With advancements in technology, medicine and education we are living longer and healthier, but it’s not just the sciences that can pump up your longevity.
As it turns out there might be some truth to the saying that positive people live longer, and a thing called ‘mindfulness meditation’ is just one technique to help get you on your way.
Highly regarded for its ability to bust stress, protect the brain and provide goodness to your whole body, mindfulness is now being attributed to helping you live longer and healthier.
Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on your breathing and then bringing your mind’s attention to the present without floating to concerns about your past or your future.
Starts at 60 recently wrote about how you can use meditation to assist with concentration. Mindfulness meditation is a way of training your everyday thoughts to induce a relaxation response using whatever technique feels right to you.
It is this relaxation response that can contribute to your longevity. According to one study, if you practise mindfulness meditation regularly you are more likely to have higher levels of telomerase, an enzyme that affects ageing, which can lead to a reversal of the ageing process.
Mindfulness alone cannot make you live longer; for that you’d want to include a healthy diet and exercise routine. However, mindfulness meditation has the ability to reduce your stress and this in turn will have a positive and healthy effect on your overall health.
If you rush to fit everything in, have a short fuse, find yourself frustrated by incompetence or delays, it’s possible this level of stress puts you at greater risk of an age-related illness than someone who is more laid-back in their approach to life.
It might be time to give a bit of mindfulness meditation a go.