In this episode I will be sharing some research and personal story which shows how brain changes structure with meditation.Let's start with the benefits of meditation from scientific studies

Enhanced ability to pay attention

Stress reduction

Enhanced the ability to pay attention

Reduced symptoms of depression, Anxiety, pain and Insomnia

I used to think how could sitting doing nothing can help, how can yoga poses lead us to more calm?

I would have never know until I started practicing Yoga and Meditation myself. Well, I was surprised how calm it made me feel. It increased my resiliency.

Once I experienced these benefits, my curiosity started growing. I started reading researches done by different research bodies and found out about neuroplasticity. For e.g. when we learn new thing we train our brain and it changes our brain structure. I watched one video about it on YouTube and learned how this works.

There was an experiment where people were asked to juggle for 3 months and when they came back their brain structure was changed. It increased the grey matter in their brain. similar experiments were performed on meditators. They found that it slows aging. In one such experiment 50 year old meditator had cortex same as 25 year old.

They have seen improvement in different parts of the brain of the meditator. for e.g In left hippocampus which assists in learning , memory and emotion regulation there was increase in gray matter. Less gray matter means depression.

So in a nutshell, our brain changes when we practice meditation which helps in enhancing our memory, slow down ageing and overall feel happier and calmer.

Now, the issue we face starting meditation is time and routine. Our brain is trained to not have time. We usually compromise health with an excuse of not having time.

I will leave links to the video from where I learnt about our brain and an article

These research backed my experience of meditation and mindfulness practice which is helping me to be more creative, calmer and understanding different perspective of life.

1. Links Mentioned in The Episode

Video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8rRzTtP7Tc

https://www.nextavenue.org/meditation-cognitive-function/