Meditation and yoga are super popular all over the world but how exactly do they benefit us? What happens when we do them that creates the impact it does? This is a great in-depth look into the cognitive benefits of mindfulness that really shows how powerful it can be. 

Dr Sara Lazar is an associate researcher in the Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor in psychology at Harvard Medical School. Her TED Talk, How Meditation Can Reshape Our Brains, has been viewed more than 1.6 million times.

Sara has spent years studying the neuroscience behind yoga and meditation to understand what it does to the brain, and how it impacts things like mood, love, memory and more. 

In this episode, we talk about:

• The difference in benefit between yoga and meditation
• The impact on the brain, including how the brain grows and changes through mindfulness
• How the brain remembers things, including things you didn’t try to remember
• The impact of meditation on ageing
• The permanence of the effects of meditation 
• The ideal amount of meditation and best times of day to do it - why 4am is ideal
• How to use mindfulness techniques in anything you do during the day
• Why it doesn’t matter how meditate or how good you think it is - the intention is what counts
• Does meditation ACTUALLY make you happier?
• Meditation for anxiety/depression/kindness/joy/love…how it all works
• Meditating in groups - how many people find it better

This is a great episode for anyone who meditates or does yoga and wants to understand how it has the effect it does. Or, if you want to maximise the benefit of what you’re going, this has some great tips and tricks.

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Check out more from Sara at https://scholar.harvard.edu/sara_lazar/home 

Her TED Talk is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8rRzTtP7Tc 

The Twitter account she mentions is also here: https://twitter.com/lablazar?lang=en