Yoga and meditation, share the misfortune of an indelible association with the “pseudosciences.” Their journey into the Western mainstream is freckled with varying flavors of derision: hippy-woo woo to pastime of the bourgeoisie. Scholarly appreciation persisted throughout, however, intimating improvements to cardiovascular health, blood pressure but most principally cognition. More than the placebic benefits described by distractors wishing to sensor their dismissal, yoga, and meditation actually alters the neurophysiology of our brains. Or so a new study claims…
A look at yoga’s effect on the brain
The Rotterdam Study is an on-going, prospective population-based cohort study that was initiated in the Netherlands all the way back in 1990 by Professor Albert Hoffman. Hoffman sought to record and observe all the occurrences of cardiovascular, neurological, ophthalmological, endocrinological, and psychiatric maladies that impact elderly people. Using this bounty of data, researchers were able to publish a new report in the journal of Brain Imaging and Behavior. According to its review of more than 15,00 participants aged 45 and up, both yoga and meditation affect areas of the brain associated with emotional processing.
The Rotterdam Study is an on-going, prospective population-based cohort study that was initiated in the Netherlands all the way back in 1990 by Professor Albert Hoffman. Hoffman sought to record and observe all the occurrences of cardiovascular, neurological, ophthalmological, endocrinological, and psychiatric maladies that impact elderly people. Using this bounty of data, researchers were able to publish a new report in the journal of Brain Imaging and Behavior. According to its review of more than 15,00 participants aged 45 and up, both yoga and meditation affect areas of the brain associated with emotional processing.
The study, titled “Meditation and yoga practice are associated with smaller right amygdala volume: the Rotterdam study“, can be found in the journal Brain Imaging and Behavior, and was authored by Rinske A. Gotink, Meike W. Vernooij, M. Arfan Ikram, Wiro J. Niessen, Gabriel P. Krestin, Albert Hofman, Henning Tiemeier, and M. G. Myriam Hunink.
This article was originally published on The Ladders.
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