Meditation 'Changes Brain Structure' In 8 weeks

A post from Gawker by Adrian Chen has the whole story. Here is a part:

[Image via shutterstock; via Boing Boing]

A new study by Massachusetts General Hospital shows that structural changes in the brain are observable through MRI after just 8 weeks of mindfulness meditation—including increased grey matter in the part of the brain associated with learning.

I've never tried meditation because so far I haven't found a good iPhone app for it. But this might change everything: Scientists took MRI images before enrolling participants in an 8 week "mindfulness-based stress reduction program." Pre-meditation, they had brains that were normally addled from our modern technologies and plastic wraps. But then after 8 weeks in the course—which consisted of around a half-hour daily of "mindfulness exercises"—here's what they found.

From the press release:

The analysis of MR images, which focused on areas where meditation-associated differences were seen in earlier studies, found increased grey-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion and introspection. Participant-reported reductions in stress also were correlated with decreased grey-matter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress.