Meditation and the Links to a Longer Life

A point that was briefly mentioned in "The Cognitive Neuroscience of Meditation and Mindfulness" by Dr. Marcia Grabowecky was the notion that certain types of meditation could increase telomerase activity, which is involved in senescence. As DNA replication continues throughout our lives, our telomeres become shorter and shorter, leading to the aging that we endure. This aging can be increased by factors like stress and poor lifestyle behaviors such as smoking.

A study was performed called "Loving-Kindness Meditation practice associated with longer telomeres in women." In this study, researchers recruited participants who had taken part in the Loving-Kindness Meditation, which focuses on kindness towards others and warmth towards all people. With this, they found that stress would be reduced and they also believed that telomeres would be lengthened as a result. With this, researchers also had a control group that closely matched research group factors such as age, socioeconomic status, and past history of depression.

In the study, they recruited both men and women and discovered that the men did not have a significantly extended telomere length compared to the controls, while the women did have significantly longer telomeres compared to the controls. The controls had a higher BMI than the research group and the research group had a higher past history of depression than the controls. Even when these factors were controlled for, the women meditators continued to have a significantly higher telomere length.

The scientists are not certain as to why the women had more significant results than the men. They believe the figures could have been because the women had an increased number of hours with meditation on average than the men. They have also speculated that it could be linked to women being more capable of using their empathetic abilities.

I thought this was an interesting topic that Dr. Grabowecky brought up and also neatly links with her studies on mindfulness. It would be quite remarkable if researchers found that meditation could significantly increase the human life span. However, scientists have not completely reached this conclusion as of yet. As of now, it appears that helping others, having sympathy towards them and learning to reduce stress in our own lives are definitely places to begin in order to live both a fuller and longer life.

Hoge, E., Chen, M., Orr, E., Metcalf, C., Fischer, L., Pollack, M., ... Simon, N. (2013). Loving-Kindness Meditation practice associated with longer telomeres in women. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 159-163.