How meditation works

What happens to the brain during meditation

We think that at least once in your life Windows has frozen, and you opened the «Task Manager» to bring your computer back to its senses.

Remember that there were several tabs there? Among them were «Applications» and «Processes».

Our mind is similar to this operating system in many ways, so instead of using Eastern religious terms, we will explain the principle of meditation through an analogy with Windows. No offense to MacOS fans.

Our «working memory» is crowded. Quite a lot of «Applications» are running there 24/7. Relationships, finances, politics, career, a tooth is tingling... All of this keeps rattling and demanding attention. And attention is a resource. You do remember that the brain consumes 20% of all our glucose, right?

On top of that, these programs often «glitch» - they immerse us in illusion, cause irrational anxiety, activate the zone of negative emotions, and may even lead us into a depressive state.

At the same time, the brain also performs many strategic tasks: it organizes work with the knowledge accumulated throughout life, learns, controls organs, and constantly tracks changes in the surrounding environment.

These brain activities are systemic and are located on the hypothetical tab called «Processes».

Of course, they also require both glucose and allocation of «working memory».

So, meditation - observing the breath, repeating a mantra, resting after yoga, or any other practice - turns off everything on the «Programs» tab.

All non-system activities are paused. You immerse yourself in total silence. There is nothing there except life itself. Even some system processes slow down.

This is a very deep kind of rest.

Deeper than sleep.

It allows the brain to recover. And it gives us the experience that when all thoughts disappear, we still remain. In other words, we and our thoughts are not the same thing.

This is the first stage.

Then comes the development of the ability to start and turn off «Programs» at will.

This is a very effective kind of inner work, and mastering it dramatically improves quality of life.