Mental silence promotes better health

It emerged from this survey’s findings that long term meditators who use a mental silence orientated form of meditation, do experience better mental and physical health than the general population and that the “meditative lifestyle” appears to be specifically associated with better health scores.

Importantly, the strongest and most consistent relationship between the health advantages experienced by this sample was with the experience of mental silence.

Interestingly, those who participated in a convenience sample of meditators using meditation techniques not focused on mental silence, did not appear to experience the same health advantage.

This finding strengthens the notion that mental silence and its associated yogic philosophy, may provide a basis for a typology of meditation that has practical salience. Furthermore, the empirical data here suggests a meaningful link between a specific state of consciousness and health and wellbeing benefits thereby providing a new perspective for scholars interested in the relationship between religiosity and health.