I picked up meditation a little over 2 years ago. While compared to my teachers and many people around me I'm still relatively new to the practice, I can already say it's had a great effect on my life. Today I'd like to share with you some proven effects of meditation.
What meditation can do for you
A lot of research has been done (and is still being done) on the subject of meditation. Over the course of the years a couple of things have come to light in this respect. And right now we might be in the golden years; almost every week a paper is published that once again confirms the benefits of meditation. But what exactly does meditation do for you, and are those benefits proven scientifically?
#1 Meditation slows down the age-related loss of gray matter in the brain
In january 2015 a paper was published in which was proven that long-term meditators have younger brains than their non-meditating peers. The research found that people that have been practicing meditation for 20 years or longer have more gray matter present in the brain when compared to the control group. Gray matter was found to be linked to intelligence.
#2 Meditation changes your brain structure and behavior
In 2011 a Harvard team did research on mindfulness meditation, specifically focused on stress relief. When analysing their subjects it was found that the structure of their brain had already changed, even after only eight weeks. In addition to this, the subjects mentioned that their level of stress and anxiety had reduced during this period. Which leads us to effect no. 3:
#3 Meditation reduces anxiety
Several research papers, like this one published by Oxford Academic, have found that practicing mindfulness meditation focused on stress relief already started to reduce stress and anxiety in subjects after 8 weeks. This confirms the findings mentioned in the research of my previous point.
Similar results are found in study after study.
#4 Even brief meditations during school breaks are beneficial
Children's brains undergo an amazing amount of development. Meditation might be a great way to stimulate both the cognitive and emotional processes in children's brains as to help their development, as described in this paper. This study evaluated the effect of a 5-week mindfulness-based curriculum on teacher-ratings of student classroom behavior at an elementary school, and examined if the addition of more sessions provided added benefit to student outcomes. Results showed that teachers reported improved classroom behavior of their students that lasted up to 7 weeks.
#5 Improved attention span and concentration
To follow up on #4, a paper published in 2014 details the improving effect of mindfulness meditation on the attention span and ability to concentrate in research subjects. These effects resulted in improvements in both working memory capacity and reading comprehension. Even more interesting, these improvements were recorded in both children and adults, with and without attention deficit disorders (ADD).
This list is just a tip of the iceberg. Many more articles and papers have been written on the subject of meditation, and it's clear that even from a scientific point of view mindfulness can greatly improve your life!