What Neuroscience Teaches Us About Meditation

Continued from yesterday…

In recent years, scientists have discovered many incredible biological changes occurring in the brain when people practice meditation and centered prayer around love.

Some of the changes include reduced activity in the amygdala, the organ in the brain that generates anxiety and fear, blocked access to the emotional pain of the past in the hippocampus of the brain, and increased activity in the brain stem that helps the brain connect with the rest of the body through the nervous system, thus improving your immune system.

Neuroscientists have also discovered that mindfulness increases the activity in the frontal lobe of the brain, which improves your emotional wellbeing, communication skills, problem-solving ability, and creativity. In other words, the brain is not static, but will instead evolve as you practice mindfulness.

I’m also fascinated with how neuroscience has concluded that loving-kindness meditation diminishes our sense of self. The boundary between the self and the object that we are meditating upon becomes blurred. We experience a rush of overwhelming love where we feel an absolute unity with all things.

Continued tomorrow…

Adapted from Section 3 of Awakening To I Am Love by David Youngren