Meditate to Take Your Brain to the Gym!
How meditation strengthens our mind and self-control
The Prefrontal Cortex is the most evolved part of our brain. It is the centre of higher thought and controls the involuntary and emotional functions emanating in deeper parts of the brain, e.g., the limbic systems such as the amygdala and the hypothalamus, among others.
Suppose we make our prefrontal cortex (PFC) powerful enough to control what we rationally accept as undesirable states created by the limbic system. In that case, we are well on the way to self-control, calmness and peace.
Meditation takes our prefrontal cortex to the brain gym.
During meditation, we primarily train our PFC to calm and still the sensing and reacting parts of the brain. We get it to try and concentrate our mind exclusively on a word or image or make it blank. Check this out the next time you meditate. I feel a pleasant strain in the upper part of the head, but particularly behind the high forehead, sort of in the cockpit of the brain. I see this as the prefrontal cortex engaged in concentration and control.
The PFC thereby curbs the limbic functions for a while. If it can do this for 10–15 minutes at a time, even discontinuously, it builds its ‘muscles’. Then it can exercise this command and restraint of…
