Meditation really modifies the activity of our brain, managing to influence thoughts and the state of consciousness, this is the conclusion reached by scientists from the University of Pisa who flew to Tibet to study the brain waves of Buddhist monks
Home photovoltaic special: how to save with solar energy
Index
Meditating really allows you to interfere with the functioning of our brain, so much so that it changes our state of consciousness. To reach this awareness, scientists studied the brains of Tibetan monks, here’s how they did it and what they discovered.
Studying to meditate for whole years
In Tibet there is the Sera Jey Monastery which, in addition to welcoming Buddhist monks, has been one of the oldest monastic universities of Tibetan Buddhism for hundreds of years.
Here the monks study for about twenty years to be able to meditate up to 8 hours a day.
Their daily routine consists of 4 two-hour meditation sessions, for a total of 2920 hours per year.
They are therefore the perfect people to understand what happens in the brain during meditation, which is why researchers at the University of Pisa decided to start their study in 2018 and today they can reveal their secret to us.
Different meditations, different effects on the brain
The experts explain that they focused on two types of meditation practiced by the monks of Sera Jey.
How they analyzed the brains of monks
Scientists used the electroencephalogram because, through non-invasive electrodes placed on the brain, it measures the activity of our brain and the various waves it analyzes correspond to our cognitive processes, such as memorization or decision-making ability, and to our mental states , such as tiredness or mental load and analyzed the data collected from the monks’ brains.
View this post on Instagram
The brain during meditation
Scientists have discovered that it is true that meditation modifies the activity of our brain to the point of suppressing irrelevant and distracting stimuli, so as to be able to focus on self-awareness, therefore on the purpose of meditation, which really helps to feel good and peace.
The study, entitled “Report from a Tibetan Monastery: EEG neural correlates of concentrative and analytical meditation”, was published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Psychology.
