Amongst all the hoopla about longevity and antiaging science did you know that there is one simple daily habit that could help you live longer?
A new study has shown that engaging in long-term meditation practice could significantly alleviate stress and slow down aging.
Researchers from Maharishi International University (MIU), the University of Siegen, and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences studied the effectiveness of transcendental meditation, which is a program where people silently repeat a mantra in their head to achieve deep relaxation.
“These results support other studies indicating that the transcendental meditation technique can reverse or remove long-lasting effects of stress,” co-author Kenneth Walton, a senior researcher at MIU, told Fox News Digital.
“Lasting effects of stress are now recognized as causing or contributing to all diseases and disorders,” he added.
For each participant, the researchers analyzed the expression of genes linked to inflammation and aging, according to a press release from MIU.
They found that people who practiced transcendental meditation had lower expression of the genes associated with inflammation and aging.
“The lower expression of age-related genes … extend the findings of short-term studies indicating that these practices lead to healthy aging and more resilient adaptation to stress,” Walton said in the release.
The researchers also found that older practitioners of transcendental meditation were found to have fewer cognitive issues, maintained faster processing speeds than those who did not meditate, and had a lower incidence of dementia.
“The findings around cognitive function are particularly exciting,” said co-author Frederick Travis, PhD, head of faculty at Maharishi International University, in the release.
Biohacker Dave Asprey, author of the upcoming book “Heavily Meditated: The Fast Path to Remove Your Triggers, Dissolve Stress, and Activate Inner Peace,” has spent 25 years studying meditation with shamans and gurus and researching neuroscience.
He agrees that meditation helps to slow the aging process.
“It reduces stress — and the more stress you have that’s not useful stress, like going to the gym or working hard, that shrinks your brain and makes you old,” Asprey said during an on-camera interview with Fox News Digital. “Meditation has been shown in multiple studies to undo those problems.”
The MIU study was published in the journal Biomolecules.
