart of it all, the science behind it lies in how we can influence changes across multiple regions of the brain for healing and connectedness.
Altogether, this means that taking up a practice of meditation can truly benefit us holistically ‒ leading us as individuals toward greater social well-being. Embrace this chance to step into an altered state of consciousness on your journey to a healthier, more mindful version of yourself. Give it a try today and see if you notice a meaningful difference in your overall well-being.
Shannon McNiece, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Shannon McNiece is a CEO, double-board licensed therapist, and the world’s first luxury holistic neuro-health transformation expert. She is pioneering a new space at the intersection of applied neuroscience and personal development by leveraging neuro-health as the preeminent catalyst for profound personal expansion. Shannon alchemizes the magic within each of us and creates transformational experiences for those seeking their highest Truth, Love, and Light. Her clients embody their true power and transcend old patterns forever. Shannon's mission for every client is a sustainable and fully actualized state of aligned clarity, joy, and integrated well-being.
