Why You Should Meditate

In a conversation with a patient yesterday, we discussed the ways in which a meditation practice may help him resolve his health concern.

In the course of this discussion, I found myself referring to different articles I had read on the various benefits of meditation.

It occurred to me, much like my post of last week on natural health product quality, that I should put this to “paper”, so it exists as a resource for persons interested in gaining information on the science behind this very valuable health practice.

Here are some interesting, easily digestible articles on the value to health, wellness and performance, of meditating.

Benefits to general health and a range of health conditions:

• 10 research-confirmed health benefits of having a meditation practice
• A compilation of recent (as of 2017 May 17) research on the benefits of meditation in a range of health conditions, including heart disease, cancer, HIV, stress and anxiety and depression, ADHD, autism, general brain function and school performance
• Practicing meditation (referred to in the article as “relaxation response resiliency training”) decreases visits to healthcare professionals by 43%
• Meditation reduces risk of death from all causes by 23%

Benefits to children’s resiliency and school performance:

• Meditation improves school performance at every academic level, across many different metrics
• Another take on how meditation improves academic outcomes
• Meditation reduces disruptive classroom behaviour, and improves attendance in school-aged children
• Meditation improves attention span

Effects on brain health and architecture; and biochemical responses:

• Meditation increases brain “size”, including in areas responsible for learning and emotional control; and retards “brain shrinkage” of aging 
• Even a single, 20-minute meditation session results in increases in energy metabolism; and decreases in biochemical pathways associated with stress, inflammation and cancer
• Meditation combined with exercise improves symptoms and “brain architecture” of persons having major depressive episodes
• Meditation improves efficiency of function of the part of the brain involved in “executive control” and attention; and decreases an inflammatory marker related to cancer and autoimmune illness

For those inclined to more academic/scholarly reading, a quick search for “meditation” (as of the time of this posting) at PubMed yields 4389 results, and PLoS One yields 688 results, so, knock yourselves out!

– Jonah Lusis, ND

Posted: 2017 May 17