Meditation: The New Medicine For Mind And Body

Meditation has become increasingly popular in Western nations, especially the USA, as more people discover its many health benefits. Originating in ancient Vedic India, meditation is the process of training your mind to focus and redirect your thoughts. It is used to calm the mind and enhance overall well-being.

Meditation has been shown to have a positive impact on mental and physical health. It can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as improve sleep, boost cognitive skills, and increase pain tolerance. Furthermore, it can also help with addiction, weight control, and insomnia.

Meditation is a powerful tool that can be easily incorporated into daily life, offering a natural way to improve overall health and well-being.

Meditation reduces stress, anxiety, and depression

Meditation has been proven to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. A 2014 meta-analysis of nearly 1,300 adults found that meditation may decrease anxiety. Notably, this effect was strongest in those with the highest levels of anxiety. Another study found that eight weeks of mindfulness meditation helped reduce anxiety symptoms in people with generalized anxiety disorder, along with increasing positive self-statements and improving stress reactivity and coping.

Meditation can also help control job-related anxiety. One study found that employees who used a mindfulness meditation app for eight weeks experienced improved feelings of well-being and decreased distress and job strain compared with those in a control group.

Meditation can reduce stress levels, which translates to less anxiety. A 2017 review of 45 studies suggests various forms of meditation can help decrease physiological markers of stress, such as increased cortisol and heart rate, which can have wide-ranging impacts on everything from sleep to blood pressure.

Meditation has also been shown to improve symptoms of certain conditions that are impacted by stress, including irritable bowel syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Researchers reviewed more than 200 studies of mindfulness among healthy people and found mindfulness-based therapy was especially effective for reducing stress, anxiety, and depression. Mindfulness can also help treat people with specific problems, including depression, pain, smoking, and addiction.

Meditation can help you learn to stay with difficult feelings without analyzing, suppressing, or encouraging them. When you allow yourself to feel and acknowledge your worries, irritations, painful memories, and other difficult thoughts and emotions, this often helps them dissipate.

Meditation allows you to safely explore the underlying causes of your stress and worry. By going with what’s happening rather than expending energy fighting or turning away from it, you create the opportunity to gain insight into what’s driving your concerns.

Meditation helps you create space around your worries so they don’t consume you. When you begin to understand the underlying causes of your apprehension, freedom and a sense of spaciousness naturally emerge.

It improves sleep and pain tolerance

Meditation has been proven to improve sleep and pain tolerance. It is a free practice that can be done almost anywhere and has been shown to deepen sleep even in those without sleep issues.

Meditation can help to reduce pain. A study showed that meditation helps with pain relief without engaging the brain's opioid chemicals. Another study on people with fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, showed that meditation reduced their anger and worry about their condition. If chronic pain keeps you awake at night, developing a meditation practice can help.

Meditation can also help to improve mental health. It can relieve anxiety, depression, and stress, helping you to sleep better. A review of over 200 studies showed that meditation can have a positive effect on mental health.

Meditation also prepares the body for sleep. It slows down the heart rate and lowers the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the body, two things that happen naturally when you sleep. Meditation can also cause theta brainwaves, the same state your brain enters when you are falling asleep.

There are many ways to meditate for better sleep. Box breathing involves breathing in for a count of four and then breathing out while counting to four again. Guided meditations are also available through apps and online videos. Calming sounds, such as music or nature sounds, can also be used during meditation. Body scan meditation involves focusing on different parts of the body without moving or opening the eyes. Body relaxation meditation is similar but involves tensing and then relaxing different parts of the body.

It can help with addiction

Meditation has been proven to be effective in addiction recovery. It can help individuals break dependencies by increasing self-control and awareness of triggers for addictive behaviours. It can also help reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms.

Meditation stimulates and trains the brain to be happy and feel good naturally, without the need for any addictive substance. It activates the brain's happiness centre, the prefrontal cortex, which is often underactive in people with addiction.

Meditation also elicits the same brainwaves that doctors use to treat addiction. Alpha and theta brainwaves dominate during a meditative state, putting the brain into a more advanced state of consciousness.

The benefits

• Improved self-control
• Improved self-confidence
• Improved mental health
• Enhanced patience and acceptance
• Strengthening support networks
• Mindfulness in relapse prevention

The practice

Meditation therapy can include deep, slow breathing, chanting a mantra, and focusing on the breath. Mindfulness meditation is one of the most popular methods, focusing on increasing focus, concentration, and awareness. Zen meditation brings about calmness and encourages non-reactivity, while guided meditation can involve visualising peaceful mental images.

It may reduce age-related memory loss

Meditation has been shown to improve attention and clarity of thinking, which may help keep your mind young. Kirtan Kriya is a method of meditation that combines a mantra or chant with repetitive finger motions to focus your thoughts.

Older studies in people with age-related memory loss have shown that Kirtan Kriya improves performance on neuropsychological tests. A 2014 review found preliminary evidence that multiple meditation styles can increase attention, memory, and mental quickness in older adults.

Furthermore, a 2017 analysis of 30 studies (2,561 participants) found that mindfulness meditation was more effective at decreasing chronic pain than several other forms of treatment. This suggests that meditation may also indirectly improve age-related memory loss by reducing chronic pain, which is often associated with ageing.

Meditation has also been found to increase cortical thickness and grey matter in the brain, which tends to decrease with age. In particular, a 2015 study found that meditation experience is associated with an increase in grey matter in the brain. This increase in grey matter may contribute to improved memory and cognitive function in older adults.

In addition to its direct effects on memory, meditation has also been shown to improve sleep quality. A 2019 analysis of 18 studies (1,654 participants) found that mindfulness meditation practices improved sleep quality more than education-based treatments. Improved sleep quality may indirectly contribute to reduced age-related memory loss, as sleep is important for memory consolidation and cognitive function.

It can decrease blood pressure

Meditation has been proven to reduce blood pressure, even in people with hypertension. This is significant because high blood pressure can lead to poor heart function and atherosclerosis, which can cause heart attacks and strokes.

A 2015 meta-analysis of 12 studies enrolling nearly 1,000 participants found that meditation helped reduce blood pressure. This was more effective among older participants and those with higher blood pressure before the study.

Meditation appears to control blood pressure by relaxing the nerve signals that coordinate heart function, blood vessel tension, and the "fight-or-flight" response that increases alertness in stressful situations.

A 2014 study of 127 African American men and women aged 55 to 85 years compared the effects of transcendental meditation and progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) on blood pressure. The transcendental meditation group showed significantly greater reductions in systolic and diastolic blood pressure compared to the PMR group.

Another study of 150 African Americans with high blood pressure found that transcendental meditation decreased systolic blood pressure by 3.1 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure by 5.7 mm Hg. This was the greatest decrease of all the groups in the study, which also included mindfulness and relaxation techniques.

Some studies have shown that patients who regularly meditate may be less likely to need blood pressure medication or may eventually transition to lower doses. However, more studies are needed to prove this theory. It is important to consult with a doctor before making any changes to prescription medications.

Meditation is a good idea at any time of day, but many experts recommend meditating first thing in the morning before the stresses of the day begin. Starting the day with a sense of calm can help maintain a routine and a feeling of peace.

Frequently asked questions