Brief Meditative Exercise Helps Cognition

While past research using neuroimaging technology has shown that meditation techniques can promote significant changes in brain areas associated with concentration, it has always been assumed that extensive training was required to achieve this effect. Though many people would like to boost their cognitive abilities, the monk-like discipline required seems like a daunting time commitment and financial cost for this benefit. Surprisingly, the benefits may be achievable even without all the work.

New research now suggests that the mind may be easier to cognitively train than we previously believed. Psychologists studying the effects of a meditation technique known as "mindfulness " found that meditation-trained participants showed a significant improvement in their critical cognitive skills (and performed significantly higher in cognitive tests than a control group) after only four days of training for only 20 minutes each day.

"Simply stated, the profound improvements that we found after just 4 days of meditation training- are really surprising," researchers noted. "It goes to show that the mind is, in fact, easily changeable and highly influenced, especially by meditation." The study appears in the April 2 issue of Consciousness and Cognition.

Bonnie - twenty minutes is ideal, but even ten minutes daily (five minutes upon arising and five minutes before bed) has shown to be not cognitively helpful, but reduces stress and anxiety.