Can eight weeks of meditation change the brain?

Anyone who has ever started exercising knows that results do not come after the first visit to the gym. The body needs time to adapt to a new stimulus. The brain works in a similar way. When people begin meditating, they often ask when they will notice the first changes. Will they be calmer? Will they focus better? Is it even possible to verify something like this other than by a subjective feeling?

Questions like these led scientists to start examining what happens in the brain during regular meditation. Thanks to modern imaging methods, we can now observe not only how the brain works, but also whether its structure changes over time.

Why did scientists start studying meditation?

Meditation is not a novelty of recent years. Various forms of working with attention and the breath have existed for centuries. Scientific interest in the topic, however, has grown markedly only in recent decades.
The reason was simple. More and more people described a positive effect of meditation on handling stress, sleep, or focus. Scientists therefore wanted to know whether these experiences could be supported by measurable data.

While in the past it was possible to work mainly with questionnaires and participants’ subjective feelings, today’s technology makes it possible to follow the activity and structure of the brain much more precisely. Researchers thus gained the chance to look quite literally under the hood at what takes place during regular meditation.

What is the MBSR programme?

One of the best-known programmes used in research is MBSR, or Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. The name describes a programme for reducing stress through mindfulness.

It was created by the American professor Jon Kabat-Zinn in the late 1970s. The programme combines meditation, work with the breath, and awareness of ordinary everyday activities.

It is not a crash course, nor a guide to instant happiness. Participants learn to pause regularly and notice their own thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations without unnecessary judgement. This programme has become the basis of many scientific studies focused on the effects of meditation.

What were the scientists actually watching?

One of the most frequently cited studies was conducted at Harvard Medical School. Researchers followed a group of people who completed an eight-week MBSR programme. At the beginning and at the end of the programme, participants underwent an examination using magnetic resonance imaging. This makes it possible to display the structure of the brain in detail and to follow possible changes in individual areas.

The scientists were not trying to find out whether people felt happier after eight weeks. They wanted to know whether changes could be found in the brain itself, and whether they would relate to areas involved in attention, emotions, or handling stress.

What did the Harvard study show?

The results suggested that after eight weeks of regular practice, changes were observed in some brain areas linked to learning, memory, and the regulation of emotions. It is important to emphasise that this was not a dramatic transformation of personality, nor a miraculous effect. Participants did not become calm sages overnight. The study did show, however, that the brain can respond even to a relatively short period of regular attention training.

These findings helped move meditation from the realm of personal experience closer to a topic that can be examined with the same methods as other psychological or health interventions.

Why does regularity matter?

Perhaps the most interesting finding is not the existence of the changes themselves, but the way they arise. Just as with movement or learning a foreign language, what matters most is regularity. The brain does not respond to a one-off burst of enthusiasm, but to repeated experience.

A few minutes a day can therefore matter more than one long meditation a month. It is regularity that gives the brain a chance to create new patterns and gradually strengthen skills linked to attention and handling stress.

i Tým autorů Calmory

What to take away from this article

Science does not yet have answers to every question connected with meditation. Studies do suggest, however, that regular work with attention is not only a subjective feeling. The brain can respond to it in a measurable way. It is not a quick fix, nor a miraculous method. As with other skills, the main role belongs to time, patience, and regularity. That is where the power of small steps that gradually add up lies.

Try it in Calmory

If you want to find out how you yourself respond to regular meditation, start with a few minutes a day. In the Calmory app you will find short meditations suitable even for complete beginners.

i Tým autorů Calmory