This article reports a recent study on meditation and the following findings. The study proof scientifically the main role of meditation as method of stress and anxiety reduction.
The study of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) reported that meditation-produced changes over time in the brain’s grey matter.
Study senior author Sara Lazar (MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology) sustains: “Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day”. Furthermore, she also says: “This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.”
The analysis of Magnetic Resonance images revealed, also, an increased grey matter density in the hippocampu, which is important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.
Furthermore, the participants with reductions in stress were correlated with decreased grey matter density in the amygdala, which has an important role anxiety and stress development. Although no change was seen in a self-awareness-associated structure called the insula, which had been identified in earlier studies; the researchers suggest that longer-term meditation practice might be needed to produce changes in that area. None of these changes were seen in the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage of time.
Amishi Jha, a University of Miami neuroscientist who investigates mindfulness-training’s effects on individuals in high-stress situations, says, “These results shed light on the mechanisms of action of mindfulness-based training. They demonstrate that the first-person experience of stress can not only be reduced with an eight-week mindfulness training program but that this experiential change corresponds with structural changes in the amygdala, a finding that opens doors to many possibilities for further research on MBSR’s potential to protect against stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.”
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