What we're learning about consciousness from master meditators' brains

Many of us have downloaded mindfulness apps like Headspace or Calm, and have probably benefited from spending 10 minutes each day focusing on our breathing. But reducing stress and softening the sharper edges of anxiety in this way are beginners' steps when it comes to the practice of meditation. Put in the hours, though, and you may well reach the deep end: a place where radical, long-lasting upgrades to how you feel and what you experience are possible. This reality has long been known by full-time contemplatives spending their lives in monasteries and caves. Now, these mental transformations are being examined and understood by neuroscientists at world-leading institutions.