Meditation promotes insightful problem-solving by keeping people in a mindful and alert conscious state

• DOI: 10.1007/s11427-011-4233-3
• Publication Date: 2011-10-28T04:50:17Z
• Authors: Jun Ren; ZhiHui Huang; Jing Luo; GaoXia Wei; XiaoPing Ying; ZhiGuang Ding; YiBin Wu; Fei Luo
• Keywords: Adult; Male; Agricultural and Biological Sciences(all); Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all); Respiration; 4. Education; Electroencephalography; 03 medical and health sciences; Meditation; 0302 clinical medicine; Environmental Science(all); Humans; Female; Problem Solving

Although previous studies have shown that sleep can inspire insight, it is still unclear whether meditation promote insight. Meditation differs from other types of passive rest such as relaxation and because requires full consciousness mindfulness targets one’s breathing. Forty-eight university students without experience were recruited to learn a simple technique. They given list 10 insight problems solve (the pre-test session). In this study, we focused on the unsolved examined if they could be successfully solved after 20 min interval with or meditation. Results showed relative control group listened Chinese English words made language judgment, groups who learned significantly more failed session, providing direct evidence for role in promoting Further analysis maintaining mindful alert state during (raising hand report every deep breaths compared 100 breaths) resulted regarding items session. This implies was watchfulness meditation, rather than relaxation, actually contributed Consistently, session task, percentage alpha waves-a brain index mental relaxation-was negatively correlated These results suggest meditation-based insight-promoting mechanism different involved sleep.