(Perhaps if you play drums and meditate?) Does meditation make you SMART? Letting your mind wander lets the brain process MORE thoughts than when concentrating
Letting your mind wander is more effective than concentrating on emptying your head of thoughts, scientists said Researchers from St Olavs Hospital in Trondheim and the University of Oslo used MRI scanners to look at brain activity during meditations Concentrating on 'nothing' is only as effective as resting Meditation is practiced by millions of people but little is known about how it works Regardless of religious beliefs, many people attempt to meditate at busy times in their lives. And now a new study claims that meditation activates parts of the brain that simple ‘relaxing’ cannot. People who meditate process more ideas and feelings than when they are just resting and letting your mind wander is more effective than concentrating on emptying your head of thoughts, scientists said. +2 Focus: The experts discovered that letting your mind wander is more effective than concentrating on emptying your head of thoughts when meditating. The left images show the brain during concentrative meditation, while images to the right show the brain during nondirective meditation Researchers from St Olavs Hospital in Trondheim, Norway, believe their findings - published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience - suggest that meditation is more than just a way to lower stress. There are countless techniques such as Zen, Buddhist and transcendental meditation and these can be divided into two main groups known as ‘concentrative’ meditation where the person focuses on breathing and specific thoughts and ‘nondirective’ which allows the mind to wander as it pleases. All the participants in the study had experience with a nondirective form of meditation practiced in Norway called Acem. Using an MRI scanner, the experiment showed that the part of their brains dedicated to processing self-related thoughts and feelings were more active during the activity than at rest. When test subjects performed concentrative meditation, the activity in this part of the brain was almost the same as when they were just resting. Dr Jian Xu, of St Olavs, said: ‘I was surprised the activity of the brain was greatest when the person’s thoughts wandered freely on their own, rather than when the brain worked to be more strongly focused. ‘When the subjects stopped doing a specific task and were not really doing anything special, there was an increase in activity in the area of the brain where we process thoughts and feelings. ‘It is described as a kind of resting network. And it was this area that was most active during nondirective meditation.’ Professor Svend Davanger, of the University of Oslo, said: ‘The study indicates nondirective meditation allows for more room to process memories and emotions than during concentrated meditation. ‘This area of the brain has its highest activity when we rest. It represents a kind of basic operating system; a resting network that takes over when external tasks do not require our attention. ‘It is remarkable a mental task like nondirective meditation results in even higher activity in this network than regular rest.’ Professor Davanger is the only member of the research team to regularly meditate and he believes that good research depends on having a team that can combine personal experience of meditation with a critical attitude towards results. ‘Meditation is an activity practiced by millions of people. It is important we find out how this really works,’ he added. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2630446/Does-meditation-make-SMART-Letting-mind-wander-lets-brains-process-MORE-thoughts-concentrating.html#ixzz31uAyB4f3 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2630446/Does-meditation-make-SMART-Letting-mind-wander-lets-brains-process-MORE-thoughts-concentrating.html#ixzz31uAyB4f3
