It also lowers the risk of developing mental illness and neurodegenerative disease. Long-term meditators (who have been practicing for at least 20 years) were found to have brains that lost less grey matter over time. Though younger individuals still had more grey matter than older ones, older meditators were better off than their non-meditating counterparts. “We expected rather small and distinct effects located in some of the regions that had previously been associated with meditating,” said study author Florian Kurth. “Instead, what we actually observed was a widespread effect of meditation that encompassed regions throughout the entire brain.”
For the study, 50 people who had meditated for several years were compared with a control group who did not meditate. Prior studies have noted the positive effects of meditation on ageing and health. This study however, does caution that it would be premature to draw a direct, cause-effect connection between meditation and anti-ageing effects. They noted that several factors such as lifestyle choices, personality traits and genetic brain differences would have to be controlled for before a definitive conclusion could be made.
However, the authors concluded by saying, “Still, our results are promising. Hopefully they will stimulate other studies exploring the potential of meditation to better preserve our ageing brains and minds.”
The study titled “Forever Young(er): potential age-defying effects of long-term meditation on gray matter atrophy” was published in the journal “Frontiers in Psychology” in January 2015.
