Meditation delays aging

Meditation doesn’t just improve mental and physical health in the present. It also slows the aging process, and can help meditators stay mentally sharp into old age, a new study has found. Once people reach their mid- to late 20s, their brains begin to lose volume and weight, which can eventually result in the loss of some functional ability. But when researchers from UCLA compared brain scans of 50 people who meditated for at least four years with scans of 50 people who didn’t, they found that those who engaged in the practice had smaller reductions in gray matter— the neuron containing tissue responsible for processing information. “What we expected was to see this in just a few small regions,” Dr. Florian Kuth, the study’s co-author, tells HuffingtonPost.com. “But what we saw was almost the entire brain. That was a big surprise.” The findings do not prove causality—meditators may have other healthy habits that contribute to brain health—but the researchers said that meditation would appear to be a powerful tool for reducing the risks for age-related