Mindfulness Meditation Training Changes Brain Structure in Eight Weeks
In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers reported the results of their 2011 study. It is the first to document that meditation practitioners definitely experience changes in the brain over time. Persons who participate even for as short a period as an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appear to develop measurable changes in the brain areas doctors associate with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. The brain seems to respond to meditation as the body responds to physical exercise. Sara Lazar, PhDof the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program, the study's senior author and editor, outs it like this, "Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day… This study...