Meditation helps the brain, studies find

Nothing can describe the relationship of give and take better than the brain and meditation. First, the brain instructs the individual to go for meditation and then meditation pays back the body by keeping the brain in the finest of conditions. Every now and then you hear people saying they are indecisive, do not know what to do with their life , do not have a control of yourself, are confused or do not have a piece of mind that they have been looking for. And the best advice that they ever get is get into meditation because that will bring you immense inner peace which you really want at that time. And it is never a gamble.

As a person who has always heard the benefits of meditation but never tried them himself, it might just sound unbelievable to hear the tall claims that meditation makes but you would yourself experience it at your end.

The practice of meditation is usually famous for giving physical relaxation and mental peace but it is also famous for other benefits, it also tends to make your senses alert and enhance your psyche.

A lot of mental tests have also been done in the area. One of them consisted of scanning of the brains of the people who did meditation for 15-20 minutes every day for 7 days. Two sets of people were created and therefore the test group of people who did not do meditation was compared to the ones who did.

After the scans were conducted, it was seen that that the people who adhered to the practice were more alert and showed great agility and activeness as compared to the ones who did not practice it. The test showed the presence of grey substance in certain parts f the brain which is said to have a great contribution to learning and memory activation by the Medical Science.

This was a startling result that showed that the brain structure could show changes like that with a spiritual practice and help bringing a positive a change in one's well being. There are certain brain areas that undergo changes:-

Lateral prefrontal cortex– This is that part of the brain that gives you rational thinking and makes you assess situations from an objective point of view, thus reducing the chances to react emotionally. Also called the Assessment Centre.

Medial prefrontal cortex- It is the Me- centre of your brain because it keeps all your experiences and feelings for future reference and makes you introspect and improve your life's existence. It has two parts.

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex is that part that makes you react emotionally and makes you take things personally. It is also called the unhelpful part because it tends to hype the worries and increase the anxiety level higher.

Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex is that part which executes information about people different from you. It takes cares of acknowledging other people's feeling and all your social relationhips.

Insula is that part that helps in deciding your gut feel ahead of time and affects your deciding abilities.

Now, when you start meditating, you would start feeling the difference. The link between the Me center and the fear center begins to weaken and therefore you happen to get more immune to depressive feelings that pull you down. You turn stronger to situations coming your way and are able to face situations of anxiety more strongly.

Secondly, your assessment centre becomes more concrete and you are able to enhance your rational thinking and take more objective decisions rather than falling prey to your emotions.

The Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex of the Me centre also enhances your feelings of empathy for the people around you and acknowledge them well.

References

https://flourishfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Meditation-Gives-Brain-a-Charge.pdf

https://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/8/1/27.short