{"id":579,"date":"2009-05-13T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-13T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2009\/05\/meditators-have-bigger-brains.html"},"modified":"2009-05-13T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-13T07:00:00","slug":"meditators-have-bigger-brains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/05\/meditators-have-bigger-brains.html","title":{"rendered":"Meditators have bigger brains"},"content":{"rendered":"

New research using MRI scans from UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging shows evidence that meditators have larger brains<\/a> than a control group of non-meditators. The lead author of the journal article, Eileen Luders summarizes,”We know that people who consistently meditate have a singular
\nability to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability and
\nengage in mindful behavior…The observed differences in brain anatomy might give us a clue why
\nmeditators have these exceptional abilities.<\/i>” <\/p>\n

In particular, they found: “meditators showed significantly larger
\nvolumes of the hippocampus and areas within the orbito-frontal cortex,
\nthe thalamus and the inferior temporal gyrus — all regions known for
\nregulating emotions<\/em>.” <\/p>\n

Luders adds, “these might be the neuronal underpinnings that give meditators’
\nthe outstanding ability to regulate their emotions and allow for
\nwell-adjusted responses to whatever life throws their way.<\/i>“<\/p>\n

I know that I am not supposed to be goal-oriented when I meditate, but how cool is it that in a few years I can literally respond, “oh yeah, well I have a bigger brain than you.” Okay, not really. I wouldn’t do that. I will just think it to myself in a moment of weakness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New research using MRI scans from UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging shows evidence that meditators have larger brains than a control group of non-meditators. The lead author of the journal article, Eileen Luders summarizes,”We know that people who consistently meditate have a singular ability to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability and engage in mindful…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism","category-right-lifestyle"],"yoast_head":"\nMeditators have bigger brains - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/05\/meditators-have-bigger-brains.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meditators have bigger brains - One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"New research using MRI scans from UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging shows evidence that meditators have larger brains than a control group of non-meditators. The lead author of the journal article, Eileen Luders summarizes,”We know that people who consistently meditate have a singular ability to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability and engage in mindful…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/05\/meditators-have-bigger-brains.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-05-13T07:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kirsten Firminger\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Meditators have bigger brains - One City","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/05\/meditators-have-bigger-brains.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Meditators have bigger brains - One City","og_description":"New research using MRI scans from UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging shows evidence that meditators have larger brains than a control group of non-meditators. The lead author of the journal article, Eileen Luders summarizes,”We know that people who consistently meditate have a singular ability to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability and engage in mindful…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/05\/meditators-have-bigger-brains.html","og_site_name":"One City","article_published_time":"2009-05-13T07:00:00+00:00","author":"Kirsten Firminger","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/05\/meditators-have-bigger-brains.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/05\/meditators-have-bigger-brains.html","name":"Meditators have bigger brains - One City","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-05-13T07:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-05-13T07:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/a90ff8a2e5338c7bea186e4f1f2fed8a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/05\/meditators-have-bigger-brains.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/05\/meditators-have-bigger-brains.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/05\/meditators-have-bigger-brains.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Meditators have bigger brains"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/","name":"One City","description":"The Interdependence Project","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/a90ff8a2e5338c7bea186e4f1f2fed8a","name":"Kirsten Firminger","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/04d\/04d9ff4a933eb5491603646376f47519x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/04d\/04d9ff4a933eb5491603646376f47519x96.jpg","caption":"Kirsten Firminger"},"description":"Kirsten Firminger is a Doctoral Candidate in Social Psychology. 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Her research interests center on understanding the processes of social and behavioral change.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/kfirminger"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}