How Your Brain Changes when You Choose to Meditate
When I wrote the phrase ‘choose to meditate’ in the title, I meant every word of it since I am well aware of the amount of effort which is necessary in order to take on this practice and really carry it through.
After all, meditation is a powerful practice which goes beyond about ethereal and abstract concepts. It’s also about tangible, transformative effects upon our organisms. And the most radical ones can be seen in the brain activity and in the way it perceives reality after meditation sessions.
My broad experience with guided meditation has taught me a few aspects related to this matter, so here I am, passing them on to you, beautiful souls.
New Neural Pathways
New neural pathways are the networks our brains create once we acquire new habits.
If the whole life you’ve been employing the same way of forming thoughts and habits, you will be naturally experiencing a radical change once you choose to meditate.
Meditation practices engage new parts of the brain, forcing them to communicate in different ways.
Neurotransmitters increase their chemical activity, while the brain actually adjusts by generating more folds in order to accommodate the increased neural activity.
Amygdala Shrinkage
The brain has a dedicated part – the amygdala – which deals with processing fear and emotions.
While meditating, you are actually effecting changes within this area because you are consciously involving it in a process of stress reduction.
As a consequence, your body’s natural shield against stress levels is strengthened and the amygdala undergoes a shrinking process.
Increased Activity in the Brain Areas Controlling Sensitivity
Since the whole cortex is changing, it follows that areas responsible for decoding the 5 senses will also present significant changes.
Feeling and hearing are the senses where you’ll detect the most improvements.
It’s because when you choose to meditate, you choose to shut yourself off from every surrounding and engage only some of the brain functions and senses. By focusing on one at a time, you begin to feel more intensely.
Plus, it also counts you break the incessant data processing your brain is performing all the time. This way, you allow the senses to ‘rest’ and register new signals which wouldn’t otherwise be processed while the brain is busy with prioritizing all the outside noise.
Incredible Change in Dopamine Levels
You must have heard about dopamine, the so-called ‘reward chemical’ released as a response to pleasurable stimuli.
The problem with it is we can’t perceive it once it reaches a threshold.
Choose to meditate and you’ll slowly focus on other things than a chase for reward. So when you’re not feeding your brain with pleasure and comfort all the time, you actually lower the threshold of dopamine perceptivity and allow for the natural dopamine production in the brain to increase and be processed accordingly.
Will You Choose to Meditate and Completely Renew Your Brain and Your Life?
A more powerful brain means an enriched life.
New sensations, new perceptiveness, new orientation skills, a new understanding of life.
Would you like to experience all these? Do you dare going where you’ve never been before?
Then I’m waiting for you with an open heart and with my arms wide open to welcome you to the One Love.
