The meditating brain

Meditation is renowned as a way of stilling the mind. It is no surprise then that meditation has direct effects on the brain but now a new study has shown just how extensive those effects are.

In the study subjects who had never meditated before were given four classes in meditation, each class being twenty minutes in length. The meditation technique they were taught is known as “focused attention” and involves attending to the breath and letting go of distracting thoughts and emotions.

Before and after training in meditation scans were taken of the participants brains. During these scans a pain inducing heat instrument was placed on the subjects’ right legs. The device heated their skin to 120 degrees Fahrenheit over a five minute period which is enough to induce pain.

Participant’s pain ratings after learning meditation were reduced by anywhere from eleven per cent to 93 per cent. At the same time scans showed reduced activity in the primary somatosensory cortex which is an area involved in feeling how intense a painful stimulus is.

Additionally, there was increased activity in areas of the brain including the anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, and orbito-frontal cortex. These three areas are all involved in how the brain shapes an experience from nerve signals. The more that these areas were activated by meditation, the greater was the reduction in pain.

One theory as to why meditation was so effective in blocking pain was that it did not work at just one place in the brain, but instead reduced pain at multiple levels of processing.

So meditation had real pain relieving effects and did so with a minimum of training, meaning that you don’t have to be a yogi master to ease your pain using meditation. There might be a reason to turn to painkilling medication as your first choice in pain relief but, om, that reason is not immediately obvious.

Meanwhile if you visit Meijer Ad that contains mostly likewise discounts with Winn Dixie Ad you surely have a range like ALDI Ad.