Meditation, as a kind of stress-reducing training, has been known to the public all over the world, and many people have participated in this training. Meditation is beneficial to people's mental health, such as getting rid of daydreaming's problems, making their thinking more active and making people less anxious when things happen. However, how did all this happen? Will the brain carrying psychological functions change because of meditation?
First of all, the youngest part of the human body
In fact, the human brain may be the youngest part of the human body. If there is only one puberty stage in other parts of the body, it is lifelong adolescence for the human brain. This is because the human brain is plastic all its life, that is, it can change itself to adapt to the new environment and new tasks, and the research results related to meditation also support this view. Psychologists have found that meditation can change the structure and function of the human brain.
In 2009, psychologists at UCLA recruited 44 people with rich meditation experience. They have an average of 24 years of meditation experience, and meditate 10~90 minutes every day. The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to observe the gray matter of the meditator's brain, so as to analyze its brain structural characteristics.
They found that people who meditate regularly have more gray matter in the right orbital frontal cortex, right thalamus and left inferior lobe than ordinary people. In other words, the brain structure of meditators is obviously different from that of ordinary people.
The gray matter of the brain is mainly composed of neurons. It is pink in the living brain, so it gets its name because it turns gray when soaked in antiseptic solution. Experiments show that meditators have more brain cells in the gray matter, which explains why they are more mentally and emotionally stable. The structural changes of these brain parts provide them with opportunities to play more potential. For example, there has been a lot of evidence that the orbitofrontal cortex has an extremely important influence on people's "execution".
Second, how does the brain concentrate?
In a study of 20 1 1, psychologists focused on brain waves, and they used magnetoencephalography equipment to observe the changes of human brain waves. Wave is one of the most common brain waves. When a person notices a possible thing, the brain cells used to perceive it will produce low-frequency A waves, and the frequency of unrelated A waves in the cerebral cortex will increase. The generation of low-frequency A wave indicates that this part of the brain is activated, while the increase of A wave frequency indicates that this part of the brain is in a state of inhibition.
For example, when you are waiting for a program to appear in front of the TV, your brain is in the same state as we said above. Some areas are on alert, and the frequency of A wave is low, while the frequency of A wave is high in other areas. Those brain regions that deal with things unrelated to the program are not as active as those you use to expect the program, so that someone may knock at the door and not hear it. This is why the so-called brain helps us to eliminate interference and concentrate.
In a study completed by Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researchers recruited a group of volunteers who had never been exposed to meditation courses. They were divided into two groups, one group received 8 weeks of meditation training, and the other group lived as usual during these 8 weeks without contact with meditation training.
Eight weeks later, when the researchers completed an attention task with a magnetoencephalograph, they observed the changes of brain waves. It was found that people who received meditation training had faster brain wave regulation. That is, from the general mental state to the state of concentration, brain waves change significantly faster. This shows that their ability to regulate brain function has increased. This also explains why meditation can get rid of our daydreams.
In 20 12 years, psychologists used another observation method-functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the influence of meditation on the human brain. The researchers also recruited volunteers for an eight-week meditation training. In the first three weeks and the last three weeks of the eight-week training, they observed the changes of blood oxygen in volunteers' brains to determine the influence of meditation training on the brain function of meditators.
As expected, after meditation training, volunteers' right amygdala (the amygdala is the brain structure involved in emotional management) did not react as strongly as before when faced with pictures of different emotions. This result supports the hypothesis that meditation promotes emotional stability.
Also at 20 12, psychologists also studied another brain structure index of meditators-the gyrus. In the past, in terms of brain structure, scientists focused on the differences between meditators in gray matter size and cortical thickness. But there is another structural feature of the brain that has not been associated with meditation before, and this feature is the wrinkles on the surface of the human brain.
I believe everyone's impression of the brain is this: the surface is covered with gullies, like the high slope of Huangshi eroded by Feng Shui. Practical research shows that the greater the surface area of the brain, the smarter people are, and the more wrinkles there are in the brain, the greater the surface area. It's like two carpets, one tiled and the other stacked. Although they occupy the same area on the plane, in fact, if they are folded and unfolded, they will definitely be larger than the tiled ones.
Therefore, wrinkles on the brain surface are also an interesting part of brain scientists' attention. 1988, scientist zilles proposed a method to measure the wrinkle degree of our brain, and called it "brain gyrus index". 20 12, Professor Rudes, UCLA School of Medicine. "Brain gyrus index" is used to measure the difference between meditators and ordinary people.
He found 50 people who meditated for a long time and 50 people who didn't meditate. As a result, people who meditate as a routine have more cortical folds and larger brain surface area than others. In addition, the gyrus index is positively correlated with the number of years of meditation. In other words, the more people meditate, the greater the gyrus index, and the greater the changes in brain structure.
Psychologists have gradually figured out the relationship between meditation and human brain through research in recent years. Meditation plays an active role in gray matter, brain waves, cerebral gyrus and cerebral oxygen state.
Research shows that whether you are young or old, you can use meditation to protect the health of your brain. Meditation can improve people's brain function and make people more calm and sharp.