Many of you are aware of the calming and centering benefits of meditation already but Prevention Magazine has given us a very practical reason to try to master this long-practiced tradition.

You know that meditation can reduce stress, which research shows can damage brain cells and your ability to retain information over time. But the ancient practice can do more than just soothe your soul: It may also sharpen your memory. According to a University of Kentucky study, subjects who took a late-afternoon test after meditating for 40 minutes had significantly better scores than those who napped for the same period.

Even more surprising, when the subjects were retested after being deprived of a full night’s sleep, those who meditated still scored better than their study counterparts. How could that be? Meditation, like sleep, reduces sensory input, and this quiet state may provide a time for neurons to process and solidify new information and memories.

Brain scans have revealed that meditation produces a state somewhat similar to non-REM sleep (which many specialists believe is the more mentally restorative sleep phase), in that many neurons of the cortex fire in sync, says Bruce O’Hara, PhD, a coauthor of the study. “However, unlike when you sleep, consciousness is fully maintained in meditation, so there is no grogginess upon ‘awakening.’”

For regular, highly experienced meditators, the benefits to memory can be substantial. A 2004 University of Wisconsin Madison study discovered that the brains of long-term Buddhist practitioners who have meditated every day for many years generated the highest levels of gamma waves–a pattern of brain activity that’s associated with attention, working memory, and learning–ever reported in other studies.


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