Meditation Health Benefits

Meditation and brain entrainment are often thought of as spiritual practices, or perhaps as new age thinking. But, is it good for your health?  Read this excerpt from The New York Times.

out of the blue, the fax machine in Richard Davidson’s office at the department of psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison spit out a letter from Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. Davidson, a Harvard-trained neuroscientist, was making a name for himself studying the nature of positive emotion, and word of his accomplishments had made it to northern India. The exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists was writing to offer the minds of his monks – in particular, their meditative prowess – for scientific research.
Excerpt, The New York Times

For 2,500 years, Buddhism has focused on training the mind to understand happiness and defuse negativity for the well being of both people and society. Scientific research has focused on the short term effects of meditation, finding that;

  • The brain can be trained to reduce stress
  • Meditation can reduce your heart rate and blood pressure.
  • Stress reduces immune function, so meditating to reduce stress enhances your immune system

The “Monk experiments” at Madison showed that it is “scientifically respectable” to study the benefits of meditation and brain training on health, and that non-Buddhists can use the power of meditation to reduce stress and the effects of stress.

Electrodes snaked out of her scalp…

”All right, here comes the first picture,” the young woman visibly tensed, gripping her elbows. Electrodes snaked out of her scalp and from two spots just below her right eye. And then, staring into a monitor, the young woman watched as a succession of mostly disturbing images flashed on a screen in front of her — a horribly mutilated body, a severed hand, a venomous snake poised to strike.

The Monks and nearby office workers both viewed the same images. The purpose was to see what each person’s “affective style” was. That means to see how long they hang on to the results of negative affect. Generally, people who meditate recover from negativity faster than those who do not. Which means simply that people who meditate generally recover from negative experiences faster than people who do not meditate.

Since founding the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Kabat-Zinn has published studies showing that;

  • People undergoing treatment for psoriasis heal four times as fast if they meditate
  • Cancer patients practicing meditation had significantly better emotional outlooks
  • Meditation relieved symptoms in patients with anxiety and chronic pain and…
  • The benefits persisted up to 4 years after training.

In the years since the “Monk Weekend,” scientific research has shown that meditation can help ease many stress and health problems. A “short list” of meditation health benefits include;

  • Decreased respiratory rate.
  • Increases blood flow and slows the heart rate.
  • Increases exercise tolerance in heart patients.
  • Leads to a deeper level of relaxation.
  • Can bring high blood pressure back to or closer to normal.
  • Reduces anxiety attacks by lowering the levels of blood lactate.
  • Decreases muscle tension
  • Decreases headaches.
  • Increases serotonin production which influences mood and behaviour. Low serotonin is associated with depression, obesity, insomnia and headaches.
  • Helps in chronic diseases like allergies , arthritis etc.
  • Reduces Pre- menstrual Syndrome.
  • Helps in post-operative healing.
  • Enhances the immune system by increasing ‘natural-killer cells’ that kill bacteria and cancer cells.
  • Reduces activity of viruses
  • Reduces emotional distress.

But, what if you’ve tried meditating and you can’t silence the mental chatter? Learn