By now you may have heard that meditation is good for you that it can even change your life.

High-performing professionals of all sorts have talked about how meditation helps them deal with stress and succeed in demanding environments.

Prominent advocates include Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, Oprah Winfrey, and media pros like Dan Harris and George Stephanopoulos. Plenty of Wall Street executives and Google employees are into meditation as well, and of course, the late Steve Jobs was a big fan.

But even with an impressive list of supporters, you may still wonder: Why?

Why is meditation theoretically so good, so helpful, so transformative?

The good folks at AsapSCIENCE took the time to dig into the actual research into meditation for one of their latest videos you can check out the full video below, but here are seven things that scientific research tells us about what meditation does for the body and brain.

1. Meditation can help you deal with stress and negative emotions.

Multiple studies have shownthat meditation can help reduce levels of depression and anxiety, along with helping people tolerate pain better. The researchers conclude that mindfulness meditation in particular might help people deal with psychological stress, though they say that more research is needed into how meditation might help lead to positive mental health (beyond reducing effects of negative stresses).

2. At the same time, meditation could boost positive skills like memory and awareness.

Research shows that meditators have unique brains with well-developed areas that might be connected to the mastery of awareness and emotional control. While it's possible that people with such brains might be more likely to meditate in the first place, other research does show that after completing a meditation program there are changes in participants' brains that are connected to memory, self-awareness, and perspective.

Read the original:
7 ways meditation changes your brain and body