The heading does sound like a weight loss advertisement for the latest miracle cure but researchers at the University Of North Carolina have shown that for a group of test subjects with only four days of mindfulness meditation training 20 minutes each day, a 10 times improvement in cognitive skills was achieved.
“It goes to show that the mind is, in fact, easily changeable and highly influenced, especially by meditation.” said Fadel Zedian one of the researchers.
The Test Results
The test group trained in mindfulness meditation performed ten times better on challenging tests requiring a sustained ability to focus while at the same time holding other information in mind. Most exciting of all is that they also did significantly better than non mindfulness trained subjects on time constrained tasks – the type of tasks that would normally cause significant stress and inhibited performance for most people.
The Meditation Technique Used
An abbreviated form of mindfulness training was used based on the Buddhist Shamatha meditation tradition. The trainings were conducted by an advanced practitioner.
“participants were instructed to relax, with their eyes closed, and to simply focus on the flow of their breath occurring at the tip of their nose. If a random thought arose, they were told to passively notice and acknowledge the thought and to simply let ‘it’ go, by bringing the attention back to the sensations of the breath. The simple process of focusing on the breath in a relaxed manner, in a way that teaches you to regulate your emotions by raising one’s awareness of mental processes as they’re happening is like working out a bicep, but you are doing it to your brain. Mindfulness meditation teaches you to release sensory events that would easily distract, whether it is your own thoughts or an external noise, in an emotion-regulating fashion. This can lead to better, more efficient performance on the intended task.”
As pointed out in the study this type of training is not necessarily permanent you need to keep practicing daily.
Sources and Further Reading:
1. “Experiment shows brief meditative exercise helps cognition”
2. “Mindfulness Meditation Improves Cognition: Evidence of Brief Mental Training“
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About Danny Sheehan
Danny lives in Hong Kong but is originally from Australia. He is Married to Maggie and together they have two children with whom they enjoy sharing and enjoying an exciting life with daily. Danny's passions are freedom, adventure and discovery, mainly in nature and science but also spiritually. He is a great believer in living in the NOW.
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