MINDFUL MEDITATION

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Mindful meditation is a practice that could be described as being in the moment. It refers to a moment by moment awareness and focused attention on one’s immediate experience. A typical meditation technique has the individual sit comfortably with their eyes closed, calmly maintaining their awareness on their breath. If thoughts and feelings arise, they the individual is to recognize them in a non-judgmental way and peacefully return their attention back towards their breathing.

It has long been stated anecdotally, that practicing mindful meditation has many health benefits, including reducing an individual’s levels of stress, depression, and anxiety, as well as increasing their happiness and overall well-being.

NEURO-PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH

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A particular area of interest in the field of psychology has been on the physical effects of meditation on the brain as well as its benefits to psychological processes such as cognition and learning. In recent years the scientific community has begun to test the claims of meditation practitioners by conducting experimental research within lab settings. For instance, researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital analyzed before and after brain scan images of 16 participants who took part in an eight week meditation program and found that mindful meditation actually increases density concentrations of grey matter within the left hippocampus, the posterior cingulate cortex, the temporo-parietal junction and the cerebellum. These areas of the brain are associated with learning and memory processes, emotional regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective taking.

Another study that involved 48 undergraduate students had individuals take part in a two week meditation program and found that meditation increased the participant’s cognitive ability and decreased their instances of mind wandering. The study also found that the program increased the participant’s working memory capacity, reading comprehension, and overall focus on attention tasks.

BRIEF MEDITATION RESEARCH

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Many of the studies on mindfulness training, including the ones previously mentioned, have tested the effects of extensive long term meditation regimes. However, there is currently very little research on the effects and benefits of brief meditation practices (i.e. those consisting of only a few short sessions). However, one study did in fact seek to determine if there were benefits to an individual’s cognitive abilities after participating in brief sessions of mindfulness training. In the study, 24 participants took part in a one week program which consisted of four 20 minute meditation sessions. Their results suggested that even brief meditation training may improve cognitive abilities such as sustained attention, visuo-spatial processing and executive functioning.

CONCLUSION

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The research conducted so far suggests that meditation may lead to improvements in brain processes that contribute to overall learning abilities and suggests that there are real world applications to studying the effects of mindfulness training. The information may be especially useful for those individuals wanting to improve their memory or learning ability such as students attending post-secondary education or people with jobs requiring abilities like focused attention, general memory retention, or overall problem solving skills. In these cases, meditation practices could be integrated into the individual’s daily routine in order to improve their memory and cognition.

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Thanks For Reading

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Image Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

References:

Holzel, B. K., Carmody, James., Vangel, M., Congleton, C., Yerramsetti, S, M., Gard, T., Lazar,
S. W., (2011). Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain grey matter density. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 191, 36 – 43.

Mrazek, M. D., Franklin, M. S., Phillips, D. T., Baird, B., Schooler, J. W., (2013). Mindfulness
training improves working memory capacity and GRE performance while reducing mind wandering. Psychological Science, 24 (5), 776 – 781. DOI: 10.1177/0956797612459659

Zeidan, F., Johnson, S. K., Diamond, B. J., David, Z., Goolkasian, P., (2010). Mindfulness
Meditation improves cognition: Evidence of brief mental training. Consciousness and Cognition, 19, 597 – 605.