The Dalai Lama encouraged research on the brain and meditation at the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior at the University of Wisconsin. The primary types of meditation studied were Focused Attention (FA) meditation, which entails voluntary focusing attention on a chosen object in a sustained fashion, and Open Monitoring (OM) meditation, which involves non-reactively monitoring the content of experience from moment-to-moment. These styles are found with some variation in several meditation systems, including the Buddhist Vipassanā and Mahāmudrā.

Lutz and Davidson (2010) found the electroencephalograms (EEG) of meditators showed higher gamma activity levels than the control group, leading to the conclusion that meditation, when practiced over time can alter the structure and function of the brain.

Expert meditators also showed less activation than novices in the amygdala in response to emotional sounds. This supports the idea that meditation can lead to a decrease in emotionally reactive behavior.

Another study found that meditators are able to better attend moment-to-moment to the stream of sensory phenomena and are less likely to “get stuck” in any one pattern of thinking (worrying, regretting, etc.).

Richard Davidson and John Kabat-Zinn (2003), found out that those practicing mindfulness meditation acquired an increased frontal lobe activity, more specifically in the left anterior portion of the frontal lobes, which is associated with positive attitude and positive emotions.

Research also suggests that meditation increase the level of serotonin production (Walton, 1995). Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that affects mood and behaviour and more specifically, the feeling of wellbeing. Low levels of serotonin are associated with various psychological disorders, such as depression, obesity, insomnia, migraine headaches, narcolepsy, sleep apnea, premenstrual syndrome, and fibromyalgia.

Meditation has also been shown to affect the level of melatonin (Tooley et al., 2000). This neurotransmitter controls body's circadian rhythm and helps regulate hormones. And some other research shows mediation can have anti-carcinogen and immune system enhancing effects (Grin, Grünberger, 1998).

In other words, science is now validating what meditators have been benefitting from for thousands of years. You can change your brain and your life simply by practicing meditation.

What is Mindfulness?

Allowing yourself to be consciously aware of your immediate experience in an open-minded, curious and unguarded way.




Why Develop Mindfulness?

• Gain freedom from boredom and engage in life more fully.
• Escape your thoughts and enjoy heightened sensory awareness.
• Lessen the suffering caused by physical pain and discover how to live more comfortably in your own skin.
• Less troubled by difficulties and greater appreciation for the simple pleasures of life.
• Less troubled by disturbing emotions, and opening to deep inner peace and acceptance.
• Get out of your head and become more in tune with your body. 
• Step out of the frantic busyness of life and realize the joy of letting yourself be.
• Relax out of bad habits and become more open to creative solutions arising spontaneously.

                                                   The Basics of Mindfulness Meditation

1. Set aside time in which you will not be disturbed. Give yourself enough time to really settle in, but not so long that it feels too demanding. 
2. Choose a comfortable place that is relatively free from distractions, and inspiring and calming if possible.
3. Take a moment to remember how you can benefit yourself from meditating.  And how you will have more to offer others as a consequence.
4. Assume a balanced upright posture with a feeling of stability and strength.  Letting your skeleton support you with your musculature relaxed.
5. Allow your body to make ongoing adjustments in order to discover the greatest sense of comfort and
6. Let your eyes be closed or half open and softly focussed and resting about 45 degrees in front of you.
7. Allow yourself to be wide-awake, alert and relaxed and comfortable all at the same time.
8. Notice the subtle movements of your body while you breathe. Allow yourself to become more relaxed and alert with the coming and going of each breath.
9. Allow thoughts to come and go, but rest as the field of awareness in which they come and go within.
10. Allow body sensations to come and go, but rest as the field of awareness in which they come and go within.
11. Allow emotions to come and go, but rest as the field of awareness in which they come and go within.
12. Allow sounds to come and go, but rest as the field of awareness in which they come and go within.
13. When you notice that the mind has become caught up in stories, planning, analysing, worrying, hoping, despairing or any mental preoccupation allow your awareness to come back to the breath and the field of awareness that allows everything to come and go.
14. Give up all hope of figuring out in your mind how to meditate; that is just another mental preoccupation.
15. The field of awareness can also be experienced as blue-ocean of awareness and all mental and sensory awareness are like waves on the ocean.  When caught up in a wave, dissolve back into the ocean and just notice the rise all fall of the breath.
16. Surrender all positive feelings and insights to the field as well. Mindfulness meditation is not about trying to maintain any sort of state.  Rest as that which allows everything to come and go.