Meditation has beneficial effects on the body and the mind and, according to science, its practice can have transformative effects on the brain.
The meditation is inspired by Buddhism, and those who practice it for several years derive various benefits, both mentally and bodily.
Practicing meditation, in fact, makes it possible to calm the mind center thoughts and banish negative energies and “noise” to show what really matters. Scientifically, however, it has proven difficult to demonstrate the effects of meditation on the human brain.
An article from Binghamton University published in Nature Scientific Report showed how practicing meditation, even for just a few months, successfully changed the brain patterns of 10 college students. So, according to the researchers, meditation can indeed have a transformative effect on the brain.
The results show that training for meditation allows a faster transition between the two general states of consciousness in the brain. One of them is called the default mode network, which is active when the brain is at rest and not focused on the outside world, such as during daydreaming and wandering. The other is the dorsal attention network, which takes care of tasks that require more attention.
The results of the study show that the Meditation can improve brain connections between and within these two brain networks.
Tibetans have a term for the ease of transitioning from one state to another: they call it mental flexibility a skill that allows you to mold your mind. The researchers also want to apply meditation to better observe the development of Alzheimer’s disease and autism, which could be caused by problems in the back attention network.
This is why a study is planned on the elderly divided into two groups, a healthy group and a group suffering from Alzheimer’s disease early or mild cognitive impairment. The goal? See if meditation-induced changes in the brain can improve cognitive performance even in subjects with degenerative diseases and disorders.