As a reader of this blog, you know by now that meditation is linked to all kinds of health benefits—physical, mental, and spiritual.

I’ve written about many studies that have shown meditation to be beneficial for certain issues, such as insomnia or stress. However, I ran across one study that is more general in nature. What I like about this study, which links meditation to better overall well being and health, is that it really shows how meditation benefits everyone.

The study centered around participants who were considered “long-term” meditators, which simply means that they had been meditating for at least two years. What researchers found is that these people were more than 10% better off than the general population.

The original article linking meditation to better health and well being was published at MedicalXpress. The lead researcher had some interesting things to say:

“’We found that the health and wellbeing profile of people who had meditated for at least two years was significantly higher in the majority of health and wellbeing categories when compared to the Australian population,’ said Dr. Ramesh Manocha, Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Psychiatry, Sydney Medical School, who led the research.”

According to Dr. Manocha’s findings, it is the periods of mental silence that really produced the results. The majority of study participants, 84%, reported experiencing periods of mental silence at least once or twice per day.  The length of this mental silence was simply defined as “more than a few minutes at a time.”

While Dr. Manocha and his team expected “that there would be some differences between the meditators and the general population we didn’t expect the findings to be so pronounced. We repeated large components of the survey several times to confirm our results and got the same outcomes.”

Dr. Manocha concluded that his research, along with that from other clinical trials, makes a strong case for meditation as a primary strategy for prevention. I couldn’t agree more.

While the study doesn’t provide anything that most of you reading this blog didn’t already know, I always find it fascinating when scientific studies back up what the sages have known for centuries.

If you haven’t started your meditation practice, why not take 5 minutes today and give it a try? You’ve got nothing to lose and so much to gain—even if it’s just better overall wellbeing and health. Who doesn’t want that?

For more information and to have most of your questions answered, please read the original article at MedicalXpress.

Enjoy, and happy meditating!

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