Buddhist meditation can cure mental and physical diseases

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – A new scientific study has found risk of mental illness and physical disease could be reduced by Buddhist meditations.

Researchers from Shanghai Medical Centre have found that frequent meditation by Buddhist monks over several years boosted the immune system and reduced the risk of anxiety, depression and heart disease.

Their report, published in General Psychiatry, says meditation helps regulate microbiota composition in the gut but they found a significant difference in samples from monks who meditated for at least two hours per day over many years, to a control group.

However, they cautioned that their findings were based on results from 56 monks living at high altitude and concluded the role of meditation impacting mental and physical illness merited further research.