Meditation became part of the vernacular of lifestyle choices and a source of a lot of conversation as far back as the 60s for baby boomers when there was a big interest in eastern religions and things that were exotic and new. But while many of the flash in the pan interests in exotic religions during that time frame faded away in the life style of baby boomers, meditation has endured and become a common practice and resource that has benefited this generation in every decade of their lives.

There is a good reason meditation has endured and even grown in popularity far beyond any religious context. Meditation has tremendous benefits for virtually every aspect of life and those who integrate it into their daily lifestyles can experience those benefits virtually as soon as they start. You don’t have to be a guru at meditation to realize benefits from the very first time to give it a try. Some of those benefits include:

:: Meditation is calming. Because the act of meditation calls for you to bring your thoughts into captivity and to still your mind and focus it, that sense of your soul being in turmoil eases and you are able to address the cause of your anxiety and see a solution more clearly because your emotions are not clouding the issue.

:: Meditation helps you focus and concentrate. The great thing about meditation is that the effects of meditation continue past those few moments when you are meditating. Those few moments of calm create an atmosphere of focus and clarity of thought that goes on throughout your day helping you focus your mind and more easily concentrate when you need to.

:: Meditation reduces stress and mental anxiety. So often the stress that comes out of problems and difficulties is dominated by emotional reactions even more than by the problem itself. Meditation clears away the effects of the stress making it easier for you to solve the problem itself.

:: Meditation helps reduce physical anxiety. The process of meditation involves extended periods of quiet deep breathing. This simple action floods the brain with oxygen and energizes blood flow throughout the body which refreshes tired muscles and causes your entire physical system to relax and release pent up anxiety.

:: Meditation helps you sleep and digest your food. The refreshed blood flow, rich in oxygen that comes from the session of meditation, takes action immediately on the digestive system often reducing or eliminating digestive problems and even easing the symptoms of ulcers. Because the mind is relaxed and well supplied with vital oxygen and blood flow, sleep comes more easily and is more recuperative.

Some successful role models in all walks of life that come out of the baby boomer generation credit meditation to why they are able to accomplish such great things. In addition to all of these benefits, meditation is easy to integrate into your lifestyle and you can go at your own pace learning to become better at meditation and grow in your ability to use it.

Meditation is profoundly easy to do. The image of a meditation practitioner in painful “lotus position” going into a virtual trance is the extreme of the discipline. Because meditation has been adapted so that any of us can benefit from the health benefits it brings, you can begin meditating immediately and see the benefits from the very first session.

Small wonder many baby boomers have continued down through the decades to be enthusiastic proponents of meditation. And there is no reason baby boomers cannot continue to enjoy the tremendous benefits as they move into their late middle age and retirement years as well.

If there ever was a generation who would put every resource known to man against the challenge of defeating aging, it would be the baby boomer generation. Of course the deeply rooted desire in mankind to stop or turn back the aging process is as old as time itself. We have ample evidence of that in literature. From The Fountain to Youth to Peter Pan, there have been many efforts to just stubbornly say “I wont grow up” as though stamping ones foot and refusing to participate can actually keep us from growing older.

Baby boomers have always had a love affair with youth. It is no doubt deeply rooted in their explosive teen and twenties years in which this generation became virtually the center of the universe as youth culture dominated the country if not the world in the sixties and seventies. That kind of thing can convince you that you are the generation that would never grow old.

But, of course, the baby boomer generation has grown old. But the interest in staying vibrant and active has resulted in the explosive growth of the exercise and diet industries. Because if baby boomers can’t stop aging from happening, they can at least not LOOK old or act like it either.

From a medical stand point, of course, there has never been an anti aging medicine or pill. Medical science has seen phenomenal changes and had breakthroughs in many areas of research and study. Boomers were fully prepared to fund any medical work being done that might result in the elimination of aging or at least in slowing its relentless onset. But medical science has not found any magic potion that could cause aging to stop or to reverse its effects.

Even if aging could be stopped at some level on the physical level, you have to wonder if that would be practical in light of aging that affects the whole of what a person is. We know that we don’t just age in body, we age in attitudes, in maturity and in our ambition and how we view our goals in life. This has as much to do with the cycles of life from youth to parenthood to middle age and then to retirement as it does with physical changes in our bodies.

For many, the question might be, “If science could make it possible for you to never age or die, would you even want that?” There is an intuitive knowledge in our hearts that we have a season to live on this earth and then its time to pass the torch to the next generation. Everything works on that cycle. You are defined by your place in life. So if you are in your forties, being a parent or a spouse is considered the appropriate place to be. So too, at 70 or 80, we are expected to be wise old grandma and granddad. Our behavior in society, what we value and what we look for from others is expected to be driven by our age in life which is a subset of the aging process.

If aging was somehow defeated entirely, that entire cycle of life would have to be completely re-evaluated. If you knew you would live 200 years rather than 80 or 90 years, how would you plan your family, your career and your finances?

Thankfully, perhaps, aging remains a constant. The good news is while baby boomers fight aging with a passion, they are also capable of growing into their senior years with a lot to give back to society. So just as boomers have been had a huge impact on society through every other decade, when they accept that they are going to be part of that aging process, they will be a great generation of grandmas and grandpas as well.