The stressful lives we lead today take their toll on our health.
Mental stress and physical fatigue drain us of our positive
energy leaving us depleted physically, mentally and emotionally.
Considered to be part of alternative medicine, meditation is
fast gaining popularity amongst conventional medical
practitioners as well. Patients are increasingly being advised
to meditate for sometime in the day, which is believed to have a
positive effect along with the allopathic medicines prescribed
for a number of medical conditions.
What is meditation? Meditation is a technique that helps us
focus and calms the mind resulting in relaxed and restful state
of physical and mental being. Meditation is generally focused on
one constant thing, usually your breath. Meditation is an
effective tool to gain mind control, self-awareness and
understanding that eventually lead to inner calm and
peacefulness. For people practice meditation, it can lead to
profound experiences of self-realization and transcendental
awareness and knowledge. A proven alternative therapy,
meditation is a known stress reliever.
Meditation is beneficial not only psychologically but is known
to have positive effects on various health conditions ranging
from blood pressure, insomnia to even depression. There are
different techniques of meditation that people follow today.
These are a product of diverse cultures and peoples around the
world. The power of meditation has been harnessed to alleviate
pain, suffering and promote healing for centuries in different
cultures and religions, in some or the other form.
Types of meditation There are various types of meditation that
originate from various parts of the world. Prayer is possibly
the most common one, the others are Transcendental Meditation,
mindfulness meditation, Zen meditation, Buddhist Meditation and
Taoist Meditation.
The body under meditation Scientific experimentation and
research has found out how the human body reacts under profound
meditation. It has been found that the meditation process
counteracted the effects of the sympathetic nervous system - the
one that wants to fight or flee. Whereas the sympathetic system
dilates the pupils and gets the heart rate, respiration and
blood pressure up, the parasympathetic system, activated when we
meditate, does just the opposite.
Muscle tension decreases, blood pressure drops, and for some
extraordinary practitioners, even temperature and basal
metabolism rates drop during a prolonged meditation. Oxygen
needs of the body are reduced when you are in a highly relaxed
state, and brain waves change from the busy beta waves to the
blissful alpha waves.
Meditation Techniques There are two major approaches to
meditation, which are Concentrative Meditation and Mindfulness
Meditation. These can be explained as follows -
1. Concentrative Meditation The approach to still the mind is to
focus the attention on the breath, image or sound (mantra). This
gives way to greater awareness and clarity. In its most basic
form concentrative meditation requires you to sit quietly and
focus your attention on your breath. Practitioners of yoga and
meditation believe that there is a direct correlation between
one's state of mind and one's breath. For e.g. when a person is
anxious, frightened, agitated or distracted, the breath will
tend to be shallow, rapid and irregular. On the other hand, when
the mind is calm, focused and composed, the breath tends to be
slow, deep and regular.
2. Mindfulness Meditation In this type of meditation, the mind
is aware of all that is happening around you. You just observe
the sounds, feelings, sensations, images, thoughts, smells etc
without getting involved in them or thing about them. The person
is just like a spectator who is witnessing everything but one
who does not react or get involved with thoughts, memories,
feelings, worries or images. This helps to gain a more calm,
clear and non-reactive state of mind.
About the author:
Kevin Pederson has been managing a number of natural home
remedies websites which have information on
home based
natural cures and remedies for some of the most common illnesses
as well as methods of meditation .
