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Acceptance Of Meditation Widens
June 12, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 1 Comment
Meditation is becoming increasingly mainstream. A 2007 survey by the government found that about 1 out of 11 Americans, that’s more than 20 million people, meditated in the past year. This widening acceptance of meditation is also reflected in a growing number of medical centers teaching meditation to patients for relief of pain and stress. More than 240 programs in clinics and hospitals teach mindfulness meditation.
This widening acceptance has much to do with the continuing research into the effects and benefits of meditation. The first scientific research on meditation began at Yale University in the 1930s. Research over the next 4 decades was sporadic and focused on experienced Yoga and Zen masters. In the 1970′s researchers really began in earnest to look into the effects of meditation in quantifiable detail.
Numerous studies have shown evidence that practicing meditation can ease pain, improve concentration and immune function, lower blood pressure, curb anxiety and insomnia, and even help prevent depression. The latest research tools, such as brain imaging scans, show how meditation can have surprising effects.
In a brain-scan study of meditators who have practiced for a long-time was compared with a control group that never meditated. Brain scanning showed the meditators had increased thickness in areas of the brain associated with attention and with sensitivity to internal sensations of the body. A consequence of this is greater awareness of the body’s responses to external stimuli. For example stressful conditions would be noticed as tension in the body and shortening of the breath.
Another UCLA study published in May found that, in comparison with a control group that didn’t meditate, meditators’ brains have larger volume in areas important for attention, focus and regulating emotion. They also have more gray matter, which could sharpen mental function, according to study leader and neuroscientist, Eileen Luders.
Scientist argue that nobody knows if these meditators brains were already different. According to Richard Davidson, a pioneering meditation researcher and neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, while studies have improved, most still need to be bigger and have good control groups.
His research shows that even novice meditators have greater activation in a part of the brain tied to well-being. The more activation, the greater their antibody response to a flu vaccine, which makes the vaccine more protective. By changing the brain, meditation could affect many biological processes, he says.
The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and today millions of people will testify to the value and benefit of meditation in their lives, scientist will continue to explore and understand why.
Another manifestation of this widening acceptance is in schools. In scattered locations across the USA, children are learning meditation at school to tangible benefit.
Steve Reidman, a fourth-grade teacher in North Hollywood, CA, reports that teaching meditation to children has helped curb fighting and also sharpening students focus. "You can just watch them breathe deeply and settle down rather than lashing out."
Another study showed that Los Angeles preschoolers ability to pay attention and focus improved after they were taught meditation.
As research expands, scientists expect to understand more of the benefits of meditation. Meanwhile, for those who don’t need scientific proof to know they benefit… assume the position!
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreWelcome back! Keep updated - Subscribe to my RSS feed & Scroll Down to leave a Comment
Meditation Improves Insomnia & Depression
June 10, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
Meditation may be an effective remedy in treating insomnia, according to new research.
Dr. Ramadevi Gourineni, principal study investigator and director of the insomnia programme at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Illinois, says insomnia is thought to be a 24-hour problem of hyper-arousal. As such, elevated measures of arousal are seen throughout the day. By teaching people how to relax and clear their minds during the day, they sleep better at night.
"Results of the study show that teaching deep relaxation techniques during the daytime can help improve sleep at night," said Dr. Gourineni.
The study collected data from 11 healthy subjects between the ages of 25 and 45 years who suffered from chronic primary insomnia. Participants were divided into two intervention groups for two months.
The first group was taught Kriya Yoga, a form of meditation that is used to focus internalized attention and has been shown to reduce measures of arousal. The second group received health education.
Both groups received sleep hygiene education; members of the health education group also received information about health-related topics and how to improve health through exercise, nutrition, weight loss and stress management.
The results certainly suggested that participants had improvements in subjective sleep quality. The meditation group experienced improvements in sleep quality and quantity, according to their sleep diaries. They also took less time to fall asleep, slept longer, woke fewer times, over all had better sleep quality and had fewer symptoms of depression.
Findings of this study were presented at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
Another new report gives further evidence to support that Meditation may reduce depression
For people struggling with severe depression, practicing meditation may offer mood-lifting benefits. In a recent pilot study, researchers randomly assigned 28 people dealing with depression (all of whom had previous depression episodes and thoughts of suicide) to two groups: One group continued their usual treatment, while the other paired standard care with mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (or MBCT, a healing approach that combines mindfulness meditation with cognitive behavior therapy). Results showed that symptoms of depression decreased from severe to mild levels in the MBCT group, but remained the same in the group of participants receiving conventional care only.
Even in the most severe cases, depression is a highly treatable disorder. While it’s critical to work with a physician in treating depression, certain self-care strategies—such as exercising regularly, practicing yoga, and using nutritional therapy—may produce mood-improving effects and ease depression symptoms.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreLeaping Into The Unknown
June 6, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 6 Comments
I tend to believe that human beings in their general nature are lazy, as such we tend to stay in our comfort zone. A comfort zone can be physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual. it takes something extra to push ourselves beyond the safe and known. I believe that extra something is an impulse from our soul.
When we do manage to extend ourselves that bit further, in whatever way, there is usually some benefit or reward. This can be as simple as we feel good about ourselves and hey that’s no small thing. when that pay off has greater attraction than our resistant to doing whatever it is, we tend to keep doing it.
I began performing on stage when I was around 17 or 18, possibly it saved my life and certainly I fell in love with it. I can still remember walking off stage after my very first public performance feeling like I was walking on air. The stage gave me the opportunity to be somebody other than the angry young man that I was. It was a kind of freedom.
It wasn’t long before I became strangely attracted to dance. I’d never really seen any but something in me started pushing in that direction. I really came up against my laziness when I started to dance. Dancers train really hard to make it look really easy when they perform, hours and hours and hours of training. obviously to be a dancer, passion and love for it is greater than the efforts of all that hard work.
Pretty much from the beginning I was interested in exploring the body itself as the site of human experience. Then when I was 25 the healing ability showed up and added another dimension to my exploration.
When I’m actually going with all of this is June 29th 1996. At 6 AM on that Saturday morning I began a 36 hour performance entitled “36 Hours In-Quest-ion". I’d been
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreAdyshanti – What Is Awareness?
June 3, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 2 Comments
Awareness, it’s the whole enigma, the eyeball trying to see itself, the sound of one hand clapping. It isn’t you, you can’t be it, it’s ever present and we don’t notice.
The simple timeless state of awareness is the heart of all this spiritual jiggery pokery, nothing like a good paradox to confuse the mind into believing itself. It won’t make any sense until you have direct experience, but you never know which pointing finger will finally reveal the moon.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out more
Yoga Improves Asthma
June 1, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 2 Comments
Researchers have found that yoga nearly halves symptoms of asthma in just 10 weeks. The study was done at the American College of sports medicine.
The group of asthmatics in the study did to yoga classes twice a week And were asked to do an extra 30 minutes of practice at home during the week. That’s really not so much yoga practice for such good results is it.
In fact the less is more route was a deliberate choice by the researchers as past studies had been of twice daily yoga and studied for fewer days. It was thought this was an impractical ask for most people.
None of the participants aged 20 – 65, had done yoga before. Results were based on a questionnaire that measured frequency and severity of symptoms, activities associated with breathlessness and social and psychological functioning.Overall, scores of individuals participating in the yoga arm of the trial improved an average of almost 43 percent.
Of course an important part of the improvement comes from deeper breathing, but the development of greater breath awareness is just as beneficial to asthmatics. This breath awareness from asana practice allows asthmatics to recognize early on when breathing is becoming impaired
It’s also thought that the deep breathing involved while holding yoga postures causes similar respiratory stress as in an asthma attack – as the subjects became used to this, they were better able to deal with their asthma.
Lead researcher Amy Bidwell, herself a yoga teacher said “There’s not much of a downside to yoga unless you have a major orthopedic problem,” She added "Yoga is an excellent way to relieve symptoms because there are no side-effects, unlike modern medicine such as corticosteroids"
Bidwell worked closely with a physician to design and conduct the study. He had been teaching breathing techniques to his patients. Based on the study results, he now is prescribing yoga practice as well.
This study joins a lengthening list of studies proving numerous health benefits from both yoga and meditation practice.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out more
