The mindfulness meditation It has become increasingly popular around the world as a practice that can help reduce stress and improve emotional and physical well-being. Although mindfulness meditation has been studied by scientists for decades, there is still much to discover about how it works in the brain.
A study published in the journal NeuroImage in 2012, titled “Attending to the present: Mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference”investigated how mindfulness meditation affects brain activity related to self-reference.
The study involved 15 people who had not practiced mindfulness meditation before and who underwent eight weeks of mindfulness meditation training. After this period, participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure their brain activity while performing self-reference tasks.
The results of the study revealed that the mindfulness meditation was associated with greater activation of the brain’s default mode network, which is associated with introspection and self-reference. This activation was observed differently from the activation associated with self-reference in participants who had not practiced mindfulness meditation.
In other words, mindfulness meditation appears to affect the way the brain processes information related to self-reference and introspection. The study results also suggest that there may be different modes of self-reference in the brain.
The brain default mode network, also known as the default network, is activated when the mind is at rest and not focused on any particular task. This network is associated with self-reference and introspection, and is believed to be responsible for processing information about oneself and the world around us.
Mindfulness meditation involves paying attention to the present moment and accepting the thoughts and emotions that arise without judging them. This practice can help reduce anxiety and stress, and improve attention and emotional well-being. Now, we know that Mindfulness meditation can also affect the way the brain processes information related to self-reference and introspection..
In conclusion, the study provides greater understanding of the brain mechanisms underlying mindfulness meditation. As more studies are conducted on this topic, new benefits of mindfulness meditation may be discovered and how it works in the human brain may be better understood.
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