Study: A short meditation significantly increases mental performance

Meditation study confirms the positive effects

Just ten minutes of meditation is enough to solve cognitive tasks faster and more accurately than people who do not meditate. These are the results of a recent study on meditation. According to the researchers, people who have never meditated before should also benefit from short meditations.

The study was conducted among college students from Yale University and Swarthmore College. Subjects had to listen to a ten-minute meditation and then solve cognitive tasks. A control group had to do the same tasks without meditation. As it turned out, the meditation group completed the cognitive tasks faster and more accurately than the control group of the same age. The study results were recently published in the specialist journal "Frontiers of Neuroscience".

Meditation improves mental performance in a short time

"We have known for some time that people who meditate for a few weeks or months perform better in cognitive tests," explains the lead author of the study, Hedy Kober, in a press release on the study results. The study of her current study has now shown that you don't have to practice for weeks to see improvements.

Course of the study

Kober is a professor of psychology and psychiatry. Her research team randomly divided the students into two groups. A group listened to a ten-minute meditation instruction before doing cognitive tests. The second group heard a ten-minute recording of sequoias. After that, both groups were given simple tasks to measure cognitive ability. Those who had listened to meditation performed significantly better.

There is one exception, however

The study also showed that subjects who had high neuroticism scores in personality tests benefited less from meditation. Along with other values ​​such as openness, perfectionism, sociability and empathy, neuroticism is one of the foundations of every personality. People with a high neuroticism value tend to be restless, nervous, irritable, insecure, embarrassed, anxious and melancholy. In addition, these people are sensitive to stress and tend to show dissatisfaction.

Is meditation unsuitable for such people?

"We don't know whether longer meditation sessions or multiple sessions would improve their cognitive results," said Kober. The psychology professor would like to test this more closely in future studies. (vb)

Author and source information

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