Rewiring My Brain Through Meditation, with Andy Puddicombe

(gentle music) Headspace Studio. Hi, my name's Andy and welcome to "Radio Headspace" and to Monday morning. So what now you've woken up feeling this morning? I was looking back a few days ago at one of my favorite books and the author of this book has been called the happiest person in the world. I can think as well of another person who's had that same title who was on the front of Time Magazine once. They both happened to be Buddhist monks. I quite like to see them going up against each other, to be honest, smiling, seeing who can give the biggest smile. It's an interesting thing. We don't talk a lot about science on "Radio Headspace", but there is something interesting at looking at what's happening beyond the mind, perhaps in the brain, in the body as we train the mind, no matter what nature that training takes, whether it's more sort of reflection, contemplative, meditation, whatever it might be. Certainly in these studies where they've ended up coming out with these ideas of sort of the happiest person or the most compassionate person, they're looking very specifically at what's happening in the brain and the different areas of the brain, the areas of brain associated with feelings of positive wellbeing, where we perhaps might be less reactive, where we might be more focused. There's something I think, really interesting in that. The bottom line, of course, is that it's how we feel. It's not what we read about in a a scientific paper, but it is helpful. It's helpful to know 'cause some days, right, you sit down and it doesn't necessarily feel like anything's happening, it doesn't feel like anything's changing. And to know that actually even in those moments, something is still changing, something's happening, that the brain is being rewired in some way, I think can bring a lot of comfort, a lot of benefit. And hey, maybe you know someone who you think would really benefit from meditation. I'm not suggesting that you go and tell them about it or push it on them, but you know, you could casually leave like a scientific paper or something around the house, you know, just saying, "Hey look, when you meditate, these kind of things happen." And it's interesting 'cause it is the brain as well as the mind. They're not the same thing, but they're very, very connected. And we know that when we sit and meditate that the brain itself is changing, that those areas of the brain, the cortex in the brain that's getting thicker and stronger as it receives more blood flow. The easiest way to think about it is going to a gym and training a muscle, it gets more blood flow, breaks down, it builds back up again, it gets thicker, and it gets stronger. The same thing's happening in the mind. So when we sit down again regardless, as long as we are training with the...