Meditation slows ageing down to the DNA — and a monk whose brain runs eight years young
Summary
A direct sequel to the two earlier Harvard videos, moving up from university research to work with a Nobel laureate on the team.
Elizabeth Blackburn, who discovered telomeres and telomerase and took the 2009 Nobel in medicine, found with her team that chronic stress can age cells up to ten years beyond a person’s actual age.
The question that follows: if the mind can damage cells, can training the mind protect them? The Shamatha Project took about thirty people up a mountain for three months of meditation, and the enzyme that repairs the ends of DNA came back roughly a third higher than in the comparison group. The project’s name is our word samatha, with ānāpānasati at the centre of the practice.
The other half is Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, with more than 60,000 hours of practice behind him. Richard Davidson’s team scanned his brain four times across fourteen years, including after he disappeared on a four-and-a-half-year wandering retreat. At the last scan, aged 41, the BrainAGE system put his brain at 33.
The ending is not a youth tip. The Buddha did not teach meditation in order to slow ageing; slowing it is a side effect at most.
Key points
A sequel to the Harvard pair
The earlier two were university studies; this one reaches work with a Nobel laureate on the team.
Stress really does age cells
Blackburn’s team measured cells running up to ten years ahead of their owner’s age.
The Shamatha Project is our word samatha
Three months on a mountain with ānāpānasati at the centre, and DNA-repair enzyme about a third above the comparison group.
A brain about eight years younger than its owner
Four scans over fourteen years; at 41, BrainAGE put him at 33.
Slower ageing is a by-product, not the point
The Nakulapitā Sutta sets the rule: the body may be afflicted, but the mind need not be afflicted with it.