How Meditation Affects Aging: Scientific Findings
 

Scientists have found evidence that meditation is associated with increased life expectancy and improved cognitive function in old age.

You have probably heard more than once about the many positive effects that meditation practices can bring. Maybe even read in my articles on this topic. For example, new research suggests that meditation can reduce stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure, and make you feel happy.

It turned out that meditation can do more: it can help slow down the aging process and improve the quality of cognitive activity in old age. How is this possible?

  1. Slow down cellular aging

Meditation affects our physical condition in various ways, starting from the cellular level. Scientists distinguish telomere length and telomerase level as indicators of cell aging.

 

Our cells contain chromosomes, or DNA sequences. Telomeres are protective protein “caps” at the ends of DNA strands that create conditions for further cell replication. The longer the telomeres, the more times the cell can divide and renew itself. Each time cells multiply, telomere length – and therefore lifespan – gets shorter. Telomerase is an enzyme that prevents telomere shortening and helps to increase the lifespan of cells.

How does this compare with the length of a human life? The fact is that the shortening of telomere length in cells is associated with a deterioration in the functioning of the immune system, the development of cardiovascular diseases and degenerative diseases such as osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s disease. The shorter the telomere length, the more our cells are susceptible to death, and we are more susceptible to disease with age.

Telomere shortening occurs naturally as we age, but current research suggests that this process can be accelerated by stress.

Mindfulness practice is associated with a reduction in passive thinking and stress, so in 2009 one research group suggested that mindfulness meditation may have the potential to have a positive effect on maintaining telomere length and telomerase levels.

In 2013, Elizabeth Hodge, M.D., professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, tested this hypothesis by comparing telomere lengths between practitioners of loving-kindness meditation (metta meditation) and those who do not. The results showed that more experienced metta meditation practitioners generally have longer telomeres, and women who meditate have significantly longer telomeres compared to non-meditating women.

  1. Preservation of the volume of gray and white matter in the brain

Another way meditation can help slow aging is through the brain. In particular, the volume of gray and white matter. Gray matter is made up of brain cells and dendrites that send and receive signals at synapses to help us think and function. White matter is made up of axons that carry actual electrical signals between dendrites. Normally, the volume of gray matter begins to decrease at the age of 30 at different rates and in different zones, depending on personal characteristics. At the same time, we begin to lose the volume of the white matter.

A small but growing body of research shows that through meditation we are able to restructure our brains and potentially slow down structural degeneration.

In a study by Massachusetts General Hospital in partnership with Harvard Medical School in 2000, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure the thickness of the cortical gray and white matter of the brain in meditators and non-meditators of different ages. The results showed that the average cortical thickness in people between the ages of 40 and 50 who meditate is comparable to that of meditators and non-meditators between the ages of 20 and 30. The practice of meditation at this point in life helps to maintain the structure of the brain over time.

These findings are significant enough to prompt scientists for further research. The questions that await scientific answers are how often it is necessary to meditate in order to have such results, and which types of meditation have the most significant impact on the quality of aging, especially the prevention of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.

We are accustomed to the idea that our organs and brain over time follow a common trajectory of development and degeneration, but new scientific evidence suggests that through meditation we are able to protect our cells from premature aging and maintain health in old age.

 

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