Meditation a Quick Fix for Stress

Meditating for just 20 minutes a day for five days helped to increase energy and decrease anxiety and stress , as measured by levels of stress hormones, a small study found.

Using the so-called integrative body-mind training method, which comes from traditional Chinese medicine, the study participants reported better attention and control of stress than those relying on relaxation training, which is popular in the West.

Although derived from Chinese medicine, integrative body-mind training uses aspects of other meditation and mindfulness training, the study authors said.

"A meditation method developed in China showed remarkably better performance among those who went through the training compared with those who used relaxation training," said lead researcher Michael Posner, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon’s Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences.

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Research: Meditation Can Wish You Well

New research suggests that qualities the world desperately needs more of — love, kindness and compassion — are indeed teachable.

Imaging technology shows that people who practice meditation that focuses on kindness and compassion actually undergo changes in areas of the brain that make them more in tune to what others are feeling.

"Potentially one can train oneself to behave in a way which is more benevolent and altruistic," said study co-author Antoine Lutz, an associate scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

How far this idea can be extrapolated remains in question, though.

"I think there’s no question that people can benefit from these practices," said Dr. Louis Teichholz, medical director of complementary medicine and chief of cardiology at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. "I think the question is how easy is it to get trained enough so that it will make a clinical difference, and I don’t think this study answers that."

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Meditation can alter brain structure

Kathy Sykes, a Bristol University professor, has long known that if she does not find at least 30 minutes a day in her frantically overcrowded schedule to lie down and listen to music, she is grumpier, more tired and less able to concentrate.

What Professor Sykes, who holds the chair in the Public Engagement of Science and Engineering at Bristol, did not realize until recently is that she was, in effect, practicing a fairly crude form of meditation. She also didn’t know that there was growing evidence to show that this ancient practice can make people healthier and happier. It may even increase life span, alter brain structure and change personality.

Ancient traditional therapies do not always stand up to close scientific scrutiny. But when Professor Sykes put meditation under the metaphorical microscope for the second series of Alternative Therapies: The Evidence, which she is presenting on BBC Two on Monday, she was surprised to find that the saffron-robed monks of Kathmandu and the white-coated scientists of Harvard shared more common ground than might have been expected.

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Easy Meditation Techniques

It’s become common knowledge that many of our health problems stem from too much stress in our lives. Deadline crunches, hectic schedules and the constant reminder of slipping job security keeps us all on our toes and stressed out. While we are hardly willing to pitch a tent in the woods and leave it all behind, we could all benefit from slowing down a little, if only for a few minutes, to regain our sanity, perspective and even our productivity. This easy meditation technique

can be mastered in minutes and applied in the same amount of time. Use it daily to establish a habit of taking time for yourself and putting your mental and physical well being back onto your list of priorities.

Meditation requires a degree of mental allotment, which is always easier when you can retreat to a quiet, peaceful place. Now in today’s world, that quiet, peaceful place may be a stall in a bathroom (hopefully quiet anyway!) and that’s fine. Hollywood has perpetrated the image of mediation only being possible under a waterfall or in a monk’s monastery and that’s simply not true. Anywhere that you can slip away to and have just a few minutes of uninterrupted time to yourself will work.

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The Deeper Aspects of Meditation

When we begin meditation, we might begin with a mantra, or a word, or perhaps concentration on the breath. We do this to replace the never ending cycle of thoughts and emotions that circle round us day and night. We replace our everyday thoughts with one new thought so that we can break this cycle of a very coarse mind. At this beginning point, it is important to concentrate on a very distinct and obvious object that is easy to identify and to which one can easily return.

As our mind calms down, and as our mind becomes increasingly more subtle, the distinct and obvious objects that we have been concentrating on begin to get in the way. Originally, our objects of concentration, such as a mantra, or our breath, were more subtle than the coarse ramblings of untrained minds, but as the mind calms down and becomes ever more refined, these objects, which once were subtle, now become coarse themselves, impeding our progress.

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Meditation Mantras - Personal Affirmation

For thousands of years meditation gurus have been using “Mantras” to focus their meditative thoughts to a singular purpose. Some of the most simple mantras are the “ommm” or “ahhh” sounds found commonly throughout Eastern religions.

The sound of ahhhh is commonly referred to the sound of creation. If you analyze most names for God, you’ll find that they incorporate the sound of ahhh phonetically. For instance, God sounds like “G ahhhhhh D”.

With this knowledge, you can activate the source of creation by repeating the sound of “ahhh”. While using this sound, focus your thoughts on what you desire to create. What you visualize while using the sound of “ah” will send out focused signals to the universe to bring you what you desire.

Let’s take this concept a step further.

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Buddhist Meditation Guides

This method of meditation relies on the control of your breathing. Make yourself comfortable and follow these easy steps, each step can be held for as long as you see fit. (This method is my own personal method adapted from the Buddhist Breath Meditation methods).

1. Start by taking long breaths, whilst thinking “re” on the in-breath and “lax” on the out-breath. Making sure to hold both the “re” and the “lax” for as long as the breath.

2. Whilst taking the same long breaths, become aware of each in and out breath.

3. While breathing in and out, take notice of the comfortableness of the breath. Notice whether the breath feels narrow, free, even, uneven etc. If the breaths don’t feel comfortable, then alter your breathing until they do. When you reach a comfortable point of breath, make sure you continue this style of breathing, allowing this sensation to spread to all corners of your body.

For example, inhale whilst focusing on the base of the skull and letting it flow down your spine, down your leg and to the sole of your foot and toes. On the next breath, allow it to travel from the base of your skull down over both your shoulders, past your elbows and wrists

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