We are used to thinking that meditation changes the brain only after months or even years of persistent practice. But a new study shows that some changes in the work of attention can appear much faster — after just two or three weeks.
Scientists from Fudan University and the Naval Medical University in Shanghai traced what happens after 18 days of short meditation — just 15 minutes a day. The work was published on 23 September 2026 in the journal npj Science of Learning.
The participants practiced anapanasati — an ancient Buddhist meditation in which attention is gently held on the sensations of the breath. No complex visualizations or multi-hour retreats: just breathing, attention and a quarter of an hour a day.
After the course, the researchers tested the work of attention through standard cognitive tests and simultaneously recorded the brain's electrical activity using EEG — a non-invasive method that makes it possible to track brain waves in real time.
And here is what happened.
The participants' average reaction time decreased from 631 to 599 milliseconds — an improvement of 4 percent — while the accuracy of the task did not worsen. What changed especially noticeably was the so-called executive control system — the brain's ability to cope with competing information and choose the right response when several signals simultaneously pull attention in different directions.
But even more interesting was how the very temporal dynamics of information processing changed.
The researchers analyzed two key electrical responses of the brain — the N1 and P3 components in the recorded potentials. N1 reflects the early stage of processing, when the brain quickly notices and encodes the incoming signal — this stage lasts approximately 100–150 milliseconds after the stimulus. P3 is associated with the later evaluation of information and the active allocation of attention — its peak usually occurs at 300 milliseconds. Together these two components form a sequence: the brain first catches the signal, then evaluates it.
After the meditative practice, the early processing of the signal (N1) occurred faster, while the subsequent stage of evaluation (P3) became somewhat more prolonged. The interval between these processes changed by approximately 25,5 milliseconds — a seemingly negligible magnitude, but it reflects a noticeable restructuring in time.
The result is a curious picture: the brain seems to notice what is happening earlier, but gives itself a little more time to process it more attentively.
Not simply "thinking faster," but distributing resources differently between perception and comprehension.
The authors call this an increase in neural efficiency: to perform a task, the brain probably begins to allocate its attention resources more economically. EEG measurements did indeed show changes in the activity of the frontal and posterior regions of the brain. However, it is important here not to leap over a scientific step: EEG is a surface measurement of electrical activity and does not allow one to assert that the researchers directly saw a restructuring of specific neural networks or proved the emergence of stable structural changes in the brain.
And all the more so, the study does not mean that fifteen minutes of meditation will automatically make a person more focused in all life situations.
For now, the discussion concerns only the results of laboratory attention tests after a comparatively short practice. It is unknown how long the effect persists and whether it transfers to study, work, multitasking or everyday life decisions. This is a question for future research.
But that is precisely what makes the work interesting.
It shows that attention training can begin to change not only the subjective feeling of calm, but also the objectively measurable temporal organization of the brain's information processing — and rather quickly, within just a few weeks.
We often imagine attention as a flashlight beam: either it is directed at an object or it is not. But perhaps it is more accurate to imagine it as a complex rhythm, something like the heartbeat of attention. Something the brain must notice instantly. Something else it must evaluate more calmly. And short daily practice of mindful breathing, judging by the new data, may slightly retune precisely this rhythm, making it more flexible and efficient.
Changing the inner dynamics does not require hours of seclusion; fifteen minutes are enough — but every day.
