Why is meditation good for the mind?

Although meditation seems to be just sitting still, why does it improve the mind?
It's because meditation corrects innate flaws in the human brain.
While the human brain appears to be highly intelligent, it has significant flaws in its natural state.
Meditation is training to improve these flaws.
The mechanism is explained below.

How the human brain works

The human brain has the ability to feel pain and pleasure.
What causes pain or pleasure is somewhat innate at birth and can change while growing up.
Additionally, the human brain has a tendency to avoid pain and seek pleasure, which is referred to as desire.
These mechanisms of pain, pleasure, and desire are essential for human survival.
However, they can also lead to significant problems in some cases.

The problems caused by the human brain

Because humans experience pain through their brains, brain malfunctions may reduce the degree of pain in some cases.
In other words, the following phenomena occur in the brain:

1. The brain perceives pain.
2. The brain stops working properly to avoid the pain.
3. The degree of pain perceived by the brain decreases.
4. The brain recognizes and remembers that it successfully avoided the pain.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 above.

These phenomena make it difficult for humans to make rational judgments or take appropriate actions because brain function decreases every time they experience pain.
For example, in a dangerous situation, some people may freeze or faint due to fear, even though they should run to a safe place.

There doesn't seem to be an appropriate medical term for this kind of irrational brain reaction, but on this site, we call it "self brain dysfunction".
When self brain dysfunction occurs, the desire to avoid pain may be temporarily satisfied, but it can result in a vicious cycle that creates even more pain.
In the previous example, if some people freeze or faint due to fear in a dangerous situation, it is easy to assume that they will end up in even more danger as a result.

Self brain dysfunction occurs due to the brain's innate mechanisms, so it happens not only in the examples above but also on a daily basis in most people, sometimes causing serious problems.
For instance, many pathological phenomena in humans, such as discord in human relationships, ruined lives due to wasteful spending, illness, suicide, and crime, are thought to be caused by self brain dysfunction.
Therefore, if there is a way to improve the self brain dysfunction, it could solve many problems that people have.

How to improve the human brain's flaws

Is there a way to improve the flaws that the human brains are born with?
This may seem like a difficult problem, but the solution is quite simple.
Self brain dysfunction can be improved by becoming more aware of it.
In other words, humans can better manage their pain, pleasure, and desires by consciously trying to understand them.
The meditation methods introduced on this site are training for this purpose.

Thus, meditation improves the mind because it can reduce the negative effects of the phenomenon called self brain dysfunction, which lowers human intelligence.

Why breathing during meditation is important?

The importance of breathing during meditation is explained in "How to meditate", but why is it so crucial?

This is because breathing is closely related to brain function.
Breathing is directly connected to pain, pleasure, and emotions.
Recall your own experiences of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure, along with your breathing during those times.
The rhythm of your breathing changes with each emotion.

When a person's mind is disturbed, their breathing becomes irregular, and when their breathing becomes irregular, their mind also tends to become disturbed.
In other words, when self brain dysfunction occurs, it can cause irregular breathing, which in turn can worsen the self brain dysfunction, creating a vicious cycle.
Therefore, during meditation, it is essential to always be conscious of maintaining steady breathing.