May 05, 2020 12:00:00

To reduce stress and improve concentration, all you need to do is focus on your breathing for 10 minutes

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, some people have switched to remote work, but instead of reducing their commute time, the boundaries between work and private life have become blurred, and some people may have experienced increased stress.

Inverse , a scientific media outlet, explains the scientific effects of 'meditation,' which focuses on breathing, not only reduces stress but also increases concentration.

Mindfulness and mind wandering: The protective effects of brief meditation in anxious individuals - ScienceDirect
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053810016303142

Meditation: Researchers find 3 cognitive benefits while working remotely
https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/how-meditation-can-help-you-focus-on-work-at-home

◆Improve concentration

In

a study conducted by researchers at the University of Waterloo, 82 subjects were divided into two groups and asked to perform computer tasks while measuring their concentration. One group was asked to meditate for 10 minutes before the task, while the other group was asked to listen to an audio story. The results showed that meditation had a protective effect on subjects who were anxious and whose attention was shifting between the outside world and their own worries. The experiment showed that meditation eliminated wandering thoughts and allowed subjects to focus better on the task at hand.

Sharpen your thinking

The point of meditation is to focus on your breathing, and research from Trinity College

has shown that breathing while meditating affects a chemical in the brain called norepinephrine .

Norepinephrine is a neurotransmitter that is released when you are challenged, excited, focused, or emotionally excited, and if released in appropriate amounts, it acts like fertilizer to promote new connections in the brain. In other words, the fact that breathing increases norepinephrine can be rephrased as 'how you breathe can increase your attention and promote brain health.'

The researchers also found that the subjects who meditated and showed better focus during the experiment had their breathing patterns synchronized with their focus, suggesting that breathing exercises can help stabilize focus and may also benefit brain health.

'Our attention is affected by our breathing, rising and falling with each respiratory cycle,' said Michael Melnychuk, lead author of the study. 'By focusing on and controlling your breathing, you can optimize your concentration.'

Reduce mistakes

Humans make mistakes, but it's natural to want to reduce them as much as possible. In a study at Michigan State University, 200 people with no meditation experience were asked to meditate for 20 minutes, have their brain waves measured, and then take a test to measure their level of distraction.

According to Jeff Lin, co-author of the study, the meditating group did not immediately perform better on the test, but they did notice that the neural signals generated after false positives were larger than those in the non-meditating group.

Regarding this phenomenon, Lin said, '20 minutes of meditation has been shown to increase a person's ability to detect mistakes. This gives us confidence that meditation can help improve everyday functioning and performance in the present moment.'

You can read more about how to meditate in the following article:

QuietKit: A tool and guide to making meditation a habit and relieving yourself of daily stress - GIGAZINE

by Pietro Bellini