Have modern scientists really confirmed ancient wisdom? For some old ideas, research does point the same way: strong social ties are linked with longer life, tai chi helps many older adults with balance and pain, and acupuncture performs a little better than sham treatment for chronic pain. But each study tests a specific practice and a specific outcome. None of them proves the wider beliefs that come with a tradition, such as the existence of qi.
The eight ideas below appeared in a popular 2014 Huffington Post feature by Alena Hall. Here they are again with the studies explained in plain language and with the caveats that usually get lost when a finding becomes a headline.
Purpose, helping others and health
Ancient Greek thinkers distinguished between two kinds of happiness. Hedonic well-being is about pleasure and the absence of pain. Eudaimonic well-being, often translated as “flourishing”, comes from meaning, purpose and contributing to something larger than yourself, which is where helping others fits in.
In 2013, a team led by psychologist Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences comparing these two types of happiness with patterns of gene expression in immune cells. People who scored high on eudaimonic well-being showed a more favourable profile, including signs of stronger antiviral activity, than those whose happiness was mainly hedonic.
The study made headlines, but it was small and soon challenged. In 2014, another group of researchers reanalysed the data in the same journal and argued that the statistics did not support a clear difference between the two kinds of happiness. The safest reading: a sense of purpose is associated with good health in many studies, but how it affects the body at the level of genes is still unsettled.
Acupuncture and chronic pain
In traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture is thought to rebalance the flow of qi, the life energy said to circulate through the body. There is no scientific evidence that qi or meridians exist, but researchers can still test whether needling helps with pain.
The best-known analysis, led by Andrew Vickers and published in Archives of Internal Medicine in 2012, pooled individual data from about 18,000 patients in randomised trials. For chronic back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, chronic headache and shoulder pain, real acupuncture did better than both no acupuncture and sham acupuncture. The gap between real and sham treatment, though, was modest, which suggests that much of the benefit comes from expectation, attention and the ritual of treatment. Acupuncture is generally safe when done by a trained practitioner with sterile needles, but it is not a cure for chronic disease.
Community, friendship and a longer life
Buddhist teaching gives great weight to the sangha, the community of practitioners, and many other traditions say much the same: people thrive together, not alone.
This one has solid support. In 2010, Julianne Holt-Lunstad of Brigham Young University and colleagues published a meta-analysis in PLOS Medicine combining 148 studies with more than 300,000 participants. People with stronger social relationships had about a 50 percent greater likelihood of survival over the study periods. The authors compared the size of the effect with well-known risk factors such as smoking, physical inactivity and obesity. These studies are observational, so they show a strong link rather than proof of cause, but the finding has been repeated many times since and helped make loneliness a public health topic.
Tai chi for body and balance
Tai chi began as a Chinese martial art and developed into a slow, flowing practice built on balance between mind and body. It is sometimes described as moving meditation.
A 2009 review in Harvard Women’s Health Watch summarised studies suggesting tai chi, used alongside standard treatment, can help older adults with arthritis, low bone density, heart conditions and balance. Later research has strengthened the evidence for fall prevention and for knee osteoarthritis pain in particular. It is gentle enough for most people to try, though anyone with a serious health condition should talk to a doctor first.
Meditation and the stress response
Meditation has deep roots in Hindu and Buddhist practice, aimed at quieting the mind and building awareness. Its modern scientific study took off when cardiologist Herbert Benson at Harvard described the “relaxation response” in the 1970s.
A 2013 study from the Benson-Henry Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital, with psychiatrist John Denninger among the authors, reported that relaxation practices, including meditation and yoga, were linked to changes in genes involved in energy metabolism, insulin secretion and inflammation. It was a small study and needs confirmation. Larger reviews show that mindfulness meditation can modestly reduce anxiety, depression and stress, roughly comparable to other active treatments, but it is not a replacement for medical care.
Compassion and loving-kindness
Buddhist traditions teach metta, or loving-kindness, a practice of deliberately wishing well to yourself and others, and Tibetan teachers have developed structured forms of compassion training.
In 2012, researchers at Emory University reported that people who completed a compassion meditation programme based on Tibetan Buddhist practice became better at reading emotions from photographs of people’s eyes, a standard test of empathy. Other loving-kindness studies, including work by Barbara Fredrickson’s group, have found increases in positive emotions, a stronger sense of purpose and better social support over time. Most of these studies are small, and the effects are moderate, but they suggest kindness can be practised like a skill.
Acceptance and the search for love
Buddhism holds that clinging to what cannot be changed causes suffering, an idea echoed by the famous Serenity Prayer. Researchers at Deakin University in Australia studied older adults, comparing people in assisted living with those still living in the community. As reported in the Journal of Happiness Studies in 2013, the ability to accept what could not be changed, while keeping some control over daily life, predicted higher life satisfaction for those in care. The researchers summed it up this way: adaptation “involves both a sense of control and the active acceptance of what cannot be changed.”
Finally, love. The Harvard Grant Study followed 268 male Harvard students from the late 1930s onward, making it one of the longest studies of adult life ever carried out. Its long-time director, psychiatrist George Vaillant, concluded that warm relationships were the strongest thread running through the happiest and healthiest lives. He described two pillars of happiness: “One is love. The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away.” The study has limits, since its original participants were all white men from one elite university, but its successor, the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which also includes participants from inner-city Boston, has reported similar conclusions about relationships.
What these studies can and cannot tell us
Taken together, the research supports some practical habits that ancient traditions recommended: stay connected to other people, find purpose, move gently and regularly, give attention to your own mind and treat others kindly. What it does not do is confirm the metaphysical frameworks behind them, and individual studies are often smaller and more uncertain than headlines suggest. A good rule is to ask what exactly was measured, in whom and compared with what. Practices that are low-risk, enjoyable and supported by reasonable evidence, such as tai chi or time with friends, are easy to recommend. Anything offered as a replacement for medical treatment deserves much more caution.
Sources: Alena Hall, Huffington Post (2014); Fredrickson et al., PNAS 2013; Vickers et al., Archives of Internal Medicine 2012; Holt-Lunstad et al., PLOS Medicine 2010; Harvard Health: Tai chi eases several medical conditions; Bhasin et al., PLOS ONE 2013; Emory University via ScienceDaily (2012).
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Love is all you need. ;)
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