The Mindfulness Technique That Can Boost Longevity And Help You Live To 100

Everyone is looking for that fountain of youth — that one exercise, skin cream, or diet that promises longevity. Years of stress and disrupted sleep can lead to conditions such as high blood pressure, weight gain, type 2 diabetes, and cognitive issues later in life. Even if good genes help you live longer, you also want to make sure those years have a healthy quality of life.

Meditation and mindfulness have become more mainstream in the past 50 years, helping people to reduce stress and anxiety. Researchers are now finding that meditation practices can reduce cellular aging and cognitive decline, helping you to live well and live longer.

For example, a 2017 study in Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity found that practicing a combination of yoga postures, breathing exercises, and meditation for 12 weeks reduced markers of DNA damage, oxidative stress, and inflammation. These practices also improved cellular longevity, mood, and brain health. 

Although many types of meditation can improve your cognitive function and reduce cellular aging, loving-kindness meditation is one technique that can boost longevity even if you’re a beginner.

Your mind can quickly go down a rabbit hole of negativity, and this can affect your mood and your relationships with others. Loving-kindness meditation and compassion meditation have you cultivating positive thoughts towards yourself and others — including people you might not like. This improves your relationships with others, which is one of the key factors in healthy aging. According to a 2012 article in Clinical Psychological Review, loving-kindness meditation and compassion meditation activate the areas of your brain that involve emotional processing and empathy.

A 2022 study in Clinical Gerontologist had 24 older adults participate in a 10-week compassion meditation practice. At the end of the study, the meditators cultivated feelings of love and trust while lowering stress and overwhelm. In a 2019 study in Psychoneuroendocrinology, adults aged 35 to 64 who practiced loving-kindness meditation for 12 weeks had less shortening in their telomeres. Telomeres are protective caps at the ends of your DNA, and they shorten over time due to aging, stress, and other lifestyle factors. In other words, loving-kindness meditation slowed cellular aging.

Loving-kindness meditation has roots in Buddhism, and it aims to help you ground yourself in benevolent qualities such as compassion, joy, and tranquility. It also seeks to help you improve your concentration as you direct four aspirations toward yourself and others. 

Start by sitting or lying down comfortably, and you can choose light, instrumental music to help set the tone. You can also take some slow, deep breaths, focusing on expanding and contracting the diaphragm. Say or whisper to yourself, “May I be happy,” pausing for a moment before repeating it. The second aspiration is “May I be safe.” Think about what safety means to you, then repeat. The third aspiration is “May I be calm in body and mind,” and it is followed by the fourth aspiration “May I be peaceful and at ease.” Take as long as you’d like in speaking these aspirations as you let loving-kindness build within you. Then, for the second stage, go through each aspiration again, directing the aspirations toward someone you love, such as a child, parent, or spouse. The third stage has you bring to mind someone who doesn’t evoke any positive or negative feelings. The fourth stage directs the aspirations toward someone with whom you have a conflict. This stage can be challenging. You end the meditation by directing the aspirations toward the world, saying something like, “May all beings be happy…” 

Loving-kindness doesn’t have to be a formal sitting meditation. You can meditate every day while sitting at a traffic light or waiting at the doctor’s office.