The food article recently linked to mentioned a study involving the cerebral cortex and meditation. It sounded interesting, so I thought I’d look it up.

Here’s a description of the actual study: (Warning, it’s pretty heavy material!) Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness

Here’s a TIME article which summarizes the study and relates it to living in the corporate world: How to Get Smarter, One Breath at a Time

If that’s all too much reading for your time, the basic conclusions from the study are:

1. Meditation seems to be related to physical changes in parts of the brain important for “sensory, cognitive and emotional processing.”

2. Meditation may affect some brain declines related to aging.

(If you ever check out actual research info like that, the scientific wording always comes down to “may impact” and “may be associated with.” But such statements are generally a lot more strongly supported than they sound.)