A workout—for your brain
You might have a stable of go-to routines for strengthening your glutes, your quads, your biceps, and your core. If you’re consistent with these, you’ve probably noticed physical changes in tone, mass, and shape over time. But do any of these routines target working out your brain? As reported by the Harvard Business Review, just as certain exercises can alter your body physically, a mindfulness meditation practice can change the physical makeup of your brain. Cool, right? Lookout, leg-day!
What exactly is mindfulness meditation, and what can it do for you?
There are many different types of meditation, from spiritual meditation to transcendental meditation to mantra meditation and more. Mindfulness meditation is one that is popular and widely embraced in the West. According to mindful.org, mindfulness is “the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.” Mindfulness meditation can be practiced sitting, standing or walking, or incorporated into yoga or tai chi. In recent years, the science behind the benefits of these practices has gained mainstream visibility—so much so that some companies are now offering their employees wellness programs that include training in mindfulness and meditation.
Here’s a crash course in the neuroscience behind a few of these benefits for those of you who, like us, have never stepped foot in a laboratory.
Mindfulness meditation can:
1. Shrink your amygdala – AKA reduce stress
Shrink my amygda-what? The amygdala is an important part of your brain associated with processing emotions in response to both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli. In other words, it can kick your fight-or-flight response into high gear. Sweaty palms, dilated pupils, rash decisions? You can thank your amygdala. But for any stimuli you encounter, your prefrontal cortex (the area associated with logic and reasoning) works to override your amygdala’s automatic response. Studies have shown that mindfulness meditation can reduce the density of gray matter in your brain’s amygdala and change how it interacts with your prefrontal cortex, thereby refining your response to stress.
2. Grow your anterior cingulate cortex – AKA improve focus
Grow my AT&T-Cingular-what-now? The ACC is the part of your brain that is responsible for self-regulation (such as the ability to focus) and is associated with learning from past experience. Studies have shown that mindfulness meditation can increase the brain’s gray matter density in the ACC.
3. Enhance Creativity – AKA enhance creativity
We don’t have a fun play on words for this one, but we do have a good example. In a study done by researcher Ravi S. Kudesia and his colleagues, participants were asked to brainstorm unusual uses for a brick. Then, participants took a break. During the break, one group let their minds wander and the other group practiced meditation. While both groups came back with fresh ideas, the group that hadn’t meditated came up with new uses for the brick within the same line of thinking as before, essentially recycling or re-packaging their previous idea. For example, if they’d originally thought of the brick as a tool, they came up with more ideas for the brick as a tool. But the group that had meditated were able to think about the brick outside the limits of one category and came up with ideas that varied greatly from their original idea and spanned many categories, from a “tool [to a] weapon, [to] furniture, or art.” Kudesia and his colleagues concluded that mindfulness meditation can help to foster divergent thinking for those faced with a complex or stubborn task.
These are just a few of the many ways that mindfulness meditation can benefit your brain and improve your health. Be on the lookout for our next post in which we’ll talk about the companies that have incorporated mindfulness training into their workplace wellness programs, the benefits they’ve seen, and why you should too!