If there was one habit you could build into your life -- assuming you already have some practice of Bible reading and prayer -- add meditation. Meditation will help your life in so many ways, it's hard to know where to start.
Today let's focus on new research -- shared by Stanford Professor Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., in her book “The Willpower Instinct” -- on the power of meditation to strengthen our our mental, emotional, and physical lives.
In her book, McGonagil talks about the things we can do to increase our
willpower. Can you guess the number one thing? The title of this newsletter might give you a hint: MEDITATION.
“There is growing scientific evidence that you can train your brain to get better at self-control. What does willpower training for your brain look like?
MEDITATION.”
“Neuroscientists have discovered that when you ask the brain to meditate, it gets better not just at meditating, but at a wide range of self-control skills, including attention, focus, stress management, impulse control, and self-awareness. People who
meditate regularly aren’t just better at these things. Over time, their brains become finely tuned willpower machines. Regular meditators have more gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, as well as regions of the brain that support self-awareness.”
Later she writes:
“One study found that just three hours of meditation practice led to improved attention and self-control. After eleven hours, researchers could see those changes in the brain. The new meditators had increased neural connections between regions of the brain important for staying focused, ignoring distractions, and controlling impulses. Another study found that eight weeks of daily meditation practice led
to increased self-awareness in everyday life, as well as increased gray matter in corresponding areas of the brain.
"It may seem incredible that our brains can reshape themselves so quickly, but meditation increases blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, in much the same way that
lifting weights increases blood flow to your muscles. The brain appears to adapt to exercise in the same way that muscles do, getting both bigger and faster in order to get better at what you ask of it.”
NOW … how you meditate is another question, something for another time. Meditation
relates closely to prayer. If you want to explore more about meditation, you can check out a couple videos I made about meditation, where I seek to help Christians to think about and practice meditation, if they might feel that it's more of "an Eastern thing":
