An 18-month meditation program can improve wellbeing in older people, a new randomized controlled trial led by an international team co-led by UCL has found.
The survey results are pro swanshows that meditation can improve people’s consciousness, connection to others, and insight.
Meditation training did not produce significant benefits on two commonly used measures of psychological well-being and quality of life, but researchers say their findings highlight limitations of existing methods of tracking health. states that it may be possible.
As the global population ages, it is increasingly important to understand how we can support older adults to maintain and deepen their psychological well-being. Our study tested whether long-term meditation training can improve important aspects of well-being. Our findings suggest that meditation is a promising non-pharmacological approach to supporting human flourishing in later life. ”
Marco Schlosser, first author, UCL Psychiatry and University of Geneva
The study, the longest randomized meditation training trial ever conducted, examined over 130 healthy French speakers aged 65 to 84 and found that an 18-month meditation program was effective in improving psychological well-being. We investigated the impact on This study was led by the principal investigator, Professor. Gael Shetrat was held in Caen, France. The study was supported by UCL, Inserm, University of Geneva, University of Caen-Normandie, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, University of Liège, Technical University Dresden, and Friedrich Schiller University Jena.
Researchers studied a 9-month mindfulness module followed by a 9-month love and compassion module, provided by weekly group sessions (2 hours), daily home practice (at least 20 minutes). We compared meditation programs including: A retreat day in the English training group (as a comparison group) and the no-intervention control group.
The research team found that meditation training had a significant impact on overall scores measuring aspects of well-being: awareness, connectedness, and insight. Awareness refers to an intimate, undistracted attention to your thoughts, feelings, and surroundings that supports a sense of calm and deep contentment. Connection captures emotions such as respect, gratitude, and closeness that can support more positive relationships with others. Insight refers to self-awareness and understanding of how thoughts and emotions are involved in shaping our perceptions, and how to change unhelpful thought patterns about ourselves and the world. .
Although the benefits of meditation training on established measures of psychological quality of life were not superior to English language training, both interventions had significant effects on another widely used measure of psychological well-being. It had no impact. The researchers argue that this means that these two established measures do not cover the qualities and depth of human flourishing that could potentially be cultivated through long-term meditation training, including awareness, connection, and We suggest that this may be due to the loss of insight benefits.
The program did not benefit everyone equally, as participants who reported low levels of psychological well-being at the start of the study showed greater improvements compared to those who were already high in well-being.
Co-author Dr Natalie Merchant (UCL Psychiatry) said: ‘Meditation training may have a strong effect on some specific groups, so further research will explore which people may benefit most from meditation training. We now have evidence that meditation training is effective.” We hope that by collaborating with colleagues in other research fields and further refining the meditation program, it will become even more beneficial as it can help older adults. ”
Lead author Dr. Antoine Lutz (Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Insermes, France) said: We take a holistic approach to supporting people across the full spectrum of human well-being, not just preventing disease and ill-health. ”
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university of london
Reference magazines:
Schlosser, M. other. (2023) 18 months of meditation training selectively improves psychological well-being in older adults: a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial. Pro Swan. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294753.
