Washington, March 29: If you wish to remain attentive and focused in your old age, regular meditation is the key, according to a study. The research evaluates the benefits that people gained after three months of full-time meditation training and whether these benefits are maintained seven years later.
Lead author Anthony Zanesco, now at the University of Miami in the US, however, cautions that further research is needed before meditation can be advocated as a sure-fire method for countering the effects of aging on the brain. "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," says Zanesco.
This study follows up on previous work by the same group of researchers at the University of California, Davis in 2011, which assessed the cognitive abilities of 30 people who regularly meditated before and after they went on a three-month-long retreat at the Shambhala Mountain meditation center in the US.
At the center, they meditated daily using techniques designed to foster calm sustained attention on a chosen object and to generate aspirations such as compassion, loving-kindness, emphatic joy and equanimity amoonclick="PopupCenter(this.href,'Here's Why Meditation is a Must! It Helps in Being Attentive and Focused in Old Age via latestly',560,360,'issocial','https://www.latestly.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/heres-why-meditation-is-a-must-it-helps-in-being-attentive-and-focused-in-old-age-87469.html');return false" href="https://facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://www.latestly.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/heres-why-meditation-is-a-must-it-helps-in-being-attentive-and-focused-in-old-age-87469.html" title="Share on Facebook">