The heart of meditation

Meditation involves sitting comfortably with closed eyes and focusing on your breathing, a mental image, or repetition of a single positive word or phrase. The goal is to keep your mind focused on the present and away from stressful or distracting thoughts. As your mind becomes calm, so does your body.

A meditation practice supports your heart in many ways — from changing how you cope with stress to lowering high blood pressure.

Research has found that meditation can positively affect a measure of heart health known as heart rate variability (HRV). HRV reflects how quickly your heart makes small changes in the time interval between each heartbeat. A high HRV is a sign of healthier heart. A 2013 study found that low HRV is associated with a 32% to 45% increased risk of heart attack or stroke among people without cardiovascular disease.

With regular meditation, you may be able to raise your HRV. A 2013 study found that people who did five minutes of meditation daily for 10 days had a better HRV compared with those who didn't meditate.

A number of high-quality studies also show that meditation can modestly lower blood pressure, according to a 2013 American Heart Association scientific statement published in Hypertension. One analysis pooled results from nine studies and found that, on average, meditation lowered systolic blood pressure (the top number in a reading) by 4.7 milligrams of mercury (mm Hg) and diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number) by 3.2 mm Hg.