Greetings,How many times have you heard me, or someone else, say that Kundalini Yoga and Meditation are good for you? These ancient technologies have been proven over thousands of years. Now, science is backing up what Yogis have always known!
Below is a recent article from a study reported in the New York Times comparing Yoga and Kirtan Kriya Meditation to some slightly more traditional "brain exercise" techniques, and found that the yoga and meditation worked better. Not only did they help improve memory retention in the study participants, they also decreased depression, anxiety and stress.
The Alzheimer's Research and Prevention Foundation which partially funded this study, demonstrates Kirtan Kriya on their website. So stimulate your brain today, by reading this article and then meditating!
Yoga May Be Good for the Brain
By Gretchen Reynolds
June 1, 2016
A weekly routine of yoga and meditation may strengthen thinking skills and help to stave off aging-related mental decline, according to a new study of older adults with early signs of memory problems.
Most of us past the age of 40 are aware that our minds and, in particular, memories begin to sputter as the years pass. Familiar names and words no longer spring readily to mind, and car keys acquire the power to teleport into jacket pockets where we could not possibly have left them.
Some weakening in mental function appears to be inevitable as we age. But emerging science suggests that we might be able to slow and mitigate the decline by how we live and, in particular, whether and how we move our bodies. Past studies have found that people who run, weight train, dance, practice tai chi, or regularly garden have a lower risk of developing dementia than people who are not physically active at all.
There also is growing evidence that combining physical activity with meditation might intensify the benefits of both pursuits. In an interesting study that I wrote about recently, for example, people with depression who meditated before they went for a run showed greater improvements in their mood than people who did either of those activities alone.
But many people do not have the physical capacity or taste for running or other similarly vigorous activities.
So for the new study, which was published in April in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, and other institutions decided to test whether yoga, a relatively mild, meditative activity, could alter people's brains and fortify their ability to think.
They began by recruiting 29 middle-aged and older adults from the Los Angeles area who told the researchers that they were anxious about the state of their memories and who, during evaluations at the university, were found to have mild cognitive impairment, a mental condition that can be a precursor to eventual dementia.
The volunteers also underwent a sophisticated type of brain scan that tracks how different parts of the brain communicate with one another.
The volunteers then were divided into two groups. One began a well-established brain-training program that involves an hour a week of classroom time and a series of mental exercises designed to bolster their memory that volunteers were asked to practice at home for about 15 minutes a day.
The others took up yoga. For an hour each week, they visited the U.C.L.A. campus to learn Kundalini yoga, which involves breathing exercises and meditation as well as movement and poses. The researchers chose this form of yoga largely because people who are out of shape or new to yoga generally find it easy to complete the classes.
The yoga group also was taught a type of meditation known as Kirtan Kriya that involves repeating a series of sounds - a mantra - while simultaneously "dancing" with repetitive hand movements. They were asked to meditate in this way for 15 minutes every day, so that the total time commitment was equivalent for both groups.
To read the amazing results, see the rest of the article here.
Blessings,
GuruMeher