Benefits of Meditation

Meditation is a spiritual art that has been practiced for several millennia  throughout every continent of the world. This practice is inching it’s way back from obscurity embedding it`s self into the Western culture now promoting meditation through science and medicine. This phenomenon has also presented it`s self in new age trends such as Yoga, meditation groups, spiritual retreats and the list goes on. I myself have been practicing various forms of meditation for 5 years now and it never ceases to amaze me of the power of the the breath. I have had several clients whom I’ve suggested meditation for stress, anxiety and lowering their blood pressure. I have a client in particular who came for a massage and had an elevated blood pressure. After the massage I spent 2 minutes walking her through a guided meditation and to her surprise her pressure was not only 12 points lower than it was before I started the session, but according to her the lowest it’s been in over 5 years of living with this aliment.

Meditating as little as 5 minutes a day can do wonders for the body such as

• improving circulation
• reducing and in some cases relieving pain
• reducing blood pressure
• improving sleep
• Detoxify the body
• Boosts the immune system
• Promotes digestion
  
• Helps release blocked and stagnant Chi (Qi) within the body’s meridian system
• Helps with depression anxiety and panic attacks
• Elevates physical and mental stress
• Reduces or relieves headaches and migraines
• Increases overall energy and vitality
• enhances concentration

Included below is a summary of an article by Anastasia Stephens of the Sydney Morning Herald on meditation and research studies conducted by Dr Herbert Benson, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

It’s a piece of advice yogis have given for thousands of years: take a deep breath and relax. Watch the tension melt from your muscles and all your niggling worries vanish. Somehow we all know that relaxation is good for us.

Now the hard science has caught up: a comprehensive scientific study showing that deep relaxation changes our bodies on a genetic level has just been published.

What researchers at Harvard Medical School discovered is that, in long-term practitioners of relaxation methods such as yoga and meditation, far more ”disease-fighting genes” were active, compared to those who practised no form of relaxation.

In particular, they found genes that protect from disorders such as pain, infertility, high blood pressure and even rheumatoid arthritis were switched on. The changes, say the researchers, were induced by what they call ”the relaxation effect”, a phenomenon that could be just as powerful as any medical drug but without the side effects.

”We found a range of disease-fighting genes were active in the relaxation practitioners that were not active in the control group,” Dr Herbert Benson, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who led the research, says.