Meditation has been practiced for over thousands of years in all parts of the populated world. Imagine the innovative genius who first sat still and focused: rather than wandering in the immersive and dazzling show of their own thoughts, they’d pulled themselves out of their planning and deliberation to focus only on the immediate exterior sensations. Apart from being better hunters or worshippers, practitioners would also come to realize that their meditation sessions would improve their overall mental functioning, making them generally smarter for all environmental tasks and obstacles encountered.
Scientific studies have been reporting for years that mediation thickens parts of the brain’s cerebral cortex, the folded and gray outermost tissue of the brain imparts its characteristic design and shape. They’ve shown repeatedly that by merely focusing on the sensation of one’s breathing for extended periods of time (10 to 30 minutes) a day, one can implement a hardly used functioning of their brain, developing their attention, memory and capacity to make quicker and more skilled decisions. There have also been tests that show that regular meditation develops the brain’s gray matter in areas associated with empathy, the sophisticated ability to understand and share the feeling’s of a fellow person. Not only does meditation make you a smarter human, it makes you more human!
The brain is able to make improvements on its functioning and thus smarten due to a phenomenon called neuroplasticity, the way the brain adapts and changes structurally to better navigate and solve new environments and puzzles that are launch upon it continuously. It had once been thought by scientists that the brain is incapable of developing newly the neuron cells that compose it after a certain age of experience had been attained, limiting growth to around the period near to middle age. But scientists in their experimental wisdom have proven that the brain continues in its ability to produce new cells and become smarter, learning new functions well up until death.
Meditation then becomes a brain exercise that anyone can benefit from, no matter the age or religious persuasion. It becomes then that the ability to improve one’s own circumstance can be had at any instance: when while waiting in a grocer’s checkout line, or laying in bed approaching sleep. And the improvement comes at no cost decrement whatsoever, the only thing one must spend is their attention. Meditation is a tool of which we can use to sculpt better, stressless lives. It is a built-in system that helps us to lead smarter, more skillful lives, which will see us through continuously to a more happier and satisfied conclusion.
Citations:
http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/exercise.html
http://life.gaiam.com/article/why-meditate-science-finds-clues http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1147167,00.html