How Meditation Changes Your Brain And Improves Well-being
How Meditation Changes Your Brain
We all know that meditation can help with stress, but what is it actually doing to your brain? Read on to discover how meditation changes your brain and even gives you superpowers!
Yep, you heard that right! Superpowers! That's what all the buzz around meditation is all about. Meditation doesn't just improve your stress levels and mental well-being. It changes your brain. It develops your perceptual and sensory systems, physiological systems, and even your cognitive systems.
And it all starts to take place by affecting one of the most important networks in the brain - the default mode network, also known as the DMN.
The wandering default mode network
Like many great scientific discoveries, the default mode network in the brain was discovered by accident. Neuroscientists wanted to see what the brain was doing when given tasks. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and asked participants to perform cognitive tasks. To their surprise, they found that the brain was just as active, if not more active, between the tasks. The resting state was anything but a resting state, quite the contrary.
It turns out that when we have nothing to do, our brain networks come alive. Our brain has a default setting, and it's pretty lively. On the default setting, several brain regions are connected and communicating. These connections enable our thoughts to move into a self-reflective mode that jumps forward and backwards in time. It is what we call mind wandering.
You might be inclined to think that mind wandering is not that important. Still, it turns out that functional connectivity between the default mode network and our ability to mind wander is essential for our mental health.
The default mode network and mental illness
Since its discovery, neuroscientists have learned quite a bit about the default mode network and mental health. It seems that a healthy operating default mode network is essential for good mental health. Disturbances in its activity have been linked to several mental illnesses, including:
Anxiety
Depression
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Schizophrenia
Alzheimer’s Disease
Autism
But the most fascinating scientific discovery for me is that when advanced meditators are put in brain scanners, neuroscientists find decreased connectivity in the self-referential default mode networks. In other words, they ruminate less than what we see in the general population.
In contrast, when people suffer from depression and anxiety, their brains' default mode network tends to be overactive. This explains why meditation can help with things like depression and anxiety.
What happens to your brain when you meditate?
While many people associate meditation with stress relief and spiritual practice, meditation has much broader effects. With practice, meditation can develop various regions of our brain having multiple effects on how we engage with the world. It causes what we call neural plasticity.
The neural plasticity that follows consistent meditation practice is found in the brain structure and brain function. For example, one study showed that meditation increases grey matter in the orbitofrontal and hippocampal regions, which are responsible for emotional regulation and response control.
Another study showed that meditation increases cortical thickness in areas associated with cognitive function, perception, and attention. That's why I call it a superpower. It increases focus, interoception, exteroception, and self-awareness. Not only that, as we age, the cortical thickness of our brain thins, but with meditation, it thickens, thereby reversing the ageing process of our brains.
Interoception is our perception or awareness of everything that happens within the body. While exteroception is the perception and awareness of everything that occurs outside of our body. All in all, meditation changes the way your brain works. It helps improve self-awareness, perception, cognition, and how you interact with others. It’s like becoming superhuman.
Meditation and mindfulness make you happier
It's not that meditation makes us happy; it can be challenging, and sometimes we can find our mind in dark places. What makes us happier are the changes that take place in our brains over time.
When we meditate, we focus the mind. We give it something to do. Different types of meditation practice train the brain to focus in different ways and develop different parts of the brain over time. Here are a few examples;
If we close our eyes and focus our full attention on our breath, this improves our interoception and develops the parts of the brain responsible for interoception.
If we focus entirely on listening to what someone else is saying, what we call active listening in transpersonal psychology, that develops our exteroception.
If we focus on one thing, such as our breath, mantra, mala beads, or a candle flame, we develop focused attention. Which means we’re less likely to get distracted by things.
If we practice open-monitoring meditation, we develop meta-awareness, metacognition, cognitive flexibility, and decreased emotional reactivity.
The more we learn to focus the mind, the more we learn to stay in the present moment instead of mind wandering. Over time, as we develop our ability to focus our awareness on the present moment, our default mode starts to change.
The default mode network becomes less active, and our default mode becomes being in the present moment and focusing on whatever is arising in that moment instead of ruminating about what happened last week or worrying about something in the future.
Research shows that the average American spends 47% of their time not focusing on what task they're doing. The same research also shows that when our mind wanders, we're not happy. It doesn't matter what our mind has wandered onto; it could be an awesome memory; when our mind is not in the present moment, we experience less joy. These findings help to explain why people with an over-active default mode network suffer from depression.
Let's break this down plain and simple. Regular meditation practice reduces the activity in the brain's default mode network and helps us stay focused on the present moment. Being focused on the present moment, even if it's doing mundane stuff like doing the laundry or cleaning the bathroom, makes us happier.
What sort of meditation should you practice?
That depends on the individual. While all meditation practice develops the brain, we know that different types of meditation practice affect us differently. Some things to think about when choosing a meditation practice are;
If you tend to be more aware of your outside environment than what's going on internally, you'll want a meditation practice that develops your interoception skills. For example, if you don't notice that you're stressed, anxious, tired, or moody, try a meditation focusing on the breath to develop your interoception.
If you tend to pick up on every little twitch, anxious pang, heartbeat, or sensation, developing the brain regions responsible for exteroception should bring balance to your awareness. You could try a walking meditation or meditating on a candle flame.
How do you practice mindfulness meditation?
If you've never really given meditation a serious try, I highly recommend learning mindfulness as a starting point. Mindfulness meditation is one of the easiest ways to get into meditation. And while there are plenty of apps out there to help you get started, if you're serious about learning mindfulness meditation or any other type of meditation, your best bet is to always find someone who can teach and support you, and that has many years of practice.
That said, you can practice mindfulness meditation right now while you're reading this article. Just by becoming aware of your thoughts, your breath, your body's position and posture, the ground beneath your feet, or the support your chair is giving you brings you into the present moment, and that's really what mindfulness meditation is all about.
So, take a moment right now to focus on those things and notice what is arising in the moment. Perhaps you notice the sound of traffic outside your window or music coming from an adjacent room. Maybe you can smell dinner cooking, or perhaps some nagging physical pain is taking center stage. Just focusing on the present moment will mean that your default mode network has slowed down - nice job!
Be good to yourself if you suffer from depression or anxiety
While we know that mindfulness meditation reduces anxiety and depression, it's important to learn this skill with a mindfulness meditation teacher. Bringing awareness to our thoughts can be challenging, and some people find that once the volume of their mind wandering has been turned up, it can be challenging to turn it down.
If your mind wandering is positive, that's not so much of a problem, but if your mind wandering habits tend to lean on the self-berating, self-critical, attacking, and self-sabotaging theme, this can deepen one's feelings of depression at first. Having the support of a teacher and learning mindfulness meditation as part of an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Course can help to overcome these challenges.
Mystical experiences, meditation, and your brain
The effects of meditation and mindfulness practice on your brain are far-reaching. Research suggests regular meditation improves mood, sleep, perception, and focus. It also reduces inflammation and pain and helps with cancer symptoms and ADHD.
What's more, when we slow our default mode network down, we make space for other things. We make space for the more subtle experiences that life has to offer. We make space for mystical experiences and spiritual awakening.
These experiences also have far-reaching consequences and can be transformative. They're so transformative they used to be called quantum change experiences. By slowing down the default mode network, meditation can prime the brain for mystical experiences to happen, resulting in permanent positive personality changes.
In a nutshell, meditation changes how your brain functions by reducing the activity in your default mode network. This primes your brain for a mystical experience. Mystical experiences then further change how your brain functions, and many people experience instant transformation.
About a year after my mystical experience, I remember writing in my journal, "What the f just happened to my brain!" How I perceived the world and how I engaged with the world had been transformed. And transformed for the better. I am triggered by far less today than before my mystical experience, which means I'm using different neural pathways than before.
Literally, ingrained unhelpful behaviors disappeared overnight. All my relationships improved. My relationship with myself improved, and I am much more psychologically stable and joyful.
INSIGHT HIGHLIGHTS
Change your brain with meditation and discover a better version of you. Do you want to hear the best news? Research suggests that changing the brain through meditation is more about consistency over time than quantity. That means just 5 or 10 minutes a day could result in neural plasticity. If you can find just 5 minutes a day to meditate, you'll reap the rewards and see results faster than you realize.
Are you ready to give it a go? Investing in yourself is the best investment you can make. And if you've already started, I hope this article gives you some momentum to keep going. While it can sometimes take some time to start seeing results, I promise you it's worth the effort. Do it for yourself.
Thanks for reading, and as always, keep striving for growth and well-being, and never settle for less!
How I Can Help
I hope you found this blog post helpful and inspiring. If you have any questions or need further guidance, please don't hesitate to reach out. As someone who’s deeply passionate about well-being and personal growth and development, I offer services designed to help you cultivate a life you love. Whether through one-on-one sessions, workshops, or online resources, I’m here to support your journey towards becoming the best version of yourself.
Here’s to your well-being, personal growth and success!
Head over to the services section on my website for more information on how we can work together to achieve your goals. I work online and face to face on the Côte d’Azur, in France.
