Meditation leads to increased intelligence: Improve skills and abilities

TMhome.com    Translate This Article
13 January 2016

Modern science no longer treats intelligence as a fixed trait.

Instead, it's now universally accepted that cognitive abilities can change in both positive and negative ways. For example, stress has a damaging effect on mental functioning whereas practices such as meditation clearly enhance one's intelligence.

The Transcendental Meditation technique

One of proven brain-boosting meditation techniques is Transcendental Meditation (TM). When it comes to intelligence, the technique works in two beneficial directions. First of all, TM has been proven to counteract the negative effects of stress. Secondly, TM produces changes in the brain which are positively linked to better mental functioning, such as:

∙ increased cerebral blood flow;
∙ increased EEG broadband frontal coherence, power ratios, and preparatory brain responses (measures correlated with improved cognitive functioning);
∙ reduced stress hormone (cortisol) levels.

Better skills and abilities: Studies with adults

Studies with adults in different work settings have found that Transcendental Meditation practice improves:

∙ employee effectiveness
∙ physiological settledness and stability during mental task performance (measured by skin conductance levels)
∙ leadership abilities

Better skills and abilities: Studies with children

In experiments comparing the effect of Transcendental Meditation, napping and contemplative meditation on high school students, TM practice was found to improve test scores in the following areas:

∙ ability to successfully reason in new situations
∙ speed of information processing
∙ ability to achieve and maintain emotional and physical well-being, succeed in work, love, social relationships
∙ a cluster of traits including cognitive functioning, personality and social behavior
∙ balanced use of cognitive, affective and volitional domains (traits like comprehension, analysis, curiosity, unconventionality, synthesis, and measured risk-taking)
∙ reduction of anxiety

Napping/resting group did not improve on any of the above mentioned test scores. Contemplative meditation group only improved on two measures.

For children aged 4 to 9, there exists a form of Transcendental Meditation practice suitable for their age called the Word of Wisdom technique. Compared to controls, preschoolers and elementary school students practicing either Transcendental Meditation or Word of Wisdom, improved on following variables:

∙ focus and attention;
∙ intellectual/cognitive performance
∙ general intelligence
∙ analytical ability

Copyright © 2016 TMhome

See related articles:
∙ Exploring the frontiers of neuroscience and Transcendental Meditation
∙ Cardiologist Dr Suzanne Steinbaum on transcending heart disease: Transcendental Meditation improves heart health



Translation software is not perfect; however if you would like to try it, you can translate this page using:

(Google) Select a language English to Afrikaans English to Albanian English to Arabic English to Belarusian English to Bulgarian English to Catalan English to Chinese (Simplified) English to Chinese (Traditional) English to Croatian English to Czech English to Danish English to Dutch English to Estonian English to Filipino English to Finnish English to French English to Galician English to German English to Greek English to Hebrew English to Hindi English to Hungarian English to Icelandic English to Indonesian English to Irish English to Italian English to Japanese English to Korean English to Latvian English to Lithuanian English to Macedonian English to Malay English to Maltese English to Norwegian English to Persian English to Polish English to Portuguese English to Romanian English to Russian English to Serbian English to Slovak English to Slovenian English to Spanish English to Swahili English to Swedish English to Thai English to Turkish English to Ukrainian English to Vietnamese English to Welsh English to Yiddish

(Altavista babelfish) Select a languageEnglish to Chinese-simpEnglish to Chinese-tradEnglish to DutchEnglish to PortugueseEnglish to FrenchEnglish to GermanEnglish to GreekEnglish to ItalianEnglish to JapaneseEnglish to KoreanEnglish to RussianEnglish to Spanish