How You Can Use Meditation to Change Your Brain - Yoga in India

RISHIKESH, India - March 13, 2018 - PRLog -- AYM offers intensive yoga teacher training courses in India that are internationally accredited by Yoga Alliance, USA. Meditation is a practice of focusing your attention in a specific way for a period. When our mind is filled with the feeling of calm and peace, it neither reacts to memories from the past nor does it preoccupy itself with plans for the future.

The focus of meditation can be your posture, your breathing, sensations inside your body, contemplation of specific ideas, visualization of desired experiences, or openness to spiritual realities. Most commonly, meditation works on maintaining quietness of our busy mind. It relaxes the body, calms the emotions, clears the mind and gives you the feeling of integration.

How does meditation work?

Meditation is a part of yoga. Studies have shown that meditation can bring a healthy state of relaxation as the meditators learn how to quiet mental chaos and build their ability to concentrate. Meditation reduces activity in the nervous system. Through meditation, one can learn to access the relaxation response and to be aware of the mind and the way our attitudes produce stress. In calming the mind, meditation can also put one in touch with the inner physician, allowing our body's inner wisdom to be heard.

How does meditation change your brain?

There have many studies conducted to investigate how meditation can change the brain function. And the final results of the study show that meditation is a great way to reduce stress and increase decision-making capacity of the mind. The brain scans from the studies have confirmed that meditation increases activity involving focus and self-control which further allows centering on thoughts.

Besides, the people who are regular meditation practitioners have said that meditation is a life-changing phenomenon which has helped them to deal with the challenging situations in life. Meditation's benefit to clear one's mind has been used as a tool now to enhance the performance of the military, athletes and has also been introduced within the schools to help students focus on the task at hand without any distraction.

The positive effects of meditation on the brain also include:

Meditation practiced over a period helps to change the structure of the brain for the better. As per a study, the participants who practiced meditation for around eight weeks have a positive effect on the brain. The participants showed an increase in grey matter in the hippocampus, which is the area associated with self-awareness, compassion, memory formation and social awareness.

In another study, the participants showed increased connections throughout the whole brain as a result of meditation. The changes recorded were strongest in the connections involving the anterior cingulate, a brain area related to the ability to regulate emotions and behavior.

Besides this, one of the other studies showed that meditation helps to reverse the effects of the Alzheimer's disease possibly. The participants who practiced meditation for about eight weeks showed increased brain activity in areas central to memory and improved cognition and well-being.

How to meditate?

There are also several different methods of meditation, including:

1. Primordial Sound Meditation.

2. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.

3. Zen.

4. Yoga Meditation (Kundalini).

5. Focused Attention Meditation.

6. Open Monitoring Meditation.

7. Vipassana Meditation.

8. Metta Meditation.

9. Mantra Meditation (OM Meditation).

10. Qigong (Chi Kung).


How to get started with your meditation practice?

A person new to meditation needs to be patient as it takes time to train the mind to focus and settle into a meditation practice. The first step is to decide which form of meditation you wish to practice, and then learn how to do it. If possible, obtain the services of an expert. Besides, there are also many books, DVD's and free information available online that can teach the exact steps of the particular method preferred.

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