Meditation: Why Meditation And How Does It Help
Kevin Pederson
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.
Kevin Pederson has been managing a number of natural home
remedies websites, such as
http://www.home-remedies-for-you.com
which gives information on a non-stressful living by doing
meditation.
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