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Meditation produces enduring changes in emotional processing in the brain, study shows

A new study has found that participating in an 8-week meditation training program can have measurable effects on how the brain functions even when someone is not actively meditating. In their report in the ...

Neuroscience created Nov 12, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (24) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Tuning out: How brains benefit from meditation

Experienced meditators seem to be able switch off areas of the brain associated with daydreaming as well as psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, according to a new brain imaging study by ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Nov 21, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (47) | comments 20 | with audio podcast

Compassion meditation may boost neural basis of empathy, study finds

(Medical Xpress)—A compassion-based meditation program can significantly improve a person's ability to read the facial expressions of others, finds a study published by Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Oct 04, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Psychologists find meditation increases awareness of subliminal messages

(Phys.org) -- In our busy world most rarely have time to ponder the intricacies of subliminal messaging, despite the fact that it goes on all around us every day, in many cases as a direct means to incite ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Jun 08, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (8) | comments 3 | with audio podcast report

Mindfulness from meditation associated with lower stress hormone

(Medical Xpress)—Focusing on the present rather than letting the mind drift may help to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, suggests new research from the Shamatha Project at the University of ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Mar 28, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Chinese mindfulness meditation prompts double positive punch in brain white matter

Scientists studying the Chinese mindfulness meditation known as integrative body-mind training (IBMT) say they've confirmed and expanded their findings on changes in structural efficiency of white matter in the brain that ...

Neuroscience created Jun 11, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Stanford study vanquishes social anxieties without drugs

For most of his life, 24-year-old Steven Bringas so feared humiliating himself if he spoke that only an emergency would get him to enter a store.

Psychology & Psychiatry created Aug 19, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (17) | comments 1

Is meditation the push-up for the brain?

(Medical Xpress) -- Two years ago, researchers at UCLA found that specific regions in the brains of long-term meditators were larger and had more gray matter than the brains of individuals in a control group. This suggested ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Jul 14, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (9) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Wandering minds associated with aging cells

Scientific studies have suggested that a wandering mind indicates unhappiness, whereas a mind that is present in the moment indicates well-being. Now, a preliminary UCSF study suggests a possible link between mind wandering ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Nov 16, 2012 | popularity 3.1 / 5 (7) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Teaching the neurons to meditate

In the late 1990s, Jane Anderson was working as a landscape architect. That meant she didn't work much in the winter, and she struggled with seasonal affective disorder in the dreary Minnesota winter months. ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Jul 07, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (12) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Mind over matter? Study reveals for the first time that core body temperature can be controlled by the brain

A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Maria Kozhevnikov from the Department of Psychology at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences showed, for the first time, that it is ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Apr 08, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 2

Evidence builds that meditation strengthens the brain, researchers say

Earlier evidence out of UCLA suggested that meditating for years thickens the brain (in a good way) and strengthens the connections between brain cells. Now a further report by UCLA researchers suggests yet another benefit.

Neuroscience created Mar 14, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (8) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

A neural basis for benefits of meditation

Why does training in mindfulness meditation help patients manage chronic pain and depression? In a newly published neurophysiological review, Brown University scientists propose that mindfulness practitioners ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Feb 13, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Long-term meditation leads to different brain organization

(Medical Xpress) -- People who practice mindfulness meditation learn to accept their feelings, emotions, and states of mind without judging or resisting them. They simply live in the moment.

Psychology & Psychiatry created May 24, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (10) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

US Marines studying mindfulness-based training

The U.S. Marine Corps, known for turning out some of the military's toughest warriors, is studying how to make its troops even tougher through meditative practices, yoga-type stretching and exercises based ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Jan 20, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Meditation

Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the reflexive, "thinking" mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness. Meditation often involves turning attention to a single point of reference. It is a component of many religions, and has been practiced since antiquity. It is also practiced outside religious traditions. Different meditative disciplines encompass a wide range of spiritual or psychophysical practices that may emphasize different goals—from achievement of a higher state of consciousness, to greater focus, creativity or self-awareness, or simply a more relaxed and peaceful frame of mind.

The word meditation comes from the Indo-European root med-, meaning "to measure." From the root med- are also derived the English words mete, medicine, modest, and moderate. It entered English as meditation through the Latin meditatio, which originally indicated any type of physical or intellectual exercise, then later evolved into the more specific meaning "contemplation."

Eastern meditation techniques have been adapted and increasingly practiced in Western culture.

For more information about Meditation, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.