Meditation

Author Introduction

Dr. Jeremy Dean is a psychologist and founder of PsyBlog. His latest book is Making Habits, Breaking Habits: How to Make Changes That Stick.

Epigraph

Research has found that meditation can help us control emotions for longer, cultivate compassion, reduce pain sensitivity, and improve multitasking abilities, among other benefits…

Meditation is more than just a way to relax.

In fact, if I said a new drug could have these mental benefits, you’d probably be skeptical.

But all these benefits come from a simple, completely free activity—no expensive equipment, chemicals, apps, books, or anything else required.

I’ll also share the very short meditation guide I follow for reference. But first, what are the key benefits of meditation?

1. Long-Lasting Emotional Control

Meditation calms us during practice—but does this calm carry over to daily life?

In a 2012 study, Desbordes et al. scanned participants’ brains before and after an 8-week meditation program.

During the scans, participants viewed images designed to trigger positive, negative, or neutral emotional responses.

The results showed that after meditation practice, the amygdala (the brain’s emotional center) had reduced activity in response to all images.

This indicates that meditation helps us maintain emotional control long-term, even when we’re not meditating.

2. Cultivating Compassion

Meditation has long been thought to make people kinder and more compassionate. Scientists decided to test this.

In 2013, Condon et al. conducted a hidden compassion test on people who practiced meditation.

In the study, participants were seated in a waiting area with two actors. When another actor—using crutches and pretending to be in great pain—entered, the two actors next to the meditators ignored them completely, sending unconscious signals that they didn’t want to help.

However, the meditators were over 50% more likely to offer help to the person in pain.

David DeSteno, one of the researchers, said: “What’s truly surprising about this finding is that meditation makes people willing to act compassionately—even when no one else is doing so—to help those who are suffering.”

3. Changing Brain Structure

Meditation is so powerful that it can alter brain structure in just 8 weeks.

To prove this effect, a 2011 study by Hölzel et al. had 16 people participate in a meditation training program, and their brain images were taken before and after the training.

The results showed that compared to the control group, the meditators had increased gray matter density in the hippocampus—a region linked to learning and memory.

Britta Hölzel, the lead researcher, said: “It’s fascinating to see that the brain has such plasticity! Through meditation practice, we can actively change our brains and enhance our well-being and quality of life.”

4. Reducing Pain

One of the benefits of changed brain structure is less pain for regular meditators.

In a 2010 study, Grant et al. placed a heating pad on the calves of meditators and non-meditators. The results found that meditators had lower pain sensitivity.

Joshua Grant explained: “With training, certain cortical areas in Zen meditators become thicker, which seems to be the reason for their reduced pain sensitivity.”

5. Boosting Cognition

Want a faster-responding brain?

In 2010, Zeidan et al. found that just 4 days of meditation (nearly 80 minutes total) brought significant benefits to beginners.

Compared to a control group that listened to an audiobook of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the meditators showed improvements in working memory, executive function, and visuospatial processing—even with such short training.

The authors concluded: “…those four days of meditation training can enhance the ability to maintain focus, benefits previously reported in long-term meditators.” Tests showed improvements ranging from 15% to over 50%.

For the original study: Cognition Accelerated by Just 4 x 20 Minutes Meditation

6. Enhancing Creativity

The right type of meditation can help solve creative problems.

In a 2012 study, Colzato et al. had participants complete a classic creative task: think of as many uses for a brick as possible.

Those who used the “open monitoring” meditation method—focusing on breathing to free the mind—came up with the most ideas.

7. Improving Focus

At its core, meditation is about learning to concentrate and better control your attention.

An increasing number of studies prove that meditation improves focus. For example, in 2007, Jha et al. had 17 people with no meditation experience take an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course.

They were then compared to a control group (also 17 people). After a series of attention assessment tests, the trained participants showed greater focus than the control group.

For the original article: How Meditation Improves Attention

8. Enhancing Multitasking Abilities

Since meditation improves cognitive abilities in various ways, it should boost work performance.

In 2012, Levy et al. tested the multitasking abilities of several groups—human resources managers.

The results showed that meditators outperformed non-meditators in typical office tasks, such as answering phones and writing emails. Meditating managers were able to focus better on their work and experienced less job stress.

9. Reducing Anxiety

Meditation is often recommended for people prone to anxiety. To take just one example from many studies, Zeidan et al. found in 2013 that attending 4 meditation sessions (20 minutes each) was enough to reduce anxiety by up to 39%.

For more articles on anxiety: 8 Fascinating Facts About Anxiety

10. Fighting Depression

A core symptom of depression is rumination—repetitive, distressing thoughts that loop in the mind.

Unfortunately, simply telling someone with depression to “stop thinking about sad things” is useless. Treating depression partly involves controlling the patient’s attention.

One effective method is mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness means living in the present moment, rather than focusing on past regrets or future worries. In 2010, Hofmann et al. wrote a review summarizing 39 studies on mindfulness and found that it is effective in treating depression.

For the original article: Depression: 10 Fascinating Insights into a Misunderstood Condition

A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation

Given these amazing benefits, here’s a quick start guide to meditation. Meditation has many names and methods, but most follow similar basic principles:

1. Relax Your Body and Mind

You can relax through posture, mental visualization, mantras, music, progressive muscle relaxation, or other traditional techniques—choose whatever works for you.

This step is relatively easy. Even if we don’t meditate often, most of us have some experience with relaxation.

2. Be Mindful

This is a bit tricky to understand. It means: don’t judge your thoughts—let them come and go naturally (that’s their nature!). Once your mind wanders, gently pull your attention back to your original focus.

This turns out to be very difficult! Our minds are wired to judge everything (worry, fear, expect, regret, etc.) and constantly dwell on the past or future.

The key is to realize that your mind should only observe what’s happening, not process it. This way of thinking doesn’t come naturally.

3. Focus on Something

Meditators often focus on their breath, noticing the inhale and exhale. But you can focus on anything else: your feet, a potato, or a stone.

Focusing on breath is convenient because it’s always with you. Whatever you choose, try to direct all your attention to it.

When your attention wavers (which it will—almost immediately when you start trying to focus), gently pull it back. Don’t blame yourself—be kind to yourself.

Focusing wholeheartedly on something is extremely difficult—you’ll feel like your mind is almost “burning.” But experienced practitioners say this feeling eases with consistent practice.

4. Focus on Nothingness

Most people say that focusing on nothingness is impossible without extensive practice. So I won’t go into detail here—master the basic skills first.

Exploration

This is just a brief introduction, but it’s enough for beginners. Don’t get too hung up on the techniques. The important thing is to remember the main goal: training your attention through relaxation and focus on a single point.

Try these basic techniques first, see what happens, and then explore further.

Key Notes for Clarity

1. Amygdala: A small almond-shaped structure in the brain that plays a key role in processing emotions (especially fear and anxiety).

2. Hippocampus: A seahorse-shaped region of the brain associated with learning, memory formation, and emotion regulation.

3. Mindfulness Meditation: A type of meditation that involves maintaining non-judgmental awareness of the present moment (e.g., focusing on breath, bodily sensations, or thoughts as they arise).

4. Open Monitoring Meditation: A meditation style where practitioners observe their thoughts, feelings, and sensations without focusing on a specific object—allowing the mind to be “open” and receptive.