How Meditation Affects Brain Plasticity Essay

<p align=justify>In addition, meditation helps one understand various concepts of Buddhism. For instance, meditating on impermanence, such as decomposing bodies, helps dislodge attachment of worldly pleasures and show how everything is impermanent. The two types, “Vipassana” and “Samatha”, both teach the Buddhist how they should behave and in what state of mind. For example, Samatha teaches the Buddhist to detach from everyday concerns and concentrate on being impermanent. Vipassana teaches that everything is attached and interconnected in the world.

This paper is about my experience with mindfulness based meditation and scientific inquiry of these experiences. Mindfulness based meditation is describes as technique used to cultivate nonreactive, non-judgmental and stable awareness of the present moment (Garland and Gaylord, 2009). The end goal is to sustain this meta-cognitive state for a long period of time. I practiced non-denominational form of mindfulness based meditation for the first time in my psychology class, which was devoted towards intellectual and experiential examination of meditation. The practice was conducted in a group it was instructed by our own professor and it begun at the end of class. There was one sessions per week and each session was structured meaning it was

Josephine P. Briggs, M. (2010, June 25). Exploring the Power of Meditation. Retrieved from National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health: https://nccih.nih.gov/about/offices/od/2010-06.htm

Published in “Newsweek”, “The Neuroscience of Meditation, And the Virtues of Shutting Up,” by Zoe Schlanger, is an article to persuade stressed out and skeptical people towards meditation. Published in 2015, the focus of this article is to help those who don’t understand how “powerful” meditation can be and how others may react to the situation. Miss Schlanger not only puts in her own personal experience, but also brings in other information to try to help guide them to a positive outlook on the way meditation helped her and how it could help them as well. This piece effectively helps the target audience lean toward the idea of meditation by switching from casual to formal diction, using personal experience, and organizing to keep the flow interesting.

Meditation has a long history that stretches back thousands of years. Nobody knows exactly where and when meditation began but scientists have evidence to believe that it began somwehere around 5,000 years ago. This was a time far before religious figures such as Jesus and Buddha are said to have existed. 5,000 years ago, much of the civilized world was nothing like it is today. It was mostly hunter gatherers with few villages in the open landscapes. Meditation is said by scientists to have most likely began with hunter gatherers who would pass on their enthusiasm for such an introspective practice to their children.

Meditation causes you to think on God and his Excellencies, which can possibly change your life, all by itself.

For instance, Davidson and colleagues (2003) conducted a study in which subjects perform mindfulness meditation for eight weeks; right after they were vaccinated with the influenza vaccine. Results show significant increases in left-side brain activation (in charge of positive affect). They also found significant increases in antibody titers among those in the meditation group compared to the control group. Moreover, they found that the increments of activation of the left-side of the brain were able to predict the amount of antibodies created in the body of those in the mindfulness meditation group. They conclude that a short program in mindfulness meditation produces noticeable effects on brain and immune function. Their findings suggest that meditation may change the brain and immune function

read about how mindfulness mediation can improve mood, quality of life, and attention for those adults who struggle with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). What they were trying to discover was ways to alleviate the signs or impairments that can occur with an individual with affective problems or impaired attention. Most adults with ADHD have a hard time with staying alert and attentive to their surroundings. In the study, all participants in the treatment group received an 8 week course where they were taught meditation techniques and those in the control group did not receive any sort of meditation techniques but instead were prescribed an ADHD medication to take. The medication obviously helped those not receiving the meditation

Through much research towards the history of mindfulness meditation followed by understanding the risks of today’s college students practicing unhealthy methods to increase academic performance it is important to find a link between the two in order to bring forth a new means of aiding academic performance. Through proper research and diligent efforts it will be a top goal to not only scientifically support the potential for meditation to be more successful than non-prescription drugs (Adderall) when it comes to increasing academic performance.

There was a study done on how to better test meditation and how it affects stress in the brain. The study shows that mindful meditation reduces the levels of stress hormones and inflammatory responses in the brain. In this study 89 patients with generalized anxiety disorder were randomly divided into two groups. One group took an eight week mindful meditation course and the second group, the control group, took an eight-week stress management test. The difference between this meditation study on stress and other ones done in the past is that both groups were given some form of treatment. When the control group was not given treatment in the past studies the two groups knew if they were getting treatment

Substantial research has been done on the positive effects of long-term meditation practices on the promotion of cognitive functions. However, the effects of brief meditation practices have not been as thoroughly researched. Accordingly, this study will further investigate the effects of short-term mindfulness-based training (MT) on the multiple traits of attentional processing. I hypothesize that brief MT can have similar results to that of long-term practices, indicating that meta-cognition can be improved in a short period of time. This experimental study will compare a MT group, a relaxation group, and a control group—all made up of inexperienced participants—on their performance of higher-order processing of attentional tasks. We predict that the MT group will do better than the other groups on all tests administered, and that they will improve significantly compared to their previous performance.

The practice of mindfulness meditation, even for twenty minutes per day, has been proven to increase working memory, strengthen focus, and decrease stress levels. The recent increase in popularity of this practice has led to significant findings achieved through numerous empirical studies pertaining to the effect of meditation upon the various aspects of the mind.

Moreover, prolonged meditations have got some long time impacts to the practitioner. These positive impacts can have some good effects on the body of the practitioner biologically. Thus, the Buddhist religious tradition principle of meditation relates with the science effects it provides to the practitioner. It is noted that the Buddhist-style meditation may have not only emotional effects but also distinct physiological effects (Hall, 2003, p. 3). These physiological effects are the result of the scientific effects of the religious practice hence there

Mindfulness meditation consists of skills and methods to unplug from the busy world around you and from the busy 'monkey brain ' so often experienced in today 's life and particularly in ADHD, anxiety and depression. According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness meditation trains and reinforces the ability to pay attention to the present moment, on purpose which helps to increase concentration, decrease anxiety, improve sleep, improve mood, decrease the stress response, and improve physical and emotional health. The studies are compelling about the health benefits of mindfulness meditation. In fact, studies show that mindfulness meditation actually changes the brain in positive ways. The cortex of the brain is thicker in certain areas of the brain in those who practice mindfulness meditation. And brainwave patterns are changed in healthy ways as well.

But according to recent studies, meditation and yoga might also have never before seen effects, in much deeper ways.