You might have heard of telomeres! They’re the little end-caps on DNA that stops it unraveling, a bit like the little plastic caps on shoelaces that stop them from unraveling.

Telomeres have become popular because they’re closely linked with the age of the body. Short telomeres tend to mean faster ageing.

Lots of research has now shown that meditation can slow ageing. I’ve written about some of the research in some other blogs. See: (Harvard Study Finds that Meditation Impacts DNA) (Can Compassion Beat Botox in the Anti-Ageing Stakes?)

One of my favourite meditations is the Buddhists’ Loving-Kindness Meditation. It helps you cultivate a sentiment of love, kindness, and compassion for yourself and others. It always leaves me feeling warm inside.

I am pleased to learn that scientists have now studied the effect of the Loving-Kindness Meditation on the length of telomeres. Fifteen practitioners of the Meditation were compared with 22 people in a control group. They were all around the same age. Each person had their telomeres measured.

The study found that the practitioners of the Loving-Kindness Meditation had longer telomeres than the control group. Basically, it meant that even though they were all around the same age, the people who practiced loving-kindness were physiologically younger.

And if you’re a female reading this, you’ll be very pleased to know the following: Female Loving-Kindness Meditation practitioners had the longest telomeres of all! The meditation seems to effect women more than men.

You have two ages. There’s your chronological age, which is your actual age. So if you were born in March 1960 your chronological age is 54 (I’m writing this in August 2014). Your physiological age, on the other hand, is the age of your body and it is affected by diet, lifestyle, stress, attitude … and clearly love, kindness, and compassion.

An unhealthy diet, lifestyle, or lots of stress, all tend to age the body faster. A person whose chronological age is 54 but who leads a very unhealthy lifestyle might have a physiological age of 68. Another person with the same chronological age but who leads a very healthy life might have a physiological age of 37.

The length of your telomeres is a good estimate of your physiological age.

So the Loving-Kindness Meditation basically reduces physiological age. You really can grow younger! You can’t become chronologically younger, but it’s your physiological age that ultimately matters.

How to do the meditation:

You can use the following set of statements:

May ____ be filled with loving kindness, be well, peaceful and at ease, happy, and free of suffering.

Where I’ve put a ____, insert first yourself and repeat it three times, then choose a loved one, and again repeat three times, followed by someone emotionally neutral to you, again three times, then a difficult person in your life; that’s someone from the present or past who causes or has caused you stress and you still have a negative emotional charge towards. Again you wish them the sentiments three times. Then you finish by wishing the sentiment to all sentient beings, again three times. That’s one cycle.

You can do as many or as few cycles as you wish. Some people like to do a few so that they can focus on their closest loved ones. Some people focus on the same difficult person on all of their cycles. There is no rule that says you have to do it in any particular way. What matters most is the sentiment of love, kindness, and compassion.

After completing his PhD, David worked for 4 years in the pharmaceutical industry developing drugs for cardiovascular disease and cancer. During this time he also served as an athletics coach and manager of one of the UK’s largest athletics clubs, leading them to three successive UK finals. Upon leaving the pharmaceutical industry, David co-founded the international relief charity Spirit Aid Foundation and served as a director for 2 years.

Now a bestselling author of 6 books published by Hay House, he offers talks and workshops that fuse science, the mind, and spiritual wisdom. David writes a regular blog for the Huffington Post.

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