Breaking Study in Time, Thought, and Genetics!

Apparently, thinking in the present can reduce the stress triggers that cause the genome to change. These changes, which result in many health problems, are shown to be linked to lingering on the past or future.


www.wakingtimes.com...

Potentially, we can improve our health just by focusing on the here and now.

Scientific studies have suggested that a mind that is present and in the moment indicates well-being, whereas shifting our energy to the past or future can lead to unhappiness. Now, a preliminary UCSF study shows a link between mind wandering and aging, by looking at a biological measure of longevity within our DNA.

In the study, telomere length, an emerging biomarker for cellular and general bodily aging, was assessed in association with the tendency to be present in the moment versus the tendency to mind wander, in research on 239 healthy, midlife women ranging in age from 50 to 65 years.

Essentially, not worrying about what will happen or agonizing about what has already occurred can have benefits for our physical condition. I daresay this can be linked to emotion. Whether or not you're a big believer in the metaphysical, emotions and thoughts do trigger chemical releases that can destroy or rebuild our body.

Being present in the moment was defined as an inclination to be focused on current tasks, while mind wandering was defined as the inclination to have thoughts about things other than the present or being elsewhere.

Many practitioners of spiritual health tell us not to deny the problems we are facing, but to also not get lost in them either. Psychological sciences have shown us that being present brings us greater alertness and inner security, allowing us to face challenges more objectively and with greater calm.

The whole link is up there. Have a look. We are learning more and more about our mind and its connection to the genome every day - it's an amazing study!

Thoughts?

"waking times"? OMG. Why not bibliotecleyapades or educate yourself?

The list of confounders not addressed by that "study" is long. It's sort of like the one that showed owning a computer would increase your lifespan. Can you tell me a bad assumption common to both that one and yours?

In one sense I agree with you - a tendency to worry is indicative of a tendency to self-induce stress reactions. By constantly triggering stress reactions in your body, you likely CAN shorten your life, just by jacking your bp and inflammatory processes.

edit to add: not long ago there was another study this one reminds me of - it showed that too much napping shortened your life. Their evidence was that in the elderly, the more napping you did, the more likely you were to die in the short term. So they drew the conclusion that naps = death. Of course, they were immediately cut to ribbons by their peers. If you're ill, you sleep more. That was it. A huge, obvious confounder, and they just ignored it.

Did I not see this video on an earlier drive-by ATS this morning?
This fits right in to what you're saying, yes?
Superb, all.

I think I would like to see the data and how they conducted the experiment. There is much room for error here.

Also, they say they used healthy women 50-65. That's when menopause happens and that would greatly skew any result that an experiment could have.

reply to post by HowSoYouSay


For all I know, short telomeric people feel bad. After all, if that's going on you're probably not doing the internal self-maintenance you ought. Feeling bad/achey/sick all the time might well make you feel stressed out. So the question might come in are you focused on problems because you feel off due to your genes already being this way, or does focusing on problems affect your genes?

It might make more sense to measure a group's telomeres, then cause the experimental group to focus on problems. Run the thing backwards. Does *anything* in terms of stress, thought, worry, religion or whatnot seem to shorten a long telomered cohort? If not, bogus. Out it goes.

This "experiment" can't do anything except generate correlations, which as we all know, aren't causation. They didn't control the group and select a single variable to modify. Correlative studies just don't tell you a lot.

reply to post by Bedlam


Yes, correlation studies are inaccurate at best. Do people feel bad because they are doing that or are they doing that because they feel bad?