How Meditation Changes Brain Function
Meditating Demonstrates the Power of Mind Over Matter
Jul 20, 2009
During the last two decades, Western scientists have started to investigate the effects of meditation. In this process, research was able to give scientific evidence for various health benefits of meditation, such as lowering blood pressure, reducing stress, improving immune functions as well as easing sleep disorders and chronic pain. The foundations of meditation research were laid by pioneers such as Harvard's Dr. Herbert Benson (‘The Relaxation Response’) and spiritual teacher-turned-researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Brain Research on the Effects of Meditation
However, it is the more recent studies of neuroscientists such as Richard Davidson and Sara Lazar that have caught the eye of both the scientific community and the public. Using the tools of modern neuroscience such as rCBF (regional Cerebral Blood Flow), real time MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), MEG (magnetoencephalography), and improved EEG (electoencephalography), neuroscientists are now able to better understand the effects of meditation on the brain.
With the help of these sophisticated tools, they were able to provide solid scientific evidence that meditation fundamentally changes the way the brain functions and even alters the physical structure of the brain itself.
A Study on Meditation by Richard Davidson
In a study with Tibetan monks, researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that a mind trained through meditation functions differently from an untrained one. The technique used was the Tibetan-Buddhist meditation on unconditional compassion.
Meditation Changes the Way the Brain Functions
According to Richard Davidson, neuroscientist at the university’s Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior, the results demonstrate a hitherto unimagined potential of the mind and brain:
- During meditation, the experienced meditators in the study showed high-frequency gamma waves, a brain wave pattern associated with higher mental activity, perception and consciousness.
- The gamma wave frequency was higher than normal even before they started meditating. This suggests that the impact of meditation on the brain waves is permanent and not limited to the meditation session itself.
- The monks’ brains showed more and unusually powerful gamma waves compared to a control group consisting of volunteers without previous meditation experience.
- The higher the meditation experience, the higher were the levels of gamma waves. Some experienced monks showed the most powerful gamma waves ever to be documented in a human being. In the control group without previous meditation experience, the increases in gamma waves were only slight.
- The mind can be trained through meditation. Mental training changes the brain, improving its capacity for awareness, happiness and compassion.
Related Reading
In a related article you can read about a study by Sara Lazar on how meditation increases the size of the brain.
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