Meditation has been around for a long time, and it began as a way people would use to grow spiritually and fully understand. We are getting a much fuller picture of what meditation does for brain health and longevity today. What studies have found is that regular meditation benefits mental well-being, protects against age related cognitive decline, and can increase a persons overall quality of life. Read on to find out more about the science behind the brain benefits from meditation and how it can help us to live longer and healthier lives.

Meditation on the Brain

Meditation changes the way our brain looks and works, increasing our mental and cognitive resilience. Other brain imaging techniques, including MRI, have shown that brain areas related to memory, focus and emotional regulation are very different in people with depression compared to people without depression. Here’s a closer look at how meditation impacts different aspects of brain health:

Increased Gray Matter Density

Normally, with age, gray matter (the brain matter that includes brain regions involved in muscle control, memory, emotion, and decision making) shrinks. Studies have shown that regular meditation can make more gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and other memory, learning, and self awareness are part of. Meditation may preserve memory over time and slow age-related decline by leaving a thicker gray matter layer, which could indicate this, a group of researchers found.

Enhanced Connectivity and Plasticity

Meditation, it has been demonstrated, can induce neural plasticity, the brain’s capacity to form new neural connections. It’s important to be flexible for learning, memory retention, and being able to adjust with new situations. Long term meditation will strengthen the connections between brain regions that are responsible for attention, remember and cognitive control for example. The more that the brain is connected, the more it can manage stress; which is important for mental health, as well as physical health.

Reduction of Size and Activity in the Amygdala

Processing fear and stress responses is done through the amygdala. A microscope that enlarges the amygdala, where the brain processes emotional reactions, makes chronic stress trigger a heightened state of anxiety. This suggests that meditation, especially mindfulness-based meditation, can shrink and quiet the amygdala, and along with it, diminish the amount of stress that the stress system gets in the brain. It works to reduce this, improving emotional resilience and this creates a feeling of calm, important for long term brain health.

Prefrontal Cortex is strengthened

With age comes decline in the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain that governs executive functions such as decision making, impulse control and thinking in more abstract terms. Meditation helps to preserve, and in some cases even increases, the prefrontal cortex which helps you be more focused, self disciplined and overall more cognitive. This part of the brain is strengthened, and memory improved, and age related cognitive impairment delayed.

Meditation and Cognitive Function

Meditation is not only about being mentally calm; it also sharpens your cognitive function – including your skills of attention, memory and learning. Here’s how meditation supports cognitive health:

Improved Attention Span

Meditation practices can be mindfulness where we focus on the present moment and can help improve attention span. Short meditation sessions also make you better at focusing, as well as sustaining attention, especially in a multitasking environment, according to studies. For anyone looking to be more cognitively efficient, meditation is clearly a practice worth making, as it will improve attention, benefiting it in memory retention and therefore productivity.

Enhanced Working Memory

The understanding that we need working memory, which is the ability to hold and manipulate information temporarily, makes it so that we need to use working memory to problem solve and make decisions. Regular meditation strengthens working memory by enhancing the ability of the brain to block out distractions and focus on what’s going on in your thoughts. Meditators can process information better which saves them from cognitive overload and makes making better decisions easier.

Reduced Cognitive Decline

Naturally as we age, memory, attention, and processing speed cognitive functions begin to decline. Nevertheless, studies have proved that meditation can slow this down. For example, those who meditate become older adults and show better memory, processing speed and cognitive flexibility than non meditating older adults. If true, it means that meditation could be used as a form of preventative health for age-related cognitive troubles, even potentially preventing the onset of diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Emotional resilience and stress reduction meditation

Negative emotions or chronic stress is bad for your brain and impairs you from aging faster — and it increases your risk of mental illness. Meditation has proven effective in enhancing emotional resilience and reducing stress, two key factors that promote long-term brain health:

Lowered Cortisol Levels

In specific areas of the brain that control memory and learning, cortisol — the major stress hormone of the body — damages brain cells. Regular meditation can help to reduce cortisol levels as you meditate, and prevent the negative impact of chronic stress on the brain. The reduction of cortisol that occurs during fasting helps protect the brain from inflammation, a process increasingly correlated to neurodegenerative diseases.

Improved Emotional Regulation

Meditation helps the brain to better manage emotions, by dampening activity in the amygdala, and strengthening connections in areas associated with emotional processing. Mindfulness based meditation teaches one to observe emotions rather than react to them, and therefore enhance 1s emotional resilience. Good mental peace and protection from the damage done to the brain from the prolonged strain is what being able to regulate one’s emotions produces.

Increased Mood and Lowered Anxiety

When they meditate the neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine and GABA are released allowing positive emotions and calmness. Meditation, then, is an effective natural treatment of anxiety and depression for this reason. Meditation improves mood, mitigates stress and overall brain health while decreasing the risk of mood disorders.

Meditation To Promote Longevity

The benefits for physical longevity, as this translates into brain health, includes meditation. Here’s how regular meditation can contribute to a longer, healthier life:

Slower Cellular Aging

Studies have shown that meditation may help keep the cellular clock running by affecting telomeres, protective caps that protect DNA at the end of chromosomes, which shorten as we age. Telomeres are shorter with aging, and aging is associated with age related diseases. But studies have found that meditation can improve telomerase activity, the enzyme that keeps telomeres from shortening and might slow the aging process at the cellular level.

Improved Heart Health

High blood pressure and chronic stress are big risk factors for heart disease. Meditation engages the parasympathetic nervous system, that of the calmed body, and meditation lowers blood pressure and heart rate. Meditation helps in promoting relaxation and reducing stress thus helps your heart health, which is the very basis for your longevity. “With a healthy heart comes better blood flow to the brain for support of cognitive functions.”

Reduced Inflammation

Inflammation is a natural response to injury, infectious or infectious. But inflammation, especially chronically, is bad for both brain and body health. Research suggests meditation lowers C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation. Lower inflammation levels mean lower risk for chronic diseases like arthritis, diabetes, and neurodegenerative diseases, as these can cut short your lifespan.

Strengthened Immune System

Meditation has been shown to improve a person’s immune system. Meditation reduces stress hormones and promotes relaxation which helps the immune system act better. Healthy brain and longevity depend on the immune system in which it doesn’t allow you to get infections and illnesses.

How to Bring Meditation Into Your Lifestyle for Optimal Brain Health and Longevity

To enjoy the benefits of meditation, consistency is critical. Here are a few tips to get started:

• Start Small: Start with five to ten minutes per Day and work your way up as you are ready.
• Practice Mindfulness: Check into the present moment by focusing on your breath, your surroundings.
• Use Guided Meditations: Aided by the apps and online resources available, even for beginners, it is much easier to learn.
• Be Patient: But the effects of meditation build over time, so as long as you practice regularly it will help you the most.

Conclusion

Training your brain through meditation is amazing for your brain health and longevity! Meditation can decrease stress, improve cognitive function, and protect against age related decline, and from physically supporting your engine and keeping your master relay healthy to impact your cardiovascular system, there is so much to be learned from meditation. By adding meditation into your routine, you can help your brain be a healthier, more resilient one, one that will keep you and your family healthier and longer.

If you want to learn more about meditation and Zen practice, it is recommended that you read the book “There are No Suffering,”which provides detailed information on the methods of meditation and Zen practice, effectively eliminating the pain and troubles in our lives.