"YALE (US) — People who are experienced meditators seem to switch off areas of the brain associated with daydreaming—and with psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.
Less day dreaming is associated with increased happiness levels, says Judson A. Brewer, assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University, who believes understanding how meditation works may aid investigations into a host of diseases.
“Meditation has been shown to help in variety of health problems, such as helping people quit smoking, cope with cancer, and even prevent psoriasis,” Brewer says.
For the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging scans on both experienced and novice meditators as they practiced three different meditation techniques.
Experienced meditators had decreased activity in areas of the brain called the default mode network, which has been implicated in lapses of attention and disorders such as anxiety, attention deficit, and hyperactivity disorder, and even the buildup of beta amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s disease."
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