For a long time, I dismissed meditation as spiritual woo-woo. How could closing your eyes and focusing on your breathe or thoughts or whatever make any difference?
To my “rational” (and ignorant) mind, it made no sense.
Sometime in 2019, I read up on the science of meditation. And it made me feel stupid for ignoring it all these years. Since then, I’ve meditated almost daily. I’m not going to talk about the (life-changing) benefits I’ve experienced. Because your mileage may vary.
I’ll talk about what changes in our minds when we meditate regularly. You can then extrapolate these changes to your life and decide for yourself whether it’s something worth committing to.
And even if you already meditate regularly, understanding the various ways in which meditation alters your brain will enhance the benefits you get out of it (because of the placebo effect).
Changing the brain’s default mode of operation
There’s a network of interacting brain regions, called the Default Mode Network (DMN), that is considered responsible for our inner chatter. It’s called the “default mode” network because it’s active by default when you’re in a resting state and not engaged in any activity.
This is why we have a natural tendency to ruminate about the past or worry about the future. The DMN is the part of the brain that you can blame for overthinking. And it’s even more engaged when we make self-referencing judgments.
“I don’t have X, I’m not good enough.”
“I’ll never be able to achieve X because I’m Y.”
“If only I had X, things would be perfect.”
In eastern traditions, this part of our mind is often referred to as the monkey mind. The monkey mind inhibits your ability to live in the present moment and be happy.
Brain scans show that, in experienced meditators, the main nodes of DMN (medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex) become relatively deactivated. When the DMN is quiet, your present-moment awareness and ability to focus your attention outward is significantly enhanced.
This makes it easy for you to lose yourself in work and achieve the flow state. More importantly, it does wonders for your psychological well-being. There’s a reason why Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy is very effective for the treatment of anxiety, addiction, and depression.
While the activity in the DMN is reduced, the Tempoparietal junction (TPJ) — which is associated with empathy, perspective-taking, and social cognition — shows increased activity.
This is not surprising because when we’re less self-absorbed, we give higher quality attention to the people around us. We become better listeners and notice things which we would have otherwise missed.
Transcending the levels of consciousness
There’s a small almond-shaped structure in your brain, named the Amygdala, which is referred to as the “fear center” of the brain. This is where stress and anxiety originate.
MRI scans following an eight-week mindfulness program showed that meditation literally shrinks your amygdala. Not only does the amygdala get smaller, but it’s resting-state functional connectivity with the rest of the brain also gets weaker.
This explains the reduced stress reactivity among people who meditate. Important to remember that stress is the leading cause of most of our mental and physical distress.
Relevant plug: Stress — The Usual Suspect
While the amygdala shrinks, the hippocampal and prefrontal regions show increased volumes of gray matter. Both prefrontal and hippocampal regions have been associated with emotional regulation and response control.
This explains how meditation helps people cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability, and engage in mindful behavior.
Also, meditation strengthens the functional connectivity between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and frontoparietal regions. These regions are associated with executive behavioral control (concentration, working memory, cognitive control).
So, basically, meditation increases your ability to recruit higher-order thinking and win over your primal urges. This seems like an invaluable benefit in a world that’s constantly pushing you towards lower states of consciousness.
Relevant plug: How Your Reptilian Brain Controls You
Given what we just discussed, it should not come as a surprise that meditation also reduces your susceptibility to cognitive biases. When you’re anxious, angry, or sad, you are much more likely to make emotionally charged and fear-based decisions. Meditation directly counters that and helps you see things from an open standpoint. After all, the core tenet of mindfulness is non-judgemental awareness.
Why the Benefits of Meditation Persist
The reason why the benefits of meditation persist in our day-to-day life is our brain’s ability to rewire itself — neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity enables your brain to change and form new neural connections.
Every time you meditate, you strengthen the various pathways associated with the structural and functional changes we discussed above. With sufficient repetition, you create a “new normal” for your brain.
Unfortunately, this means you won’t see the benefits of meditation unless you constantly reinforce these neural pathways. And the more “well-traveled” these pathways are the more pronounced the changes will be in your day-to-day life.
This is why it’s also important to not do it in a start-stop fashion. It’s much more beneficial to meditate 10 minutes every day, instead of say, 100 minutes every 10 days. You’ll see the benefits only when you commit to it for an extended duration. Most people fail to build the habit because of this lack of instant gratification.
In my opinion, if you can take out five minutes to brush your teeth every day, taking out a few minutes for your mind seems like a no-brainer (haaaah).
References
- Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity
- Change in Brainstem Gray Matter Concentration Following a Mindfulness-Based Intervention is Correlated with Improvement in Psychological Well-Being
- State and Training Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Brain Networks Reflect Neuronal Mechanisms of Its Antidepressant Effect
- Regulation of the Neural Circuitry of Emotion by Compassion Meditation: Effects of Meditative Expertise
- Dispositional Mindfulness Co-Varies with Smaller Amygdala and Caudate Volumes in Community Adults
- Mindfulness meditation training alters stress-related amygdala resting state functional connectivity: a randomized controlled trial
- Mindfulness Meditation Training and Executive Control Network Resting State Functional Connectivity: A Randomized Controlled Trial
- Decision Making, Mindfulness, and Mood: How Mindfulness Techniques can Reduce the Impact of Biases and Heuristics through Improved Decision Making and Positive Affect
- Looking up: Mindfulness increases positive judgments and reduces negativity bias
- Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density
- The underlying anatomical correlates of long-term meditation: Larger hippocampal and frontal volumes of gray matter
Thank you for reading. Most of the content on this website has emerged from conversations with readers like you.
Every Sunday, I send out an email dissecting some aspect of the human mind.
If you can take out a few minutes every week, I’ll help you develop a strong understanding of how your mind works. So that you can have more control over your thoughts, behavior, and life.
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Or you can sign-up after reading my story and the core idea behind this website: We Should Be Getting More Out of Our Lives (would recommend)