At the end of the 6 weeks, I was very curious to know if all this work had any effect on my brain. After having another brain scan and feeling a little nervous about what had been going on inside my head in the intervening weeks, I visited Bahnhofer at the University of Surrey to find out. He stayed up late into the night analyzing and comparing my two brain scans.
As a result, the structure of my brain actually changed. And there were some visible changes.
half of me Amygdala – an almond-shaped structure important for emotional processing – had decreased volume on the right side. The changes were small but measurable.However, what is interesting is that this consistent with scientific literature Mindfulness has been shown to buffer the stress found in the amygdala and therefore reduce its size. When stress increases, amygdala grows. Although I wasn’t particularly stressed to begin with, it was still very exciting to see the changes.
Another change for me cingulate cortex, part of the limbic system involved in our behavioral and emotional responses. This is also important for the default mode network, which is the region that becomes active when your mind wanders or ruminates. In my brain, its size has increased slightly over 6 weeks, indicating increased control over that area.Again, this Notification of published research In the scientific literature.
It also resonates with what I noticed during the session. Over time, I found that I was able to keep my mind more at ease and was able to focus my busy thoughts better.
If you’ll excuse the joke, seeing these results on the big screen in my head was pretty mind-boggling. Just by being conscious, I was able to increase the part of my brain that prevents my mind from wandering.
As a final note, it is important to recognize that the brain changes observed so far may be random. After all, the brain is constantly changing. But nevertheless, research suggests that this whole experience is a worthwhile challenge, and a process that many people can easily benefit from.
Of course, it’s clear that you need to keep encouraging yourself to implement some of these “hacks” if you want the changes to last.
Am I going to continue meditating every day?I really want to do that Love “Yes, of course,” I say. In other words, as long as it doesn’t interfere with your daily life…
Additional reporting by Tom Heyden and Pierangelo Pirak
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