正念冥想可以通过令人惊讶的方式改善大脑

正念冥想可以通过令人惊讶的方式改善大脑

You've heard how good mindfulness is for you, but did you know it helps you grow new brain cells, changes how your brain functions and even resets your perception of pain?

你听说过正念对你有多好，但你知道它能帮助你培养新的脑细胞，改变你的大脑功能，甚至重置你对疼痛的感知吗?

Working mindfulness into your daily routine can mean sitting and breathing, but it can also manifest as noticing small changes in familiar environments. (Photo: Gajus/Shutterstock)

Various studies have led researchers to draw these conclusions, adding to the growing pile of evidence about why mindfulness meditation works so well for so many people in so many different ways. It starts with neuroscientists' increasing understanding that the brain is plastic — which means that, unlike your thigh bone, which grows to a certain size and stays that way for the rest of your life, your brain changes as you age.

各种各样的研究让研究人员得出了这些结论，为正念冥想为何能以如此多种不同的方式对如此多的人产生如此好的效果提供了越来越多的证据。它始于神经科学家对大脑可塑性的日益认识——这意味着，与你的大腿骨不同，你的大脑会随着年龄的增长而变化。

Below are a few of the most interesting studies about mindfulness and what they've found.

下面是一些关于正念最有趣的研究，以及他们的发现。

Mindfulness can reduce pain

正念可以减少疼痛

In a before-and-after look at the brains of subjects who had regularly meditated for just four days, researchers behind this study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that the perception of pain was dramatically reduced: How much? Mindfulness meditation "... significantly reduced pain unpleasantness by 57% and pain intensity ratings by 40% when compared to rest." This was, according to researchers, due to increased activity in areas of the brain involved with regulating the understanding of pain signals, the anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula.

这项研究发表在《神经科学杂志》上。研究人员对定期冥想四天的受试者的大脑进行了前后对比，发现他们对疼痛的感知能力大大降低:降低了多少?正念冥想”…与休息相比，明显减少了57%的疼痛不愉快感和40%的疼痛强度。”据研究人员称，这是由于大脑中与理解疼痛信号有关的区域，即前扣带皮层和前岛叶的活动增强。

It can help you grow more grey matter

它可以帮助你长出更多的灰质

The left hippocampus got larger in the subjects who practiced mindfulness for eight weeks. (Photo: Life science/Shutterstock)

A Harvard Medical School study published in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging that looked at the brains of 17 study participants before and after an eight-week mindfulness program found that their brains grew in certain places by doing mindfulness meditation, which sounds amazing: "Analyses ... confirmed increases in gray matter concentration within the left hippocampus. Whole brain analyses identified increases in the posterior cingulate cortex, the temporo-parietal junction, and the cerebellum in the MBSR [mindfulness meditation] group compared to the controls."

哈佛医学院的一项研究发表在《精神病学研究:神经成像》上。该研究观察了17名研究参与者在接受八周冥想训练前后的大脑。证实左海马灰质浓度增加。全脑分析发现，与对照组相比，MBSR(正念冥想)组的后扣带皮层、颞顶叶交界处和小脑有所增加。”

It can help you build more brain connections

它可以帮助你建立更多的大脑连接

A study from UCLA published in NeuroImage looked specifically at female subjects, and measured the brains (via fcMRI) of two groups — those who did mindfulness meditation for eight weeks and those who didn't. They found that among the meditators, there were better connections between the parts of the brains linked with sight and sound, as well as greater focus in those areas.

加州大学洛杉矶分校发表在《神经影像》杂志上的一项研究专门研究了女性受试者，并测量了两组受试者的大脑(通过fcMRI)——一组进行了八周的正念冥想，另一组没有。他们发现，在冥想者中，大脑中与视觉和听觉相关的部分有更好的连接，这些区域的注意力也更集中。

It can improve verbal learning

它可以提高语言学习效率

Mindfulness can potentially make it easier to learn new verbal information and then be able to remember it later. (Photo: hydra viridis/Shutterstock)

As in many of these experiments, this one shows the surprising payoff of a truly short-term commitment. After listening to a 10-minute mindfulness audio tape, participants boosted their verbal learning ability.

在许多这样的实验中，这个实验显示了一个真正的短期承诺的惊人回报。在听了10分钟的正念录音后，参与者提高了他们的语言学习能力。

It can curb your procrastination habit

它可以抑制你的拖延习惯

Procrastination is simply the failure to self-regulate, and mindfulness can help with that. (Photo: faithie/Shutterstock)

While this result may not seem surprising based on what you've already read, this study published in Personality and Individual Differences goes a step further, showing an inverse relationship between mindfulness and procrastination, researchers from Education University of Hong Kong found.

香港教育大学的研究人员发现，虽然根据你已经读过的内容，这个结果可能并不令人惊讶，但发表在《个性与个体差异》上的这项研究更进了一步，它显示了正念和拖延症之间的反向关系。

By looking at the habits of 339 Chinese college students, researchers found that when mindfulness was high, procrastination levels dropped, and vice versa. The study wasn't perfect — students took questionnaires at four specific times during a six-month period — but the pattern was evident throughout. And looking at other work on the connection, it makes sense. Some tasks provoke a negative emotional reaction, but as Timothy A Pychyl writes in Psychology Today, the answer is simply to bolster our emotional regulation — and that relies on mindfulness.

通过观察339名中国大学生的习惯，研究人员发现，当正念程度高时，拖延症水平下降，反之亦然。这项研究并不完美——学生们在六个月的时间里分四次接受问卷调查——但这种模式在整个研究过程中都很明显。看看其他关于这种联系的研究，这是有意义的。有些任务会引发消极的情绪反应，但正如蒂莫西·a·皮切尔在《今日心理学》上所写的那样，答案很简单，就是加强我们的情绪调节——而这依赖于正念。