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Meditation’s Anti-aging Benefits
For the life of me I can’t figure out why more people don’t meditate. It’s not that hard, doesn’t take much time and has several life-transforming benefits like helping relieve anxiety, depression and chronic pain, improving focus and boosting our immune systems. So much benefit for so little cost. That’s why I’m spending the vast majority of my professional life on spreading this fantastic practice as far and wide as I can.
Telomeres and gray matter
The focus of this piece is a less well-known benefit of meditation: The slowing of the aging process. This manifests mainly in on how meditation affects two entities in our bodies: Telomeres and gray matter. Don’t worry, I’ll explain.
Telomeres help to slow the general aging process by helping our cells divide more healthily as we age. Gray matter deterioration is a chief marker of Alzheimer’s and overall cognition decline.
[As an aside, gray matter is made up of brain cells, billions of which died on the field of battle as I wracked my head researching and writing the scientific explanations that follow. You’re welcome.]
1. SLOWING THE OVERALL AGING PROCESS
Telomeres are protective caps found at the end of our chromosomes. [Quick high school biology refresher — chromosomes are proteins found in the nucleus of our cells that carry genetic information in the form of genes.] Each time our cells divide, these telomeres serve as protective shields at the ends of our chromosomes.
However, telomeres wear down after each cell division. And when they get too short, our cells start to malfunction and lose their ability to divide — a process that is now recognized as a key driver in drum roll, please-
AGING.
Shortened telomeres seem to have devastating consequences for our health, causing age-related conditions from osteoarthritis, diabetes, and obesity to heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and stroke.
Telomerase to the rescue
The good news is that a scientist named Elizabeth Blackburn discovered an enzyme called telomerase that can protect and rebuild telomeres. Blackburn, who won the Nobel Prize for her work on telomeres and telomerase, found that the stress hormone cortisol reduces…
