Meditation

Taking a bit of time out to focus your mind can seem an indulgence in today's fast-paced ever-connected world. But there's a growing body of evidence suggesting regular meditation has potent health benefits. Meditation is a discipline that involves turning the mind and attention inward and focusing on a single thought, image, object or feeling. While it's been practised in different cultures for thousands of years – usually as a way of finding inner peace and becoming closer to God – these days, it's definitely not just for the spiritual. Meditation is increasingly used by stressed out students, overwhelmed parents, overloaded employees or anyone who wants a greater sense of feeling focused and calm (or increasingly, help with managing a health condition). If you want to get the full benefits of meditation, then you'll need to practice regularly.

Here are 6 ways research suggests meditation may benefit health.

1. Meditation slows age-related brain loss - long-time meditators experienced markedly smaller reductions in grey matter volume than those who did not meditate.

2. Meditation can improve sleep quality - People over 55 with moderate sleep disturbances reported greater improvements in their sleep quality using mindfulness meditation compared with those who used a more structured program that focused on changing poor sleep habits and setting a bedtime routine

3. It can help relieve pain - The effect of meditation on pain found that advanced meditators report feeling less pain than non-meditators, yet show more activity in brain areas associated with pain.

4. It improves concentration - A group who had received mindfulness training two hours a day for eight weeks were much more efficient at completing discrete tasks in a multitasking challenge than groups who hadn't been trained or who had been trained only in body relaxation. This fits in with other research showing mindfulness helps concentration on a physical level by helping our attention networks communicate better and with fewer interruptions than they otherwise would.

5. It can help addiction - Whether it's cravings for cigarettes, binge eating, alcohol or other drugs, there's evidence mindfulness can help. The technique works on multiple levels – by strengthening self-control, helping us detach from the craving sensation, and being less stressed in the first place

6. Meditation can stop the 'monkey mind' - Mindfulness meditation can decrease activity in brain regions responsible for our mind's tendency to drift from topic to topic ('monkey mind') – a habit that when poorly controlled has been linked with poor mental (and physical) health. Mind-wandering is a common activity present in roughly 50 per cent of our awake life, but is also associated with lower levels of happiness, say the authors of a recent study at Yale University. This is presumed to be because our thoughts often tend towards rumination or stress.