What Meditation Does
MEDITATION is fun to do. But what actually happens when you meditate? This question has become the focus of ever-growing scientific interest in industrialized societies.
University of Wisconsin researcher Dr Richard Davidson, director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience, has found, for example, that a Loving Kindness meditation, focusing on empathetic and compassionate feelings about oneself and others, 'lights up' the left prefrontal cortex of the brain. The prefrontal cortexes are significant players in the regulation of emotions. The left is associated with feelings of joy, happiness, enthusiasm and resilience in bouncing back from disappointments. The right is associated with anxiety, fear, sadness and depression. Davidson's research indicates regular meditation rewires the brain giving greater predominance to the 'happy' left prefrontal cortex.
Other research indicates meditation, over time, actually shrinks the 'fearful' right prefrontal cortex and helps permanently diminish destructive emotions including high stress and fear, anxieties and unhappiness no matter what your circumstances. Dr Davidson's further research seems to prove that 'unlike pleasant (repeated) activities like dancing that result in temporary mood changes, meditation has a cumulative effect over time so that the depth of negative emotions becomes much more shallower.' Thus patients prone to depression who meditated reduced the risk of relapse from 66% to 37% by this research. ('Keep Taking the Meditation' by Kim Zetter Good Weekend The Sydney Morning Herald 30 August 2003 .)
Even more interestingly the prefrontal lobes, along with two other regions of the brain that play crucial roles in the initiation of emotions - the amygdala and hippocampus - are closely associated with blood pressure, hormones and the immune system's well-being.
Kevin's meditation course was extremely useful on both a personal and professional level in giving me skills to better deal with conflict. I highly recommend this course.
Tory McGuire, Conciliation Officer, NSW Anti-Discrimination Board, Sydney.