Meditation Increases Brain Size

[Washington, D.C.] Meditation calms. Meditation relieves bad stress. Meditation helps to know oneself. And meditation, according to a research group from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School, increases brain size. Though this conclusion is as categorical as it sounds, there are pertinent clarifications. “The gray matter increase does not just depend on meditation itself, but also on the amount of time people spend meditating, and how deep the experience is,” explains Sara Lazar, responsible for the research.

Then, brain size increases, but how much does it increase? According to Lazar and her colleagues from MIT, the increase of gray matter is from 8 to 16 thousandths of an inch. And, it’s worth repeating that it all varies with the time dedicated to meditation. “The data that we are working on, leads us to think that meditation practice does not just cause the gray matter to increase, but it also promotes adult brain cortex elasticity,” explains Lazar.

In order to come to this conclusion, the researchers compared brain scans of 20 people, many of whom practiced meditation or had some training in abstract thinking, with 15 people who never meditated. They observed that the part of the brain involved in attention and sensorial processing increased its size in the first 20 people. According to Lazar and her colleagues, this discovery is interesting because the brain area that increased is exactly the same area that seems to decrease over time.

To this point, it’s obvious that this finding provides more questions than answers to the scientific community. For example: Does meditation generate a bigger flow of blood in the brain? Does meditation postpone the aging process?  Does meditation improve connection among cells? Aware of these issues, Lazar warns, “We still don’t have the answers to these questions, we need more time and more research.” But the truth is that this breakthrough is supported by earlier studies.

There are some other interesting examples:  a couple of years ago, Richard Davidson from Wisconsin University, dedicated to studying the brain of Tibetan monks, set up a research center with other American scientists at the monastery after an invitation from the Dalai Lama. What was the result? “Regular practice of oriental style meditation techniques improves the state of health, since it influences the immune system positively.” However, Davidson’s research wasn’t completely original when he began studying the neurological side of meditation. Some time earlier, Herbert Benson from Harvard University had found evidence of an almost conclusive point: that meditation counteracts the brain mechanisms associated with stress.