People all over the world have been doing meditation for a long time. Just not long ago scientists started to figure out the secrets of this old practice thanks to new technology. Studies show that practicing meditation often can lead to significant changes in the body and improve overall health and mental function.
A lot of people are starting to pay attention to meditation so scientists from different fields are jumping in to study how it works. They are using fancy brain scans and looking at how our biology and genes might change with meditation. The findings so far show that regular meditation offers a lot more than simply helping people relax and reduce stress.
Dr. is one of the early researchers looking into how meditation works. Sara Lazar works as a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and teaches at Harvard Medical School. She has shown through MRI scans that practicing mindfulness meditation can alter the way the brain is structured. To be more precise, the parts of the brain that handle sensory processing and managing emotions can get bigger, while the amygdala which deals with anxiety and stress might shrink.
One important thing to look at is how meditation affects the immune system. Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison discovered that people who meditate often have more influenza antibodies compared to those who don’t meditate which hints at a better immune system response.
A surprising finding in neurobiology and meditation is that the brain can change and adapt by creating new connections between its cells. This idea challenges the old view that the brain's structure stays mostly the same once you reach adulthood. Researchers are saying that meditation might help change the way the brain is structured and that practicing it regularly can lead to real physical changes.
Lately, researchers have discovered that meditation might actually change our genes. This new area of study called epigenetics is showing that meditation can affect how our genes work. Meditation seems to be connected to a decrease in the activity of genes that are related to inflammation stress and various illnesses.
The field of meditation is always changing and growing as new ideas come up with the progress in science. Even though science has made big progress in figuring out meditation there are still many unknowns about how our brains really work. Scientists still need to do more research to really figure out how meditation works.
The evidence showing how meditation helps us and the research supporting it make it clear that this practice is not just a trick of the mind. It is a device that can make us feel more at ease reduce stress sharpen our concentration and enhance our health with noticeable effects on our brain and genes.
In the end science is trying hard to figure out the details of meditation but the practice itself is still pretty straightforward. Meditation is a cheap way to help people feel better in their minds bodies and emotions.
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