Long-term Vipassana meditators made significantly fewer errors than athletes on an emotional Go/Nogo task measuring response inhibition, while being equally fast. This behavioral improvement was accompanied by reduced midfrontal theta activity in Nogo versus Go trials, but no changes in the N2 and P3 brainwave components. Meditators also rated emotional pictures lower in valence and arousal. The results suggest that meditation may enhance response inhibition and emotional control.
Regular long-term meditation practice is associated with enhanced performance monitoring, the ability to detect and correct errors. Meditators made significantly fewer errors than non-meditator athletes on a challenging attention task. EEG recordings showed larger amplitudes in two brain potentials related to performance monitoring—the error-related negativity and correct-related negativity—in meditators compared to controls. These results suggest that meditation may improve cognitive control, specifically performance monitoring, which is often impaired in psychiatric disorders such as ADHD and substance use disorder.