How Meditation Develops Your Brain
Many people are seeking natural forms of stress relief in order to achieve a sense of balance and calm. They are also using these same strategies to increase their mental focus and boost their overall life qualities. If you are interested in making optimal use of your brain while gaining better control over your emotions and increasing your overall performance, you should learn how meditation develops your brain.
According to one study performed by researchers at Harvard University, meditation can actually diminish the effects of aging on the brain. People who do not meditate were determined to have significantly less grey matter than those who did. Moreover, this study found that rather than having an impact on one or two small, segments of this organ, learning meditation had widespread benefits and a very positive impact on overall brain volume.
Inner Peace Is Just The Beginning
The idea behind this practice is to clear the mind of random thoughts in order to achieve a greater level of clarity, inner peace and focus. Most modern consumers spend their days entertaining a vast number of random thoughts, without every tuning into any ideas of importance. This random thinking tend to be very focused on the individual and can breed feelings of selfishness, jealousy and other self-centered ideas that detract from the individual’s happiness.
Ruminating and worrying about what has happened or what will happen also has a negative impact on the brain, chemical balance and many other aspects of neurological functioning. By meditating, however, people can eliminate their random thoughts, refocus their thinking and use an entirely different portion of their brains for greater happiness. This is what researchers at Yale found in their study that concluded in 2011.
Another benefit gained from this redirected thinking is that people have a greater ability to get their minds back on track when they do start to wander. Thus, not only do they have greater mental focus, but they also have a far better ability to control their thoughts. These effects were especially apparent in those who had been meditating on a regular basis for several years or more.