Day 12

Today's post will be about the health benefits from doing meditation. Several studies have been conducted on the health benefits of "mindfulness" activity (Google for more information, even I don't completely understand the definition), and meditation falls under this category. One particular neuroscientist, Dr. James Austin, reported in his book, Zen and the Brain (Austin, 1999). that meditation can actually rewire the circuitry of the brain. Another test conducted by Yale, Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shows that meditation helps to increase gray matter (again, Google it, but basically its a major component of the central nervous system), slows down the deterioration of the brain due to aging, and is associated with increased cortical thickness, esp. in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, right insula, and middle prefrontal cortex. These areas of the brain are associated with communication, empathy, self-observation, emotional balance, and empathy.



Other than that, these past few days of meditaton have been good for me. I'm slowly improving my awareness, and overall I feel like my meditating has improved over the past week and a half. The only thing I'm having trouble with is clearing my mind of distracting thoughts, and my breathing. I'm good at controlling my breathing, but I lose track of it when I'm counting. This is probably the reason why I feel like I'm good at focusing on my breathing, but also one of the reasons why my awareness has been lacking. After about ~8 counts, I sometimes lose track of which breath I'm on, because my mind just goes blank or a thought pops up. I then have to mentally berate myself to concentrate.