Staying focused and paying attention can be a challenge for even the most patient and diligent individual, especially when it involves the examination of small differences that occur over long periods of time.

Now, researchers have found that Buddhist meditation can improve a person's attention span and help them focus. The research was initially inspired by the lifestyles of Buddhist monks, who spend their lives devoted to achieving peace and calmness through the art of meditation. Scientists wanted to see if those skills could affect a person's mental abilities.

To arrive at their findings, 60 people were recruited to partake in the study, which was published in the journal Psychological Science. Half of the group took part in a meditation retreat (test group) for three months while the other half did not (control group). Prior to the study, all of the volunteers had taken part in some form meditation retreat.

During the retreat, subjects were asked to watch lines flashing across a computer screen. When a line of a different length appeared, they were instructed to indicate it by clicking the mouse. The test was designed to measure a person's ability to pay attention and make minute visual distinctions.

The test was considered very demanding due to the monotony, and by extension boredom, that it involved. However, over time, the subjects were able to elevate their performance, with the improvements in perception translating into an increased ability to maintain focus and attention. The improvements lasted for up to five months after the retreat, particularly in people who continued meditating every day.

The findings also underscore the misconception that meditation retreats are fun and relaxing endeavors, and highlight the fact meditation, which requires the ability to sit still and undistracted for long periods, can itself be tedious and challenging.

The experiment is part of a broad comprehensive study looking at meditation. The work incorporates work in fields ranging from molecular biology, neuroscience, and anthropology. Scientists hope to learn more about how meditation may help us regulate our emotions as well as contribute to our overall mental health.

Meditation is believed to have been practiced since before recorded history. Some experts postulate that even primitive hunter-gatherers meditated, perhaps while gazing at the flames of their campfires. Over the course of thousands of years, meditation has evolved into the practice that we know today.

While it has been practiced in Eastern cultures for thousands of years, with Buddha being one of its major proponents, it has just recently become popular in the United States.

For more information, visit the website for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).