Friday, December 12, 2014

Meditation: Good for mind and body (and your wallet?)

Throughout this semester we had various talks on a lot of different topics but I think that the talk that I found the most interesting was the one on meditation. I think that the concept of meditation is very interesting because many studies conducted on it suggest that it can improve real life problems like depression, high blood pressure, immune system function, and may even play a role in growth of new neurons and increase gray matter in the brain but at the same time is also something that we still do not fully understand why or how it works. Dr. Grabowecky gave a very interesting talk on meditation towards the end of the semester that touched upon many different areas of meditation but one specific area in particular that I was very interested in was the possible effects of meditation on gray matter in the brain. I decided to do some more research on it and found some very interesting articles presenting data that support her findings, which was that meditation increases the amount of gray matter in the brain.
A study published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences titled “Exploring age-related brain degeneration in meditation practitioners” talked about the different benefits sets of data on meditation for different age groups for three different studies. According to one of the studies meditating participants of age 40-50 had the same average thickness in the right insula and the right frontal cortex as the control group of ages 20-30, suggesting that meditation reduces the rate of neural degeneration at this specific site. According to another study there was a significant increase in the amount of gray matter (unmyelinated cells in the brain) in the brain in individuals who meditated regularly as opposed to those who did not. The increase of gray matter not only suggests protection of existing cells, but also possibly neuroplasticity and growth and proliferation of certain cells in the brain. This finding is something that Dr. Grabowecky mentioned in her presentation, which was an increase of gray matter in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex in participants in her study who had incorporated meditation as part of their daily routines as compared to those individuals who did not meditate.
I think that it is fascinating to think that doing so simple and more important in today’s health care system, inexpensive, as meditating can bring about such great and positive consequences on so many levels on both the mind and the body. I think that it is important to point out that there are a lot of different types of meditation and also that while meditation is helpful to most people, it is not for everyone. Also, since the brain itself is poorly understand on many areas, it is important to conduct more studies to support the findings of the effects of meditation and to uncover the mechanisms under which meditation administers its effects to individuals who practice it, which is something that was mentioned in both Dr. Grabowecky’s presentation and nearly every peer-reviewed article I found on this topic. 

References:
Luders, E. (2014), Exploring age-related brain degeneration in meditation practitioners. Annal of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1307: 82-88. doi: 10.1111/nyas.12217

Lutz, A., Slagter, H. A., Dunne, J. D., & Davidson, R. J. (2008, March 10). Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation. Cell Press Neuron, 12(4), 1-7.


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