As we all attempt to find our new normal after years of pandemic living, it’s evident that this will involve an immense societal need to focus on individual mental health. With nearly one in five adults living with a mental illness, finding innovative new approaches to diagnosis, treatment, and prevention are crucial to improving the lives of millions of people.

Investigators at the Mass General Research Institute are working to do just that. This week we talked to Sara Lazar, PhD, an associate researcher in the Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor in psychology at Harvard Medical School.

Have you ever gone to a yoga class, used the Headspace app, or worked on some breathing exercises when you’re feeling stressed, but wondered if it was actually doing anything beneficial for you?

Dr. Lazar has been using advanced imaging technology to scientifically validate the effects of yoga and meditation on the brain and learning more about the connections between meditation and resiliency.

Meditation and Resiliency

The American Psychiatric Association defines resiliency as “the process of adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility.”

Resiliency often develops through a combination of experience and maturity.

For example, if another global pandemic were to hit, we would take lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and apply them to the next one—from wearing masks when necessary to regularly checking in with a mental health professional.

As we grow older, our view of the world changes as well.

“We continue to mature in all sorts of different ways over our lifespan,” explains Lazar. “And with each level of maturity comes better emotion regulation, and better resiliency. We also gain a bigger perspective on life and a bigger perspective on how we view ourselves in relationship to the world.”

“For little kids and teenagers, everything is huge and catastrophic because they don’t see the big picture. That’s where the emotional regulation comes in, from having that bigger perspective. And that is part of how meditation promotes emotion regulation, resiliency and mental health.”

Lazar is currently studying how the practice of meditation can also work to improve resiliency, which may prevent mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression from kicking in when times get tough.

Meditation Can Also Improve Cognition

In another study recently conducted by Lazar and colleagues, they found that meditation can improve our cognition as well.

“Previously our lab and others have shown that long-term meditators have better cognitive skills than older non-meditators,” Lazar explains.

“This study was a two-year longitudinal study showing that not only was cognition maintained, but it actually improved over the two years in the meditation group compared to the controls. “

Strategies to strengthen cognition through meditation could help to prevent and treat cognitive functioning disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. And it’s not too late to start meditating—even if you’re after retirement age.

“The data really demonstrates that an eight-week meditation course with people over 65 was effective,” says Lazar.” So you’re not too old to learn and benefit from meditation practice. Older adults can gain cognitive function and keep it for at least two years.”

While Dr. Lazar and her team are working to raise awareness of their findings, they also know that more research needs to be done to identify the best ways to translate these findings to the clinic.

“Right now it’s a pretty small field,” she says. “So I’m hoping that it really grows. The business world has really started to embrace our research, and I’m hoping medicine begins to embrace it more, too.”

So, whether you attend a yoga meditation class, use an app such as Headspace, or even just practice some simple breathing exercises, those few breaths a day could help you better cope with life’s ups and downs—and keep the doctor away.

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About the Mass General Research Institute
Research at Massachusetts General Hospital is interwoven through more than 30 different departments, centers and institutes. Our research includes fundamental, lab-based science; clinical trials to test new drugs, devices and diagnostic tools; and community and population-based research to improve health outcomes across populations and eliminate disparities in care.
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