Does this start to sound confusing?

Well, it does because there has been plenty of evidence that meditation has plenty of positive effects on wellbeing and particularly in stress reduction and this has been reported to leave structural traces in the brain.

So, who is right?

To answer that question, we have to understand what we are trying to measure and how we are doing this. For example, a bunch of meditation researchers noted in 2018 that there is little consistency in meditation research. Why so – well the nature of meditation is that you could be doing different types of meditation for different periods of times with different population groups: experienced meditators, novices, those who are stressed, etc, etc.

On top of this once you start doing brain scanning studies these become very expensive, which therefore needs funding, and sample sizes decrease massively – it takes a long time to scan people.

So, this leaves us with two fundamental problems. First of comparability, and second of sample sizes. These researchers around Richard J. Davidson at University of Wisconsin-Madison aimed to resolve this. They recruited 218 (a much larger group than in most meditation studies) people with no previous experience of meditation or mindfulness, and they all had brain scans. They were then randomly assigned to one of three groups.

• • An eight-week mindfulness training programme with trained instructors.
  • An eight-week Health Enhancement Programme
  • A control group with no action taken or instructed

They all then repeated the brain scans. So, what did they find?

They found no significant changes to the brain of those in the intervention groups.

Disappointing right? Well, not really and the researchers themselves note why:

• • Some previous studies have taken people who have voluntarily enrolled in a stress reduction course, for example. This means they are already stressed and reducing this will have significant changes. Note though that it probably doesn’t have to be a mindfulness intervention.
  • The intervention is short, so this does not rule out changes over longer periods of time.
  • Meditation is a complex cognitive process that will impact multiple regions of the brain, and this can and will be very individualised. This means across a large group it will be hard to identify and consolidate any patterns.
  • Those in the two intervention groups reported increased wellbeing compared to the control group. So, meditation or a health intervention do have positive subjective impacts.

So does meditation change the brain? Well, the basic paradigm of neuroscience is what “what fires together, wires together” which translates as if you do something you build new connections, or strengthen existing connections. So yes, if you do something different it will leave a trace in the brain over time. But this applies to everything: if you start playing tennis, chess, reading more, playing cognitive games, etc. etc. These will all change your brain if it is new, and will build and strengthen specific circuits. How it changes is another question, and this is likely very individualised.

But there are also clear health benefits, and this in itself is a good thing. But as the above research also noted this doesn’t have to be meditation.

So, my advice to you is: if you enjoy meditation, do it. You will be reaping multiple benefits. If you don’t, make sure you focus on other ways to manage your health – because that will lead to higher wellbeing – and a happier life. And who doesn’t want that.