Here’s another reason to hit the “pause” button and find your zen.
A new study found that meditation influences key regions of your brain responsible for emotional regulation and memory, offering new insights into why it works so well at calming the mind.
Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai say their findings could help shape meditation-based treatments for psychiatric conditions like anxiety and depression, which impact nearly a third of US adults.
Meditation has a rich and ancient history, with its earliest roots tracing back to Vedic India, where it was a cornerstone in Ayurveda medicine. Over time, it became a cornerstone of various religious and spiritual practices throughout the East.
Fast forward to today, and “meditation” now serves as an umbrella term for a range of mindfulness techniques that have taken the West by storm in recent decades.
In the US, the number of adults practicing meditation more than doubled from 7.5% in 2012 to 17.3% in 2022.
Meditation and other mindfulness practices have been linked to a laundry list of health benefits, from lowering blood pressure and improving sleep quality to boosting the immune system and even aiding digestion.
It’s also been shown to help manage symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress. While past studies have highlighted meditation’s mental health benefits, the exact brain science behind it has remained unclear — until now.
“Traditionally, it has been challenging to study these deep limbic brain regions in humans using standard methods like scalp [electroencephalogram],” Christina Maher, a neuroscience PhD student and first author of the paper, said in a statement.
Maher and her team overcame this by working with eight patients suffering from drug-resistant epilepsy who already had electrodes implanted deep in their amygdala and hippocampus, allowing for continuous monitoring of their brain activity.
The participants, who were novice meditators, took part in a ten-minute guided “loving-kindness meditation.” The practice, which involves focusing on thoughts of well-being for oneself and others, produced changes in the strength and duration of beta and gamma brain waves.
“These kinds of brain waves are affected in mood disorders like depression and anxiety, so the possibility of being able to willfully control these through meditation is pretty amazing, and may help explain the positive impact that these practices have on individuals,” said Dr. Ignacio Saez, associate professor of neuroscience, neurosurgery and neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine and senior author of the paper.
While the findings are promising, the study has its limitations. The sample size was small, and researchers only assessed the effects of one-time meditation, without examining the impact of repeated practice or long-term benefits.
Still, the study lays the groundwork for future research, which could open the door to therapeutic applications for people struggling with conditions like anxiety and depression.
“Meditation is noninvasive, widely accessible, and doesn’t require specialized equipment or medical resources, making it an easy-to-use tool for improving mental well-being,” said Saez, though he stressed that meditation shouldn’t replace traditional therapy.
Instead, he said, “it could serve as a complementary low-cost option for individuals experiencing challenges with memory or emotional regulation.”
The Mount Sinai team is planning to conduct follow-up studies that will dive deeper into the relationship between brain activity and mental health outcomes. Their next step is gathering more data on the long-term impact of meditation.