LOVING-KINDNESS MEDITATION SLOWS THE RATE OF BRAIN AGEING

Compassionate and benevolent thoughts keep you young, explains scientist and author David Hamilton

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-madison and Harvard Medical School compared the brain of a Tibetan Buddhist monk with people in the general population and found that the monk’s brain was ageing at a significantly slower rate.††

They concluded that the reason for the slower ageing was his intensive meditation practice, which involved both mindfulness and loving-kindness.

Scientists imaged his brain four times over a 14-year period and compared his scans with those of 105 non-meditating people aged between 25 and 66. Using machine learning data analysis to accurately compute the rate of brain ageing, they discovered that at the age of 41, the effective biological age of the monk’s brain was only 33.

Join ‘Psychologies’ kindness tsar David Hamilton live on Facebook @Psychologiesmagazine for his free kindness challenge and monthly broadcasts – next on 18 August at 12pm. Catch up via Psychologies TV at tinyurl.com/psykind. For more, join the ‘Psychologies’ Life Leap Club, free when you subscribe to the magazine.‘the Little Book Of Kindness’ (Octopus, £6.99) and ‘The Five Side Effects Of Kindness’ (Hay House, £12.99) by David Hamilton are out now