Your Brain on Meditation

by Lorri Amsden

Science is beginning to prove what Buddhist monks have known all along, that those who engage in daily meditation permanently change the way their brains function. That the simple act of sitting quietly as you shift your attention to your breath, following as it slowing enters and leaves your body, not only allows for the cultivation of regenerative peace, but a myriad of new studies have found that this ancient practice can profoundly change the way different regions of the brain communicate with each other and therefore how we think.

Dr. Judson Brewer, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, published a study that found that meditation appears to change the way the brain works and could give meditators a leg up; not only on handling stress and finding happiness, but also with facing illness and dealing with mental disorders...