A new study finds that practicing meditation on a regular basis for several years may help you stay alert and focused as you get older.
Not only effective in managing stress or combating depressive symptoms, meditation is also believed to have beneficial effects on our cognitive abilities as we age.
This is what reveals a large longitudinal study published Wednesday March 28 in the Journal of Cognitive Enhancement. This is the most comprehensive study to date on the benefits of meditation. “This study is the first to show that intensive and continuous meditation practice is associated with lasting improvements in sustained attention and response inhibition, which may alter the longitudinal trajectories of cognitive change in life. of a person, ”said Anthony Zanesco, lead author of the study and researcher in cognitive psychology at the University of Miami in a statement.
A 2011 study as research support
The work carried out by Prof Zanesco follows an initial study by the University of California at Davis which, in 2011, assessed the cognitive capacities of 30 people aged 22 to 69 who meditate regularly before and after a three-month retreat. at the Shambhala Mountain Meditation Center in Colorado. During their retreat at the center, all meditated each day using techniques designed to promote sustained and calm attention to a chosen object and to generate aspirations such as compassion, kindness, emphatic joy and equanimity in the participants. , for others and for themselves. Meanwhile, another group of 30 people, also practicing meditation, were followed.
As part of this previous study, follow-up evaluations were performed six months, eighteen months, and seven years after the spiritual retreats ended. In the last assessment, participants were asked to estimate how much time they had spent meditating in the past seven years outside of formal retreat settings, for example through daily or non-intensive practice. The 40 subjects still participating in the study all said they continued to practice meditation on a regular basis: 85% attended at least one other spiritual retreat and all spent an average of one hour per day in meditation for seven years.
A preserved attention span
As part of the study conducted by Prof. Zanesco, the participants again took assessments designed to measure their reaction time and ability to pay attention to a task. This new work shows that the cognitive gains brought about by meditation have been partially maintained since 2011. This is particularly true for older subjects who have practiced meditation extensively over the past seven years.
Although these did not improve, the cognitive gains accumulated after the 2011 training and assessment were partially sustained several years later, especially in the older participants who practiced meditation extensively over the seven years. elapsed. Pr Zanesco’s work shows that they retained cognitive gains more and did not show a typical pattern of age-related decline in sustained attention, unlike those who meditated less.
Realizing that participants’ lifestyle or personalities may have biased the results, Dr Zanesco cautions that more research is needed before advocating meditation as a sure-fire method to counter the effects of aging brains in older adults.
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