If you’ve ever considered practicing meditation, you might believe you should relax, breathe, and empty your mind of distracting thoughts. Novices tend to think of meditation as the brain at rest, but a new international study concludes that this ancient practice is quite the opposite: Meditation is a state of heightened cerebral activity that profoundly alters brain dynamics.
Researchers from the University of Montreal and Italy’s National Research Council recruited 12 monks of the Thai Forest Tradition at Santacittārāma, a Buddhist monastery outside Rome. In a laboratory in Chieti-Pescara, scientists analyzed the brain activity of these meditation practitioners using magnetoencephalography (MEG), technology capable of recording with great precision the brain’s electrical signals.
The study focused on two classical forms of meditation: Samatha, a technique that focuses on sustained attention to a specific objective, often steady breathing, with the aim of stabilizing the mind and reaching a deep state of calm and concentration, and Vipassana, which is based on equanimous observation of sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise in order to develop mental clarity and a deeper understanding of the experience.
“With Samatha, you narrow your field of attention, somewhat like narrowing the beam of a flashlight; with Vipassana, on the contrary, you widen the beam,” explains Karim Jerbi, professor of psychology at the University of Montreal and one of the study’s coauthors. “Both practices actively engage attentional mechanisms. While Vipassana is more challenging for beginners, in mindfulness programs the two techniques are often practiced in alternation.”
The researchers recorded multiple indicators of brain dynamics, including neural oscillations, measures of signal complexity, and parameters related to so-called “criticality,” a concept borrowed from statistical physics that has been applied to neuroscience for 20 years. Criticality describes systems that operate efficiently on the border between order and chaos, and in neuroscience, it is considered a state optimal for processing information in a healthy brain.
“A brain that lacks flexibility adapts poorly, while too much chaos can lead to malfunction, as in epilepsy,” Jerbi explained in a press release. “At the critical point, neural networks are stable enough to transmit information reliably, yet flexible enough to adapt quickly to new situations. This balance optimizes the brain’s processing, learning, and response capacity.”
During the experiment, the monks’ brain activity was recorded by a high-resolution MEG system as they alternated from one type of meditation to the other with brief periods of rest in between. The data were then processed with advanced signal analysis and machine learning tools to extract different indicators of neural complexity and dynamics.
Striking a Balance
Results published in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness show both forms of meditation increase the complexity of brain signals compared to a brain at rest. This finding suggests the brain in meditation does not simply calm down but rather enters a dynamic state rich with information. At the same time, the researchers observed widespread reductions in certain parameters linked to the global organization of neural activity.
One of the most striking findings in the analysis of the criticality deviation coefficient showed a clear distinction between Samatha and Vipassana. This indicates that, although both practices increase brain complexity, they do so through different dynamic configurations, consistent with their subjective experiences. In other words, Vipassana brings the practitioner closer to the balance of stability and flexibility, while Samatha produces a somewhat more stable and focused state. According to researchers, the closer the brain gets to this critical state of balance, the more responsively and efficiently it functions. This is reflected, for example, in a greater capacity to switch tasks or to store information.