This Good Karma Flag illustrates an informative meditation on the genetic effects of the relaxation response.

The research team looked at long-term practitioners of mind-body exercises, a group of controls, and a third group that they trained in guided relaxation techniques, using 20 minutes each day of practice. The long-term practitioners were a diverse group, including practitioners of ‘Vipassna, mantra, mindfulness or transcendental meditation, breath focus, Kripalu or Kundalini Yoga, and repetitive prayer.’

A large number of genes seemed to be affected, with significant overlaps between the long-term and short-term practitioners. 260 genes were up-regulated and 168 genes were down-regulated in both the group of long-term practitioners and the group given short-term training. As the article reports: ‘they represent GEP changes characteristic of RR practice over at least 8 weeks.’ Some of the gene changes seem to cluster in genes expressed in hematopoietic cells, those linked to blood formation, and in genes linked to stress, oxidative metabolism, and primary metabolism. As the abstract reports: ‘gene ontology and gene set enrichment analyses revealed significant alterations in cellular metabolism, oxidative phosphorylation, generation of reactive oxygen species and response to oxidative stress.’

The researchers found that relaxation response was a kind of reversal of the genetic and cellular stress response. As the Discussion of the article suggests, ‘It is becoming increasingly clear that psychosocial stress can manifest as system-wide perturbations of cellular processes, generally increasing oxidative stress and promoting a pro-inflammatory milieu.’ In contrast, their analysis of relaxation response ‘reveals altered gene expression in specific functional groups which suggest a greater capacity to respond to oxidative stress and the associated cellular damage. Genes including COX7B, UQCRB and CASP2 change in opposite direction from that in the stress response.’