Effects of Meditation on the Brain - 2643 Words

Mindful Meditation and the Brain Some view meditation as new age, hippie nonsense because it is not a social norm to sit in silence and dig beneath the surface of the mind. Others liken it to tuning an instrument before playing it. I subscribe to the latter; nonetheless, meditation is an ancient practice that can be traced back 2,500 years. However, neuroscientists are just now beginning to measure the effects that it has on the brain. While there are many types of meditation, they all have the same function; reaching an internal state of consciousness in which one is attending to a specific focal point. The content of this paper will be predominantly about mindful meditation and how it positively affects the brain. The process of mindful†¦show more content†¦All meditators performed better than the control in their ability to detect stimuli indicating that both groups developed a heightened attention as a result of their practice. Results also showed that mindful meditators were significantly better at det ecting unexpected stimuli, compared to the concentration group (Valentine, 1999). Another study was done during a three month silent retreat to see if mindful meditation can increase the ability to identify both stimuli in rapid succession, essentially reducing the trend known as â€Å"attentional blink† (Slagter, 2007) As cited by Slagter, attentional blink refers to an inability to perceive a second target in rapid sequential visual presentation of stimuli, if a first target was detected within a brief window of time, (500 milliseconds) preceding the second target (Shapiro, 1997). Research indicated that meditators showed less of an attentional blink response than non-meditators after the three month retreat. Electroencephalography (EEG) signals revealed that the individuals that performed the best on the attentional blink task also exhibited the least amount of brain activity at the start of the first stimulus. This implies that those individuals were able to allocate their attentional resources evenly which is in co ordinance with their hypothesis that mindful meditation reduces attentional blink.Show MoreRelated Meditation and the Brain Essay1538 Words   |  7 PagesMeditation and the Brain When discussing the relationship of brain and behavior, the materialist view of human experience runs into conflict with the historically dominant religious accounts. Recent studies, however, suggests that there may be a middle view between the two world-views. Religions, especially Buddhism, stress the role of meditation in ones spiritual growth. 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