Mindfulness has been shown to improve cognitive inhibition
There is evidence that meditation can improve cognitive inhibition. Undergrads volunteered to try ten-minute sessions of either focusing on counting their breath or an apt comparison task: browsing Huffington Post, Snapchat, or BuzzFeed. Just three ten-minute sessions of breath counting was enough to appreciably increase their attention skills on a battery of tests. And the biggest gains were among the heavy multitaskers, who did more poorly on those tests initially, as multitasking can worsen cognitive inhibition.
Even beginners in meditation can sharpen their attention skills, with some surprising benefits. For instance, researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara gave volunteers an eight-minute instruction of mindfulness of their breath, and found that this short focusing session (compared to reading a newspaper or just relaxing) lessened how much their mind wandered afterward.
While that finding is of interest, the follow-up was even more compelling. The same researchers gave volunteers a two-week course in mindfulness of breathing, as well as of daily activities like eating, for a total of six hours, plus ten-minute booster sessions at home daily. The active control group studied nutrition for the same amount of time. Again, mindfulness improved concentration and lessened mind-wandering.
References
- Goleman, Daniel. Davidson, A., Richard. (2017). Altered Traits Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body Chapter 7. Attention! (p. 128). Garden City, NY: Avery.
Metadata
Type:🔴 Tags: Psychology / Cognitive Science / Yoga Status:⛅️