Train Your Mind: Evolve Your Brain
The fascination with mind training goes back many thousands of years. The most successful hunters practiced it twenty thousand years ago in the form of conscious use of the imagination. World-class athletes today train their minds with neurofeedback and other high-tech measures in order to improve their performance.
Brain scans are now revealing that mind training actually changes the anatomy and function of the brain. In fact, so profound are these changes that researchers such as Dr. Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin have discovered the brain physically changes after as little as eight weeks of mindfulness meditation. His research has demonstrated that min
Mindfulness practice improves brain structure and function.
dfulness meditation actually increases gray matter density and cortical thickness—in other words, it actually causes the brain to grow and evolve. From time to time I will present mindfulness and other proven methods of mind training, such as the Relaxation Response and Autogenic Training in this blog, and I will recommend various practices that increase environmental mastery.
These are helpful bite-size blog posts. I look forward to reading more. This inspires me to keep doing my best to practice training my mind in positive directions.
It wasn’t too many years ago that we were all being taught that our brain had a certain number of brain cells and that as they died off over the years that was it…. Basically, you couldn’t teach an old dog new tricks.
In the last decade or so, the idea of neuroplasticity… the ability for the brain to re-wire itself based on experiences, including as adults has come to be accepted…
What I found very important about your post is the title… “train your brain, evolve your mind.”
Not only do changes in the brain affect the mind…. changing or “training” the mind affects the brain… I think this concept is so key to the idea of personal change and growth.
Look forward to reading more of your blog posts.
The extent of plasticity is such that virtually all behavior changes the brain. Every thought changes the brain to the extent to which we are fused with the thought. What a great motivator to practice mindfulness!