Benefits of Meditation for Brain and Body

What are the benefits of meditation? In recent years, meditation is becoming increasingly popular. There are many reasons behind this. Meditation decrease distress. It decreases the risk of many diseases. It improves health condition and makes the brain cool. But these claims have not many experimental base. People who do meditation claim that Buddhist monks spend hours in meditation daily. Some random studies have been conducted but that did not include a large number of mind control groups.

Biologica Psychiatry published a study this February where scientific experiments were conducted on mindfulness meditation. The study result shows that mindfulness meditation has the power of changing the brains of ordinary people and improving their health. The New York Times reported the study on February 18, 2016.

The lead researcher, an associate professor of Psychology and the director of the Health and Human Performance Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University, J. David Creswell, said mindful meditation wants a receptive and open, non-judgmental awareness of our experience which we have at the present moment. 

Placebo problem is a difficulty which is faced by the researchers when they investigate meditation. In careful researches, several participants get treatment but others receive a placebo. They think that they are getting treatment alike but actually they are not. But when people meditate, they can tell that they are meditating.

AT first, the researchers engaged 35 unemployed women and men who were searching for work and living in stress. They drew their blood and scanned their brain. They taught half of the participants formal mindfulness meditation staying at a residential retreat center. The researchers taught the second half of the participants to complete one kind of sham mindfulness meditation which was given attention to relaxation and diverting oneself from stress and worries.

The mindfulness group focused on their bodily sensations even unpleasant sensations. On the other hand, relaxation group gave attention to chatter ignoring their bodies when their leader was making fun. 

At last, three days later, all participants told the researchers that they felt refreshed and they could withstand the worries derived from their unemployment. After four months, the participants who practiced mindfulness meditation showed considerably lower levels unhealthy inflammation occurred in their blood than relaxation group. According to the researchers, still they have no idea how much meditation is an ideal dose.