Meditation is a way to help calm and relax a person, as well as maintain focus and concentration. Now, it turns out that it may actually give our brains a boost and thereby improve cognitive function.

In fact, according to a new study, just 11 hours of learning the meditation technique known as integrative body-mind training (IBMT) appeared to induce positive changes in neural connections. Efficiency was increased in the regions of the brain that are involved in regulating goal orientation.

IBMT is a relatively new discipline and is generally not offered in this country outside of the academic field of study. The technique encourages people to avoid trying to control their thoughts and instead rely on a state of restful alertness. This will lead to a mind-body awareness that will keep thinking check through posture, relaxation, balance, and overall harmony. A effective coach is the key.

IBMT has been the focus of study by a team of researchers for years and was adapted from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) techniques that have been practiced for thousands of years in China. To learn more about its possible benefits, researchers enrolled 45 college students (28 male, 17 female) and divided them into two groups.

One group was trained in IBMT while the other group was trained in standard relaxation techniques (control group). While the different techniques were employed, the students were monitored with brain imaging equipment that utilized a form of magnetic resonance imaging that allowed scientists to examine neural connections in the brain.

What they observed was that the changes in these connections was strongest in the area of the anterior cingulate, a region that is involved in the brain's ability to regulate emotions and behavior. These changes were only observed in the subjects who learned IBMT and not in the control group, and first appeared after 6 hours of training but became clear after 11 hours.

The authors of the study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, postulated that the meditative training may have in fact resulted from a reorganization of the of the structural matter in the brain. The pathway in question that was most affected was previously shown to influence how a person regulates conflict.

Previous research studying IBMT has found that the technique helped to lower cortisol levels in stress and anxious situations while also tempering anxiety, depression, and anger. IBMT subjects were also observed as having better blood flow to specific regions of the brain (anterior cingulate) while also displaying lower heart and respiration rates.

Conversely, inadequate activation of the anterior cingulate cortex has been associated with attention deficit disorder (ADD), dementia, depression and schizophrenia. As a result, studying this region of the brain may be a way to better understand how behavior and training can influence brain plasticity.

The findings could also have ramifications for the fields of education, neural science, and public health.