If you've ever considered practicing meditation, you might believe you should relax, breathe, and empty your mind of distracting thoughts. Novices tend to think of meditation as the brain at rest, but a new international study concludes this ancient practice is quite the opposite: meditation is a state of heightened cerebral activity that profoundly alters brain dynamics.

Researchers from the University of Montreal and Italy’s National Research Council recruited twelve monks of the Thai Forest Tradition at Santacittārāma, a Buddhist monastery outside Rome. In a laboratory in Chieti-Pescara, scientists analyzed the brain activity of these meditation practitioners using magnetoencephalography (MEG), technology capable of recording with great precision the brain’s electrical signals.

The study focused on two classical forms of meditation: Samatha, a technique that focuses on sustained attention to a specific objective, often steady breathing, with the aim of stabilizing the mind and reaching a deep state of calm and concentration, and Vipassana, which is based on equanimous observation of sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise in order to develop mental clarity and a deeper understanding of the experience.

“With Samatha, you narrow your field of attention, somewhat like narrowing the beam of a flashlight; with Vipassana, on the contrary, you widen the beam,” explains Karim Jerbi, professor of psychology at the University of Montreal and one of the study’s coauthors. “Both practices actively engage attentional mechanisms. While Vipassana is more challenging for beginners, in mindfulness programs the two techniques are often practiced in alternation.”

The researchers recorded multiple indicators of brain dynamics, including neural oscillations, measures of signal complexity, and parameters related to so-called “criticality,” a concept borrowed from statistical physics that has been applied to neuroscience for 20 years. Criticality describes systems that operate efficiently on the border between order and chaos, and in neuroscience, it is considered a state optimal for processing information in a healthy brain.

“A brain that lacks flexibility adapts poorly, while too much chaos can lead to malfunction, as in epilepsy,” Jerbi explained in a