This is a wonderful article that covers a lot of what has already been posted, but summarizes it well. The brain structures that change as a result of meditation are legion.
Neuroplasticity is all the rage now in neuroscience and psychology. Meditation seems to be the king of neuroplasticity tools. If you want to change your life, change your brain. If you want to change your brain, meditate!
8 weeks is the standard study time. Probably because of the UMass MBSR center (Jon Kabat Zin). But I keep reading different times daily for an effect. this study shows 30 minutes has a grey matter effect.
Cognitively-Based Compassion Training was developed at Emory University. Their studies used non-meditators in an eight week program. With testing using fMRI brain scans and empathy testing they found an increase in test results as well as an increase in neural activity in areas of the brain important for empathy.
It is interesting to me how many of the studies that I come across are eight week long studies. This is usually because the work is based in the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course developed by Jon Kabat-Zin which is itself eight weeks long. But in this case, it was a separate study.
Eight weeks seems to give a lot of benefits. But there are other studies that show even shorter amounts of time can produce results.
Compassion meditation may boost neural basis of empathy, study finds.
Meditation for the rest of us. The study showing that meditation is good even if you are not a Tibetan monk who has done it for 10000 hours minimum. Just 8 weeks of 30 minutes a day shows an observable difference IN THE STRUCTURE OF THE BRAIN!
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/a_little_meditation_goes_a_long_way/
Please, practice mindfulness. If not for yourself, for the sake of your child! Won’t somebody remember the children!
The Mother load of meditation articles and links
More good science based news on mindfulness. Doctors with mindfulness skills are better Doctors. I certainly would prefer to go to a Doctor who could be present with me during the 7-10 minutes that they spend during any given visit.
