Insight meditation and telomere biology: The effects of intensive retreat and the moderating role of personality

Abstract

A growing body of evidence suggests that meditation training may have a range of salubrious effects, including improved telomere regulation. Telomeres and the enzyme telomerase interact with a variety of molecular components to regulate cell-cycle signaling cascades, and are implicated in pathways linking psychological stress to disease. We investigated the effects of intensive meditation practice on these biomarkers by measuring changes in telomere length (TL), telomerase activity (TA), and telomere-related gene (TRG) expression during a 1-month residential Insight meditation retreat. Multilevel analyses revealed an apparent TL increase in the retreat group, compared to a group of experienced meditators, similarly comprised in age and gender, who were not on retreat. Moreover, personality traits predicted changes in TL, such that retreat participants highest in neuroticism and lowest in agreeableness demonstrated the greatest increases in TL. Changes observed in TRGs further suggest retreat-related improvements in telomere maintenance, including increases in Gar1 and HnRNPA1, which encode proteins that bind telomerase RNA and telomeric DNA. Although no group-level changes were observed in TA, retreat participants' TA levels at post-assessment were inversely related to several indices of retreat engagement and prior meditation experience. Neuroticism also predicted variation in TA across retreat. These findings suggest that meditation training in a retreat setting may have positive effects on telomere regulation, which are moderated by individual differences in personality and meditation experience. (ClinicalTrials.gov #NCT03056105).

Somatics of Early Buddhist Mindfulness and How to Face Anxiety

“…The stress resulting from fear tends to diminish resilience (McEwen 2016), which is of course particularly needed during the spread of a highly infectious disease like COVID-19. Here, mindfulness practice might offer a tool to strengthen the immune system (Kaliman et al 2014; see also Conklin et al 2018 on the effect of intense mindfulness meditation on telomere biology). From this perspective, facing fear with mindfulness can be expected to have not only immediate (and long-term) beneficial effects on the mind but also on the body, in line with a recurrent pattern evident in some of the material surveyed above.…”

Telomere length correlates with subtelomeric DNA methylation in long-term mindfulness practitioners

“…First, we cannot preclude in the controls that other genes undergo changes in DNA methylation levels in relation to telomere length, since we have studied a very small number of genes. Second, these genes were found to be differentially methylated in meditation practitioners and meditation may be related to the maintenance of telomere length [12][13][14][15][16] . Thus, finding a relationship between methylation of these genes and telomere length is interesting and opens up the venue to further study these genes as targets of epigenetic changes in meditation practitioners.…”

“…In addition, it has been proposed that meditation techniques could positively affect longevity 9,10 . In fact, intensive meditation training has been associated with an increase in telomerase activity 11 and longer telomere length in blood cells [12][13][14][15][16] , which is considered a candidate biomarker of human aging.…”

Improvements in Psychological and Occupational Well-Being in a Pragmatic Controlled Trial of a Yoga-Based Program for Professionals

“…We retained 68% of the participants from baseline to post and 47% of the participants from baseline through to the 2-month follow-up, compared with an average retention rate of between 57% and 77% for other yoga or mindfulness retreat studies. 57,58 One reason for our slightly lower retention rates could be that frontline professionals are more prone to stress and compassion fatigue than the general population, which may have corresponded with a decreased likelihood of completing the later surveys. Indeed, we observed that participants who only completed the baseline survey reported higher levels of stress and negative affect than participants who also completed the other surveys.…”