Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Kundalini and the Brain
The following excerpt appeared on "Body Divine Yoga) by DANIELLE PROHOM OLSON. This is a very interesting website and I recommend it highly.
Dr. Andrew Newberg is a neuroscientist currently conducting a brain imaging study on Kundalini Yoga. Though the results of the yoga studies are yet unpublished, Newberg states the preliminary findings demonstrate that after only eights weeks of practise of Kirtan Kriya (a yogic meditation) blood flow to the frontal lobes of the brain was dramatically increased.
This echoes Newberg earlier MRI studies on Tibetan Buddhist mediators, which found that during deep meditation the pre-frontal cortex was highly activated. His scans revealed that blood flow to the brains orientation association area, (responsible for drawing the line between the physical self and the rest of existence – was dramatically reduced). The line between the self and the world out there were melded in the mystical state of oneness so often described by mystics.
This not only sharpened the monk’s intelligence, thinking skills, creativity and memory, it quieted the amygdala (centre of fear and anxiety in the brain) increasing feelings of joy and peacefulness. Other studies have since supported Newberg, showing that meditation increases activity in the left-prefrontal lobe in particular. Activity in this lobe is associated with feelings of happiness and contentment.
But most startling, recent studies by both Harvard and Yale universities have demonstrated that regular meditators not only increased function in their frontal lobes, they had literally increased its size and volume!
Neuroscientists like to say, ‘Neurons that fire together, wire together” meaning when you think and do certain things repeatedly, you create neural pathways that get deeper and deeper over time. Where we direct our attention defines us on a neurological level. What we repeatedly think about and where we focus our attention, is what we neurologically become.
image found on internet
