The Science of Meditation: The expert guide to the neuroscience of mindfulness and how to harness it

by Daniel Goleman

Meditation, at its root, retrains attention, and different types boost varying aspects of attention. MBSR strengthens selective attention, while long-term vipassana practice enhances this even more. Even five months after the three-month shamatha retreat, meditators had enhanced vigilance, the ability to sustain their attention. And the attentional blink lessened greatly after three months on a vipassana retreat—but the beginnings of this lessening also showed up after just seventeen minutes of mindfulness in beginners, no doubt a transitory state for the newcomers, and a more lasting trait for those retreatants. That same practice-makes-perfect maxim likely applies to several other quickie meditations: just ten minutes of mindfulness overcame the damage to concentration from multitasking—at least in the short term; only eight minutes of mindfulness lessened mind-wandering for a while. About ten hours of mindfulness over a two-week period strengthened attention and working memory—and led to substantial improved scores on the graduate school entrance exam. While meditation boosts many aspects of attention, these are short-term gains; more lasting benefits no doubt require ongoing practice.