Neuroplasticity
is the idea that you can alter your brain in a physical and mental way by
changing its stimuli — which can include environment, behavior, thought
patterns or other
parts of the body that have an impact on it. While this is a
fairly old idea — the term and concept that the brain was not fixed
post-puberty was first used in 1890 by William James in The Principles of Psychology — it is only
due to the introduction of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that we
can accurately quantify the effects of different stimuli. So, what are some of
the ways we can mould our minds?
THE
EFFECTS OF MEDITATION
There have been
many studies into the effect of meditation on mental well-being.
Combating
mental illnesses as much as anti-depressants: a study by the Johns Hopkins School
of Public Health tested the
effect of meditation on a variety of mental health issues and found that
after eight weeks, it improved anxiety by 0.38, depression by 0.3, and
pain by 0.33. While this is not a huge margin, it is as effective as
anti-depressant drugs or exercise, which means that doctors have another tool
in their arsenal, and can recommend an alternative treatment for those who
cannot exercise and/or do not want to take drugs.
Increasing grey matter and combating aging: a study
in Frontiers of Psychology shows that
meditation can increase the volume of grey matter in the brain significantly.
Florian Kurth, a University of California Postdoctoral Scholar in
Neurology, one of the authors of the study, said,
“We expected rather small and distinct effects […] what we actually observed
was a widespread effect of meditation that encompassed regions throughout the
entire brain.” This was enforced by Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts
General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who found that “in this one region of the prefrontal cortex, 50-year-old
meditators had the same amount of grey matter as 25-year-olds.” In a world that
researchers estimate will see 115 million people suffering from
dementia by 2050, meditation could be a non-drug dependent
treatment for those experiencing the disease.
Decreasing
selfishness: a
study carried out at Yale showed
that activity in the Default Mode Network was decreased by meditation. The
Default Mode Network is the part of the brain associated with mind-wandering
and often leads to self-referential thoughts. It was “relatively
deactivated” in experienced meditators, increasing their level of
concentration, loving-kindness, and choiceless awareness through specific
meditation methods. In a world that sometimes seems to be driven by
selfishness, meditation may provide a way to remind ourselves of others.
Overcoming
smoking addiction: a
study by the Psychology Department at
the University of Texas has found that “among smokers, 2 wk of meditation
training (5 h in total) produced a significant reduction in smoking of 60%” and
that it also had a positive impact on self-control. Millions of deaths a year
are caused by smoking, and hundreds of dollars are spent on various treatments;
meditation provides a free method that could save both lives and money.
WHAT DOES EXERCISE DO FOR YOU?
Regular aerobic
exercise (the exercise that gets you sweaty with an elevated heart rate) has been
shown to increase the size of the hippocampus — the area of the brain
associated with verbal memory and learning. While it has been known that
exercise has positive mental effects, a study at the University of British
Columbia (UBC) is one of the first that has shown that “regular exercise of
moderate intensity over six months or a year is associated with an increase in
the volume of selected brain regions” says
Dr. Scott McGinnis, a practicing neurologist at Brigham and Women’s
Hospital and neurology instructor at Harvard Medical School. Not all exercise
will work though — the study specifies that “resistance training, balance and
muscle toning exercises did not have the same results.”
Exercise
benefits the brain in many ways. It stimulates growth factors, which are
chemicals in the brain that are connected to brain cells’ health, growing new
blood vessels, and creating new brain cells It improves mood and sleep
patterns along with helping with anxiety and stress reduction (all these
areas affect your cognitive power). The best part of the UBC study is that it
focused on one of the easiest methods of exercise: walking. Those who
participated in the study saw results from going for a brisk, hour-long walk
twice a week. It’s recommended that you get 150 minutes of moderate exercise a
week, which is less daunting if you consider that’s only 21 minutes a day.
Exercising your body will exercise your brain too — it’s a
win-win.
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