Benefits of Mind Training:

Meditation May Be an Effective Treatment for Insomnia
Meditation may be an effective behavioral intervention in the treatment of insomnia according to recent research. Patients saw improvements in subjective sleep quality and sleep diary parameters while practicing meditation. Sleep latency, total sleep time, total wake time, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency, sleep quality and depression improved in patients who used meditation.

American Academy of Sleep Medicine, June 2009

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Mental Training Affects Distribution of Limited Brain Resources
The information processing capacity of the human mind is limited, as is evidenced by the so-called “attentional-blink” deficit: When two targets (T1 and T2) embedded in a rapid stream of events are presented in close temporal proximity, the second target is often not seen. This deficit is believed to result from competition between the two targets for limited attentional resources. Here we show, using performance in an attentional-blink task and scalp-recorded brain potentials, that meditation, or mental training, affects the distribution of limited brain resources. Three months of intensive mental training resulted in a smaller attentional blink and reduced brain-resource allocation to the first target, as reflected by a smaller T1-elicited P3b, a brain-potential index of resource allocation. Furthermore, those individuals that showed the largest decrease in brain-resource allocation to T1 generally showed the greatest reduction in attentional-blink size. These observations provide novel support for the view that the ability to accurately identify T2 depends upon the efficient deployment of resources to T1. The results also demonstrate that mental training can result in increased control over the distribution of limited brain resources. Our study supports the idea that plasticity in brain and mental function exists throughout life and illustrates the usefulness of systematic mental training in the study of the human mind.

The study supports the idea that plasticity in brain and mental function exists throughout life and illustrates the usefulness of systematic mental training in the study of the human mind.

PDF from PLoS Biology
Abstract in PLoS Biology

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Controlling Stress Through Breathing or Meditation May Improve Performance Under Fire
Some of Dr. Aikins's research centers on predictions of the performance of soldiers and sailors. One of his favorite measures is heart-rate variability. He and senior colleague Andy Morgan, an associate clinical professor at Yale, studied sailors at an elite Navy training school in Maine who spend days in the wilderness scrounging for food and shelter, get ‘captured’ and undergo interrogation as a prisoner of war would. Drs. Morgan and Aikins and colleagues reported this year in the journal Psychophysiology that sailors whose heart rates stayed steady prior to the exercise tended to get better grades in the test. The scientists repeated the experiment twice and found a statistically significant correlation each time. It seems that those able to keep their hearts beating in a regular tick-tock rhythm can concentrate better on their tasks than those whose heart rhythms vary under stress...

Dr. Aikins thinks the high-performing sailors in his study may have the ability to suppress a racing heart during short periods of high stress... He thinks if the findings can be confirmed, soldiers and sailors might be taught to control their responses to stress, for example through breathing techniques or meditation, and improve their performance under fire.

Wall St. Journal, May 2007

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Meditation May Slow Aging
Meditation may slow aging. A study found that people who had been meditating for more than five years were physiologically 12 to 15 years younger than non-meditators.

International Journal of Neuroscience, 1982

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Meditation Associated with Increased Grey Matter in the Brain
Meditation alters brain patterns in ways that are likely permanent, scientists have known. But a new study, by researchers from Yale, Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shows key parts of the brain actually get thicker through the practice. Brain imaging of regular working folks who meditate regularly revealed increased thickness in cortical regions related to sensory, auditory and visual perception, as well as internal perception - the automatic monitoring of heart rate or breathing, for example. The study also indicates that regular meditation may slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex.

NeuroReport, November 2005

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Meditation Increases Brain-Wave Activity, Intuition, Concentration
Companies increasingly are falling for the allure of meditation...offering free, on-site classes. They're being won over, in part, by findings at the National Institutes of Health, the University of Massachusetts, and the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Harvard University that meditation enhances the qualities companies need most from their knowledge workers: increased brain-wave activity, enhanced intuition, better concentration, and the alleviation of the kinds of aches and pains that plague employees most.

BusinessWeek, July 2003

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Meditation Decreases Risk of Heart Attack, Stroke
Meditators over 6-9 months showed a marked decrease in the thickness of their artery walls, while non-meditators actually showed an increase. This change translates to about an 11% decrease in the risk of heart attack and an 8% to 15% decrease in the risk of stroke.

Stroke Journal, reported in Psychology Today, 2001

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Meditation Relaxes Physiological Functioning, Reduces Anxiety and Tension
The three-month study of managers and employees who regularly practiced meditation at [Puritan-Bennett Corporation] showed that meditation practitioners displayed more relaxed physiological functioning, greater reduction in anxiety, and reduced tension on the job, when compared to control subjects with similar job positions in the same companies.

Anxiety, Stress & Coping International Journal, 1993

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Meditation Improves Anxiety Levels
Twenty out of twenty-two anxiety-prone people showed a 60% improvement in anxiety levels following an eight-week course in meditation.

University of Massachusetts

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Meditation May Fine-Tune Control Over Attention
A new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that attention does not have a fixed capacity - and that it can be improved by directed mental training, such as meditation.

Abstract in PLoS Biology
Science Daily

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Meditate to Concentrate and Enhance Performance
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say that practicing even small doses of daily meditation may improve focus and performance. Meditation, according to Penn neuroscientist Amishi Jha and Michael Baime, director of Penn's Stress Management Program, is an active and effortful process that literally changes the way the brain works. Their study is the first to examine how meditation may modify the three subcomponents of attention, including the ability to prioritize and manage tasks and goals, the ability to voluntarily focus on specific information and the ability to stay alert to the environment. Researchers found that even for those new to the practice, meditation enhanced performance and the ability to focus attention.

University of Pennsylvania Press Release
Science Daily

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University of Wisconsin Study Reports Sustained Changes in Brain and Immune Function after Meditation
In a small but highly provocative study, a University of Wisconsin-Madison research team has found, for the first time, that a short program in mindfulness meditation produced lasting positive changes in both the brain and the function of the immune system.

The findings suggest that meditation, long promoted as a technique to reduce anxiety and stress, might produce important biological effects that improve a person's resiliency.

Abstract in Psychosomatic Medicine
Science Daily

 

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