Benefits of meditation on health and for health professionals – A narrative review

Abstract

Meditation has been shown to be associated with better mental health, improved attention, greater emotional regulation, slower cellular aging and better academic performance. The aim of this review was to provide insight into benefit of meditation on health as an adjuvant therapy, thus enabling health professionals to use this technique in their daily life and promote appropriate patients to practice meditation to experience its benefits. A literature search was done with inclusion criteria of journals, searched on PubMed, Google scholar and books relating both meditation and health, published up to 28/04/2024. Fifty-three articles matching the search were identified and studied. The review showed the benefit of meditation in preventive medicine activities, control of non-communicable diseases, slowing cellular aging and improving academic performance. Meditation was also found to be effective as an adjuvant in management of anxiety.