Meditation The researchers were intrigued by monks who spent much of their time meditating, and wanted to discover whether meditation itself made a person calmer and increased their ability to focus. They advertised for study participants and around 140 people signed up for the experiment. Of those, 60 were chosen to take part in the study because they had done a meditation retreat at least once before so they weren't completely new to it.
Thirty people went on a three-month meditation retreat in Colorado, while the other 30 had to wait – this was the control group. During the three-month period and for five months afterwards, the participants were given a rather boring 30-minute test, which involved looking at a screen with different length lines. Most lines were the same length but occasionally a shorter one would appear. The participants were expected to notice and respond by pressing the mouse each time they saw them.
As the project progressed, those having the meditation training got gradually better at being able to quickly and easily spot the shorter lines. They showed increased attention span as time went on too. This shows that with practice and meditation anyone can learn to focus more fully on a task and possibly even pick up on details they otherwise might miss.
First published July 22, 2010