Meditation and mental discipline can change the mode of working of the brain. A meditation by Buddhist monks allowed to reach unusual levels of consciousness through the creation of neural connections that do not exist in individuals who do not usually do contemplative practices.

So researchers have proven that the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA) has since 1992 undertaken a collaborative study with the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist monks highly skilled in the art of meditation.

The latest results of this study, neuroscientists led by Richard Davidson and Antoine Lutz, have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’.

So far the phenomena of inner peace and serenity gained through meditation is interpreted using metaphysical forces. Today, through this study, the effects of these practices have been ‘translated’ the language of science.

Buddhist monks have long been practicing meditation have high activity in a particular area of the brain, just behind the left forehead, the left prefrontal cortex.

However this area has almost no activity in individuals who do not practice meditation, although he is ‘living’ more frequently in those with an optimistic nature and a little anxious.

A brain changing
The most accepted version a few years ago on the development of our brains showed that neural connections are fixed when we are babies and children and does not change during adulthood.

But in the last decade, new imaging techniques have allowed to observe changes in normal neuronal connections during adulthood and has begun to speak of so-called ‘neuroplasticity’ or continuation of brain development during adulthood.

Today, many studies show that the brain is not static but changes dynamically throughout the life of man.
In view of these scientists, the study results indicate that the brain, with proper training, can develop functions and neuronal connections ever imagined.