Word: braine
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...University of Wisconsin at Madison, Richard Davidson has used brain imaging to show that meditation shifts activity in the prefrontal cortex (right behind our foreheads) from the right hemisphere to the left. Davidson's research suggests that by meditating regularly, the brain is reoriented from a stressful fight-or-flight mode to one of acceptance, a shift that increases contentment. People who have a negative disposition tend to be right-prefrontal oriented; left-prefrontals have more enthusiasms, more interests, relax more and tend to be happier, though perhaps with less real estate...
...studies of highly accomplished meditation masters using the most advanced imaging technology, the results of which will be discussed in September at a conference at M.I.T. (which will also plan the next stages of research). Not only did these studies allow for a more detailed understanding of how the brain works during meditation, but they also provided a lot of cool shots of monks wearing electrodes...
What scientists are discovering through these studies is that with enough practice, the neurons in the brain will adapt themselves to direct activity in that frontal, concentration-oriented area of the brain. It's what samurais and kamikaze pilots are trained to do and what Phil Jackson preaches: to learn to be totally aware of the moment. "Meditation is like gasoline," says Robert Thurman, director of the Tibet House (and father of actress Uma Thurman). "In Asia meditation was a sort of a natural tool anyone could use. We should detach it from just being Buddhist...
Josh Baran, author of the upcoming book 365 Nirvana Here and Now, says when his brain wanders in a distinctly unfocused, nonmeditative way--that deal when you've flipped five pages of a book and read nothing--it actually causes him discomfort. Roger Walsh, a professor of psychiatry, philosophy and anthropology at the University of California at Irvine, has been studying the extent to which meditators can control their psychological states. "Only in recent years has Western psychiatry recognized attention-deficit disorder, but the meditative-contemplative traditions have maintained for thousands of years that we all suffer from some kind...
...experiments, the meditators' skin cleared up at four times the rate of the nonmeditators. In another study, conducted with Wisconsin's Richard Davidson, Kabat-Zinn gave a group of newly taught meditators and nonmeditators flu shots and measured the antibody levels in their blood. Researchers also measured their brain activity to see how much the meditators' mental activity shifted from the right brain to the left. Not only did the meditators have more antibodies at both four weeks and eight weeks after the shots, but the people whose activity shifted the most had even more antibodies. The better your meditation...