cognitive gains from meditation last for seven years, research shows

Published by Greg Heffron on

“The initial study is based on the Shamatha Project, a series of two three-month retreats conducted at the Shambhala Mountain Center in 2007. The study followed sixty volunteers practicing Buddhist mindfulness meditation for six hours a day. The benefits of immediate changes in the meditator’s brains are now well-documented. The UC Davis team wanted to better understand how this plays out over the long-term.”

“‘Longitudinal investigations that track practitioners across periods of training and years of practice are critical for understanding the durability of trait-level cognitive changes associated with meditation, and for broadly characterizing the influence of attentional training on cognitive development across the lifespan.'”

“Since cognitive decline, both in terms of memory and executive function, becomes more problematic as we age, the team wanted to know if meditation can help stave off such cognitive troubles. Many people remain sharp and lucid into their ninth and even tenth decades of life, so such a decline is by no means guaranteed. After the results of this study came in, the team was confident that answer is yes, meditation helps keep cognition humming along. As Zanesco comments,”

“‘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.'”

“Immediately following the initial study, volunteers noted improvements in attentional capacity, ability to deal with stress, and general well-being. This alone is an important (and clinically repeated) phenomenon, especially in an age of increasing psychological disorders.”

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