5 Ways to Support Your Mental Health and Avoid Burnout

When I first started meditating and recommending it to my patients I had no idea about all the research that had been done on meditation. Since then I‘ve read so many books about meditation, so here are a few studies that have stood out to me. If they don‘t convince you to start meditating, I don‘t know what will!

• Research has shown that meditating can protect against memory loss by counteracting the thinning of the cortex, which happens naturally when we age.
• Meditation strengthens those areas of the brain that have to do with emotional flexibility, learning and memory. The results of a study found that the brains of those who meditate contain more grey matter (the brain tissue that processes information) than of those that don‘t meditate. This suggests that meditating encourages positive emotions, maintains emotional stability and helps practice mindfulness.
• In a 2010 study, the brains of volunteers were scanned before and after 8 weeks of training in MBSR (Mindfulness-Bases Stress Reduction). After the training, the meditators‘ brains had changed: there was growth in the hippocampus, the area of the brain involved in memory, and shrinkage in the amygdala, which initiates our bodies‘ stress response.
• Meditation‘s effect on our ability to have compassion for others has also been researched. After 8 weeks of meditation practice, the participants were supposed to take a cognitive test, but they didn‘t know that the waiting room was the real test. Two of three chairs in the space were in use, which left one chair for the participant, and when a man with crutches entered the room, the participants had two choices. Those who had meditated offered their seat to the man five times more often than those who did not meditate.
• A 2018 study shows that mindfulness can help increase feelings of social connection. Participants partook in a 6 week meditation course and their general emotions and their social connection levels were assessed. After 6 weeks, they could stay mindful, even when they weren‘t doing mindfulness exercises. The meditators reported that this gave them a greater sense of a social connection, which promotes positive emotions. Furthermore, scientists have researched meditation‘s effect on attention span.

Doctors are now more likely to recommend meditation to patients with insomnia, chronic pain and immune deficiencies, and studies like these have definitely had their effect on that evolution. Furthermore, meditation is increasingly being used to treat depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders.