ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Neural mechanisms of mindfulness meditation

Neural mechanisms are like the wires in your brain that help you think and feel things. Mindfulness meditation is a special kind of thinking where you pay attention to what is happening right now, without judging it or getting distracted.

When you meditate mindfully, it activates a part of your brain called the prefrontal cortex. This part helps you to focus and pay attention. It also helps you to control your emotions and make good decisions.

As you meditate, your brain starts creating new connections between neurons. This is like building new roads in your brain. The more you meditate, the stronger and more connected these roads become.

One important part of mindfulness meditation is being aware of your breath. When you focus on your breath, it calms down your amygdala. This is the part of your brain that helps you feel afraid and stressed. By calming it down, you feel more relaxed and in control.

Meditation also increases the size of the hippocampus, which is the part of your brain that helps you learn and remember things. This means that practicing mindfulness can help you be better at learning and remembering things.

In summary, mindfulness meditation helps you to focus, control your emotions, be more relaxed and in control, and to learn and remember things better. It does this by activating the prefrontal cortex, calming down the amygdala, and increasing the size of the hippocampus.