Wellness

It’s long been proven that meditation calms children, but a new wave of research is measuring its diverse benefits on elementary school children. For instance, a new Korean study showed that eight weeks of a school meditation program led to significantly lower anxiety, stress and cortisol levels.

A new study shows that you can get big benefits from a single minute of intense exercise. Testing out-of-shape men on stationary bicycles, one group did 45 minutes of cycling at a moderate pace (multiple sessions over three weeks), while the other group sprinted all-out in three, 20-second bursts. The surprising finding: both groups had identical gains. Endurance improved 20 percent, and insulin resistance, energy production and oxygen consumption in the muscles all jumped the same amount.

A new meta-analysis of European and North American studies by Oxford University researchers found that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MCBT) was more effective at reducing relapses and recurrences of depression than ongoing antidepressant medication. Also, mindfulness was particularly effective for people with more severe depressive symptoms.

We’ve all seen the studies that show exercise improves mental power in older people. But new research from UCLA is some of the first to track people over a span of several years using brain scans. The findings are crucial in a world where dementia is predicted to triple in the next 35 years. Because, whether you walk, swim, ballroom dance, or even garden (just a few times a week), keeping moving means significantly more gray matter – and 50 percent less risk of experiencing memory decline or Alzheimer’s.

Chronic back pain is an epidemic, and there has been a surge in painkiller prescriptions. But a new study found that mindfulness-based stress reduction (including meditation and yoga) led to a bigger reduction in pain (for 44% of participants) than usual care/painkillers (27% saw meaningful pain reduction). As The Observer put it, “It’s pretty striking to see a journal like JAMA endorsing meditation… considering that not so very long ago it would have been dismissed as woo-woo.”

Studies have revealed a link between long work hours and risk of cardiovascular disease. A new study shows it’s a dose-response situation: the more hours you work, the bigger the risk. The research found that for every extra hour of work put in weekly (over a decade), your risk goes up 1 percent. If you work 55 hours a week, your risk jumps 16 percent – work 65 hours, your risk rises 52 percent. If you clock 75 hours a week working, you double your likelihood for cardiovascular disease (stroke, heart attack, etc.).