Skip to main content

Health Benefits of Meditation

4 min read

By Emily Lockhart

Meditation is the practice of sitting still and breathing in a controlled manner for extended periods of time. While the practice has been around for a millennia, meditation has recently emerged as a popular approach to regulating both physical and mental wellbeing.

Whether it’s used as a cool down in trendy yoga studios or to brainstorm in Silicon Valley boardrooms, meditation is proving to have wide appeal due to its calming nature. And now the science is weighing in. What ancient practitioners probably intuitively knew all along, modern science is now beginning to demonstrate. Meditation can have a real impact on your health, including these 5 benefits…

Stress Reduction

Perhaps the biggest impact that meditation has on our health has to do with counteracting the debilitating and wide-ranging effects of stress. A medical consensus has emerged over the past decade that chronic stress causes all sorts of problems including higher blood pressure, decreased immunity, and impaired cognitive functions.

When you feel stressed, your body releases the “stress hormone,” cortisol. Elevated levels of cortisol in your system is a problem on various levels and finding a way to reduce that level could help prevent a number of health issues from developing down the road. This is where meditation comes into play.

According to a 2013 study by the journal Health Psychology, the practice of meditation was shown to have an impact on the reduction of cortisol. The study followed its subjects for 3-months during a meditation retreat where they were trained in mindfulness, controlled breathing, and other meditative practices. Their cortisol levels were measured before and after the 3-month retreat and the researchers found that the cortisol level tended to trend downward for the participants.

Lower Blood Pressure

Once stress is reduced, then you can begin to analyze more specific effects of meditation on your health. The first area to take a look at is blood pressure. Meditation can help normalize blood pressure because of what’s called the “relaxation response,” which helps produce more of the compound nitric oxide. Nitric oxide helps blood vessels open up which then helps reduce blood pressure.

Dr. Randy Zusman of Massachusetts General Hospital explained to NPR how prescribing meditation for patents with high blood pressure could lead to a reduction in need for common blood pressure medication. Once patients were trained to meditate in order to achieve the relaxation response, the results were very encouraging. According to Zusman, over 60 percent of patients found that the relaxation response worked to lower their blood pressure to the point that they could stop taking some of their medication.

Increased Immunity

A vigorous immune system is obviously crucial to living a healthy life, which is why we do all kinds of things to boost it, like taking vitamin C and drinking Echinacea tea. A number of recent studies have shown that meditation can also play an integral role in maintaining and even strengthening your immune system.

According to researchers at the Infanta Cristina Hospital in Spain, meditation, specifically Transcendental Meditation (one of the various schools of meditation), was shown to increase the level of cells in our blood that fight off viruses and bacteria. These cells, specifically subsets of leukocytes and lymphocytes, were found in higher levels of those who practiced medication versus those who did not.

Another study done at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that meditation in older adults could prevent the expression of a certain group of genes that activate inflammation. New studies are coming out on a regular basis probing the positive impact that meditation has on the complex immune system.

Brain Development

Perhaps one of the most exciting areas of meditation research is the brain. A slew of studies have come out linking meditation with an increase in cortical thickness, an increase in grey matter in both the hippocampus and frontal areas, and an overall increase in brain volume. With medical imaging technology, researchers can actually watch what meditation does to the brain in real time and over an extended period of time.

Take for instance a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science by a team at the University of Oregon. These researchers used diffusion tensor imaging to map how meditation changes the structure of the brain. They found that with as little as two weeks of regular meditation, the brain begins to build axonal density, which means a greater number of signaling connections. After a month of meditation, the number of signaling connections continued to increase, while an increase in myelin (a protective tissue around the axons) also began to increase.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Meditation is also linked to what goes on in your gut. This is especially important for the 10 to 15 percent of the population that suffers from Irritable Bowel Syndrome, a disorder that affects women in disproportionate numbers compared to men. Specifically, utilizing mindfulness meditation can help women reduce the severity of IBS symptoms, which include chronic abdominal pain along with irregular bowel habits.

A 2011 study published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology shows that an 8-week program of meditation targets the mental problems linked to IBS, such as anxiety, stress, and depression, and helped to reduce the severity of the IBS symptoms compared to a control group who did not participate in the meditation program. A 3-month follow up was done, which showed that the positive impact of meditation continued beyond the initial 8-week training. Another study published this year in PLOS ONE by a team of researcher associated with Harvard University confirmed the positive impact that meditation can have on IBS and also linked meditation to the alleviation of Inflammatory Bowel Disorder, a chronic condition associated with Crohn’s Disease.

Emily Lockhart

Contributor

Emily Lockhart is a weight loss expert who specializes in healthy living. She is dedicated to providing health-conscious individuals with the information they need to make great lifestyle choices that will make them look and feel better. In her spare time, Emily teaches Pilates at a local studio and enjoys activities like hiking, rowing and biking.

Fitness News & Advice

Explore

How To Jump-Start Your New Year With Cold Weather Running
By Kurt Michael Downes and Kevin Milne Fitness News & Advice

How To Jump-Start Your New Year With Cold Weather Running

Injury prevention Be mindful of the times that you head out for runs; if possible, find a time during sunlight hours. It will add a bit of warmth, positively affect mood and increase vitamin D production for bone health and immune function. Run in well-lit areas and wear bright colours so you’re visible to others, […]

Read More about How To Jump-Start Your New Year With Cold Weather Running

5 min read

Tracking Daily Step Counts Can Be a Useful Tool for Weight Management — An Exercise Scientist Parses The Science
By Bob Buresh Fitness News & Advice

Tracking Daily Step Counts Can Be a Useful Tool for Weight Management — An Exercise Scientist Parses The Science

Step counts for weight loss Currently, our model applies to young adults, but we are now collecting data for middle-aged and older adults too. To use this model, you need to first have your body composition determined, a service that is being offered by increasing numbers of fitness centers and medical practices. With our model, […]

Read More about Tracking Daily Step Counts Can Be a Useful Tool for Weight Management — An Exercise Scientist Parses The Science

6 min read

Aerobic and Strength Training Exercise Combined Can Be an Elixir for Better Brain Health in Your 80s and 90s, New Study Finds
By Brian Ho and Ronald Cohen Fitness News & Advice

Aerobic and Strength Training Exercise Combined Can Be an Elixir for Better Brain Health in Your 80s and 90s, New Study Finds

What’s next Some of the next questions we hope to answer include: What types of aerobic and strength exercises are most effective for cognitive health? Is walking as effective as jogging? Does lifting weights have the same impact as resistance band exercises? And how much exercise is needed to see noticeable cognitive benefits? Another critical […]

Read More about Aerobic and Strength Training Exercise Combined Can Be an Elixir for Better Brain Health in Your 80s and 90s, New Study Finds

3 min read