If you ever needed objective proof that yoga, meditation and mindfulness work, this is it.
Meditation, Yoga and the Buddhist practice of mindfulness have long been heralded as having a wide range of immediate and long term benefits and as science delves deeper into the mechanics of the metaphysical, evidence continues to build in their favor. These practices have been shown to reduce stress, increase happiness, enhance learning, memory, and cognition and even enhance immune system function and reduce risk of heart diseases. However, the understanding of exactly how these changes take place in the mind and body has been somewhat elusive.
Ask anyone who regularly practices either of these artforms if they work (meaning that they benefit in some tangible way) and you’ll get an emphatic ‘yes!’ — but when you ask them exactly how they work, the answers tend to become a bit more subjective and abstract — that is, until now. A recent study published this week in the prestigious journal PLOS One suggests that the benefits associated with regular practice of Yoga, Mediation and other related relaxation techniques may indeed come from deep inside our DNA.
Although the study was focused specifically on meditation and mindfulness, its not hard to make the jump that related practices such as Yoga and Tai Chi, will also induce the same effect. After all, Yoga and Tai Chi are, at their essence, moving meditations.
“Relaxation Response Induces Temporal Transcriptome Changes in Energy Metabolism, Insulin Secretion and Inflammatory Pathways“, PLOS ONE.