Stressed? Meditate On It.

Stress is implicated as a risk factor for abnormal brain aging, which means stressed-out people are more likely to develop Alzheimer's and other dementias.

One way to control or relieve stress is through mindfulness -- the "mindful awareness" that can be achieved through meditation, yoga, tai chi, and other similar programs of inwardly-focused concentration and thoughtfulness.

There's growing scientific support for the beneficial health effects of meditation. 1997 research by UC Irvine researcher JA Astin found that mindful meditation reduced stress symptoms. Dr. James Austin's 1998 book, Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness, was a seminal argument that mindfulness practices create measurable changes in the brain. EEG and MRI studies of Buddhist monks by the University of Wisconsin's Richard Davidson seem to support that notion. And it's not just professional meditators -- the New York Times reports that "a few rigorous, controlled studies have suggested that Buddhist-style meditation in Western patients may cause physiological changes in the brain and the immune system."

If you want to get started, the Mayo Clinic offers an excellent online summary of the basic types of meditation. And there's the always helpful Dummies books.

Medical researchers are also spreading the word to the general public. UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center offers programs to help people learn to "deal with stress, improve attention, ... and promote a general sense of health and well-being." While those are limited to the Los Angeles area, they offer a few mp3 files as an introduction to mindfulness meditation. You can listen to them online or download them.

The University of Massachusetts Medical School' Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society has offered a mindfulness-based stress reduction program since 1979. UMass says that post-participation surveys show that the program leaves people with "an increased ability to relax ... greater energy and enthusiasm for life ... an ability to cope more effectively with both short and long-term stressful situations."