#2 Can Mindfulness Improve Longevity?

This week, we are talking about  what the research really shows on living better, longer and mindfulness.  This is the second part of a four part series on how to play hard, work hard, and be fully engaged with family, friends and community for as long as possible.

I have read many claims of improved aging with mindfulness but wanted to see the data myself, so I took a deep dive into the literature of mindfulness and this is what I found.

As you  probably know, mindfulness can take many forms. Mindfulness is a catch-all  term,  but what I think is at the heart of mindfulness is taking time out, whether through meditation, prayer or simply alone time. The blue zones research has shown most centenarians practiced some form of mindfulness, and research shows that in any form, the simple act of taking time out allows for stress reduction. [1,2]​

Since most of the mindfulness research has been done on meditation, I will focus on that today. Many studies demonstrate that meditation can change the balance of our autonomic nervous system (the part of our nervous system we don’t control)  from that of fight or flight (sympathetic) to that of rest, healing and digestion (parasympathetic). [3,4]  When our sympathetic nervous system is over activated for days, weeks or months we experience more stress and our bodies experience more inflammation. [5]

This implies that if we increase our parasympathetic tone we can improve on our ability to heal, and if we heal better, we will age better. [6] This is exactly what some studies have shown.  Meditation practices as short as 3-4 minutes have been shown to increase parasympathetic tone, decreasing our sympathetic tone with improvements seen in blood pressure, immune function and digestion. [2] 

The benefits of meditations have also been evaluated by prominent researchers like Clifford Saron of UC Davis and Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn.  They evaluated aging through the lens of stress hormones and DNA (telomere length).  Telomeres protect your DNA. They are protective caps at the ends of chromosomes.  As people age, telomeres shorten. Chronic stress has also been associated with faster telomere shortening, but the catch 22 is that as telomeres shorten people age more rapidly.  Short telomeres have been linked to minor inconveniences like wrinkles and gray hair as well as larger issues like alzhiemer’s, some cancers and heart disease. 

Dr. Blackburn has evaluated the effect of meditation on both stress levels and telomere length and found meditation is associated with longer telomere length. A summary of her work published in 2011 states, “Given the pattern of associations… meditation may have salutary effects on telomere length`…”[7] In other words, meditation seems to help maintain telomere length. 

Dr. Saron of UC-Davis has also shown that meditation is associated with a lower level of the stress hormone cortisol and increased activity of telomerase (the enzyme that can lengthen telomeres). [8].  His studies have also shown that meditation may improve working memory and DHEA levels.  DHEA is a hormone that declines with age and is associated with improved cognitive performance. 

From a risk-benefit perspective and given improvements seen in cognitive performance, aging and healing, I suggest a daily mindfulness practice to all of my patients. If you are a mindfulness novice, there are a few easy ways to begin. 

• 4-7-8 breaths helps to lower stress levels. To perform a 4-7-8 breath you inhale for a count of 4, hold for a count of 7 and exhale for a count of 8.   Dr. Andrew Weill, a father of integrative medicine also uses it to bring on sleep more quickly. 

 

• Download one of the many apps available that teach mindfulness and meditation. Calm and Headspace are two of the more popular choices.

 

• Try Waking Up, one of my new favorite apps that teaches mindfulness. Unlike many other mindfulness practices that “present meditation like an ancient executive stress ball… Waking up has the goal of allowing you to discover in the laboratory of your own mind.”

That is it for this week.  Next week, we will talk about what the research really shows us on sleep!

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1.Buettner, D. (2012) The Blue Zones: 9 lessons for living longer from the people who've lived the longest (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C. National Geographic.

2. Creswell, David J. (2017). Mindfulness Interventions. Annual Review of Psychology. Vol. 68:491-516 (Volume publication date January 2017). First published online as a Review in Advance on September 28, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-042716-051139
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3. Koopman, F.A., Stoof, S. P., Straub, R. H. , van Maanen, M. A. , Vervoordeldonk, M. J. , Tak,  P. P. (2011) Restoring the Balance of the Autonomic Nervous System as an Innovative Approach to the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Mol Med; 17(9-10): 937–948. Published online 2011 May 20. doi: 10.2119/molmed.2011.00065

4. Amihai, I., Kozhevnikov, M. (2015). The Influence of Buddhist Meditation Traditions on the Autonomic System and Attention. Biomed Res Int. 731579. Published online 2015 Jun 4. doi: 10.1155/2015/731579

5. Bellinger, D.L.1, Lorton, D. (2018). Sympathetic Nerve Hyperactivity in the Spleen: Causal for Nonpathogenic-Driven Chronic Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases (IMIDs)? Int J Mol Sci. 2018 Apr; 19(4): 1188. Published online 2018 Apr 13. doi: 10.3390/ijms19041188

6.Fountain-Zaragoza, S. Prakash, R. S. (2017) Mindfulness Training for Healthy Aging: Impact on Attention, Well-Being, and Inflammation. Front Aging Neurosci. 9: 11. Published online 2017 Feb 3. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2017.00011

7. Epel, E., Daubenmier, J., Moskowitz, J.T., Folkman, S., Blackburn, E. (2009) Can meditation slow rate of cellular aging? Cognitive stress, mindfulness, and telomeres.  Ann N Y Acad Sci. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04414.x

8.Conklin, Q. A., King, B. G., Zanesco, A. P., Lin, J., Hamidi, A. B., Pokorny, J. J., Saron, C. D. (2018). Insight meditation and telomere biology: The effects of intensive retreat and the moderating role of personality. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 70, 233–245.