Can you, or can you not meditate?

My Favourite Neuroscience Discoveries About Meditation (Especially for People Who Think Their Mind Is Too Busy)

One of the things I hear most often from patients is this:

“I wish I could meditate, but my mind is too busy.”

People usually say this with a small laugh, as though meditation is reserved for calmer people. People with quiet minds. People who somehow wake up naturally serene.

For a long time, I thought this too.

When I first tried to meditate, my mind felt like the last place on earth where stillness might exist. Within seconds of sitting down, my brain would begin planning tomorrow, replaying conversations, solving problems, composing emails, or wondering if I had forgotten something important.

For a while I assumed meditation simply wasn’t meant for someone like me.

But something unexpected happened when I stayed with it. Not perfection. Not silence. Something much more interesting.

My relationship with my mind began to change.

Over the years I’ve now helped thousands of people learn to meditate, including many who were convinced they simply couldn’t. What surprised me most is that modern neuroscience now confirms something hopeful: the busy mind people think is the obstacle is often the mind that benefits most from meditation.

Here are a few of my favourite discoveries from the neuroscience of meditation.

Your Brain Is Designed to Change

One of the most remarkable discoveries in neuroscience over the past few decades is neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to reorganize and form new neural connections throughout life.

Meditation appears to harness this ability.

Brain imaging studies show that people who meditate regularly develop measurable changes in areas of the brain involved in attention, emotional regulation, and self-awareness. Researchers have observed increased cortical thickness and strengthened connectivity in regions that help regulate focus and emotional responses (Tang et al., 2015; Fox et al., 2016).

In simple terms, meditation doesn’t just help you feel calmer. Over time, it can actually change how the brain functions.

The Brain’s “Overthinking Network” Can Quiet Down

Researchers have identified a network in the brain known as the Default Mode Network. This network becomes active when the mind is wandering—when we are replaying the past, imagining the future, or getting stuck in repetitive thinking.

Many people spend a surprising amount of their day operating in this mode.

Meditation appears to quiet this network and strengthen brain systems responsible for present-moment awareness (Brewer et al., 2011). This helps explain why people often say meditation reduces rumination and mental overwhelm.

The mind doesn’t stop producing thoughts.

But it becomes easier to notice them and gently return to the present moment.

Meditation May Help the Brain Age More Slowly

Another fascinating area of research involves brain aging.

Studies comparing long-term meditators with non-meditators have found that meditation may be associated with slower age-related decline in certain brain regions and better preservation of grey matter (Luders et al., 2015).

Researchers believe this may be related to meditation’s effects on stress hormones, inflammation, and neural plasticity—all factors that influence how the brain ages over time.

While meditation is certainly not a magic solution, it may be one of the simplest habits we can develop to support long-term brain health.

Meditation Changes the Body’s Stress Chemistry

Meditation does not only influence the brain; it also affects the body.

Regular meditation practice has been associated with reductions in cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone, along with improvements in immune function and inflammatory regulation (Black & Slavich, 2016).

When cortisol levels fall, the nervous system shifts out of survival mode and into a state where the body can repair and regulate itself more effectively.

This is one reason many people notice improvements in sleep, mood, anxiety, and resilience to stress once meditation becomes part of their routine.

You Don’t Need Hours of Practice

One of the most encouraging findings in meditation research is that benefits can begin with surprisingly small amounts of practice.

In one well-known study, participants who practiced brief daily meditation training showed measurable improvements in attention and emotional regulation after only a few weeks (Tang et al., 2007).

Other studies examining short mindfulness interventions have found improvements in cognitive performance and mood with relatively brief daily practice sessions (Zeidan et al., 2010). More recent neuroscience research continues to support the idea that even modest daily practice can produce measurable changes in brain networks involved in attention and emotional processing (Young et al., 2021; Taren et al., 2023).

In other words, meditation does not require an hour of silence on a mountain.

Sometimes ten to fifteen minutes a day is enough to begin shifting how the brain responds to stress and attention.

Consistency matters far more than duration.

Meditation Improves Focus and Mental Clarity

Meditation also appears to strengthen networks in the brain responsible for sustained attention.

Research examining meditation training shows improvements in focus, working memory, and cognitive flexibility (Tang et al., 2015).

This may help explain why people often notice improvements in:

• mental clarity• concentration• brain fog• decision making

When attention becomes more stable, the mind spends less energy jumping between thoughts and more energy engaged in what is actually happening.

Meditation and Intuition

There is another change people frequently report that is harder to measure scientifically but deeply meaningful in experience.

As the mind becomes quieter, people begin to notice subtler signals from the body and nervous system. Decisions feel clearer. Reactions feel less automatic.

Many people describe this as becoming more connected to their intuition.

From a neuroscience perspective this may reflect improved communication between brain regions responsible for awareness, emotional processing, and interoception—the brain’s ability to sense the internal state of the body.

But subjectively, it often feels like rediscovering a quieter form of inner guidance.

Why I Recorded 28 Days of Meditation🎧

Over the years in my practice, I heard the same thing from patients again and again:

“I want to meditate, but I don’t know where to start.”

So I decided to create something simple.

I recorded 28 Days of Meditation, a series designed specifically for people who believe their minds are too busy to meditate.

Each day includes a short guided meditation that gently introduces the practice step by step. You don’t need experience, special equipment, or any particular skill.

You simply press play and follow along.

Because meditation should be accessible to everyone, the album is available by donation.

If you have ever believed your mind was too busy to meditate, you may actually be the perfect person to begin.

Sometimes the busiest minds are simply the ones that have never been shown how to rest.

Find the tracks here

References

Black, D. S., & Slavich, G. M. (2016). Mindfulness meditation and the immune system: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1373(1), 13–24. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.12998

Brewer, J. A., Worhunsky, P. D., Gray, J. R., Tang, Y. Y., Weber, J., & Kober, H. (2011). Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(50), 20254–20259. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1112029108

Fox, K. C. R., Nijeboer, S., Dixon, M. L., et al. (2016). Is meditation associated with altered brain structure? A systematic review and meta-analysis of morphometric neuroimaging in meditation practitioners. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 43, 48–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.03.016

Luders, E., Cherbuin, N., & Kurth, F. (2015). Forever young(er): Potential age-defying effects of long-term meditation on gray matter atrophy. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1551. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01551

Tang, Y. Y., Ma, Y., Wang, J., et al. (2007). Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(43), 17152–17156. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0707678104

Tang, Y. Y., Hölzel, B. K., & Posner, M. I. (2015). The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16(4), 213–225. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3916

Zeidan, F., Johnson, S. K., Diamond, B. J., David, Z., & Goolkasian, P. (2010). Mindfulness meditation improves cognition: Evidence of brief mental training. Consciousness and Cognition, 19(2), 597–605. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2010.03.014

Young, K. S., van der Velden, A. M., Craske, M. G., et al. (2021). The impact of mindfulness-based interventions on brain activity: A systematic review of functional neuroimaging studies. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 124, 161–178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.01.032

Taren, A. A., Gianaros, P. J., Greco, C. M., et al. (2023). Mindfulness meditation training alters stress-related brain connectivity. Biological Psychiatry, 93(3), 220–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2022.07.015