Meditation is an ancient discipline, but scientists have only recently developed tools sophisticated enough to see what goes on in your brain when you do it

Scientists began studying meditation several decades ago. In his seminal 1970s research, Harvard Medical School cardiologist Herbert Benson found that even a highly simplified form of meditation produced sustained physiological benefits such as reduced heart, metabolic, and breathing rates. His 1975 bestseller The Relaxation Response detailed the first scientific validation of meditative practice and fostered the growth of stress reduction clinics in workplaces, hospitals, and other settings. But until recently, there has been no reliable way to collect objective data on purported mental effects such as sharpened mental focus, freedom from negative judgments, and increased compassion.
 

Advances in functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI) have opened the dynamics of the human brain to objective study. Recent fMRI studies on brain activity suggest that moods and dispositions are rooted in specific regions of the organ. For example, positive states of mind are marked by high activity in the left frontal area, while activity in the right frontal area coincides with negative states.

Open Soul Meditation and Science

Even people meditating, open soul meditation, for the first time will register a decrease in beta waves, a sign that the cortex is not processing information as actively as usual. After their first 60-minute session, users show a marked decrease in beta-wave activity.

What happens inside your brain when you do open soul meditation? 
 

Frontal lobe: This is the most highly evolved part of the brain, responsible for reasoning, planning, emotions and self-conscious awareness. During meditation, the frontal cortex tends to go offline.
 

Parietal lobe: This part of the brain processes sensory information about the surrounding world, orienting you in time and space. During meditation, activity in the parietal lobe slows down.
 

Thalamus: The gatekeeper for the senses, this organ focuses your attention by funneling some sensory data deeper into the brain and stopping other signals in their tracks. Meditation reduces the flow of incoming information to a trickle.
 

Reticular formation: As the brain's sentry, this structure receives incoming stimuli and puts the brain on alert, ready to respond. Meditating dials back the arousal signal.

After Open Soul meditation in meditation for 4-8 weeks, users show a pronounced change in brain-wave patterns, shifting from the alpha waves of aroused, conscious thought to the theta waves that dominate the brain during periods of deep relaxation.

Relaxation increases... Power of theta waves as a percentage of total EEG power.
 

Conscious thought decreases Power of alpha waves as a percentage of total EEG power.
 

From a scientific standpoint, however, it would be interesting to note that the relationship between brain activity and meditation has been extensively investigated during the last three decades. The popular view today is that meditations produces a type of relaxation — not sleep. Which is one reason why the ,open soul meditation, classy method has become one of the many ways to teach people/patients how to relax.
 

It, therefore, comes as no surprise that EEG [electroencephalograph, an instrument which records small electrical impulses produced by the brain] studies have shown that meditation may not just be a ‘novel’ state of consciousness, but also multi-faceted. That’s not all. Researchers like Daniel ‘Emotional Intelligence’ Goleman argue that behaviours typically called concentration and mindfulness could be best described as strategies used to change one’s awareness of internal, or external, stimuli.
 

Open soul meditation research has demonstrated this wide range of psychological benefits:

• Improvement in measurements of personality

• Decrease in neurotic tendencies

• Increase in psychic sensitivity

• Improvement in study efficiency and exam performance

• Increase in efficiency of problem solving

• Improvement in creativity in the visual arts

• Decrease in drug and alcohol abuse

Though scientists are still exploring exactly how and why open soul meditation works, we already know that it has both physiological and psychological benefits. And many therapists consider it a valid complement to more traditional therapies. So perhaps we should simply do what makes us feel better in the end.