Meditation for youthfulness and anti-ageing success

What does the brain look like when we meditate? When US scientists from the University of Pennsylvania wanted to answer this question they went to the experts — Tibetan Buddhist monks — and arranged to scan their brains mid-meditation. The results were a revelation. As they expected, the pre-frontal lobes associated with concentration lit up, revealing that getting your brain to shift into meditation gear takes concerted focus.

They were also surprised to find that the parietal lobe, which governs spatial awareness, appeared to be on mute for the duration of the meditation. In short, while you meditate, you can lose all sense of yourself for a while — which may explain why some meditators say they feel “at one with the universe”. It may also be one of the keys to the many health benefits of this ancient practice, which can be traced back more than 6000 years in the East.

Though the word “meditation” conjures mystical images of sitting cross-legged, inhaling incense and chanting om, in reality the practice has grown beyond 1960s clichés to become mainstream. Throughout the world, meditation is now practised in organisations as diverse as law firms, prisons, health retreats, operating theatres, universities and schools. In Australia, meditation is the second most common therapy prescribed by doctors, with 80 per cent of GPs recommending it to patients.

The aim of meditation differs for each person. It might be goal-oriented (eg to reduce anxiety), spiritual (eg to celebrate Buddhist philosophy), contemplative (eg to attain deeper meaning of life) or insightful (to understand yourself better).

Entering the zone

Meditation is like a delicious state of conscious sleep, where the mind focuses on the present. When you are in the present moment, your mind cannot worry about the past or be caught up in anxiety about the future. The practice of meditation involves not just concentration but an altered focus. To attain this state you either turn your attention to externals, such as objects and sounds, to bring you back fully to yourself or you go deep within to get back in touch with a sense of true self. Both approaches promote an expanding consciousness and sense of oneness with the world.

“During meditation, you are in a state of calm awareness — both relaxed and alert,” says Eric Harrison, Director of the Perth Meditation Centre and an experienced instructor who has taught more than 20,000 people to meditate. “When you meditate, the mind is not actively thinking. You are ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’,” observes Harrison, who has authored numerous books about meditation, including The Art of Awareness (Brumby Books) and The 5-Minute Meditator (Brumby Books).

The discipline and joy of meditation can be found in many different spiritual paths and practices that provide different gateways to the meditative state. Meditation is encouraged as part of all yoga practice, whether utilised while you are in a particular pose or practised at the end of a yoga session. In Buddhist meditation, the samatha technique calms the mind and fosters positivity, while vipassana, where the body is held immobile and thoughts are controlled, aims to promote greater awareness of the self. Transcendental meditation relies on the use of a specific mantra or word as a key to achieving a meditative state. In Zen meditation, the focus is on correct posture and awareness of the breath and you return to these meditation tools every time your mind becomes distracted.

In essence, all these techniques aim to bring you into the present moment with clarity and calm. Some promote silent awareness or “mental silence” — a state of being fully awake and fully aware but not experiencing any unnecessary mental activity. Other methods aim at slowing or modifying mental activity without trying to stop it.

The relaxation response

When you meditate, your brain produces alpha waves (which promote calm and heightened awareness) and theta waves (which enhance wellbeing). To reach this neural nirvana, you don’t need specific equipment, clothing or religious beliefs. Whether your transition to a state of meditation involves a word, music, rhythmic breathing or walking doesn’t matter; the form of meditation that makes you feel the most focused and calm is the best one for you. “That’s the great thing about meditation — there are few rules. It can be practised anywhere by anyone at any age,” says Harrison.

Though a respected ancient practice in many cultures, meditation first attracted scientific attention in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist at Harvard Medical School, started to train heart patients in the technique and monitored the results, which were impressive. As these patients became more adept at meditation, their blood pressure and stress substantially reduced. Benson subsequently coined the term “the relaxation response” and wrote a book of the same name, which became a bestseller. He also started the Mind-Body Medical Institute in Boston.

The term “relaxation response” described a physiological phenomenon characterised by physical changes in the body, such as reduction in heart and respiratory rate, reduction in skin conductants, a lowering of stress hormones and an increase in skin temperature. However, the response of your body can be varied during meditation. Research of the sahaja yoga technique, a form of yogic meditation, has found that people often feel a cool sensation in their hands during and after meditation. This indicates the parasympathetic component of the autonomic nervous system is being calmed in some individuals.

The mind-body connection

Meditating regularly could be the best insurance policy you ever take out for a longer, better-quality life. The practice affects your limbic system, which brings down blood pressure, lowers oxygen intake and slows pulse and heart rates. Meditation also changes brain chemistry by reducing stress hormones called cortisol and noradrenaline.

In 2006, an Iowa study of transcendental meditation, published in the American Journal of Cardiology, reported that meditators not only enjoyed reduced stress levels but also, on average, lived 23 per cent longer than non-meditators. Over an eight-year period, those in the study who regularly meditated not only benefited from lower blood pressure but were 30 per cent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 49 per cent less likely to die of cancer.

“Medication and surgery are only band-aid measures for health problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, insomnia and digestive disorders, which can all be improved and eradicated with the help of meditation,” agrees Eric Harrison. Meditation can help reduce health problems such as migraines, pre-menstrual syndrome, skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis, and the activity of viruses and inflammation. Recent findings also show this ancient practice is beneficial in addressing the following health issues:

• High blood pressure: A wealth of studies indicates that regular meditation helps reduce blood pressure. This lowers your risk of heart attack and stroke, increasing longevity. It also means the side-effects caused by hypertension medications used to treat these conditions can be avoided.
• Immune function: Meditation is like a booster shot for your immune system. Research shows it not only improves immune function, it enhances the activity of “natural killer cells”, which destroy bacteria and combat cancer cells. Meditation may also slow the growth of tumour cells in breast and prostate cancer.
• Chronic pain: Countless studies show that teaching meditation techniques to people with chronic pain helps to reduce their discomfort, tension and stress. More recently, a 2009 study by Montreal University in Canada has shown that practitioners of Zen meditation are substantially less sensitive to pain and further reduce that pain response through slow, meditative breathing (roughly 12 breaths a minute compared with the average of 15 breaths for non-meditators). This research indicates that as well as altering the emotional response to pain, meditation lessens the pain sensation itself, leading to an almost 20 per cent reduction in pain intensity.
• Asthma: Yogic meditation can help reduce the hypersensitivity of the lungs and airways so that triggers such as pollen, dust and exercise no longer cause asthma attacks, according to research from the Institute of Respiratory Medicine at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. Research found that over a period of four months, asthma sufferers who regularly practised meditation experienced a lowered incidence of attacks because their lungs and airways became less “twitchy” or easily triggered to constrict. This may be in part due to a lessening of tension and anxiety — emotional and bodily states that are increasingly being linked to asthma.
• Brain function: American research conducted in 2005, involving people who practise Buddhist meditation, has found that they have more grey matter. The study, involving numerous institutions, including Yale and Harvard in the US, found that the more the subjects meditated, the more grey matter they had. In particular, the increased thickness of grey matter occurred in the parts of the brain related to sensory, auditory, visual and internal perception (eg breathing and heart rate). This means that meditation can help lessen the brain deterioration that often occurs with ageing and thereby reduce problems such as memory deficit while improving thought functions such as problem solving. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have also found that 30 minutes of meditation every day boosts concentration and mental performance — particularly the ability to stay on task and shift focus quickly from one task to another.
• Work stress: After completing one of the world’s largest clinical trials examining the benefits of meditation in the workplace, research conducted at the University of Melbourne found that meditation is a potent antidote. Compared with a group of workers who only practised relaxation, the meditating group reported greater reduction in stress, improvement in psychological health and increased productivity.
• Compassion: Meditation can foster greater empathy in individuals by affecting the regions of the brain that dictate compassion and kindness to others, according to 2007 research conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US. The brain scans showed that Tibetan monks who practise “compassion meditation” (thinking compassionate thoughts) demonstrated greater activity and stronger neural connections in the brain circuits involved in generous emotions and feelings. When non-meditators were also taught this technique, their brains became more active in the same areas. In the future, this evidence may lead to meditation being prescribed for adults with violent tendencies and children who bully. To practise compassion meditation, you focus on loved ones, those you may have issues with and those less fortunate than yourself and send them loving thoughts for wellbeing and freedom from suffering.