people who meditate also have stronger connections between brain regions and show less age-related brain shrinkage.

A few Om chants may make you smarter, suggests research on the effects of meditation on the brain. A UCLA study published in March 2012 in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience found that long-term meditators (who practiced various techniques, including Samatha, Vipassana, Zen and more) have larger amounts of gyrification, or folding, of the brain's cortex than people who don't meditate. The extra folds may allow the meditators to process information faster than others.

Another UCLA study found that people who meditate also have stronger connections between brain regions and show less age-related brain shrinkage. The bulking-up in white matter was seen throughout the brain, the researchers reported in July 2011 in the journal NeuroImage. Past work has also shown more gray matter in certain brain regions in meditators compared with non-meditators. (White matter comprises the long, spindly appendages on some neurons that transmit electrical signals used by brain cells to communicate; gray matter is made up of the cell bodies that essentially use the information shared by the white matter to "do the math.")