EXERCISING OR MEDITATING

SICK of your ever recurring flu? Try exercising or meditating. It is a known fact that exercise and meditation help not just in losing weight, but also help in reducing stress and improving the health of our hearts.

But they could also have another hidden benefit, preventing us from getting a cold or the influenza.

Researchers say that mindfulness meditation or moderate exercise reduced the chances of getting sick by nearly 30 percent.

And the adults who did get sick, but engaged in other activity, has less severe symptoms, missed fewer days of work and and paid fewer visits to doctor than those who did neither.

The team, from the University of  Wisconsin Madison,  says it hopes the results lead to doctors  'prescribing'  one of the activities to their patients in addition to the annual flu shot.

For the study, published in the journal PLoS One, the team looked at nearly 400 adults between the ages of 30 and 69 between 2012 and 2016.

They were divided into three groups, the first took an eight-week exercise class, the second took an  eight-week meditation class and the third took neither class.

None of the adults regularly exercised or meditated prior to the study and reported they get on average one cold per year.

The participants took their classes between September and October and were followed through May weekly to look for signs of acute respiratory infections including incidence and duration.

Over the course of the eight month, there were 112 cold and flu episodes and among the meditation group, causing them to miss a combined 73 days of work.

Among the exercise group, there were 120 cold and flu episodes, which made them miss 82 days of work.

But in the control group, there were 134 respiratory infection episodes, for which 105 days of work were missed.

There were also fewer visits to a healthcare professionals among the meditation group and exercise groups.

While the meditation and exercise groups had 22 and 21 healthcare visits, respectively, the control group had 24 visits. [Courtesy Daily Mail]

The honor and serving of the latest operational research on Health, Exercising and Meditation continues.