How Meditation
C h a n ge s t he B r a i n
Dr Carolyn Dean is a medical doctor and naturopath. She has authored and co-authored over 35 books
How Meditation Changes the Brain D r Ca r o ly n D e a n
Meditation is a complex and conscious mental process. Meditation is akin to training the mind to improve its own core psychological capabilities, including attentional and emotional self-regulation. Though the Western scientific corpus has long ignored meditation - perhaps thanks to the practice’s lingering links with spirituality - there have however been substantial recent findings that suggest meditation greatly enhances brain plasticity.
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B ra in C ha nge s Meditation
causes
significant
physiological changes. One of these changes is in the quantity of cerebral blood flow during meditation. One study found that the blood flow in experienced meditators was significantly higher compared to non-meditators in the prefrontal
cortex,
parietal
thalamus,
putamen,
cortex,
caudate,
and
midbrain.
F oc use d v s Op e n Focused attention meditation is the mental process where a subject concentrates all of their attention singularly on a small object, or their own breath. The goal is to remain undistracted by external stimuli. Open monitoring meditation, on the other hand, centers around observing everything within and external to the body. The goal is to observe without judgement, constant
and
is
monitoring
met of
through thoughts,
emotions, and feelings. Both focused and open meditations provide tangible benefits to the brain as it refocuses and adapts its neural pathways. This is vital to understanding the brain pillar of total body wellness, and shows how it is possible to take back control of those synapses.
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L e a r n m o re by
visiting t he b log of Dr. Carolyne Dean