Meditation and mindfulness have been big trends for a while now, with countless apps and books dedicated to helping people achieve a zen-like state.
Fans reckon the practice can help ease stress and even promote weight loss, but if you’ve yet to give it a go then listen up because new research has just identified another potential benefit.
And its all to do with how regular meditation can affect your brain in the long-term.
According to the study, daily meditation may have a lasting effect on both your attention span and cognitive abilities, helping to improve a person’s ability to focus well into old age.
The team from University of California, Davis, followed up the participants of a 2011 study into the cognitive benefits of daily meditation over a three-month period.
Seven years later, they were shown to have maintained the cognitive boost they had gained at the end of the three-month study, which included a stronger reaction time and attention span.
And this was especially true for the older participants, who had continued to meditate regularly. Compared to those who practised less meditation after the experiment, they were less likely to show patterns of age-related decline in their attention span.
‘This study is the first to offer evidence that intensive and continued meditation practice is associated with enduring improvements in sustained attention and response inhibition, with the potential to alter longitudinal trajectories of cognitive change across a person’s life,’ said study author Anthony Zanesco in a release.
Of course, the study authors were quick to acknowledge in the Journal of Cognitive Enhancement that the participants practiced the equivalent of one hour of meditation a day (so, quite a lot then…) and that more research is now needed to confirm the benefits.
