Meditation Reduces Heart Disease Deaths

The Medical College of Wisconsin in conjunction with Maharishi University in Iowa funded a study about the effects of transcendental meditation on health. Researchers discovered that over the course of nine years, the group assigned to meditate saw a 47 percent reduction in strokes, heart attacks and deaths.

Two groups of African-Americans were assigned either to meditate or to make certain lifestyle changes. The group told to meditate was instructed to do so twice a day for 20 minutes. The other group was given instruction on traditional methods to reduce the risk of heart disease. After nine years, 20 incidences of stroke, heart attack, or death occurred in the meditation group while 31 incidences occurred in the health education group.

Dr. Robert Schneider, lead author of the study and the director of the Centre for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University, stated that the meditation group experienced an overall reduction in blood pressure as well as a significant reduction in psychological stress. Supporters of transcendental meditation claim that the study proves the long-term positive effects of the practice on those who participate in it.

Researchers noted, however, that among those in the health education group, very few followed the instructions and made any sort of significant changes in their lifestyles. Such lifestyle changes may have proven more effective if group participants would have followed the instructions in the same way as those in the meditation group did. For this reason, the study does not accurately capture the positive benefits of lifestyle changes apart from meditation.

Because transcendental meditation involves spiritual practices that conflict with the beliefs of various other faiths, some may wish to pursue other avenues of achieving better health and preventing the onset of heart disease without violating their convictions.

CoQ10, omega-3 essential fatty acids (EFAs), vitamin C, B vitamins, and vitamin D are a few of the many vitamins and nutrients that work to maintain heart health. Blueberries are an excellent source of pterostilebene, a compound identified by the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help prevent heart disease and type-2 diabetes.

Resveratrol, another powerful antioxidant found in the skins of both grapes and blueberries has received a lot of attention recently for its powerful effects in bolstering cardiovascular health. A Harvard Medical School study showed that high doses of resveratrol given to obese mice allowed them to live long, healthy lives despite eating diets high in fat.

Meditation Good For Brain

Scientists say they have found evidence that meditation has a biological effect on the body.

A small-scale study suggests it could boost parts of the brain and the immune system.

Meditation has been practised since ancient times, mainly in the East.

There is increasing evidence that meditation is a useful and, for some people, a powerful therapy. Dr Adrian White, University of Exeter

It is now catching on worldwide as a means to reduce stress or to help with pain caused by various illnesses.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States enrolled 41 people in a trial of so-called “mindfulness” meditation.

It is a technique developed by an American stress reduction specialist – Jon Kabat-Zinn – for helping hospital patients deal with pain and discomfort.

Encouraging

Twenty five of the subjects attended a weekly class and one seven-hour retreat during the study; they were also given exercises to carry out at home. The others did not receive meditation training and acted as a control group.

After eight weeks, the researchers measured electrical activity in the frontal part of the brain. They say this region was more active on the left side in the individuals who meditated and was associated with lower anxiety and a more positive emotional state.

Participants were also given a flu jab at the start of the study and those who meditated had higher levels of antibody, say the researchers, led by Dr Richard Davidson.

“Although our study is preliminary and more research clearly is warranted we are very encouraged by these results,” he said.

Meditation: Take a Stress-reduction Break

Meditation can wipe away the day’s stress, bringing with it inner peace. See how you can easily learn to practice meditation whenever you need it most.
If stress has you anxious, tense and worried, consider trying meditation. Spending even just a few minutes in meditation can restore calm and inner peace.

Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years. Meditation originally was meant to help deepen understanding of the sacred and mystical forces of life. These days, meditation is commonly used for relaxation and stress reduction. Anyone can practice meditation. It’s simple and inexpensive, and it doesn’t require any special equipment. And you can practice meditation wherever you are — whether you’re out for a walk, riding the bus, waiting at the doctor’s office or even in the middle of a difficult business meeting.

Understanding meditation

Meditation, considered a type of mind-body complementary medicine, produces a deep state of relaxation and a tranquil mind. During meditation, you focus your attention and eliminate the stream of jumbled thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress. This process results in enhanced physical and emotional well-being.

Benefits of meditation

Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace and balance that benefits both your emotional well-being and your overall health. And these benefits don’t end when your meditation session ends. Meditation can help carry you more calmly through your day and improve certain medical conditions.

Meditation and emotional well-being
When you meditate, you clear away the information overload that builds up every day and contributes to your stress.

The emotional benefits of meditation include:

• Gaining a new perspective on stressful situations
• Building skills to manage your stress
• Increased self-awareness
• Focusing on the present
• Reducing negative emotions

Meditation and illness
Many healthy people use meditation as a way to relax the body and reduce stress. But meditation also might be useful if you have a medical condition, especially one that may be worsened by stress.

A growing body of scientific research is supporting the health benefits of meditation. But many of the studies aren’t of high quality, and some researchers believe it’s not yet possible to draw conclusions about the possible benefits of meditation.

With that in mind, some research suggests that meditation may help such conditions as:

• Allergies
• Anxiety disorders
• Asthma
• Binge eating
• Cancer
• Depression
• Fatigue
• Heart disease
• High blood pressure
• Pain
• Sleep problems
• Substance abuse

Be sure to talk to your health care provider about the pros and cons of using meditation if you have any of these or other medical conditions. Meditation isn’t a replacement for traditional medical treatment. But it can be useful in addition to your other treatment.

Types of meditation

There are many types of meditation and relaxation techniques with meditation components. But all share the same goal of inner peace.

Ways to meditate can include:

• Guided meditation. Sometimes called guided imagery or visualization, with this method of meditation you form mental images of places or situations you find relaxing. You try to use as many senses as possible, such as smells, sights, sounds and textures. You may be led through this process by a guide or teacher.
• Mantra meditation. In this type of meditation, you silently repeat a calming word, thought or phrase to prevent distracting thoughts. Transcendental meditation is a type of mantra meditation in which you achieve a deep state of relaxation to achieve pure awareness.
• Mindfulness meditation. This type of meditation is based on being mindful, or having an increased awareness and acceptance of living in the present moment. You focus on what you experience during meditation, such as the flow of your breath. You can observe your thoughts and emotions but let them pass without judgment.
• Qi gong. This practice generally combines meditation, relaxation, physical movement and breathing exercises to restore and maintain balance. Qi gong (chee-kung) is part of traditional Chinese medicine.
• Tai chi. This is a form of gentle Chinese martial arts. In tai chi (TIE-chee), you perform a self-paced series of postures or movements in a slow, graceful manner while practicing deep breathing.
• Yoga. You perform a series of postures and controlled breathing exercises to promote a more flexible body and a calm mind. As you move through poses that require balance and concentration, you’re encouraged to focus less on your busy day and more on the moment.

Elements of meditation

Different types of meditation may include different features to help you meditate. These may vary depending on whose guidance you follow or who’s teaching a class. Some of the most common features in meditation include:

• Focusing your attention. Focusing your attention is generally one of the most important elements of meditation. Focusing your attention is what helps free your mind from the many distractions that cause stress and worry. You can focus your attention on such things as a specific object, an image, a mantra, or even your breathing. Don’t fret when your mind wanders. Just return to your focus of attention.
• Relaxed breathing. This technique involves deep, even-paced breathing using the diaphragm muscle to expand your lungs. The purpose is to slow your breathing, take in more oxygen, and reduce the use of shoulder, neck and upper chest muscles while breathing so that you breathe more efficiently.
• A quiet location. If you’re a beginner, practicing meditation may be easier if you’re in a quiet spot with few distractions — no television, radios or cell phones. As you get more skilled at meditation, you may be able to do it anywhere, especially in high-stress situations where you benefit the most from meditation, such as a traffic jam, a stressful work meeting or a long line at the grocery store.
• A comfortable position. You can practice meditation whether you’re sitting, lying down, walking or in other positions or activities. Just try to be comfortable so that you can get the most out of your meditation.

Everyday ways to practice meditation

Don’t let the thought of meditating the “right” way add to your stress. Sure, you can attend special meditation centers or group classes led by trained instructors. But you also can practice meditation easily on your own.

And you can make meditation as formal or informal as you like — whatever suits your lifestyle and situation. Some people build meditation into their daily routine. For example, they may start and end each day with an hour of meditation. But all you really need is a few minutes of quality time for meditation.

Tips to practice meditation on your own
Here are some ways you can practice meditation on your own, whenever you choose. Take a few minutes or as much time as you like to practice one or more of these meditation methods:

• Breathe deeply. This technique is good for beginners because breathing is a natural function. Focus all attention on your breathing. Concentrate on feeling and listening as you inhale and exhale through your nostrils. Breathe deeply and slowly. When your attention wanders, gently return your focus to your breathing.
• Scan your body. When using this technique, focus attention on different parts of your body. Become aware of your body’s various sensations, whether that’s pain, tension, warmth or relaxation. Combine body scanning with breathing exercises and imagine breathing heat or relaxation into and out of different parts of your body.
• Repeat a mantra. You can create your own mantra, whether it’s religious or secular. Examples of religious mantras include the Jesus Prayer in the Christian tradition, the holy name of God in Judaism, or the om mantra of Hinduism, Buddhism and other Eastern religions.
• Walking meditation. Combining a walk with meditation is an efficient and healthy way to relax. You can use this technique anywhere you’re walking — in a tranquil forest, on a city sidewalk or at the mall. When you use this method, slow down the pace of walking so that you can focus on each movement of your legs or feet. Don’t focus on a particular destination. Concentrate on your legs and feet, repeating action words in your mind such as lifting, moving and placing as you lift each foot, move your leg forward and place your foot on the ground.
• Engage in prayer. Prayer is the best known and most widely practiced example of meditation. Spoken and written prayers are found in most faith traditions. You can pray using your own words or read prayers written by others. Check the self-help or 12-step-recovery section of your local bookstore for examples. Talk with your rabbi, priest, pastor or other spiritual leader about resources.
• Read or listen and take time to reflect. Many people report that they benefit from reading poems or sacred texts silently or aloud, and taking a few moments to quietly reflect on the meaning that the words bring to mind. You can listen to sacred music, spoken words or any music you find relaxing or inspiring. You may want to write your reflections in a journal or discuss them with a friend or spiritual leader.
• Focus your love and gratitude. In this type of meditation, you focus your attention on a sacred object or being, weaving feelings of love and gratitude into your thoughts. You can also close your eyes and use your imagination or gaze at representations of the object.

Building your meditation skills

Don’t judge your meditation skills, which may only increase your stress. Meditation takes practice. Keep in mind, for instance, that it’s common for your mind to wander during meditation, no matter how long you’ve been practicing meditation. If you’re meditating to calm your mind and your attention wanders, slowly return to the object, sensation or movement you’re focusing on.

Experiment, and you’ll likely find out what types of meditation work best for you and what you enjoy doing. Adapt meditation to your needs at the moment. Remember, there’s no right way or wrong way to meditate. What matters is that meditation helps you with stress reduction and feeling better overall.

Meditation Improves Brain Power

Meditating does more than just feel good and calm you down, it makes you perform better – and alters the structure of your brain, researchers have found.

People who meditate say the practice restores their energy, and some claim they need less sleep as a result. Many studies have reported that the brain works differently during meditation – brainwave patterns change and neuronal firing patterns synchronize. But whether meditation actually brings any of the restorative benefits of sleep has remained largely unexplored.

So Bruce O’Hara and colleagues at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, US, decided to investigate. They used a well-established “psychomotor vigilance task”, which has long been used to quantify the effects of sleepiness on mental acuity. The test involves staring at an LCD screen and pressing a button as soon as an image pops up. Typically, people take 200 to 300 milliseconds to respond, but sleep-deprived people take much longer, and sometimes miss the stimulus altogether.

Ten volunteers were tested before and after 40 minutes of either sleep, meditation, reading or light conversation, with all subjects trying all conditions. The 40-minute nap was known to improve performance (after an hour or so to recover from grogginess). But what astonished the researchers was that meditation was the only intervention that immediately led to superior performance, despite none of the volunteers being experienced at meditation.

“Every single subject showed improvement,” says O’Hara. The improvement was even more dramatic after a night without sleep. But, he admits: “Why it improves performance, we do not know.” The team is now studying experienced meditators, who spend several hours each day in practice.

What effect meditating has on the structure of the brain has also been a matter of some debate. Now Sara Lazar at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, US, and colleagues have used MRI to compare 15 meditators, with experience ranging from 1 to 30 years, and 15 non-meditators.

They found that meditating actually increases the thickness of the cortex in areas involved in attention and sensory processing, such as the prefrontal cortex and the right anterior insula.

“You are exercising it while you meditate, and it gets bigger,” she says. The finding is in line with studies showing that accomplished musicians, athletes and linguists all have thickening in relevant areas of the cortex. It is further evidence, says Lazar, that yogis “aren’t just sitting there doing nothing”.

The growth of the cortex is not due to the growth of new neurons, she points out, but results from wider blood vessels, more supporting structures such as glia and astrocytes, and increased branching and connections.

The new studies were presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, in Washington DC, US.

How to Beat Stress Through Meditation

There’s nothing like economic calamity to focus the mind. But instead of obsessing over your job security or declining 401(k) balance, try diminishing your stress with a new assist from a very old tool: meditation.

Stretching back thousands of years to ancient spiritual traditions, meditation has been attracting a growing following of secular practitioners in recent years. While it’s still not exactly mainstream, data released in December by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, an arm of the National Institutes of Health, show that 9.4 percent of adults surveyed in 2007 had tried meditation at least once during the previous 12 months, a significant increase from 7.6 percent in 2002. And 1 percent of children had zoned in, too.

Your choices are extensive—mindfulness meditation, transcendental meditation, and the latest trend, compassion meditation, are three of many approaches, each with a slightly different intent. Compassion meditation aims to foster a feeling of loving-kindness toward others, for example, while mindfulness meditation focuses on awareness and acceptance of the present moment.

Whatever the variation, certain basic elements are common to all forms of meditation. Comfortably seated, lying down, or even walking around, you focus your mind on your breath, a word, a mantra, an object—something specific—possibly for a few minutes but perhaps much longer, gently pushing away distracting thoughts. As you learn to stay focused, you experience a sense of calm. Your body relaxes. Your breathing slows. Your heart rate drops.

Many of those who practice meditation turn to it to help them deal with emotional stumbling blocks like stress and anxiety. It can also be used to change unhealthful eating habits or to battle substance abuse. And studies continue to add to the ways in which meditation might be able to play a therapeutic role—for example, it has been shown to bolster HIV patients’ immune systems, ease chronic pain, and reduce blood pressure.

Gene control. New research has been taking these discoveries to a deeper level, revealing how meditation and other relaxation techniques work in cells, turning on and off genes that are associated with inflammation, cell aging, and free radicals, all of which are associated with damage to cells and tissues. French philosopher René Descartes famously believed that the mind and body were separate entities, but emerging evidence is proving him wrong.

What this shows is that you can actually change the brain with the mind,” says Herbert Benson, director emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a coauthor of a study demonstrating such genetic changes that was published in July in the online journal PLoS One.

Meditation’s psychological and physical effects both are tied to the “fight or flight” response. When we are under stress, the brain sends hormones and other substances racing through our system to ready us for action. We become hyper alert, our heart rate and breathing speed up, our muscles tense, and our digestive processes shut down. While modern Americans are less likely to face physical danger than were our prehistoric, mastodon-hunting ancestors, there’s no shortage of other sources of stress. High-pressure, over busy lives, coupled with the unrelenting economic uncertainty of much of the past year, can put the body in a constant state of hyper vigilance. That’s not good. An ongoing state of revved-up alertness can damage tissues and organs, suppress the immune system, and cause anxiety and depression.

Mental workout. The calm that meditation engenders produces physical and emotional changes that represent the flip side of fight-or-flight. For those with overtaxed lives, a bonus of meditation is that a little of it apparently goes a long way. One study of individuals who were new to meditating showed measurable brain and behavior differences after just two weeks of daily 30-minute sessions, says Richard Davidson, director of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But meditation is like any other workout: To reap the benefits, don’t stop. “This is mental exercise,” says Davidson. “If one wants [benefits] to continue, you have to continue.”

Experts and practice centers that can serve as sources of meditation training are becoming easier to find. One of the best known and most studied programs is the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program, which started at the University of Massachusetts Medical School nearly 30 years ago and is now offered by certified instructors at centers around the world. (You can see if there is one in your area at umassmed.edu/cfm/mbsr.) The program brings together a group of people once a week for eight weeks to learn sitting and walking meditation practices and gentle yoga stretches. For those who would rather learn on their own, books, tapes, and CDs are available from Jon Kabat-Zinn, founding executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts and creator of the MBSR program, at mindfulnesstapes.com. They can help do-it-yourselfers learn the ropes.

No amount of meditating can magically erase the stress of losing a job or a loved one. But it can help people cope. “It can transform the emotional brain in ways that promote higher levels of resilience [and] less vulnerability and affect the body in ways that can improve health,” says Davidson. All that for just minutes a day? Even a shell-shocked investor would have to admit: That sounds like a good deal.

Content Children and Spirituality

New research shows spirituality is a major factor in children’s overall happiness.

A study conducted by the University of British Columbia measured how
a child’s spirituality, and factors like temperament, affect the
child’s sense of well being.

“Our goal was to see whether there’s a relation between spirituality
and happiness,” said Mark Holder, an associate professor of psychology
and the study’s co-author. “We knew going in that there was such a
relation in adults, so we took multiple measures of spirituality and
happiness in children.”

Spirituality accounted for about five percent of happiness in adults, but a surprising 16.5 percent of happiness among children.

“From our perspective, it’s a whopping big effect,” Holder said. “I
expected it to be much less. I thought their spirituality would be too
immature to account for their well-being.”

The study tested 315 children ages 9 to 12.

Next, researchers hope to survey children in a country where Christianity is not prominent and compare the results.

The Power Of Meditation

Most people who meditate will rave about the benefits. People who don’t will dismiss it as hippy rubbish.

Underestimating the technique may mean they’re missing out on a range of benefits to health, mood and attention span, according to research.

One study has found that people who meditate have a better immune response to the flu vaccine than people who don’t. Another looked at 90 cancer patients who did meditation for seven weeks and it was found that those who meditated had 31 per cent lower stress symptoms and 67 per cent less mood disturbance than the ones who did not meditate.

Studies this year suggest that meditation is powerful enough to even “re-circuit” the brain.  Just as we do aerobics to improve muscle shape, meditation tones the grey matter.

Brain scans conducted by researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reveal that those experienced at meditating boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.

The finding agrees with other studies showing that accomplished musicians, athletes and linguists all have thickening in relevant areas of the cortex.

It is also claimed that meditation is helpful for improving asthma and increasing fertility through to reducing the effects of ageing.

So how does it work?

To understand the impact of meditation, experts say we need to understand what meditation actually is. A broad description is that it’s a mental practice in which a person focuses their attention on a particular subject or object, maybe a candle flame, a mantra, breathing patterns, or simply an awareness of being alive.

In Madison, Wisconsin, Dr Richard Davidson carried out studies on Buddhist monks. In one study, he also observed the brains of a group of office workers before and after they did a course of meditation. At the end of the course the workers’ brains seemed to have altered in the way they functioned, they showed greater activity in the left-hand side – a characteristic linked to happiness and enthusiasm.

Dr Davidson told the BBC: “By meditating, you can become happier, you can concentrate more effectively and you can change your brain in ways that support that.” Meditation is said to improve the well-being of everyone, as well as those suffering from depression and mental illness.  Researchers are very excited by this.

One of those researchers is Kathy Sykes, professor of sciences and society at Bristol University in the UK, who visited Kathmandu for instruction with Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk who has been meditating for more than 30 years. She wanted to learn more about meditation and says it helped her cope with the death of her father and she now uses it all the time. It helps her to cope in many situations.

Her father died from cancer about two months before she went to Kathmandu and she had not been able to grieve. Matthieu suggested she focus on unconditional love, and when she thought about that, she thought about her father. She wept and was finally able to let go.

“Meditating and mindfulness now help me get in touch with what really matters, and stop me from worrying,” she says. “It helped me profoundly in handling all my grief around dad’s illness and death. It helps me with almost everything.”

After her visit to Kathmandu, she went to Massachusetts General Hospital in the US, where Dr Herbert Benson, a Harvard Medical School professor, put her through a series of tests.  Doctors measured her resting pulse, muscle tension, respiration and sweat. They then subjected her to some mental arithmetic, her stress levels and all her readings soared.  However, after a short period of meditation, her pulse and breathing dropped below the resting rate. He said that to the extent that any disorder was caused or made worse by stress, achieving a “relaxation response” like this, would counteract that condition.

Sykes said she was recently on a crowded train travelling from London where there was “standing-room only”.

“I’d had a frenzied day, having to think and concentrate hard, speak and plan all day. The train was a nightmare. Packed, noisy, no seats left and truly horrid. I just found a place to sit in the floor, closed my eyes, and allowed all the mad busyness of my brain that day to stop, concentrated on my breathing and found it was a massive relief and escape.”

Meditation and mindfulness have now been approved by the UK clinical watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, for use with people in the UK who have experienced three or more periods of depression and it is offered by hospitals in cases of chronic or terminal illness to reduce complications ­associated with increased stress, including a depressed immune system.

So, what are you waiting for?  Find yourself a local meditation class, practice using the videos on the website and see just what benefits meditation and mindfulness can offer you.

New Findings Identified on Mind-Body Connection

Researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA)  have provided the results of a new study revealing fresh insights into the mind-body connection, by finding how chronic emotional stress ages the immune system.

Researchers have found that the stress hormone cortisol suppresses immune cells’ ability to activate enzymes that keep the cells young by preserving their ability to continue dividing. Every cell apparently contains a tiny clock called a telomere, which shortens each time the cell divides and according to the researchers, short telomeres are linked to a range of human diseases, including HIV, osteoporosis, heart disease and aging.


Many studies have already shown that the enzyme telomerase keeps immune cells young by preserving their telomere length and researchers insist that their latest study may help understand why the cells of persons under chronic stress have shorter telomeres. 

The findings show how stress makes people more susceptible to illness.

”When the body is under stress, it boosts production of cortisol to support a “fight or flight” response,” says Rita Effros, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and a member of the Jonsson Cancer Center, Molecular Biology Institute and UCLA AIDS Institute.

”If the hormone remains elevated in the bloodstream for long periods of time, though, it wears down the immune system. We are testing therapeutic ways of enhancing telomerase levels to help the immune system ward off cortisol”s effect. If we”re successful, one day a pill may exist to strengthen the immune system’s ability to weather chronic emotional stress,” the researcher adds.



We think a daily meditation practice is that magic pill and it’s free.

 

 

Meditation. It’s Better than a Facelift.

When people ask Patricia Wheat, an award-winning facialist, why her skin looks even better than before, she tells them, “I haven’t changed a thing, except now I meditate every day.” Women and men come to see Patricia for help maintaining their youthful skin – she’s one of the best in the business. And they depend on her to make the best facial products available to them.

In February, she learned to meditate with me. And it shows. Her clients want to know what she’s done. She says she feels better, looks better, and has even lost weight effortlessly, and she attributes it to her daily practice of meditation.

Patricia sees plenty of people who have had ‘some work done’ in her Sedona Arizona-based facial studio, About Face. Everyone wants to look and feel younger and better. Cosmetic surgery is becoming a perfectly acceptable method toward this goal. In an effort to look better, Last year alone, Americans underwent an estimated 11.7 million surgical and nonsurgical operations according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

Supposedly, when we look better, we feel better. But I don’t know if that is true. In 2006, physicians handed out an astonishing 227 million prescriptions for antidepressants in the United States! That’s up 30 million from 2002, and the number is growing rapidly. Mood elevators and antidepressants are prescribed even more often than drugs to treat high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, or headaches.

But does this combo platter really work? Do surgery and medication help us to truly sustain our youthfulness and the sense of happiness and contentment that we are looking for?

Perhaps. And perhaps there is a different route to looking and feeling better.  And a way to truly prevent aging. And it doesn’t involve the pharmaceutical or medical industries. Patricia Wheat knows it involves sitting still. She takes time out for a time in for herself. She leaves her clients, and unplugs from the world of stimulus for a half hour or so twice a day. She now meditates. And meditation is quickly becoming mainstream.

Like athletes or musicians, people who practice meditation can enhance their ability to concentrate – or even lower their blood pressure. But now new studies show that meditation can help people to retrain their brain so they can feel more content, and studies also show that people can create more youth hormone just by meditating. Sounds simple! It is.

Recently, a University of Wisconsin study revealed that after eight weeks of daily meditation, the brain can actually rewire itself, and the circuits that control levels of happiness can be altered. This is remarkable: it might be possible to train the brain to be better at feeling certain emotions, such as compassion.

Dr. Richard Davidson, the researcher who conducted these studies, stated, “By meditating, you can become happier, you can concentrate more effectively and you can change your brain in ways that support that.”

Neuroscientist, Dr. Sara Lazar, of Harvard University who conducts research as Mass General Hospital, used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to compare the brains of individuals who have meditated for years to those who have never meditated. Her research suggests that daily meditation can alter the physical structure of the brain and may even slow brain deterioration related to aging. It can even be responsible for the ways the brain responds to stress.

A lot of this research on the flexibility and the regeneration of the brain has been compiled and published by Wall Street Journal science columnist, Sharon Begley. In her book, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves, Begley cites cutting-edge experiments showing that in fact new neurons and neuronal pathways can be created in the brain every day, even in people in their 70s.

This book outlines the exploration of the ways the mind can change the brain and features Tibetan Buddhist monks and their meditation practice. The forward is written by the Dalai Lama himself.

The Dalai Lama is happy to encourage participation in these research projects. He wants to promote meditation to those who are not necessarily religious, “It is the best method to deal with (negative) emotions,” he said to HDTV reporter Dan Rather in a recent interview, “Not for the next life, not for heaven, but for day to day’s well-being.”

Other research studies tout the benefits of meditation and youthfulness. In the early 80′s a published study showed meditators who had been meditating daily for at least five years were physiologically 12 years younger than their chronological age: their blood pressure was lower, their vision was better and they could hear more clearly. And those who had only just recently begun practicing meditation were physiologically five years younger than their chronological age.

Research has also proven that meditators, as they age, secrete more of the youth-related hormone DHEA than non-meditators. Women and men in their mid forties had, on average, respectively, 47% and 23% more DHEA than non-meditators – DHEA helps decrease stress, heighten memory, preserve sexual function, and control weight. Low levels of DHEA have been linked with a variety of diseases and with increased mortality.

In a related study, Dr. James W. Anderson from the University of Kentucky, said meditation has been linked to lower blood pressure, reducing the risk of heart disease, stroke, congestive heart failure and kidney failure. As a result, those who practice meditation may also be able to avoid the possible side effects of using anti-hypertension drugs.

So, what keeps people from meditating? First, it is rarely prescribed by a physician, though with the research findings popularized, that might change. Second, people don’t really understand it. They are concerned they might have to become a Buddhist or Hindu, or change what they eat or what they wear. When in fact, all they have to do is set aside a little time each day to sit still, in silence, with their focus inward.

There are many different variations of silent meditation, but the approach is similar: in order to meditate, one must sit still and bring his or her attention and focus to an object of meditation. This can differ – the focus can be on a certain sound, your breath, a feeling such as compassion, a thought, a word, an image of a saint or deity, or even a candle flame. It is a habit that must be cultivated, and as we train the mind to focus, we can literally change the brain and in turn the body. Sounds simple? It is.

Meditation Has Physical Benefits and Advantages

The most common reason why people start to Meditate is that they want to feel fitter, happier and more energetic. In the past few decades research has been conducted into the health benefits in over 300 universities, hospitals and research centres in over 50 countries. Over 1,000 scientific articles and research reports have been published in over 175 scientific magazines. In fact it is hard to believe that after so many positive results the ordinary media have not paid far more attention to Meditation. Only now, after 30 years, more and more people and doctors begin to appreciate and to experience the advantages of Meditating. In the U.S.A. about 5% of the population now Meditates regularly. We assume that this percentage will grow and that before long we will find the same percentages in Europe. To make things easy for you we have arranged these advantages into three different categories: physical, mental and spiritual.

Effects of Meditation on our Brain

If you wan to see what happens in your brain when you Meditate, surf to TIME magazine Meditation brainscan.

• EEC- theta waves, delta waves and alpha waves become more active and beta waves (associated with active thinking) decrease
• The left and the right brain halves start to cooperate better.
• The activity in the front cortex and the pariental lobe decreases.

Physical Advantages of Meditating

• It stabilises the autonomous nervous system.
• It reduces the heart beat.
• It reduces the speed of breathing.
• Blood pressure drops drastically.
• The Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) increases.
• EMG activity increases.
• Cardiovascular effectivity goes up.
• Breathing effectivity increases.
• The skin receives more blood.
• Stomach function and bowel function improve.
• The endocrine function is heightened.
• Muscle flexibility increases.
• The intake of oxygen gets stronger.
• Mobility and flexibility increase.
• The hand-eye co-ordination increases.
• Reaction-speed increases.
• Body posture is improved.
• Strength and resistance increase.
• Stamina increases.
• There is a heightened energy level and vitality.
• People’s weight is stabilised at an ordinary level.
• The ability to sleep increases and the time people need to fall asleep decreases.
• Pain is weakened.
• Stability is improved.
• Depth perception increases.
• There is a heightened degree of relaxation.
• There is a lessened degree of muscle tension.
• The production of serotenine increases.
• Menstruation pains are softened.

All the above mentioned advantages are based on medical research dome by among others: Harvard Medical School, Alberta University, MIT, Duke school of Medicine, Leiden University and other universities.