Meditation Found To Increase Brain Size

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dipdude

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People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don't. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.

In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. That's intriguing because those sections of the human cortex, or thinking cap, normally get thinner as we age.
"Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and well-being," says Sara Lazar, leader of the study and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. "These findings are consistent with other studies that demonstrated increased thickness of music areas in the brains of musicians, and visual and motor areas in the brains of jugglers. In other words, the structure of an adult brain can change in response to repeated practice."
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http://www.sciencenewsden.com/2006/meditationincreasebrainsize.shtml
 
tracerbullet said:
I guess science finally proves something that was known to spirituality 4,000 years ago. Great going, Science :cool2:
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You are mistaken BIG TIME. Our books were written down by Veda Vyasa 5,000 years ago( when the Gita was also spoken) but before that, they carried the books orally for a long long time. The Gita mentions about meditation and our self realised sages wrote the Vedas. Meditation is very old

India is older than we imagine. We should be proud of it, of our scriptures and our advancements - when the whole world was just evolving from primitive stages; we had an Indus Valley civilisation. Well, does anyone know why our Gods have 108 names ? It's coz 12 ( constellations) * 9 ( planets) = 108 ....
 
TheBroker said:
You are mistaken BIG TIME. Our books were written down by Veda Vyasa 5,000 years ago( when the Gita was also spoken) but before that, they carried the books orally for a long long time. The Gita mentions about meditation and our self realised sages wrote the Vedas. Meditation is very old

India is older than we imagine. We should be proud of it, of our scriptures and our advancements - when the whole world was just evolving from primitive stages; we had an Indus Valley civilisation. Well, does anyone know why our Gods have 108 names ? It's coz 12 ( constellations) * 9 ( planets) = 108 ....
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That's exactly what I meant, but more sarcastically. It's amazing that folk-lore, philosophy and our ancient scriptures knew all this eons before rational science finally got to prove it in the 21st century.

If you were only nit-picking on the figure of 4,000 years, sure I could be wrong. Other than that, you've only said the same thing I did.
 
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