There are many benefits that meditation brings us: among other things, it reduces anxiety, stress and helps us boost our emotional well-being. But what happens in our brain while we meditate?
A team of researchers from the University of Oslo (Norway) has tried to answer this question through an experiment with 14 participants who practiced non-directive meditation, specifically the Acem method , whose technique does not use concentration, but allows spontaneous thoughts flow during meditation .
The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience , explains that all the volunteers underwent magnetic resonance imaging , both when they were resting and when they were practicing both concentration-based and non-directive meditation. The researchers found that when the participants practiced non-directive meditation, they had greater brain activity in the areas associated with processing thoughts and feelings than when they were resting. However, when practicing the concentration technique, the brain activity of the subjects was practically the same as when they were resting.
These findings suggest that nondirective meditation " allows more room to process memories and emotions than during concentration-based mediation," says study leader Svend Davanger.
