Hello and happy Friday. Welcome to Radio Headspace. It's Eve here with you.

So you may have heard me talk quite a bit about why I got into meditation many years ago.

And if you haven't, it was because of crippling anxiety. I was like a jack in the box,

reacting to every stressor in unhelpful ways and spending so much time worrying about things

that might happen that I couldn't see any joy in my life.

So I bring this up today because I was very skeptical about starting meditation.

How on earth could sitting still with your eyes closed help in any way at all?

But it turns out it helps quite a lot. And I wanted to share some of the scientific research

with you today and one study in particular that seriously changed the way I thought about

meditation and its impact especially on our brain.

Now this particular study was conducted in 2013 out of the University of Pittsburgh.

And it was done over a period of eight weeks while participants took part in a mindfulness-based

stress reduction course. Now I am not a neuroscientist so I will do my very best to explain it.

So in this study they used MRI scanners to look at changes in the brain.

And these changes refer to a process called neuroplasticity. Essentially a reshaping of

the brain. This happens throughout our life as certain parts of our brain are strengthened

and weakened. Anatomically our brains have different areas, each associated with unique

functions. And these functions work when there are neural connections that spark these

functions. For example when you learn a new language you are specifically making connections

or building pathways in a certain part of the brain associated with language. And when

it comes to meditation it can activate an area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex.

There is responsible for focus and higher level skills like critical thinking, decision-making

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