A recent study published in Nature (one of the most reputed journals in scientific annals), reported that regular meditation slows down aging. Read on to discover how.
Findings of the Study
The researchers did a study on 17 long-term meditators and 17 non-meditators (control group). By studying the DNA samples of the two groups, it was found that meditators had longer telomeres than non-meditators. Thereby indicating that there’s a strong correlation between meditation and cellular aging.
What are Telomeres?
Cells are the basic building blocks of any living being. Just like bricks make up a building, trillions of functioning cells are required to sustain a human life.
There are different kinds of cell in our body. Life time of a human cell varies from few hours to decades. During the course of human life, cells repeatedly decay and new cells are produced to maintain life.
Each cell contains DNA. Which is the blueprint for building and operating all living organisms. DNA is like the software needed in order for the cell to function, including cell division.
Within each cell, there’s a material called Telomere, which is like the protective cap at the end of a shoelace, which protects the essential part of DNA, during cell division.
With each cell division, the Telomere gets shortened a bit. When the Telomere becomes short enough, the cell stop reproducing and die down, which results in aging.
Thus, the longer the Telomere is preserved, the more slowly a person ages.
The study found, that Telomere length in Meditator was longer than the group who didn’t meditate. Thereby proving that long term practice of meditation slows down aging.
So what are you waiting for? Make a pledge on this World Meditation Day, to begin your practice of meditation.
You can start meditating by doing a quick but effective guided meditation by checking out the following video: