Why are you interested in mindfulness?
Perhaps you discovered mindfulness in your search for relief from a stressful situation or circumstance. If you did - you're not alone. Most people, myself included, come to the practice to find relief from a stressful situation and achieve greater health and happiness.
But is mindfulness, and more specifically mindfulness meditation, actually proven to help people be happier and healthier?
Science says: YES.
Recent research uncovered that non-judgmental present-moment awareness does, indeed, have the potential to increase happiness. In fact, mindfulness seems to improve positive emotions and decrease anxiety, emotional sensitivity, and exhaustion.
And hold onto your hats (or pants - we don't judge)... It actually gets even more interesting than that.
Mindfulness researchers have also began to investigate the physiological impacts of mindfulness meditation with randomized controlled clinical studies. And their findings revealed some impressive stuff.
This research shows that mindfulness can directly impact the health of our heart, brain, immune system, and more.
How is that NOT amazing? In a nutshell, science has proven that just five minutes a day of present-moment awareness can change our physical body in lasting, profound ways.
Let's explore some of the ways that mindfulness benefits the body.
Mindfulness Keeps Your Heart Pumpin'
Today, one in every four American deaths is caused by heart disease. How can mindfulness help?
In this 2013 study found on PubMed, people were randomly assigned either mindfulness or progressive muscle relaxation as a companion treatment to blood pressure medication. The result? Mindfulness was significantly more effective for reducing systolic and diastolic blood pressure than progressive muscle relaxation.
In yet another study, patients who participated in an online mindfulness meditation program had significantly better results on the Six-Minute Walking Test (a measure of heart capacity) and slower heart rates than patients who did not practice mindfulness.
In fact, the American Heart Association itself has stated in this review that mindfulness is a sufficiently proven adjunct treatment and preventative treatment for heart disease!
You might be thinking: Okay, but I don't have heart disease and I'm a healthy, young spring chicken. Why should I care?
You should care because research suggests that mindfulness is beneficial for healthy hearts, too! This study shows that mindfulness meditation can increase respiratory sinus arrhythmia, or a positive indicator of increased heart attack survival rates.
Mindfulness Can Keep Your Brain Sharp - Even for Alzheimer's Patients
Not convinced yet? Let's keep rollin.
Okay, we've all heard it: The older you get, the more you forget.
And it's true. Starting at around 45-years-old, our memory function tends to decline - especially short-term memory. So what do we do to stay sharp as we enter our later years?
Enter: Your friend, mindfulness meditation.
In this study, even people with extreme memory loss (Alzheimer's disease) saw impressive increases in cognition after participating in mindfulness meditation. Most interestingly, mindfulness meditation participants showed significantly higher cognitive improvements than other patients who participated in cognitive stimulation therapy and relaxation training.
That's pretty crazy, right? It turns out that these cognitive benefits might be derived from improved attention span. This 2017 study showed that study participants ages 55 to 75 years old who participated in regular breath work meditation had significantly higher activation in areas of the brain associated with attention and emotional control than participants who did not do breathing meditation. To further back this proposition, this broad review of mindfulness research supports the idea that mindfulness may decrease cognitive decline as a result of its positive impact on memory, attention, processing, and executive functioning.
Mindfulness Can Balance Your Best Friend, the Immune System
We've all been there. Snot faucets, throbbing heads, and sore backs alike are symptoms caused by the immune system's inflammatory defensive response.
This defensive response, mounted by "mini warriors" like mast cells, natural killer cells, T-cells, and neutrophils, happens when pathogens enter the body or other internal threats (such as accidental auto-immunity) occur and activate an inflammatory "rave" in the body.
And while this biological disco party is a great disease preventer, many people experience an inflammatory response that is either too weak or too strong. Even in normally healthy individuals, this can result in frequent "flus" and malaise. Overtime, this imbalance can contribute to the develop of a range of diseases from arthritis to a host of autoimmune disorders.
Mindfulness, as it turns out, can help balance the inflammatory response to optimal levels.
For example, this study demonstrated that breast cancer patients who participated in an 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program did not experience the typical drop of CD4+ T-cells (these guys are vital for recovery from breast cancer but unfortunately often reduce in numbers during breast cancer).
Just as amazingly, this study showed that Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) participants healed faster from wounds. Pretty incredible, right?
Additionally, science shows that MBSR can reduce C-reactive protein levels (a protein that indicates inflammation at high levels) in rheumatoid arthritis patients.
In other words, mindfulness doesn't just have the potential to increase the immune response--it has the potential to BALANCE it.
Get Ready for Your 105th Birthday
Have you ever heard of your "biological age"?
As we get older, our "biological age" naturally increases as our cells age from stress and disease. We determine our "biological age" by measuring the length of proteins called telomeres. These guys are basically mini soldiers who protect and sit at the end of chromosomes to prevent them from aging.
And... Yep, you guessed it!
Telomeres, our biological age indicators, stay "younger" (or longer) in people who meditate. For example, in this study MBSR participants who were breast cancer survivors had longer telomeres than non-mindful patients. It's worth it to note that other supportive therapies also increased telomere length in breast cancer patients. However, the findings still suggest that mindfulness is an effective therapy to reduce cell aging.
Additionally, this breast cancer survivor study found that while telomere length did not increase in MBSR participants, telomere activity was significantly increased in MBSR participants. And higher telomere activity is associated with slower cell aging.
Overall, the research suggests that mindfulness has a direct and positive impact on our biological aging process!
Mindfulness Can Make You Happy + Not Feel Pain (Okay, almost)
Jon Kabat-Zinn, who originally founded MBSR for chronic illness patients, spent a significant amount of time focusing on developing mindfulness programs to help people cope with chronic pain.
After years of data collection, it's now well established that mindfulness is a powerful tool to reduce pain, anxiety, depression and other mental stress associated with chronic health conditions.
Furthermore, mindfulness can be an excellent tool for patients who struggle with addiction (see our podcast episode with Dr. Paula Freedman for more).
Key Takeaways
Mindfulness is clearly supported by science as a powerful practice for improving psychological and physiological wellbeing (especially in relation to cardiovascular health, immunity, and cell aging). Considering that both physical and mental health are intrinsically connected, this perhaps should come as no surprise!
I say, take it from the yogis. They've been practicing mindfulness for more than two millennia. That's 2,000 years of mindful living. For people to have continued a practice for that long, it's got to do something good... Right??
That sure is enough for me!
If you want to get your mindfulness journey started to see if these benefits are real yourself, click here to get your 100% free copy of the 30-Day Journey to Mindfulness.
Happy Mindful Manifesting,
Elicia Kristine xx
Some ideas in this article were adopted from an article published in UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, which you can read here.
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