A new study has said that a simple safe and low cost solution to improving brain fitness is the practice of yoga and meditation. The study also says that this practice improves memory, offsets the risk of Alzheimer’s disease or memory loss. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and was published in the Journal of Alzheimer`s Disease.
The research team studied a three month course of Kirtan Kriya meditation and Kundalini yoga. They found that the practices minimised the emotional and cognitive problems that precede conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Kirtan Kriya is the practice of chanting, hand movements and visualisation of light.
Say the researchers, Memory training was comparable to yoga with meditation in terms of improving memory, but yoga provided a broader benefit than memory training because it also helped with mood, anxiety and coping skills. Historically and anecdotally, yoga has been thought to be beneficial in ageing well, but this is the scientific demonstration of that benefit. We`re converting historical wisdom into the high level of evidence required for doctors to recommend therapy to their patients.