How to Literally Add and Remove Gray Matter From Your Brain With This Simple Exercise

There’s an exercise that I’ve been doing for about 19 years now, and more actively in the last 10 years or so that a recent Harvard study has shown to correlate with an INCREASE and DECREASE in brain gray matter in certain areas of the brain.

Participants in this study performed a simple exercise for an average of just 27 minutes a day for a period of 8 weeks.

At the end of the study the participants reported reductions in stress, and their responses to a mindfulness questionnaire indicated significant improvements compared to pre-participation responses.

Skeptics may argue, however, that such indicators are somewhat subjective so the Harvard research team went a step further and took pre and post MR images of the participant’s brains so that they could scientifically and objectively analyze if there was any changes to the actual brain.

What they discovered was rather amazing.

Participants who performed this exercise showed increased gray-matter density in the hippocampus, the area of the brain known to be important for learning and memory and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.

Furthermore, participants who performed this exercise showed decreased gray-matter density in the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that plays an important role in anxiety and stress.

Let me rephrase this in a different way, because sometimes when researchers start throwing weird names like hippocampus and amygdala around, our minds literally shut off and stop listening because we don’t understand the jargon used.

Here’s the much more simplified version of what this study shows in plain English…

Basically… there’s a simple exercise you can do, that can LITERALLY get your body to strengthen the parts of your brain you want to have more “brains” in, like the part of the brain that helps you LEARN and REMEMBER STUFF…. while simultaneously decreasing the strength of the part of your brain that makes you feel ANXIOUS and STRESSED OUT.

Think of it like going to the gym and lifting weights to strengthen your muscles, except with this exercise you strengthen your BRAIN not your muscles.

Have you ever seen that movie called Limitless?

In the movie, the protagonist gets his hands on a new drug that changes his brain and allows him to LEARN FASTER, REMEMBER BETTER and it gives him MORE CONFIDENCE (ie. less stress and anxiety).

Remember that?

Do you remember how awesome that dude become after taking that drug?

He went from being broke, depressed and miserable to being rich, confident and fulfilled.

Now… as far as we know, there’s no such drug out there.  (Although I’m sure someone is working on it. )

But follow along for a second here…

… because what I’m trying to explain to you is that you don’t need a drug.

Harvard has proven that we already have the ability to RESHAPE our brains and make them able to learn things faster and to remember better, while simultaneously removing stress and anxiety so that we are more confident.

What Harvard won’t tell us – however – is what this secret exercise is!

I’m just kidding… they reveal the exercise.

It’s something so simple, and so easy, and so common that the majority of people will completely ignore it.

Skeptics may even make fun of you for thinking that this exercise actually does something.

But science doesn’t lie.

The exercise that Harvard got those participants to do was meditation.

Yup… meditation.

Crazy, eh?

I have an incredibly good memory when it comes to remembering things and I’m one of the fastest learners I know.

I’ve also been doing meditation at least a few times a week for 19 years, and almost on a daily basis for the last 10 years.

I journal, and I meditate all the time.

Do you?

Would you like to learn how I do my meditations?

Comment below and let me know.

(Source: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/ )