Meditation may sharpen brain cognition

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., April 16 (UPI) -- Some look to coffee to sharpen their brain but U.S. researchers suggest a bit of meditation may help improve cognition.

Fadel Zeidan, a post-doctoral researcher at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and a former doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where the research was conducted, said the study found that meditation-trained participants showed a significant improvement in their critical cognitive skills after four days of 20-minute training.

"Simply stated, the profound improvements that we found after just four days of meditation training -- are really surprising," Zeidan said in a statement. "It goes to show that the mind is, in fact, easily changeable and highly influenced, especially by meditation."

The experiment involved 63 student volunteers, randomly assigned to two groups. One received meditation training while the other group listened to a book being read aloud. Both groups performed equally at the beginning of the experiment. However, the study found only the group with the meditation training improved cognitive measures.

The research appeared in Consciousness and Cognition and is scheduled to be presented at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society's annual meeting in Montreal.