In the last 10 years, hundreds of studies have been released about meditation, and many of them have been showing that meditation is extremely effective for decreasing stress, very good for reducing pain and symptoms associated with many diseases and conditions such as depression, anxiety and, insomnia. Researches also demonstrated that it can improve the ability of paying attention and most of the results have shown that people just become generally happier, reporting to be more satisfied with life and to have a higher quality of life.

How can something as silly as sitting and watching your breath, could lead to all these types of different changes? What is known about the brain is that whenever you engage a behaviour over and over again it can lead to changes in the brain, this is what is referred to as neuroplasticity. It means that your brain is plastic and the neurones can change how they talk to each other with experience, and studies have been demonstrating that these changes can actually be detected using an MRI machine.

In a particular study researchers scanned a group of average people that had never meditated before then put them through an eight-week meditation stress reduction program where they were instructed to meditate everyday for about 30 minutes so they could be scanned again at the end of the 8 week period. What was found was that several areas of the brain became larger. The hippocampus, area responsible for learning, memory and emotion regulation was found to be larger. An interesting fact about this area is that there is usually less gray matter in the hippocampus in people who have depression and PTSD. Another area that was identified to be larger was the temporoparietal junction, the area right above your ears. It is important for perspective taking, empathy and compassion, which are functions commonly reported to be improved among people that have started meditating. Another region identified was the amygdala which is the fight-or-flight area of the brain, and here the researchers actually found a decrease in grey matter, and what was interesting was that the change in grey matter was correlated with the change in stress levels, so the more stress reduction people reported the smaller the amygdala became. This area is also associated with fear.
As you can see the results of this particular study shows us that it wasn’t just the desire of the participants to feel better or less stressed or even that it was a placebo response, there was actual a neurobiological reason why they are saying that they felt like that. So we can conclude that meditation can literally change our brains.

Personally, I find meditation to be one of the most powerful practice among all spiritual practices out there, it can promote serious transformation if done the right way. That is right, I said “if done the right way!” Because there are many types of meditation techniques and too much information out there that might confuse you about “what” or “what not” to do when meditating. Also, keep in mind that a lot of what have been advertised as meditation are nothing but relaxation techniques, and even though relaxation is one of the many of the good benefits of meditation, it alone will not promote the transformations mentioned in the research above.

I invite you to honour the power of transformation of the Fall to start your own transformation process by sitting quietly with the attention focused on your breath for 10 minutes everyday.

Like the tree that sheds it’s leaves, meditation will help you to shed away the ego, fears, worries, sense of control, etc. for you to better see your own light, for you to be able to become the master of yourself. 

PS: If you have been wanting to incorporate meditation to your life but are not sure if you are doing the right thing or even if you already meditate and want to expand your experience and knowledge to your practice, I invite you to join our meditation classes. For registration please go to www.curemassagetherapy.com/workshops-and-meditations/.