In a state? Meditate

Avid meditators swear it calms them down and improves overall health and performance. Not that Eastern intuition needs Western validation, but scientists now understand a little more about how meditation can affect our brains and immune systems.

In a study reported in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, people who meditated had stronger antibody responses to a vaccine than participants who didn’t meditate.

Happy people generally have more activity in the left prefrontal cortex. People who are anxious, fearful and depressed show higher activity in the right prefrontal cortex. In the study, only the meditators showed increases in brain wave activity across the front of the left hemisphere.

All the more reason to give meditating a try.