Meditate: Reduce Stress and Increase Your I.q

Cover of Reducing Stress (Essential Managers)

I’ve written often on the advantages of meditation; it calms the mind and body, reducing stress which can cause illness, and improves the quality of life. Scientists have now, however, discovered that meditation might actually alter the way your brain is constructed and wired, leading to better reasoning and cognitive abilities.

For half a century, researchers have been studying the effects of meditation on the mind and body, and they have discovered that the frontal lobes of those who meditate are thicker than in those who don’t meditate.  The frontal lobes of the brain are the seat of the higher order functions of concentration, focus, goal-directed behavior, impulse control, and higher order reasoning.  The thicker and more folded the areas of the brain, the better signals are passed, and the better that region functions, therefore, those with thicker frontal lobes would ordinarily reason better than those without. This is another way of saying, folks, that people who meditate are not only calmer, but smarter, than other people.  They are more self-aware and in control of their physical and emotional reactions than other people.

Scientists have shown through research that people who meditate for 30 minutes per day for eight weeks have measurable changes in gray matter density, with increases in the hippocampus; the region associated with reasoning; and decreases in the amygdale; the region associated with anxiety and stress.  Just how and why these changes take place are not clear, but the evidence is conclusive; people who meditate have thicker brains in the areas that have a positive impact and thinner in the areas that cause trouble.

The bottom line here is; if you want to have a calmer, healthier, more productive life, one of the things that should be added to your regimen is a daily period of meditation.