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Your reasoning makes sense. There's a fair amount of recent research (see "meditation" via Google Scholar) indicating that meditation does indeed reduce cortiso
by asmala 15y ago
Your reasoning makes sense. There's a fair amount of recent research (see "meditation" via Google Scholar) indicating that meditation does indeed reduce cortisol levels and hence that could be one pathway for its effects.
That said, mounting scientific evidence indicates that meditation also changes our brain structure in ways that have AFAIK not been observed with exercise.
For me my own experience would seem to confirm this. The benefits I observe from meditation are both qualitatively and quantitatively different from what I gain from exercise (both aerobic and heavy weights).
- thesz 15y agoThere's the question: are those meditation-induced changes in the brain structure beneficial? Experienced meditation practicioners can fire almost all neurons in their brains. In MRT it looks like epileptical seizure. So I stay on the "don't meditate, you'll be safer" side.
- asmala 15y agoInteresting and provocative question. I suppose that there's no way of objectively knowing if the changes are beneficial or even safe. (Come to think of it, how would we even define beneficial?) That said, I find your caution perhaps unwarranted. Many other circumstances are known to cause changes in brain-structure, e.g. growing up bilingual, but I think it would be rather unwarranted to warn against childhood language learning on the basis of this. Personally I am content with the proof of my own experience; the changes I see in my own psyche and mental performance are entirely positive.