Do you want to feel healthier and happier? According to researchers, the key could be a few minutes of daily meditation.
Meditating every day can make you feel better, both physically and mentally. Even better, it can lower your chances of getting serious diseases like Alzheimer’s and heart disease.
Despite these benefits, many health services aren’t offering meditation to everyone who could use it. This is due to a lack of concrete evidence.
Meditation: A Tool for Better Health
The person behind this claim is Gaël Chételat. She’s the person in charge of a project called MEDIT-AGEING.
Even though the project ended in 2022 after running for six years, Chételat continues to push for changes in healthcare. She’s now leading research at France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research.
Focusing on the Aging Population
As per the World Health Organization, by 2050, the number of people over 60 years old will reach 2.1 billion globally.
Given this, Chételat believes meditation can be really beneficial for this aging population. Mindfulness meditation in particular, which focuses on staying present and aware, can improve concentration and memory.
It can also reduce stress, anxiety, depression, sleep disorders and even heart disease risk. These are all factors that increase the risk of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.
The MEDIT-AGEING Project
The MEDIT-AGEING project aimed to show that mindfulness meditation could improve the health and life quality of older people.
They conducted a large study from 2018 to 2020 involving people aged 65 years and over. The participants were split into three groups.
One group learned mindfulness meditation, the second learned English, and the third had no training.
The researchers used questionnaires, blood tests and brain scans to assess the health of the participants.
They found that meditation had a significant effect on people’s attention and their ability to manage their emotions. The brain scans, however, didn’t show significant changes.
The Ongoing Research
Chételat and her team are currently retesting the participants to gather more insights. They want to find out if more physical changes become visible only after people have meditated for a longer time.
Despite this, many participants reported that the trial had positively impacted their lives.
Mindfulness for University Students
A similar study called INSPIRER is being conducted by Ivana Burić, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam. She’s looking into the benefits of mindfulness among university students.
Burić believes that mindfulness can help people manage difficult thoughts or emotions without getting overwhelmed by them.
Like MEDIT-AGEING, Burić’s study also involves MRI scans, blood tests and questionnaires.
Preliminary results show that those who meditate have better physical and mental health, emotional regulation, and lower stress levels.
The Future of Meditation in Health Policies
Both Chételat and Burić hope to provide enough evidence to convince policymakers to offer mindfulness to people with mental health or chronic health conditions.
They believe it should also be made available in schools, universities, and workplaces.
So, if you’re looking to boost your overall health and well-being, consider incorporating a few minutes of mindfulness meditation into your daily routine. It’s simple, inexpensive, and anyone can do it!
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For more information about health, please see recent studies about the link between COVID-19 and diabetes, and results showing scientists find ways to treat diabetes without drugs.
The study was published in the Archives of Neurology.
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