This calming practice can help your brain become sharper

A new study from Binghamton University’s Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science reveals that regular meditation will not only help you feel more peaceful, but could also increase the efficiency of your brain.

How so? Meditation may enhance the connection between your two brain networks, allowing you to pass your energy from one to the next with fewer symptoms of aging.

The link between meditation and brain power

Wild claims have been made about the benefits of mindfulness or meditation practice for millennia. More often than not, health seems to be connected to deep breathing techniques have proven to be true. For example:

1. Meditation can increase your heart health. 
   Many studies suggest that meditation benefits cardiovascular health. It increases relaxation, which diminishes your stressed-out, fight-or-flight experiences during the day.
2. Meditation can improve your work ethic.
   Feeling a little less inspired to do your work? A quick meditative session could improve your track record! Not only does the regular practice help you increase your patience levels, but it helps you to focus on one thing at once (or as little as possible), and helps you to practice discipline.
3. Meditation may improve your sleep.
   A 2014 study — and a host of research since — suggest that meditation can be a good treatment for insomnia and other sleep issues.

With just eight weeks of regular meditation practice, 10 students participating in the recent study had marked changes in brain patterns. Assistant Professor and Study Supervisor Weiying Dai of the experiment explains: “Binghamton University scholars are high achievers who want to do the things they are assigned and do well on them, so they didn’t require much prompting to maintain a regular meditation routine. To guarantee objective reporting, they would relate their experiences directly to Weiying about how frequently they practiced.” MRI scans helped to identify and confirm findings for the study.

Meditation can optimize your brain’s two main networks

Theorists believe that the brain exercises two general states of consciousness; the default mode network and the dorsal attention network.

The default mode network is a bit more suppressed when engaging in attentive or mentally demanding activities, while the dorsal attention network becomes activated when focused attention is involved in an activity.

In this way, the two sides activate largely at differing times. As you age and your brain becomes less agile, your ability to switch between the two with no lapse or other issues decreases. 

This is one of the reasons keeping your brain sharp and attentive is so important. Meditation can enhance the connection between the two networks.

Meditation can deliver clarity to everyday situations

Harvard University published findings of mindfulness and meditation having the unique power to potentially change the structure of your entire brain.

Further recent research by Yale University points to meditation as directly beneficial to brain function as well. People who had engaged in SKY Breathing techniques in advance of fabricated stressful situations were calmer, while their non-meditative counterparts experienced adverse reactions.

“This means that they were not only in a more positive emotional state but also that they were more able to think clearly and effectively perform the task at hand,” says Emma Seppälä, Ph.D., lecturer at the Yale School of Management and faculty director of the Yale School of Management’s Women’s Leadership Program.

According to Neuroscience News, “Dai and Weinschenk are still parsing the data taken from the 2017 MRI scans, so they have yet to test other Scholars Program students. Because Alzheimer’s disease and autism could be caused by problems with the dorsal attention network, Dai is making plans for future research that could use meditation to mitigate those problems.”

With so many different types of meditative practices — and so many different characteristics to trigger and engage with — it could be a while before we find solid, specific links to the prevention of chronic illness. It is thought that maintaining a variety of practices could help to increase memory and attention, especially in older patients.

If you’re looking to incorporate the meditative practice into your life in small ways before committing to daily practice, try some of these small tips you can do virtually anywhere.