Hey the Left-Brained Skeptics, here’s how Meditation can Change your Brain
Some Neuroscience on meditation to quench your proof thirsty left brain
It’s a good thing to listen to your left brain. And be skeptical about stuff.
Your left-brain is a pro when it comes to numbers, logic, sequences, mathematics, and facts!
This pro analyses a lot of situations in your life and overpowers any stupid decisions your right brain might make.
Left-brain is like an erudite intellectual — so it’s quite obvious that when we talk about meditation, the left-brain pops up and throws doubts and questions like a party-pinata inside your head.
THAT is why even after listening to trillions of perks and benefits of it, certain left-brained skeptics won’t even give it a try.
So, I thought of debunking all those factors that the left brain doesn’t want to believe in by giving you something logical. Something that the left brain will be forced to acknowledge and accept.
Let’s get started.
Stay Forever Young
University of California, Los Angeles, also known as UCLA, researched in 2015 about how mindfulness affects the brain. And, you’ll be shocked by what they found out.
They had a group of 50 meditators and 50 non-meditators. They scanned the amount of gray matter present in the brains of both the groups.
FYI: gray matter contains neuronal cell bodies in the brain, responsible for all the crucial bodily functions.
And this gray matter decreases with age, which explains the weakness that slowly dawns with increasing age.
So, they found that the amount of gray matter that decreases over time is slower for those who meditated when compared to those who didn’t.(Talk about anti-aging)
And that makes a huge difference in the level of intensity, energy, and enthusiasm with which you do something. In short, you stay younger for longer!
If this doesn’t sound convincing enough, go ahead and read the entire research.
An extract from the research:
Meditation might be a possible candidate in the quest for such a positive approach as there is ample evidence for its beneficial effects for a number of cognitive domains, including attention, memory, verbal fluency, executive function, processing speed, overall cognitive flexibility as well as conflict monitoring and even creativity (That was a long breath — we think some left brained scientist wrote this!)
Where’s Your Mind Stuck, in the Terrible Past or Unpredictable Future?
The mind is continuously wandering, stirring up unusual and disturbing thoughts that throw you off balance, isn’t it?
It is either in the past or in the future. Which heavily compromises our potential to focus and concentrate!
If it weren’t for my mind, my meditation would be excellent.
– Ani Pema Chodron
A joint study by a group of people from the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, showed that just a few weeks of meditation practice has the ability to bring your focus back on track. (Or make it better)
It increases the ability to concentrate intently which results in better reasoning, verbal and cognitive skills. Pretty impressive, huh!
An excerpt from the research if you must read:
Mindfulness training enhances attention, improves visuospatial processing efficiency, increases backward digit memory span and serves as a useful treatment for a large and growing list of medical conditions.
Goodbye to ‘Social’ Anxiety
‘How am I gonna converse with a complete stranger?’
‘I’ll be judged and I’ll definitely blow this meeting!’
‘Oh my god, I feel like a sociopath!’
Social anxiety is a thing. According to Mental Health America, 15 million people suffer from social anxiety in America alone.
It is all because of the gray matter present in the amygdala in your brain. (This gray matter’s different from the previously mentioned gray matter!)
You guessed it right, it is the part that deals with fears, anxiety, stress, trauma, and aggression.
But thankfully, meditation can help relieve social fears and anxiety.
Social Anxiety is best at triggering stress hormones called Cortisol. And meditation is best at taming it, befriending it, and instead helps calm your nervous system down.
Researchers at Massachusetts Medical School and Hospital and Harvard Medical School joined hands for this research — where they got to know that meditation affects the amygdala in the brain to ease out fears and trauma.
And another interesting research also proves that with a practice of just 8 weeks of meditation- the Amygdala’s natural response of ‘fight or flight’ to a stressful situation seems to reduce significantly, thus helping us stay calm even in adverse situations.
It is fascinating, to say the least.
Something Everyone Craves — Striking a Beautiful Balance
A speech that you are about to deliver contains a range of emotions you need to express. Not only you’ve got to nail your facial expressions and kinesics, but you also need to make sure that everyone listening to you in that hall resonates with what you are speaking.
But that rarely happens, right.
Your expressions are, most of the time, way beyond your control and way out of sync with what you want to express. Pons region being weak is the reason.
Pons — The part of the brain responsible for physical functioning and facial expressions.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School did a comprehensive research on how meditation affects the gray matter density in various regions of the brain.
This study proved that meditation strengthens the pons region in the brain. The outcomes are staggering; expressions remain in sync with what you want to speak, and so do the kinesics of your body!
The effect of whatever you speak increases multifold.
No More Being Addicted
Meditation helps resist the urge or craving to smoke or drink.
There are tons of examples and heartfelt stories of people who got rid of their addictions where meditation has played a significant role.
Here’s an inspiring story for you to read.
Apparently, meditation works powerfully on the same center of the brain where these substances work. But in a non-invasive way. Meditation trains the brain to be high on its own, without resorting to any external things.
My Final Verdict
By no means, I want to put out a message that meditation is a universal solution to every problem in life because — it is not.
But, it has a significant impact on life and the way we approach it.
And science is proving it. Again and again.
There are infinitely more reasons to meditate and how it can help us do better. But for now, I think these many will do.
I hope they helped you convince your left brain about taking up meditation.
If you felt a tug in you after reading this far and you found it worth your time, share with your friends who might need it!
Godspeed.
