Can mindfulness change your brain?
Mindfulness meditation—specific practices designed to cultivate mindfulness—can actually change your brain in ways that correlate with reduced stress and a better mood. It does this in complex ways that ongoing research is attempting to clarify.
In one early set of studies, brain imaging was used to identify a link between mindfulness practice and positive emotion in the brain. The researchers found that the right prefrontal cortex was active in people who were anxious, depressed, or hypervigilant (scanning their environment for danger), while the left prefrontal cortex was more active in people who had fewer negative moods. After gathering data on the brains of hundreds of people, it was observed that the person with the most dramatic left-side activity was a Tibetan monk with extensive experience practicing mindfulness meditation.
Further studies showed that not only did other monks share this characteristic, but a shift from right-sided to left-sided activation also occurred in other groups of people—such as stressed-out high-tech office workers—after they had been trained to do mindfulness meditation. The trained workers also reported improved mood and more engagement in their activities. They even had stronger immune system responses compared with workers who had not learned mindfulness meditation.
The first study to show changes in brain structure associated with mindfulness practice compared 20 individuals with extensive experience in mindfulness practice to peers who didn’t have any. This research found thickening of brain regions associated with attention, sensory processing, and interoception (noticing what’s happening in your body). But it’s hard to know with certainty from such a study if it was actually the mindfulness practice, rather than some other difference between the groups, that accounted for the difference in their brains.
Later studies have tried to address this problem by looking at people’s brains before and after meditation training, comparing their brains with those of people who did not receive the training. Many such studies have shown changes in various brain regions—with more pronounced changes occurring in people who were more distressed at the outset of the study. However, the changes tend not to last if participants don’t continue practicing. Studies also show improved learning and memory in healthy older adults who practice mindfulness meditation.
