Brain images show that there is a decreased activity in the parietal lobe. This area of the brain is responsible for giving us a sense of our orientation in space and time. Blocking all sensory and cognitive input into this area during meditation results in the sense of no space and no time. (This is why we feel there is no space and time during meditation.)
A study found that people who had been meditating for more than five years were physiologically 12 to 15 years younger than non-meditators.
Meditation decreases oxygen consumption, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure, and increase the intensity of alpha, theta, and delta brain waves--the opposite of the physiological changes that occur during stress.
Improved mental abilities: Increased intelligence, increased creativity, improved learning ability, improved memory, improved reaction time, higher levels of moral reasoning, improved academic achievement, greater orderliness of brain functioning, increased self-actualization.
Improved Health: Reduced stress and anxiety, reduced hospitalization, reduced incidence of disease, reduced need for out-patient medical care, reduced health care costs, reduce use of alcohol and drugs, improved cardiovascular health, reduced physical complaints, increased longevity Improved social behavior: improved self-confidence, reduced anxiety, improved family life, improved relationships at home and at work, increased tolerance, improved job performance, increased job satisfaction
Meditation found to increase brain size---Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.The increased thickness of gray matter is not very much, 4 to 8 thousandths of an inch. "These increases are proportional to the time a person has been meditating during their lives," Lazar notes. "This suggests that the thickness differences are acquired through extensive practice and not simply due to differences between meditators and nonmeditators
Meditation build up the brain Meditation may bolster brain activity ---Buddhist monks who spent years in meditation training show significantly greater brain activity in areas associated with learning and happiness than those who have never practiced meditation. They had a higher level of this sort of gamma wave activity before they began meditation and this difference increased dramatically during meditation. The extremely high levels of gamma wave activity are the highest ever reported.
Buddhists really are happier.
Meditation balance the body's system ---Meditation produces long-lasting changes in the brain activity in areas involved in attention, working memory, learning, and conscious perception
Research on stress and meditation Meditator's brain shows a pronounced shift toward the left frontal lobe. People who are habitually calm an happy typical show greater activity in this area. Meditator has higher levels of certain immune cells.
Meditation is involved in the global coordination of brain activity and could induce both short-term and long-term change in the brain. Long term meditation practice changes the baseline state of the brain.
Meditation is shown to reduce risk factors for heart disease such as high blood pressure, stress and smoking. Comparing with other techniques, the Transcendental meditation group had a 23% decrease in deaths from all causes, a 30% reduction in cardiovascular disease deaths, and a 49% reduction in the rate of death from cancer During meditation, the monks in the study was able to raise the temperature of their fingers and toes by 17 degrees, three monks could lower their metabolism by 64%
Meditators over 6-9 months showed a marked decrease in the thickness of their artery walls.
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