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The benefits of meditation—including enhanced cognition and focus, improved mindset and mood, and decreased anxiety and stress—have been observed for millennia. Many long-term practitioners report an experience of expanded awareness when they meditate, during which the sensation of being alive is both vivid and luminous. Others describe a sense of oneness with their environment, where the separation between their inner and outer worlds is no longer detectable. Even novice practitioners often report a sensation of peacefulness, contentment, and ease while in a meditative state.
“Meditation is thousands of years old. It’s a practice that is ancient,” explains Ignacio Saez, a neuroscientist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who studies human cognition. “One of the reasons why it’s so long lived is because it has these huge benefits to your mental state.”
But research indicates that there is not a one-size-fits-all brain response to meditative practices. A practitioner’s experience level, the type of meditation practiced, even the environment one meditates in can all influence how meditation benefits the brain.
Studies on meditation show us that, under certain circumstances, we can physically alter the activity of our brains when we put our minds to it. For example, meditation can change the brain structures of long-term practitioners with tens of thousands of meditation hours under their belt. And certain brain wave characteristics, such as intensity and duration, have been shown to shift in meditators of all experience levels. Permanent brain changes have not been confirmed in novice meditators, however, despite media hype to the contrary.
Saez and other researchers are particularly interested in the impact of meditation on “good” brain states—states of mind that feel peaceful and positive—and how meditation can be used to increase the prevalence of these states. They hope that increased understanding of the neuroscience of meditation will eventually lead to widely available health treatments, such as doctors prescribing doses of meditation to people with depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric conditions.
Although the exact mechanisms by which meditative states improve mental health are still being unraveled, researchers agree that even just a few minutes of meditation a day can alter brain activity in a measurable way.
How Meditation Changes Brain Structure
When studying meditation and the brain, researchers distinguish between temporary state changes measured in novice practitioners—sometimes after just a few weeks of practice—and permanent trait changes observed in long-term meditators. The former refers to temporary shifts in brain activity that occur during and shortly after meditation, while the latter refers to permanent changes in brain structure and function that result from long-term exposure to a meditative state.
According to Fedor Panov, MD, a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Health System in Manhattan, state changes are analogous to what happens to your body when you go for a run. Increased heart rate, breath rate, and sweating are temporary changes that occur while running. Trait changes, by comparison, are analogous to the improved cardiovascular health, stronger musculature, and boosted metabolism that develop from running consistently over months or years.
Richard J. Davidson, PhD, the founder and director of the Center for Healthy Minds and a meditation researcher, cautions against believing the mainstream idea that short-term meditation practice can produce long-term trait changes. Claims that mindfulness practice can thicken gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus of novice meditators regularly circulate in the media, he says, yet these are based on unsubstantiated research.
Davidson and a team of researchers rigorously tested the results of popularly cited experiments that explored the effect of mindfulness-based stress-reduction (MBSR) on gray matter density. They found that these studies, which claimed to identify structural brain changes after eight-weeks of MBSR, were not reproducible.
Fortunately, permanent changes to brain structure are not necessary for meditation to induce positive state changes in practitioners of all experience levels. Through consistent meditation practice, these temporary shifts might very well lead to long-term, permanent trait changes.
How Meditation Changes Brain Wave Activity
Meditation’s benefits for the brain can be traced to shifts in brain wave activity. Brain waves are electrical impulses, generated by neurons, that fluctuate based on the type of activities we are doing. Studying these changes helps neuroscientists understand how meditation exerts its positive effects on both body and mind.
There are five categories of brain waves that correlate with varying levels of alertness, relaxation, and sleep:
Delta waves | 1-4 Hz
These are the lowest frequency brain waves and are prevalent when we are in a deep sleep.
Theta waves | 4-8 Hz
These brain waves occur when we are in a light sleep and fully relaxed.
Alpha waves | 8-12 Hz
These mid-range brain waves are correlated with relaxed alertness, such as when we are daydreaming.
Beta waves | 12-30 Hz
Beta waves are associated with alertness and reasoning. They are prevalent when we are awake.
Gamma waves | 30-100 Hz
These are the highest frequency brain waves and they take place when our brains are extra alert and engaged.
Studying the effect of meditation on brain waves has historically been difficult because the very act of measuring brain states can alter brain states. When non-invasive, external measuring devices—such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalogram (EEG)—are used, the presence of these machines can be disruptive to entering a meditative state for many practitioners.
Despite this challenge, studies of long-term meditators have yielded a plethora of data about how meditation alters brain waves. And recent studies utilizing invasive measuring techniques—such as electrodes implanted directly in the brain—have yielded promising information about brain wave changes in novice meditators.
There are important fundamental principles to keep in mind when studying the neuroscience of meditation, Davidson explains. “One is that different kinds of meditation do different things to the brain. Not all meditation does the same thing,” he says. “The second is that there are important differences among people who have different levels of expertise.”
For example, long-term meditators show less activation in the gamma range than novice practitioners. Because gamma waves are associated with alertness, this scientifically shows how experienced practitioners can enter a meditative state with less effort than beginners. In contrast, high gamma wave activity in new meditators indicates that they are learning a new skill.
For neuroscientists, collecting brain wave data is just the first step. Careful interpretation of what the results mean for practitioners of varying experience levels is key to understanding how meditation benefits the brain.
Gamma Waves Become Stronger During Loving-Kindness Meditation for Novice Meditators
Recent research showed that gamma-wave intensity increased for novice meditators who participated in loving-kindness meditation (LKM). During LKM, meditators cultivate loving, compassionate thoughts about themselves and others, fostering a sense of benevolence and goodwill toward all living creatures.
Gamma wave activity is associated with high levels of alertness and engagement, such as when we have “eureka moments,” says Panov. Because gamma waves are associated with moments of insight, this result signifies that beginning LKM practitioners experience heightened awareness as a state change during meditation practice. How this enhanced concentration translates into mood changes and enhanced mindset is not yet clear, but study participants reported an increased feeling of well-being after a single ten-minute LKM session.
“We are giving the brain an emotional workout,” Panov explains. “If the brain is working in the gamma range, you’re probably doing something really marvelous and wonderful.”
Beta Wave Duration Decreases in Loving-Kindness Meditation for Novice Meditators
A second result of this study shows that beta waves, which are activated during periods of anxiety and stress, lasted for a shorter time during LKM than they did during baseline activity. This result might point to a mechanism by which meditation increases relaxation and well-being, although further investigation is needed.
Beta waves also tend to come online when attention shifts—for instance, when a person switches their focus from the world around them to what’s happening within. “Our distractibility in Western society is through the roof,” Panov says. “Our personal devices, commercials, instant access to emails and text, all of that does not allow us to live in the present.”
One interpretation of this result, according to Panov, is that decreased beta activity indicates we are able to stick with one thought for longer without jumping around.
Saez adds that “beta wave activity is actually the biological correlate of switching attention from the outside to the inside that happens during meditation.” The combination of these behavioral shifts—increasing our attention span and focusing inward—might explain the changes recorded in beta wave activity during LKM.
Christina Maher, a graduate student in Saez’s lab, emphasizes that this does not mean all brains respond in the same way to LKM meditation. “In this one sample, at this one time, with the data we had available to us, we found this effect. We’re not stating that this changes the brain for everyone all of the time,” explains Maher.
Alpha Waves Might Also Increase in Novice Meditators
Some studies report an increase in alpha wave activity during mindfulness meditation. Alpha waves are active during relaxation. Transitioning from beta to alpha wave activity during meditation is thought to play a role in helping novice practitioners enter a meditative state. Interestingly, this result is not seen in long-term practitioners.
“My intuition is that the findings on alpha activity may be especially prevalent in relatively novice meditators who are in a state that is a little bit sleepy or foggy,” says Davidson. “The expert meditators didn’t show much alpha activity, so it leads us to suspect that there are really important differences between different levels of expertise.”
Brain Waves Synchronize in Long-Term Meditators
When neuroscientists analyze brain wave data collected via EEG, they assess many waveform characteristics, including amplitude, frequency, shape, and location. Interestingly, the brain waves of extensive meditators show distinct patterns.
Davidson and a team of researchers studied EEG brain-wave data from Tibetan Buddhist monks whom had individually accumulated 10,000 to 50,000 meditation hours. Each monk had also completed at least one three-year meditation retreat during which they meditated for eight hours per day.
The researchers found that gamma waves synchronized across distant regions of each monk’s brain, indicating that neurons on both sides of the brain were firing at the same time. Since this is rarely seen in non-meditators, the result indicates that, for highly experienced practitioners, meditation does indeed cause state changes to the neuronal landscape and connectivity of brain tissue.
“These practitioners often report that they are in a mode of open awareness,” Davidson explains, which means they are aware of more information in a given moment than other people. He believes that neurons firing in unison correlates to a mental experience of heightened consciousness, in which “the aperture of awareness is wide open.”
Brain Age May Decrease in Long-Term Meditators
Over time, our brains age along with the rest of our bodies. This can lead to memory challenges, the thinning of brain tissue, and overall cognitive decline. Neuroscientists are able to determine a person’s brain-age quite accurately using imaging tools, such as structural MRI.
“On average, people who are older have brains that are older,” says Davidson. “But there are some people whose brains are aging more slowly.”
Because meditation’s positive benefits include increased cognition and attention, which are associated with healthy brain tissue, Davidson and a team of researchers studied the effect of long-term meditation on brain-age. They analyzed brain scans of a Tibetan Buddhist monk, Mingyur Rinpoche, who had meditated for an impressive 62,000 hours. They found that Mingyur’s brain was the age of a 33-year-old even though his chronological age was 41.
This significant difference in brain-age and biological-age implies that intensive practitioners might experience a deceleration of brain aging.
How to Begin a Meditation Practice
Davidson, a vocal advocate for meditation’s health benefits, firmly believes meditation is a skill everyone can learn. When asked how to begin a meditation practice, he says, “For people who are just beginning, it’s really important to take a gentle approach and not fight with your mind. Rather, make friends with your mind and gradually ease into it.” He recommends beginning with just a few minutes of mindfulness a day.
For some people, mindfulness meditation is an approachable place to begin. This entails the compassionate, non-judgemental observation of thoughts as they come and go from the mind. For others, a focused-attention practice that involves concentrating on a mantra, idea, or object is an easier starting point because it includes thinking about something specific. Still others might prefer a constructive form of meditation, such as loving-kindness, which entails the creation of compassionate thoughts toward oneself and others.
To this end, Davidson offers a free wellness app through his nonprofit, Healthy Minds Innovations, that provides a four-pronged path to developing the skills necessary for mental wellness. These include awareness, connection, insight, and purpose, all of which can be strengthened by utilizing the app’s library of guided meditations.
He clarifies that, “The very best form of meditation that a person can do is the form of meditation that a person does,” whether for ten minutes or just one. In other words, the key to unlocking meditation’s benefits, Davidson advises, is to simply start meditating.
