(Credit: iStockphoto/Yanik Chauvin)

Breaking News – Meditation is good for you. Well, that statement is not that revolutionary really, there’s been plenty on this before, but this latest research helps us understand HOW it works.

The Australian of a new study which found that “Zen meditation helps lower sensitivity to pain by thickening a part of the brain that regulates emotion and painful sensations“. The researchers measured the thickness of grey matter of meditators compared to people who don’t meditate and found the meditators had increased thickness in areas related to pain sensitivity. The reduction in pain sensitivity was found to be 18%, and in addition to measuring grey matter thickness (boring), the researchers did things like apply a hot plate to the calf muscle of the participants of the study (fun).

In their words, “We found a relationship between cortical thickness and pain sensitivity”. That is, the more you do, the thicker those parts of the brain become, and the better your pain sensitivity will be.

It’s basically the same as doing Physical Exercise – let’s look at weights for example – you get stronger and thicker muscles the more you do. With meditation, a form of Mental Exercise, the more you do, the more robust your brain becomes.

I see a lot of people who “binge” with their exercise. The usual pattern is to get an injury, come in, get some exercises, do them until you feel better, stop doing them, get injured again. Obviously your best move is to stay as fit and strong as possible ALL THE TIME – this way you are less likely to get injured.

The same applies for Mental Training. If you are under high stress, not sleeping well, or suffer some form of anxiety, depression etc and you want to use Meditation as part of your health plan, I would advise you, after reading this research, to BE CONSISTENT with it. You may not get fantastic results by doing something like an intense bout of 10 sessions, but if you are consistent, over time you will get results.