With more people turning to mindfulness and meditation, you’ve got to ask what the actual benefits are on our mind and body. Is it possible that meditation positively affects the brain?

In Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom, Dr Rick Hanson PhD draws on numerous studies to demonstrate how regular meditation has been shown to activate the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) and stimulate other parts of the nervous system.¹

How meditation positively affects the brain

Some of these benefits in terms of brain function include:

• Increased grey matter in the brain;
• Improved psychological functioning (including that of compassion, empathy and attention);
• Lifted mood through ‘activation of left frontal regions’ of the brain;
• Decreased cortisol release.¹

There are also suggestions that regular meditation can help with a number of psychological conditions including ‘insomnia, anxiety, phobias and eating disorders’. ¹

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Meditation, the brain and wellbeing

Overall, alongside focus and clarity, it appears that regular meditation offers people a way to feel safer in the world.

As Hanson says: ‘Every time you calm the autonomic nervous system (ANS) through stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), you tilt your body, brain and mind increasingly toward inner peace and well-being’.¹ 

So the effects of meditation on the brain, it can be argued, are beneficial. After all, who doesn’t want to experience a sense of inner peace and wellbeing?

References

1. Hanson R with Mendius R. Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom. New Harbinger Publications; 2009.
2. Dr Rick Hanson. https://www.rickhanson.net. Accessed 23 Sep 2018