If you’ve got a bad case of the grumps or just need to ease some stress, I may have something you can try: meditation. According to Jane Anderson, an undergraduate from UW-Stout, meditation can greatly improve your overall mood. After meditating for a month or so and noticing how it was positively affecting her health, Anderson was motivated to begin a study on meditation training and its impacts. Along with a group of students and faculty members, and 21 volunteers to participate in the study, they were able to measure the participants’ brain activity while they were either meditating or not meditating. The results clearly showed that the 11 participants who received the meditation training were … happier. I’m not kidding! The area of our brains that indicates positive emotions – the left frontal lobe – was really digging the training. Many people are turned off by the idea that meditating is too much of a commitment, when that is simply untrue. And this research seems to prove that. Just a short break to relax and meditate a few times a week can greatly improve your mental health. And, as Anderson believes, meditation may not only change your mood, but your outlook on life.