Meditation Notes

A new meditation study has found that daily meditation can improve memory in individuals with memory complaints. The study, which doesn’t elaborate on the kind of meditation practice involved, found “dramatic increases in blood flow… to the region of the brain associated with learning and memory.” This area is the first to decline [...]

Another report on the anti-aging effects of meditation; this time specifically related to Zen:
Zen meditation, a Buddhist practice, is centered on attentional and postural self-regulation and scientists believe that its regular practice may affect the normal age-related decline of cerebral gray matter volume and attentional performance observed in healthy individuals.

In Being Zen, Ezra Bayda introduces a meditation exercise called Three-By-Three, in which you bring three different sources of sensory input into awareness simultaneously, and maintain awareness of all three for three full breaths. You then continue on, using different collections of sensations, physical, visual or auditory, for each round of breaths.
This practice allows [...]

In this video Bhante Vimalaramsi discusses Vipassana meditation and Loving Kindness meditation. It contains some good general instructions that can be applied to both styles of meditation.

An interesting recollection from Paul Wilson about one of the physiological effects of meditation: retaining youthfulness. I have read, from another source, that 5 years of in-depth practice can take up to 12 years off of your biological age.