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Maintaining A Healthy Aura
December 7, 2008 by Ray Baskerville · 2 Comments
Everything that exists is vibrating energy. The rate of vibration pertaining to the specific form of existence that the energy manifest as. Some manifestations are physical and as we are in physical bodies they appear to us as solid objects. Some take this to be the limits of reality, but there are many forms of energy that have a vibration too high to become physically manifest other than in their interaction with physical things. There are the obvious examples that effect us every day, radio waves, sound and light, and of course our thoughts and emotions. All these things we know to exist yet cannot physically see.
As has already been inferred human beings, indeed all living things are made up of physicalized and non physical energies. Each human being is a complex weave of differing levels of energy vibration, emanating in overlapping layers out from the physical body as the aura or energy field. There are generally seen to be seven layers of energy in the aura, getting subsequently subtler and higher in vibration the further from the physical body. These layers correspond to the seven
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreMeditation Better Than Antidepressants
December 2, 2008 by Ray Baskerville · 3 Comments
Goup therapy involving an adaptation from Buddhist meditation has been found to be as effective at combating depression as medication, a study just published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology has found.
Fifteen months after an eight-week trial involving 123 people, 47 per cent of people with depression who under-went therapy suffered a relapse, compared with 60 per cent of those taking antidepressants.The treatment, known as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), helps people focus on the present instead of dwelling on the past or planning the future.
The study, funded by the UK Medical Research Council, found MBCT, developed in 2002 by a team of psychologists from Canada, Oxford, and Cambridge, was actually more effective than medication in improving patients’ quality of life.
The sessions involve the teaching of meditation techniques based on some found in Buddhism. The aim is to teach skills which help patients recognise and cope with their tendency towards depression.
Here are some quotes from one participant…
"My view of the world has changed and I look at life in a new light."
"It’s given me the ability to come up against something that would have previously thrown me, think it through, come up with a solution and then move on. "
The British National Health Service (NHS) say that compared to one-to-one sessions, or medication, "mindfulness-based cognitive therapy" (MBCT) is cheaper form of treatment.
You can also help your fight against depression with correct diet.
Is this more evidence of a slow but steady movement towards a more holistic approach to mental health care? I really hope so, what do you think?
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreYoga Medical Study For Back-pain
November 19, 2008 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
Yoga has long been considered beneficial to the body, but could it be a cure for lower-back pain?
More than 300 people in five centres across England have been recruited for the York University for a large trial to test how lower-back pain responds to a 12-week course of yoga therapy. Each participant will be monitored for a year afterwards.
David Torgerson, director of the University of York clinical trials unit, said there had been several smaller trials in the US into the effect of yoga on lower-back pain, but that because they were so small it had been unclear if any benefits were down to the therapies or a particular teacher. He said their Arthritis Research Campaign-backed project would assess moves from the two most popular types of yoga, lyengar yoga and Hatha yoga.
The yoga classes will be carefully structured for people who are complete novices and will not involve any difficult poses. They will start off gently but become more demanding over the 12-week period, with a combination of stretches, bends, lying, sitting, standing and relaxing poses. Patients will also be encouraged to practise daily at home."We hope that at the end of it we might have a potential treatment for back pain," he said.
One participant, himself a yoga teacher and the professor in foetal and maternal health at Manchester University has signed up. Twelve years ago John Aplin broke his back in a walking accident in which he broke several bones, including three vertebrae in his back and ribs, when he fell 30 feet off a crag.
Because of fears that he might never walk again and he was kept immobile in hospital for six weeks to allow his bones to slowly recover. Once he was able he began to "very gingerly to practise yoga again". A teacher of Iyengar yoga he was fortunate to get advice directly from the Iyengar family in India, who asked for pictures of his injuries. From looking at these pictures they recommended a specific program for him, Mr Aplin followed this program to a full recovery returning to teaching yoga within six months.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreYoga Gains Respect Among Doctors
November 13, 2008 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
The ancient practice of yoga is finding a new following — among doctors and medical researchers who work to discover its benefits for a variety of illnesses.
Researchers at UNC Hospitals are studying yoga’s benefits for people with irritable bowel syndrome. Doctors at Duke University recently completed a study showing that yoga provided significant improvements with hot flashes, sleep and energy levels for postmenopausal women with early breast cancer.
And in Eastern North Carolina, an oncologist in Beaufort County sees improvement in his patients who take yoga classes.
"There’s been an explosion of data using yoga as a treatment option," said Dr. Shelley Wroth, an obstetrician at Duke Integrative Medicine and a yoga teacher. She said studies have found that yoga helps people suffering diseases such as hypertension, anxiety, arthritis, chronic back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia, stress, depression, diabetes and epilepsy.
"It shows so much promise," Wroth said.
Read the whole article here
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreYoga & Diabetes
November 9, 2008 by Ray Baskerville · 4 Comments
Diabetes is an increasingly common condition in the developed world, in the US it is responsible for over 350,000 deaths annually. Clinical research in the west has focused exclusively on diabetes as a physical disorder and hence the treatments that have been developed involve stimulating the pancreas through drugs, or by controlling the glucose levels by dietary restrictions, artificial insulin, and more recently, by physical exercise. Clinical research in India, by contrast, has recognized diabetes as a psychosomatic disorder, in which the causative factors are sedentary habits, physical, emotional and mental stress and strain. It has studied the beneficial effects of the practice of yoga, and the factors that make it more than a just physical exercise.
Several studies have focused on why yoga is more profoundly successful in treating diabetes than other forms of exercise. One of the keys seems to come down to yoga’s effect on stress. Stress plays an important role in diabetes because it elevates blood glucose levels and increases the odds of developing certain complications, such as heart disease, stroke and infections. Yoga and meditation are undoubtedly two of the best practices for reducing stress.
M.V. Bhole and K.N. Udupa, two scientists who research yoga in India, have measured the effects of yoga on mental stresses. They have shown that yoga is more powerful in beneficial in treating stress than regular exercise because it begins to change one’s attitude towards the situations of life by developing mental relaxation and balance. It is also a holistic system and develops health and vitality at physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels of being. Being holistic in nature, at the physical level the whole system is effected positively, and as a system the body is naturally predisposed to move toward balance and health. In this view, illness is a symptom of imbalance in the system,
Researchers at the Laboratory Division, Central Research Institute for Yoga, Delhi, India studied the effects of yoga on 149 non-insulin-dependent diabetics. Sixty-nine percent of the respondents showed a fair to good response. The researchers concluded that yoga was a simple and economical therapy useful for non-insulin dependent diabetics.
Another study at the Department of Physiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi attempted to discover whether yoga postures could help diabetics release insulin from the pancreas. Twenty healthy young volunteers were given four sets of yoga postures to perform. The asanas given were:
1) Dhanurasana (bow pose)
Matsyendrasana (seated twist)
2) Halasana (plow pose)
Vajrasana (thunderbolt pose)
3) Naukasana (boat pose)
Bhujangasana (cobra pose)
4) Setubandhasana (bridge pose)
Pavanamuktasana (wind relieving pose)
Each volunteer practiced the above sets in random order for five days with a two day interval between consecutive sets of asanas. Blood tests showed that the cumulative effect of yoga led to improved "sensitivity of the b-Cells of the pancreas to the glucose signal."
In another study at The Yoga Biomedical Trust, founded in 1982 by biochemist Dr. Robin Monro and an Indian yoga research foundation, it was discovered that if people practiced yoga for 30 minutes a day for one full month, the activity helped reduce blood glucose levels in some diabetics.
One of the studies conducted to cure diabetes was the one set up where yoga patients participated in one or two 90-minute weekly sessions for 12 weeks. Participants worked out with certain yoga classes in their homes; including the bow, the spinal twist and some abdominal breathing.
Near the close of the session, the participants’ blood sugar levels decreased greatly across the board and were only somewhat elevated in the control group, a group who had not participated in the yoga sessions. Notable also was that three yoga students were even able to reduce their own medications they’d been on, including a person who had been on the same drug regime for nearly 20 years.
A 2005 study published in the Nepal Medical College Journal put 20 people with type 2 diabetes on a 40 day yoga routine taught by an expert yoga teacher. The postures performed were:
Surya Namaskar (sun salutation)
Trikonasana (triangle pose)
Tadasana (mountain pose)
Sukhasana (easy pose)
Padmasana (lotus pose)
Bhastrika Pranayama (breathing exercise)
Pashimottanasana (posterior stretch)
Ardhmatsyendrasana (half spinal twist)
Pawanmuktasana (joint freeing series)
Bhujangasana (cobra pose)
Vajrasana (thunderbolt pose)
Dhanurasana (bow pose)
Shavasana (corpse pose)
At the end of 40 days of yoga, most of the participants had a decrease in fasting glucose levels, a significant decrease in waist-hip ratio and beneficial changes in insulin levels. These asanas have great effect on the pancreas and other glands, such as adrenal, thyroid and sex glands. The muscles and organs of abdominal area are fully activated practicing these asanas providing stimulation and rejuvenation to the cells of the pancreas and other endocrine glands by way of compression. Compression of these glands, followed by relaxation, causes an increased volume of highly oxygenated blood to reach the cells, bringing nourishment that rejuvenates atrophied cells.. As a result of this activation the condition and functioning of the pancreas is energized and strengthen. It also increases the blood supply to various parts of body, improving insulin administration in the body.
Specific asanas like backward bending postures bring stimulation to the pancreas, as they exercise the erector spinae, latissimus dorsi, obliques, deep intertransversarii and posterior abdominal wall. Also, most of these postures cause the internal viscera to stretch, bringing stimulation to the pancreas and other glands and organs that otherwise receive no stimulation.
If you have any concern that you may be at risk from developing diabetes or may even be in the early stages of it’s onset The American Diabetes Foundation have a self test you can do here.
To practice the asanas mentioned in this article it is recommended you seek out a knowledgeable and experienced teacher.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out more
Yoga For Heart Health
October 31, 2008 by Ray Baskerville · 2 Comments
Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, US, conducted a recent study on yoga with heart patients. The study consisted of an eight-week regimen of yoga which proved safe for patients with chronic heart failure and helped reduce signs of inflammation. When they measured the effects of an eight-week yoga regimen on 19 heart patients they found the exercise routine reduced markers of inflammation associated with heart failure while also improving exercise tolerance and quality of life.
The study found significant differences in biological markers in the blood between patients who completed the yoga therapy and those who received standard medical therapy. Patients on the yoga therapy completed the regimen without any complications and saw a 26 per cent decrease in symptoms on a standard assessment that measures the quality of life in heart patients, compared to a three per cent decrease of the patients on the medical therapy alone.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreYour Mind’s Effect On Your Health
September 26, 2008 by Ray Baskerville · 1 Comment
Our state of mind has a direct impact on our state of health. No news to most people in complementary health practice and hypnotherapy, but the allopathic types need clinical data, and why not. Three new reviews of the data relating to those with HIV say stress and depression ‘may’ make a great difference in the state of health. Dr Gail Ironson, lead author of one of the reviews said "the research strongly points to a link" and "we’ve got to study this over time (to show) that it’s not a fluke.
On the one hand I always feel pleased to see allopathic researchers venturing across the boundaries of their own speciality into the realm of interconnected systems (holism). On the other hand I think it’s 2008 and their still not
completely convinced… deear Lorrd! Anyway let’s stay positive and encourage the inevitable if slow death of the reductionist model.
Dr Ironson did further say "Psychological states do predict whether you’re going to stay healthy longer or whether your disease is going to progress faster" and that depressed people become susceptible to disease at twice the rate of other patients.
So what it looks to me is happening is this. While there are increasing numbers of allopathically oriented doctors who recognize a symbiotic relationship between body and mind (fewer stretch to include spirit), they just break out of their own area of specialization. Others then have to cover the same ground in their own area of specialization. Some break away altogether Deepak Chopra being the most famous. He like Candace Pert that I spoke of yesterday have then become darlings of the holistic and complementary health world.
A quick word on the use of complementary rather than alternative. Alternative seems to indicate one or the other while complementary indicates just that. If you are in a car accident where would you want to go, the emergency room or your homeopath? Not much of an alternative is it. Complementary indicates there is room for what is most appropriate. That really is Holisitc.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out more
