I have always envied those people who can meditate. After living in the Bay Area for 30 years, I don’t know many people here who know how to truly relax. And who has the time? Busy, busy, busy. Kids, jobs, commuting, pilates, grocery shopping. Our lives are planned in 15-minute increments.
We have blogged prior about how yoga meditation techniques cause statistically significant improvements in fasting blood sugar, anxiety, and depression. But what else does it do? And the real question: HOW MUCH do you need to do to see an effect?
Short Meditation Improve Cognitive Function
That is why I really loved these two studies:
This study looked at ONE TEN-MINUTE SESSION. And they found that one 10-minute session caused improvement, whether you were a seasoned meditator or not. It showed faster reaction times and improved cognitive effects — particularly attention, inhibition and cognitive flexibility after one 10-minute mindfulness meditation study. “A single session of mindfulness meditation may acutely enhance cognitive performance regardless of meditation experience.” PLos, March 2023.
- 42 patients
- Half were practicing meditators and half were novices
- Reaction times to Stroop task at baseline, after 10-minute mindfulness session with fundamental breathing exercise vs. 10-minute attentive listening intervention.
- Findings: A single session improved reaction times and cognitive effects.
Another study showed the improvements over time, with doing DAILY 13-MINUTE SESSIONS for 8 weeks. “Brief, Daily Meditation Enhances Attention, Memory, Mood, and Emotional Regulation in Non-experienced Meditators,” January 2019, Behavioral Brain Research
Study:
- Meditation cultivates a calm yet focused mind.
- Randomized subjects, ages 18-45, non-experienced meditators
- 13-minute guided meditation session or a 13-minute listening podcast session (control)
- Evaluated mood, prefrontal and hippocampus function, baseline cortisol (stress hormone) level, and emotional regulation with the Treir Social Stress Test.
Findings?
Compared to control, the mediation group at 8 weeks showed:
- Decreased negative mood
- Enhanced attention
- Better working memory
- Better recognition memory
- Decreased anxiety score on social stress test
They conclude, “A lower limit was found for the duration of brief daily mediation needed to see significant benefits in non-experienced meditators, and even relatively short daily mediation practice can have similar behavioral effects as longer duration and higher-intensity mediation practices.”
How Can Biohackr Health Help?
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- BRAIN HEALTH is important. Dementia, anxiety and depression, and more. Meditation is a quick and easy way to improve things, on top of brain health treatments.
- Meditation also improves glucose control.
- EDUCATE. Read about other ways to protect your brain. Many of these are behavioral, and doing them at an earlier age is better.
