Meditation

Meditation is a scientifically proven way to slow cognitive decline and neurodegeneration associated with aging.

Complete this habit by reaching your daily meditation goal. You can do it in one sitting or divide it into smaller time segments.

Meditation delays aging by positively affecting your body and reducing stress. Regular meditation can also improve your overall quality of life by improving focus and concentration and enhancing feelings of relaxation and inner peace.

One of the meditation techniques is called Mindfulness. It is the practice of being fully present and attentive to the present moment without judgment or labeling any experiences that arise, regardless of their nature. While mastering mindfulness meditation can take years of practice, even a brief period of regular practice can yield benefits for anyone.

Meditation instructions:

1. Find a calm place to sit where you can stay undisturbed for a chosen period. 

2. With your spine erect, make yourself comfortable, sitting in a chair or on a meditation cushion. 

3. Close your eyes. Feel how your spine holds the weight of your body.

4. Slowly, start noticing your breath. Notice how it comes in and goes out. Just focus on where you feel your breath the most - at the nostrils, in your chest, or belly. The main thing is to start noticing the flow of air entering and leaving your body.

5. Let your breathing be natural without forcing or controlling it. 

6. Focus all your attention on the sensation of breathing. 

7. Once you find your mind thinking about something else, without judgment or disappointment, just gently return it to your breath. 

8. The more focused your attention becomes, the more subtle sensations you begin to notice: sounds, vibrations, warmth and cold, tingling, emotions, etc. No need to hold onto any of these arisings. Notice them and return to your breathing.

9. As soon as you find yourself wandering in thoughts, notice the present thought. Recognize it to be the same object of observation as breathing. Then return your attention to breathing. 

10. Notice how all the objects of consciousness - thoughts, sounds, sights, sensations, emotions - arise and pass away, constantly moving and changing, never staying the same. 

11. Continue the practice as long as it is comfortable.

Happiness

One study revealed that people feel much happier when they give their full attention to what they are doing at that given moment. Being present and having fewer wandering thoughts brought people joy, even if the task wasn’t gratifying. A wandering mind was found to be a source of unhappiness, thus raising the importance of mindfulness. 

Different brain areas, called the default mode network (DMN), become active when a person does not focus on a specific task. When DMN is active, an untrained mind loses focus on the outside world around him and starts drifting from the past to the present to the future. Also, several studies showed the disruptions in DMN to be linked to Alzheimer’s disease. Meditation practice can train the brain to be more present and fine-tune the DMN, thus positively changing its effect on a person’s perception and behavior.

Physiology

Regular meditation can strengthen your mind and body as well as improve sleep. Studies show that meditation modulates pain, mitigates anxiety and depression, improves cognitive function, and helps activate brain regions that are important for learning and memory, emotional self-regulation, problem-solving, adaptive behavior, and self-awareness.

Daily meditation for 8 weeks was scientifically proven to increase attention and memory, while meditation for 3 months reduced blood pressure and improved anger/hostility, anxiety, depression, and psychological distress.

Telomeres

Reducing stress with meditation could be an effective way to stabilize telomeres. Currently, 11 studies are comparing meditating individuals with individuals in controlled conditions. Gathered data showed that individuals in meditation conditions had longer telomeres. 

These findings support the hypothesis that participants in meditation conditions have longer telomeres than other participants and that a more significant number of hours of meditation is associated with a more significant impact on the biology of telomeres.

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