Science of Meditation
Here’s How Meditation Can Impact Our Genes and Neurotransmitters.
Epigenetic, neurological, and hormonal effects of mindfulness practices on cognitive health based on scientific studies
Purpose of the Article
This article introduces prominent scientific studies highlighting the epigenetic, molecular, and biochemical effects of meditation identified through various observational and interventional studies.
My goal is to create awareness of the ongoing research and depict preliminary findings requiring further investigation. I also share insights from my five decades of meditation experience, considering my objective and subjective measures.
From my experience, exercise, fasting, and meditation can significantly change brain chemistry. In this post, I focus on meditation only, as I covered the other two in previous articles.
My Brief Background of Meditation
As a long-term meditator, I gained many health, well-being, and developmental benefits from regular meditation practice.
Even though scientific papers encouraged me and strengthened my beliefs, I intuitively understood the value of meditation at a young age. When I was in a meditative state, my learning abilities were outstanding.
For example, to my parent's and teachers’ surprise, at age seven, I memorized and recited 150 pages from a biology book written in the 1940s belonging to my father’s primary school education as I was fascinated by the book. This experience happened in meditative states effortlessly. However, I had no clue about meditation in those days.
Since the mid-1980s, I have read hundreds of scientific studies on the effects of meditation or overall mindfulness practices on the brain. I have also practiced meditation since my early 20s, formally, using both Eastern and Western versions after undertaking formal courses.
I documented my experience in an article titled Here’s Why and How I Meditate Every Eight Hours for Decades. I eat once but meditate three times to reap seven health and well-being benefits.
Besides health and well-being reasons, I use meditation as a professional development tool as a technologist, scientist, and inventor. I practice meditation as a hobby and lifestyle choice to enhance my quality of life.
Moreover, meditation accompanied by lucid dreams gives me insights into the future, as documented in a story titled Here’s How I Perceive the 50th Century.
How Meditation Went Mainstream
Meditation has a very long history dating back to 1500 BC in India and the 3rd century in China, and the 7th century in Japan, as evident in written records.
As Time Magazine reported in a 2003 cover story, “meditation began to be seriously studied for its medical benefits in the 1960s, when a researcher in India named B.K. Anand found that yogis could meditate themselves into trances so deep that they didn’t react when hot test tubes were pressed against their arms.”
Unfortunately, meditation was a taboo topic in the Western world in those days. Publishing observational studies in peer-reviewed journals was almost impossible or very challenging. Only a few distinguished scientists managed to publish in popular and credible journals.
One leading scientist was Jon Kabat-Zinn, who discovered meditation through his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and contributed to the body of knowledge on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. I also learned a lot from the work of Dr. Richard Davidson.
Around the early 2000s, clinical trials of mindfulness started, and excellent results were informed to the public. As Time Magazine informed, meditation finally went mainstream, citing a quote from Lodro Rinzler, “It’s no longer just your spiritual friend saying you should try meditation, it’s your doctor.”
Celebrity writers like Deepak Chopra, Ram Das, Jack Kornfield, Eckhart Tolle, Michael Beckwith, Sharon Salzberg, Susan Piver, and many more popularized meditative practices and made them accessible to the public.
Emily Fletcher, one of the world’s leading experts on meditation, called meditation the new caffeine for the brain in a Google talk in 2014.
On this platform, I admire the work of David Gerken, a meditation teacher, followed by over 136,000 members contributing to my significant publication, ILLUMINATION.
Nowadays, meditation is used by scientists, including medical practitioners. For example, the National Library of Medicine (PubMed) indexed 8,910 reports related to meditation in English.
There are thousands of scientific artifacts in other languages, such as Spanish, French, Hindi, Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese, Russian, and Portuguese.
Summary of Scientific Research into Genetic Aspect of Meditation
As documented in a 2014 paper published in the Psychoneuroendocrinology journal, even though the mechanisms are not well-known yet, “a growing body of research shows that mindfulness meditation can alter neural, behavioral, and biochemical processes.” The study concludes:
“The regulation of HDACs and inflammatory pathways may represent some of the mechanisms underlying the therapeutic potential of mindfulness-based interventions. Our findings set the foundation for future studies to further assess meditation strategies for the treatment of chronic inflammatory conditions.”
HDACs (Histone deacetylases) are a series of vital transcriptional cofactors regulating gene expression.
This 2020 paper published in the Brain, Behaviour, and Immunity journal informs that “meditation practice has been shown to significantly reduce stress level, among other beneficial neurophysiological outcomes.”
The study evaluated the impact of a day of intensive meditation practice on the methylome of peripheral blood mononuclear cells in experienced meditators. The study concluded:
“The results suggest that a short meditation intervention in trained subjects may rapidly influence the epigenome at sites of potential relevance for immune function and provide a better understanding of the dynamics of the human methylome over short time windows.”
A 2017 study published in the Psychoneuroendocrinology journal examined whether meditation practice might influence the epigenetic clock, a robust and reproducible biomarker of biological aging. This clock is accelerated by cumulative lifetime stress and age-related chronic diseases.
The study concludes, “from our results, we hypothesize that the cumulative effects of regular meditation practice may, in the long-term, help to slow the epigenetic clock and could represent a useful preventive strategy for age-related chronic diseases.”
A 2010 study investigated the effects of a 3-month meditation retreat on telomerase activity and two major contributors to the experience of stress: Perceived Control and Neuroticism. The study concludes:
“The data suggest that increases in perceived control and decreases in negative affectivity contributed to an increase in telomerase activity, with implications for telomere length and immune cell longevity. Purpose in Life is influenced by meditative practice and directly affects both perceived control and negative emotionality, affecting telomerase activity directly and indirectly.”
This 2022 controlled case study published in Frontier’s Psychology investigated if the continued practice of meditation benefited the quality of life, state of mindfulness, and plasma telomerase level in healthy adults.
They recruited 30 long-term and skilled meditators and 30 age/gender-matched healthy non-meditators. The study concludes:
“Trait mindfulness level and plasma telomerase level showed a significant relationship with the duration of meditation practice. Regression analysis indicated that trait mindfulness level significantly predicts the plasma telomerase level.”
“The findings of this comparative study add to the evidence on the sustained benefits of meditation on well-being and healthy aging and support incorporating meditation-based activities into lifestyle practices.”
I introduced telomeres within the health and longevity context and documented my research and experience in an article titled Protect Telomere Lengths with 2 Healthy Lifestyle Choices.
A controlled case study in 2019 investigated the relationship between mindfulness and social cognition by comparing meditators with non-meditators on several social cognition measures. The study used 30 experienced editors and 30 non-meditators considering sex, age, and ethnic group.
The study concluded that “the meditator sample performed better on certain qualities like empathy, emotional recognition, higher theory of mind, hostile attributional style/bias than non-meditators.
Results of the study support “the notion that mindfulness is related to social cognition, which may have implications for the design of mindfulness-based approaches for use in clinical and non-clinical settings.”
There are hundreds of studies like these. Therefore, it is impossible to cite them in a single article. However, interested readers might check out this review paper titled “Molecules of Silence: Effects of Meditation on Gene Expression and Epigenetics” on Frontiers covering many published research papers.
The paper informs that “since all these positive outcomes rely on physiological and biochemical activities, the molecular and epigenetic mechanisms influenced by different mindful practices have recently started to be investigated. Here, we review some of the findings that could allow us to uncover the mechanisms by which specific practices influence well-being.”
Summary of Scientific Research on the Effects of Meditation on Brain Chemistry
There is significant evidence from observational and interventional studies and some randomized controlled trials that meditation can optimize neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, GABA, and norepinephrine.
For example, this review paper titled “Meditation and Yoga can Modulate Brain Mechanisms that affect Behavior and Anxiety” articulates the effects of meditation on the mentioned neurotransmitters.
As documented in this review paper titled “Role of Yoga and Meditation as Complimentary Therapeutic Regime for Stress-Related Neuropsychiatric Disorders: Utilization of Brain Waves Activity as Novel Tool,”:
“Hyperactivation of the HPA axis has also been linked to autonomic changes including increased neural excitability, cardiovascular activity, increased blood sugar level, respiratory problems, and reduction in antibody formation. These physiological changes further affect the homeostasis process of the body and initiate possible causation of different neuropsychiatric disorders.”
The paper concludes that “Studies, when examined for the changes in brain waves, also concluded a significant increase in the levels of brain wave activity. Meditation practices can increase the alpha and theta wave activity in the frontal region of the brain as well as a result in extensive changes in gamma wave frequency.”
Furthermore, I came across numerous studies highlighting the importance of meditation and mindfulness practices for increasing peripheral BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), as documented in this meta-analysis titled “The Effect of Mindfulness-Based Intervention on Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF).”
I documented the importance and benefits of BDNF in an article titled Here’s How to Increase BDNF with Five Lifestyle Habits.
Considering the finding of scientific studies and testimonials by practitioners, I firmly believe that meditation and mindfulness practices can be used as intervention techniques and therapeutic causes for mental health improvement.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Like thousands of practitioners, as a long-term meditator, I also gained many health and well-being benefits from regular meditation practice.
It was difficult initially, but after years it became second nature. Unlike perceptions of associating meditation with religions and spiritual practices only, my findings depicted that scientists, inventors, artists, philosophers, and entrepreneurs leveraged the power of meditation.
From my experience, the effects and benefits of meditation can be felt intuitively. However, scientific studies using various techniques can now show these effects and benefits empirically, even at a genetic level.
Meditation might not be for everyone, especially for those with underlying mental health disorders. However, for many healthy individuals, it is possible to go into a meditative state by consciously relaxing the body and mind, such as by using breathing and visualization exercises.
Even though some people attended a formal meditation course to learn about the techniques, I also met many people who comprehended the details and gained skills by trial and error. Fortunately, there is copious information in books, magazines, videos, and free resources on the Internet.
From my decades of experience, I gained many benefits, as documented in a previous article. In summary, meditation can lower stress and anxiety, reset the neocortex, increase cognitive flexibility, regulate emotions, provide emotional resilience, create cognitive reserves, and optimize hormones and neurotransmitters.
Meditation also contributed to improving my sleep. Many friends, like Heather, a 37 years old female bodybuilder, cured insomnia. Interestingly, she commented, “Why can’t doctors prescribe meditation for insomnia?”
Even though short-term benefits such as lowering stress, anxiety, and depressive thoughts are one of my reasons, the primary reason is to enhance my cognitive reserves as I get older to lower the risks of neurological and mental health disorders.
I documented the importance of cognitive reserves as we age in an article titled How to Create Cognitive Reserves to Lower Risks and Effects of Neurodegenerative Disorders. These five tips might help us enhance our cognitive reserves at any age to live a mentally active and joyful life as we get older.
Meditation is a democratic activity that can be practiced by the poor, rich, and any gender, age, or race. It is free for everyone. Moreover, meditative practices don’t have side effects like drugs.
Some of us undermine the health benefits of free resources such as breathing, exercise, fasting, and meditation and look for solutions in medication. Some try these activities once or twice and give them up, assuming they won’t work.
Like fasting and exercise, meditation initially puts significant stress on the pre-frontal cortex, reshaping the brain chemistry and circuitry in the long term for better performance.
These biochemical changes take time. Therefore, it is not possible to see the effects and benefits with a few trials. It took me a decade to notice and measure objective benefits even though I perceived subjective ones intuitively earlier. So, please don’t give up if you believe in benefits.
I don’t know about you, but I breathe, fast, move, and meditate daily for decades to sustainably improve my cellular, metabolic, immune, endocrine, neurological, and mental health.
Let’s take this information and use it to make a meaningful difference in our lives and those we care about.
Besides aiming to increase the hormonal intelligence of my readers and writing about neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, and norepinephrine, one of my goals as a writer is to raise awareness about the causes and risk factors of prevalent diseases that can lead to suffering and death for a large portion of the population.
Here’s How I Got Healthier and Smoother Skin via 5 Lifestyle and Holistic Health Methods.
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