Mindfulness for Stress Reduction | MBSR in San Francisco with Augusta Hopkins

How Meditation Can Reshape Our Brains: Sara Lazar

How Meditation Can Reshape Our Brains: Sara Lazar at TEDxCambridge 2011 – YouTube.

Sara Lazar’s 2011 research shows how meditation changes the brain, specifically the executive function and working memory regions.
Scientifically validated benefits of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction:

  • Decreases Stress
  • Reduces Symptoms Associated with:
    • depression
    • anxiety
    • pain
    • gastrointestinal disorders
    • insomnia
    • psoriasis and eczema
  • Enhanced Ability to Pay Attention
  • Increase Quality of Life – people who meditate are simply happier
Neuroplasticity

“Meditation can literally change your brain” ~Sara Lazar, Neuroscientist, 2011
2 Studies
1st study compared meditators and non-meditators and found that the pre-frontal cortex was thicker in those who had a regular daily meditation practice of 30-40 minutes.  The pre-frontal cortex is the home of our working memory and executive decision making.  Who doesn’t want to remember things more easily and have a high function in executive decision making?  This is the place in which we discern if something is really a threat or if it just appears to be one.
2nd study examined a group of people before and after an 8-week MBSR course and found that there was:

  • an increase in grey matter in the left hippocampus – the area of learning, memory, emotional regulation
  • a shrinking of the amygdala – our stress center, this is the place that lights up when we are terrified, angry, aroused
  • a strengthening of the temporo-parietal junction – the home of empathy, compassion and perspective taking