At a glance

Source : Emotion

Tags:  meditation, Zen, brain, thick, pain, sensitivity,

Thick brain: less pain

16 March 2010

Researchers have found that practising Zen meditation can reduce sensitivity to pain by thickening parts of your brain. The researchers compared Zen meditators to people who had never meditated and who in addition never practised yoga, experienced chronic pain, neurological or psychological illness. When a heat plate was exposed to the skin on the calf of each of the subjects, the meditators were significantly less sensitive to the pain. MRI scans showed that the meditators had brain regions involved in emotion and pain regulation that were significantly thicker than the non-meditators. More years of meditation resulted in thicker grey matter and the thicker the grey matter, the less sensitivity to pain. The good news from this is that if you start meditating the next time someone says, “Geez, you’re thick!”, on the one hand it will be true and on the other it won’t hurt as much.