A Better Brain in 12 Minutes a Day: Kirtan Kriya, a chanting yoga meditation
Just 12 minutes each day of practicing Kirtan Kriya — the ancient yoga chanting meditation — changes the brain in ways that may prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Meditation reduces stress
Reducing stress is an important pillar of a brain-healthy lifestyle. Now brain researchers are proving what yoga and meditation practitioners have known for thousands of years: The brain thrives when it is given time to pause.
Kirtan Kriya is one of the most studied practices linked to the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease. For the last twenty years Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa, an anesthesiologist and founder of the Alzheimer’s Research & Prevention Foundation, has scientifically evaluated Kirtan Kriya for its ability to improve memory, sleep and mood, and diminish stress. His papers are published in leading journals, such as Lancet and the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. {Check out some of Dr. Khalsa’s published work here.}
Kirtan Kriya lengthens telomers
Even more remarkable — Kirtan Kriya changes gene expression at the cellular level. One of Dr. Khalsa’s studies evaluated telomerase production Kirtan Kriya practitioners compared to those who did not meditate. Producing more telomerase, an enzyme that lengthens telomeres, the cap on each strand of DNA, is strongly associated with longevity. Short telomeres are associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and a shorter lifespan.
Meditation keeps the brain from shrinking with age
Meditation actually changes the brain’s anatomy. A recent review by Johns Hopkins University of over 47 trials involving 3515 participants found that regular meditation slows the rate of brain atrophy, or shrinkage — a key feature in Alzheimer’s disease.
A significant number of study participants increased their brain volume after an eight-week program of meditation. A study out of Harvard showed gains in the size of the cerebral cortex in those who meditate compared to those who don’t. And another study from the University of California Los Angeles documented gains in hippocampal volume. The hippocampus, a horseshoe shaped organ at the base of the brain’s ventricles, is where short-term memories are stored. It’s the part of the brain first attacked by Alzheimer’s disease.
The Alzheimer’s Research & Prevention Foundation studies yoga, meditation and the brain
Dr. Khalsa and his group have published extensively on the link between lifestyle and Alzheimer’s disease. A few weeks ago, I caught up with Kirti Khalsa by phone. Kirti is Dr. Khalsa’s wife, partner in the Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation, and a yoga practitioner for over 30 years. For the last 20 years, Kirti has focused on making yoga accessible to seniors and those with disabilities.
Kirti admits that talking about Alzheimer’s prevention 20 years ago was not easy. “It was very unpopular,” she says. “People didn’t even know what Alzheimer’s was, and physicians were skeptical, to say the least.”
Still, Kirti and Dr. Khalsa persevered — privately raising funding for their pilot studies on meditation and the brain. Over the years, they have accumulated a large body of data that has evolved to included telomerase testing, cerebral blood flow scanning, and a new project focused on women and Alzheimer’s.
“We are very excited to partner with UCLA,” says Kirti, “on a project to look at women and their brains, why they are more vulnerable to Alzheimer’s than men.”
In addition, Dr. Khalsa partnered with the FINGER study (a Finnish study which evaluated how lifestyle factors affect Alzheimer’s risk) by proposing that they check telomerase too. That paper will be published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease in the next month. Spoiler alert: The 2.5 year program resulted in lengthened telomers too. {Read more about the FINGER study here.}
“Not only were telomers lengthened,” says Kirti, “but the ones with APOE4 gene had the biggest improvement. It was tremendous, it hadn’t been measured until now.”
To download a guided meditation of Kirtan Kriya, led by Dr. Khalsa, visit the Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation’s website, to purchase for a nominal fee. Read more about kirtan kriya here.
Read Dr. Khalsa’s latest paper, plublished in May, 2021 in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease here: Spiritual Fitness: a new dimension in Alzheimer’s disease prevention.
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