An interesting new study from Mount Sinai, the University of California, San Francisco and Harvard Medical School researchers measured the “resort vacation effect” compared with the “meditation effect.” Studying participants over a six-day stay at the Chopra Center for Wellbeing, half experienced a regular resort vacation there, while half also did a meditation program (designed by Deepak Chopra, MD). The findings: both groups showed large, immediate changes in genetic expression associated with stress and immune pathways; however, the meditation retreat, for those who already meditated regularly, was also associated with antiviral activity.
The researchers noted that it, “May be intuitive that a vacation reduces biological processes related to stress, but it was impressive to see the large changes in gene expression from being…in a relaxing environment, in such a short period of time.”
