Study suggests daily meditation slows brain aging

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-daily-meditation-brain-aging.html

by lelf • 6 years ago

182 94 6 years ago

medicalxpress.com

droopyEyelids• 6 years ago

Here is the actual study. https://sci-hub.tw/10.1080/13554794.2020.1731553

Note this is only a study of one individual.

twomoretime• 6 years ago

I'm waiting for a study which evaluates activation of the glymphatic[0] system during meditation. Any day now...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glymphatic_system

sova3• 6 years ago

Amazingly, the cleansing system is triggered in bees via interaction with mushrooms. (Cytochrome P450). Here's an interesting article with Paul Stamets explaining: https://modernfarmer.com/2016/04/can-mushrooms-save-honeybee...

eternauta3k3• 6 years ago

Yes. This is critical so we can know whether those Thai monks who sleep 3-4 hours a night are wrecking their brain. Or if their long meditation sessions can make up for the lost sleep.

throw12346512346• 6 years ago

Unfortunately there is no take away without further research. Is the threshold meditating 20 mins a day, 2 hours, 8 hours? Is it gradual? Is he an outlier? Is it related to sitting around in nature and doing nothing all day?

sova3• 6 years ago

try and see. if your clocks tick slower it's working.

throw12346512346• 6 years ago

I have been meditating for over a decade now. Started when I messed with lucid dreaming as a teenager. I am still unconvinced there is any benefit to it whatsoever, at least to a person who otherwise focuses on their work for large periods of time.

Kelly McGonigal from Stanford or Harvard argues that it increases willpower, but so does just doing things.

There was a study showing Transcendental meditation decreases blood pressure, but Transcendental meditation is a gimmick and the study was funded by the people pushing the system, etc.

All the Harvard studies about core temperature increases show that the monks are actively contracting their muscles to achieve the effect. Same story with slowing down heart-rate. Neither of which ever achieves out-of-norm ranges.

proverbialbunny4• 6 years ago

Enough until there is nothing left but the present moment. (One step at a time ofc.)

lostmsu• 6 years ago

This study has a very low sample size and a very large error interval due to the method (guesstimating age from brain scans using CV)

cptaj• 6 years ago

My thoughts exactly.

Also, it hardly establishes any causation between meditation and reduced brain aging.

They compared a monk to average people. Meditation is hardly the only substantial difference between the lives of these people. Monks have very different diets as well, just to name one thing.

themodelplumber• 6 years ago

I hope we can get to the point of social pushback on the word "meditation" as far too vague. There are so many different kinds, and some take completely contradictory approaches. For example, existentialist "now"-based sensory meditation vs. visualization-based meditation. And that's just one of many dichotomies.

Not that I object to meditation by a long shot--it's just such rich world of alternatives and people deserve to know about that.

derision• 6 years ago

At this point I see it as the mental equivalent of "exercise". There's so many different kinds of exercise, for many different goals. The same thing goes for mediation

root_axis6• 6 years ago

At this point I see it as the mental equivalent of "exercise".

Is it though? We can at least all agree on the definition of exercise, not so with meditation. Without a common definition, I'm not sure what kind of empirical claims can be made about meditation.

qiguai2• 6 years ago

Hope meditation never gets any sort of pushback as it is so maleable and should be embraced and not sublabeled.

throw12346512346• 6 years ago

That's like saying "Exercise should be embraced and not sublabelled". Imagine just telling people "exercise" and them having no idea whether they should lift weights, run, swim, or stretch. "Meditation" is a vague hazy concept to most of the population that have no idea how to get started or what the benefits are. So, imo, you are absolutely wrong. It should definitely be broken up.

edit: Me being one of them. I have a hazy understanding of focal meditation (whether breath, clock ticking, whatever) and what it's supposed to accomplish. Other types of meditation are absolutely confusing to me. E.g. "visualization" - visualize what, for how long, how clear is it supposed to be, what are the benefits?

edit2: You are focusing on "push back", I am focusing on what the original poster said - meditation needs to be better defined.

make33• 6 years ago

Meditation is not immune to needing the scientific approach. We should label which types work and which don't work, so we can understand it and make it better.

That's not stopping you from doing whatever you want.

nprateem5• 6 years ago

Don't confuse the road with the destination. They may look different on the surface but they should be taking people to the same brain states.

mbrock• 6 years ago

Why?

root_axis6• 6 years ago

They may look different on the surface but they should be taking people to the same brain states

That seems to be the crux of the problem though... how do we know?

make33• 6 years ago

citation needed. this is about making it (medical) science, please don't make claims without anything to back it up.

proverbialbunny4• 6 years ago

This is not actually the case though.

There are three primary or classical types of meditation and most kinds of meditation bridge off of that, all with different experiences, goals, and results.

1) Concentration meditation, like breath meditation. This increases concentration and mindfulness increasing awareness so one can notice subtle details they could not before, most notably the causal relationship within mental states.

2) Insight meditation, like noting meditation. These kinds of meditation are used with the teachings to get enlightened, but ones mindfulness and awareness must be high before being able to yield any fruit.

3) Metta meditation. It's where you wish for good things to yourself and others. This can help cultivate positive psychological states like metta (loving kindness) and compassion.

4) Zazen, which is technically a kind of concentration meditation, is a kind of meditation where you copy the posture of the teacher in front of you mirroring their movements rounding out breathing patterns and what not. It's often a do for nothing good for nothings meditation.

And more...

davidivadavid3• 6 years ago

At this point I feel like most posts titled "Study suggests..." should be flagged.

raarts• 6 years ago

Can I add the trigger words: 'could', 'might', 'possible', and 'scientists say'.

deepsun• 6 years ago

And ones ending with question mark

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headli...

jader201• 6 years ago

Yet this still has over 150 upvotes.

Is the community that split in identifying whether there’s merit to such trendy studies?

bjourne2• 6 years ago

Why do you feel that?

davidivadavid3• 6 years ago

Empirically, most of them seem to emanate from unreliable, sensationalistic publications.

Methodologically, "beware the man of one study," [0] especially when the language is vague ("suggests").

[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/12/beware-the-man-of-one-...

bryanrasmussen• 6 years ago

I find it serendipitously amusing that this post is right above "this is your brain on a crashing stock market" right now.

ochronus• 6 years ago

Not to be nitpicking but “rinpoche” is a honorific term, not a name.

kranner2• 6 years ago

It is being used correctly here (as on Mingyur Rinpoche's Wikipedia page). As long as they don't call him Mr Rinpoche...

andy_ppp• 6 years ago

Correlation != causation <FacePalm>

collyw• 6 years ago

There is actually a decent book written on this subject Altered Traits. It starts pointing out that there are thousands of studies on meditation, but many of them are pretty poor quality, lack controls, etc. so they only discuss the ones worth studying.

valuearb• 6 years ago

Reproducibility crisis.

lucisferre• 6 years ago

N=1?

JaceLightning• 6 years ago

Study of one person. That's not a trend.

burmer• 6 years ago

https://www.theonion.com/eggs-good-for-you-this-week-1819565...

l_davis• 6 years ago

I practice Buddhism. The primary practice of the sect I follow is to chant.

When I chant, I feel better mentally. I have seen others do the same.

I doubt that a scientific study has been done on this. I have no idea how you could do that and control all the variables.

It's something anyone who wants to can try, though you can only go so far without a teacher and some kind of community. And if you live in a country where religious freedom is limited, there would also be challenges.

sebasslash• 6 years ago

Yes, you tend to live a healthier life when you aren’t subject to extreme stress, or at least are able to use a medium to mitigate it. Meditation is one medium, one which I believed to be overhyped (but I guess it works for many)

I prefer playing musical instruments, but there’s no studies claiming a link between playing music and slowing down aging. It doesn’t sell much into the “bio hacking” agenda.

Study suggests daily meditation slows brain aging

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