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meditation

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Meditation – Peace of Mind Brings Health to Life

Meditation - Peace of Mind Brings Health to LifeMuch like massage therapy and other alternative medicine practices, the art of meditation has many benefits and has been used for centuries.

When you think of meditation, you may be like many others, who conjure up images of a person sitting with their legs crossed and humming or repeating a mantra rhythmically, and some may certainly do this! They may do this daily because meditation has many positive effects on the mind and body.

Benefits of Meditation

Meditation has many health benefits, that promote both physical and mental well-being. It has been shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, lower high blood pressure, and of course calm the mind.

When practiced regularly, meditation provides physical benefits, due to the fact that when the mind is calm, stress and inflammation of the body can significantly be reduced.

Find A Point of Reference

Meditation therapy turns your focus to one individual point of reference. This can be a physical object, your breath (which is the most common) or some other bodily function, or something you are perceiving through one of your five senses.

The idea is to move your attention away from distractions and sensory clutter, to focus on just the present moment in time. Doing this brings about a sense of peace in the mind.

Those who have not previously practiced meditation will be surprised how difficult it is initially to maintain a quiet, gentle focus on something as simple and straightforward as their own breath.

Learning not to be distracted by external stimuli, and effortlessly returning focus to the point of reference is the initial goal of meditation, and the stage when benefits will be most experienced.

Meditation for Spiritual Healing

Meditation can also be used for spiritual healing, as it promotes relaxation while building internal energy (the life force, or qi). This ancient practice helps reduce the negative feelings such as resentment and anger, while boosting a positive spiritual attitude, embracing generosity, love and forgiveness.

One of the more ambitious goals of meditation is to achieve a state of nirvana – which is an indestructible sense of well-being – while engaging in any activity in life.

Meditation is a prominent pillar in many ancient eastern religions, particularly Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism.

Buddhist Meditation for Enlightenment

Buddhist meditation is the most popular and well-known of these, with non-Buddhists taking it up for a variety of mental and physical health benefits.

Buddhist meditation involves several different techniques that aim to develop mindfulness and concentration, tranquility and insight. Buddhists pursue meditation as part of their path towards Enlightenment, or Bodhi, where the Buddhist reaches a final and full understanding regarding the true nature of things.

When meditating, it is important to be sitting in an upright position. That helps with breathing, which can even be your own individual point of reference – as described above – to help with your meditating.

Mindfulness and mental silence are also crucial to meditation. In the early part of the 21st century, mindfulness meditation has become increasingly important to Westerners and their medical and psychological community as a means of helping people, regardless of whether they are sick or wish to improve their emotional wellbeing.

 

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Using Meditation To Treat Anxiety

meditationWhen anxiety strikes, it can leave you disoriented and unsure how to get out what feels like a dreadful situation. While you can take an anti-anxiety pill, these require a prescription from your doctor, they are highly addictive, and the drowsiness they cause can interfere with everyday life. This is where meditation comes in. Once you have practiced the art of meditation, you can do it anywhere and at any time and its immediate effect in counteracting anxiety can be invaluable.

Meditation is an age-old practice that used to be done by shamans and priests/priestesses of earth-based religion. In the modern age of medications for everything, people forgot that the best way to treat an anxious mind is to use the power of your own mind to counteract feelings of anxiety.

In modern times, millions of people practice meditation to reduce stress, for heart health, to improve memory, focus, and concentration and to free themselves of distracting and debilitating anxiety.

How does meditation work?

Different people use meditation in varying ways. In some cases, people prefer to sit up straight on a comfortable chair, while others like meditation best while they are lying down. In almost all cases, it starts with the simple act of breathing. Some people time their breaths such as breathing in for 2 seconds, holding the breath for 2 seconds, and finally slowly letting out the breath over the last 2 seconds. Others simply breathe in and out, feeling their heart rate slowdown in the process.

There are more than 15 different forms of meditating, all of which have their own intricate design and varying benefits.

It is advisable to do your meditation in clothing that is comfortable for you to wear. You need to breathe in and out until you feel comfortable with going on to the next step, which is the tensing of the muscles starting at the feet, going up the legs, into the belly, the arms, the shoulders, and finally the head. Then the processed is reversed. Muscles are gradually relaxed in a stepwise fashion so that your body is completely relaxed. Keep breathing and allow yourself to sink into a meditative stance.

Concentration Meditation and Awareness Meditation are two of the best methods for anxiety.

Does meditation actually relieve anxiety?

The purpose of meditation is to put your mind and body into an aware, present place in present time. When you do this, a secondary side effect is the reduction of anxiety. Anxiety is nothing more than fretting over the past or worrying about the future. If you can stay in the present time, those thoughts of past and future fade away, leaving you alone with more pleasant thoughts.

People spend too much time regretting the past or worrying about the “what-ifs” of a future we feel we have little control over. Even if we have no control over actual past or present events, meditation can help us get out of negative thought tracts so that we can control our response to different stressors.

The anxiety is released through meditation because you learn to let go of your worries and face the future with a passive stance on things. It doesn’t take the stressors away but it helps you manage them better.

Deeper States of Meditation

Some people choose to meditate in complete silence, while others choose a mantra or vocalization that helps them keep away distracting thoughts. The meditation mantra can be anything from “ohm,” traditionally done in Far Eastern cultures to a word or phrase that is meaningful to them. If you feel the need to vocalize during meditation, find something that suits you. Your thoughts will focus on the breath and on the mantra so the anxious thoughts are pushed into the background of your mind.

Medicine Embraces Meditation

Research studies show that meditation slows the heart rate and improves one’s mood. It is speculated that meditation induces changes in the brain chemicals, including serotonin and dopamine, which is a hormone/neurotransmitter that helps you feel calmer and feel pleasure better. However, it isn’t something you can bottle up and take home with you. It takes practice over time so that the meditation has lasting effects on the stress in your mind and in your body.

With practice, you can escape from daily stress and anxiety easily, no matter where you are.

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Mindful Meditation for Brain Health

bigstockphoto_Meditating_By_The_Sea_1059748Introduction to Mindful Meditation

Meditation is a form of alternative medicine that has been associated with a number of benefits, specifically to the individual’s mental health, such as decreased stress levels and improved mood. Mindfulness, in particular, is a form of meditation that involves intense concentration and focus on the present.
Mindful meditation requires awareness of one’s thoughts and actions in the present, putting aside all thoughts of the past and the future.

Meditation In Holistic Care

No matter who you are, or the stresses you have in your life, mediation is a sure fire way to improve wellbeing. Those who mediate will attest to its powers and mediation masters can literally detach themselves from any type of chaos and outside noise by simply going into their minds and a meditative state.
Enlightment is often experienced by those who mediate and is it brings them close to their internal feelings and who they are.

In holistic medicine, meditation is often used to treat those with anxiety, depression, and stress. It can help relax, calm and provide a truly 100% natural and effective treatment method that has numerous health benefits.

Here are some key points to remember when performing mindful meditation:

• Be aware of your own breathing- pay attention to the sensation of air entering your nostrils and leaving your mouth, and the rise and fall of your belly.
• Let each thought come and go, without suppressing or ignoring each of them. Stay calm and focus on your breathing.
• If you get distracted, simply follow your thoughts without being too hard on yourself.

Mindful Meditation Evidenced-Based Study

A recent study published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” online journal suggested that a few hours of mindful meditation or integrative body-mind training can help improve mood, self-control, and response to stress.
The study, which was published on June 11, 2012, involved 68 undergraduates from the Dalian University of Technology in China. The students were divided into relaxation training and meditation training groups. Each of the group underwent either a 30-minute relaxation training or integrative body-mind training over a period of two weeks, totaling 5 hours of training for each group.

Researchers of this study have found changes in the brain’s “white matter”- a part of the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex- after performing mindful meditation after just a short period. These changes weren’t observed in the brains of those who underwent relaxation training. None of the participants from both groups had any previous meditation training experience.

A non-invasive, MRI-based technology known as diffusion tensor imaging was used to observe the white matter in the brains of the students, together with other imaging technology that measures the white matter’s ability to adapt and change.
The researchers focused on certain areas of the brain that were most susceptible to these physical changes, and measured these areas before and after mindful meditation training.

The white matter is an area in the brain that affects how it learns, and coordinates and relays information among the various brain regions. According to the authors, understanding the white matter in relation to training, learning, and human development can potentially prevent various mental conditions such as anxiety, ADHD, depression, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, and even addiction, disorders that all involved the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain.

The most common problem with meditation, just like with any other alternative form of medicine is that scientific evidence is often lacking.

People who have practiced meditation may have been “conditioned” to feel positive about the therapy, and thus have responded favorably to the training.

This study, on the other hand, offers a quantifiable result that is actually based on scientific evidence. Because the actual structural changes that the brain went through were observed and measured, this breakthrough study opens up a number of new possibilities in the world of alternative medicine.