 Meditation May be the Fountain of Youth in it's Effect on Aging
For as long as people have been struggling with the issue of aging, the quest for eternal youth and the fountain of youth has been going on. While it is clear that staying youthful in every way is impossible, our culture seems obsessed with finding ways to turn back the effects of aging, at least in our appearance. But there is a natural and easy to use method to turn aging on its heels that few people know about. It is the simple practice of meditation.
The medical community is quite aware of the power of meditation to reverse some of the negative aspects of aging. The daily habit of meditation has a potent ability to revitalize the body that has been shown to be as effective as extra sleep or days off from work. For seniors, that means meditation can impact the progress of aging and give them golden years that are happier, more stress free and active as well.
Meditation has been proven to be the fountain of youth in it's affect on aging because the practice of meditation naturally give the senior citizen greater peace of mind and relaxation. That encourages good digestion and sleep. In addition, medical research has proven that patients who use meditation regularly show increases in the amount of melatonin that is produced in their bodies.
Melatonin is a very beneficial natural hormone that slows the aging process, energizes the immune system and retards the natural damage to cells, which promotes aging. Melatonin can also help those who are aging getting a more recuperative sleep, have more energy and even undermine the advance of certain cancers. In every way, the increased production of melatonin due to meditation is a huge benefit to the elderly because it slows the aging process so successfully.
Studies that compare those who use meditation to those who don't reflect a phenomenal difference in the advance of aging in the two groups. There was a particular scientific study actually documented that those who had been engaged in meditation for over five years had aged so much more slowly than the control group that their bodies were literally twelve years younger than if they had not used meditation. That is how potent the effect of meditation had been on the aging process.
Another statistic from that same study was that even people who had been involved in meditation for a short time still had slowed their aging process by five years. And these are not studies just in how young people felt. The results reflected that they literally showed a biological slowing of the aging process due to the inclusion of meditation ritual in people's lives.
In addition to increasing the melatonin levels, meditation slows aging because it is so effective at reducing stress in the elderly. Stress is a significant cause of aging because it drags down the immune system, affects digestion and degrades the quality of life in every possible way. Doctors often site stress as just as detrimental to the aging process as smoking or obesity. Meditation can help calm the body, mind and spirit and so keep stress from advancing the aging process too quickly. The value of meditation that we most often think about are the immediate relaxation, inner peace and focus But if meditation can also slow the aging process, so much the better.
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