Excerpted from an article by the same name in Yoga Journal August 2012.
The miracle of meditation is no secret. A vast and growing body of research shows that meditating can reduce stress, alleviate anxiety and depression, increase your attention span, and deepen your compassion for others, among its many other benefits. We know now that regular meditation can change the physical structure of the brain, and recent studies by scientists at the University of Wisconsin and UCLA suggest…that meditation might make your brain better at cognitive functions such as processing information and forming memories.