This Simple Morning Ritual Could Add Years to Your Life

You've likely heard that your morning routine sets the tone for your entire day. Well, if you get your mornings off on the right foot, it can also set you up for a long life. 

So, what's something you can do in the morning that can add literal years to your life? Spoiler alert: It takes just a few minutes of your day and can help calm your body when under stress . And if you stick to it, research finds it can actually change how your body reacts to stress and slow down aging.

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Training Your Body to Keep Calm

We're talking about meditation, and the health benefits are well-documented. According to a study published in 2023 , a single mindfulness meditation taking place over a 10-minute period left participants more attentive and better able to switch between thinking of two different mental tasks or concepts. A quick and simple meditation session can also do wonders for feeling zen , with people reporting feeling less stressed than when they first started. 

Wiping away a day or two of stress may not seem like much, but chronic stress takes a toll on the body in the long run. Research shows people who are constantly exposed to stress age faster than those with less exposure. Their bodies experience more inflammation, which, if left unmanaged, can damage cells and tissues. A stressed-out body also can't keep up with the constant demand for new cells, and the continuous cell division causes them to age faster until they are no longer functional. 

So what would happen if you continued to meditate every day? Would the stress-relieving effects of meditation be enough to slow down aging on a molecular level? A recent study published in Biomolecules found some interesting answers.

Related: Here's What Happened When I Meditated Every Day for 30 Days

The Connection Between Meditation and Aging

The study looked at whether transcendental meditation could lower stress enough to add years to your life. Transcendental meditation is a silent 20-minute meditation where you take deep breaths and focus on a sound or a personal mantra to guide your wandering mind. 

Researchers looked at the genetic and cognitive changes in people who practice transcendental meditation for 12 or 40 years and compared the results to similarly aged people who do not meditate. 

They found that people who meditated for years showed reduced SOCS3 expression—a gene involved in inflammation and aging—than those who did not. The researchers also observed lower rates of the stress hormone cortisol (tested through their hair) and the inactive form, cortisone.

"Cortisol plays a critical role in the body's response to stress, and chronically high cortisol levels are associated with a host of age-related health issues in addition to cognitive decline" says says Dr. Kenneth Walton, Ph.D. , an associate professor of natural medicine and prevention at Maharishi International University and one author of the study. "The reduced cortisol-to-cortisone ratio in meditators suggests they have more adaptive reserve, more resilience, contributing to overall health and longevity"

According to the authors, the low gene expression is because meditators carry less wear and tear on the body from chronic stress, which reflects in looking and feeling younger.

"The lower expression of age-related genes and lower hair cortisol in the TM groups extend the findings of short-term studies indicating these practices lead to healthy aging and more resilient adaptation to stress," Walton explains. 

Related: I Swapped Doomscrolling for Affirmations—Here's the Result

Meditation and Cognitive Decline 

Cognitive decline is a typical part of aging. However, the study shows that transcendental meditation can slow down this process. The research team used electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings to measure brain activity during tasks involved in attention and reaction time. 

"The findings around cognitive function are particularly exciting," says Dr. Frederick Travis, Ph.D. , a researcher of brain and consciousness at Maharishi University of Management and study co-author.

People who practiced transcendental meditation scored higher on cognitive performance tasks than those who did not meditate. In fact, people with four decades of meditation experience showed processing speeds close to those of younger participants.

"Both younger and older [transcendental meditation] practitioners showed higher scores on the Brain Integration Scale compared to non-meditators," Travis adds. "The older meditators performed on par with young controls. This reinforces the findings on evoked potential responses, further suggesting a protective effect against cognitive decline with age."

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Related: This Diet Could Reverse Biological Aging by up to 8 Years

Sources

• Possible Anti-Aging and Anti-Stress Effects of Long-Term Transcendental Meditation Practice: Differences in Gene Expression, EEG Correlates of Cognitive Function, and Hair Steroids. Biomolecules . 

• A single session of mindfulness meditation may acutely enhance cognitive performance regardless of meditation experience. PLOS One .

• One-Session Mindfulness versus Concentrative Meditation: The Effects of Stress Anticipation. American Journal of Health Education .

• The Link between Chronic Stress and Accelerated Aging. Biomedicines .

• Dr. Kenneth Walton, Ph.D., is an associate professor of natural medicine and prevention at Maharishi International University.

• D r. Frederick Travis, Ph.D. , is a researcher of brain and consciousness at Maharishi University of Management.