Here's a beautiful description in this Globe article about why and how meditation is helpful: The 2,000-year-old practice that saved me I became a physician to tend to the broken. And then I needed healing of my own. By Arjun V.K. Sharma Updated April 30, 2022, 3:00 a.m: ...I didn’t know it at the time, but I would come to discover the many well-known benefits of meditation. It blunts levels of stress and anxiety and hones an ability to focus. There are measurable changes to the cortex — regions of our brain associated with functions such as self-awareness and memory — even after a few weeks.