Re-Wiring Your Brain for Happiness. A quiet explosion of new research indicating that meditation can physically change the brain in astonishing ways has started to push into mainstream. Several studies suggest that these changes through meditation can make you happier, less stressed -- even nicer to other people. It can help you control your eating habits and even reduce chronic pain, all the while without taking prescription medication. Meditation is an intimate and intense exercise that can be done solo or in a group, and one study showed that 20 million Americans say they practice meditation. It has been used to help treat addictions, to clear psoriasis and even to treat men with impotence. The U.S. Various celebrities also are known meditators, including shock jock Howard Stern, actors Richard Gere, Goldie Hawn and Heather Graham, and Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer of the band Weezer.
READ: Meditation 101: Tips for Beginners "They were more empathic with people," Raison said. "Occasionally, [I] lose my temper," he said. Reshaped Cognition. When it comes to managing stress, the Eastern traditions may be especially effective. The Western health model is based on diagnosing the underlying cause of a problem and then finding an active medical or behavioral intervention to remove it. People with chronic illness are often urged to "stay strong," or to have "a fighting spirit. " Eastern medicine has a more holistic view of disease as indicating a lack of balance or an energy blockage. The solution is to bring the body and mind back into balance using gentle, noninvasive techniques such as herbs, manipulative techniques, movement, or meditation. How the Brain Processes Emotion Our lower brain centers, such as the amygdala or hypothalamus, were made to detect and respond to threats, such as a tiger about to eat us.
Mindfulness Meditation Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Therapy (MBSR) is a meditation program developed by John Kabat-Zinn and researchers at Harvard Medical School to help people living with chronic pain. Reference. Altered Brain Structure. A new study has found that participating in an eight-week meditation training program can have measurable effects on how the brain functions even when someone is not actively meditating. In their report in the November issue of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, investigators at Harvard Medical School-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston University (BU), and several other research centers also found differences in those effects based on the specific type of meditation practiced. “The two different types of meditation training our study participants completed yielded some differences in the response of the amygdala — a part of the brain known for decades to be important for emotion — to images with emotional content,” says Gaëlle Desbordes, a research fellow at the Athinoula A.
Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at MGH and at the BU Center for Computational Neuroscience and Neural Technology, corresponding author of the report. Calmer, Kinder, Smarter. MorgueFile Meditation has more in common with psychotherapy than immediately meets the eye. Done well, both can have a profound, lasting effect on how you feel, how you think, and how you relate to others. As a journalist, I first began reporting on scientific research into the benefits of meditation about 20 years ago. It’s an infinitely harder job today, thanks largely to the explosion of interest in mindfulness.
But it’s also much more gratifying, because the research is increasingly varied and sophisticated. Here are four of the most interesting studies to appear within the last six months. Meditate to…Value Calmness A recent study in the journal Emotion looked at meditation’s effect on how people ideally want to feel. Researchers, led by Birgit Koopmann-Holm of Stanford, found that meditators placed a higher premium on calmness than non-meditators. By study’s end, participants in the meditation classes valued calmness more than those in the other two groups. Meditate to…Subdue Anxiety. Physical, Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual. Reduced Stress. The stress hormone, cortisol, is public health enemy number one.
Scientists have known for years that elevated cortisol levels: interfere with learning and memory, lower immune function and bone density, increase weight gain, blood pressure, cholesterol, heart disease... The list goes on and on. Chronic stress and elevated cortisol levels also increase risk for depression, mental illness, and lower life expectancy. This week, two separate studies were published in Science linking elevated cortisol levels as a potential trigger for mental illness and decreased resilience—especially in adolescence. Cortisol is released in response to fear or stress by the adrenal glands as part of the fight-or-flight mechanism. Both eustress and distress release cortisol as part of the general adaption syndrome. Eustress creates a "seize-the-day" heightened state of arousal, which is invigorating and often linked with a tangible goal. 1.
Fear increases cortisol. 2. 3. 4. 5. Conclusion.