|
|
"The future depends on what we do in the present. What
you put your attention on grows strong in your life".
Meditation in the
press Salon.com 2 February, 2007 Every culture in the world has practiced some form of meditation and still does. But in the past 40 years, meditation has inched its way into Western mainstream health care, and for good reason. Research shows that it counteracts chronic stress, a condition many scientists believe underlies most illnesses. Federally supported studies are looking into meditation as a means to improve heart health, relieve symptoms of diseases and improve the brain's long- and short-term health. The
National Centers for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), a division of the National Institutes of Health, reports
that more than 15.3 million people practiced some form of meditation in 2002 as a means to ease some form of illness. Others
practice for simple relaxation. And that number is rising. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 16 October, 2006 Practicing transcendental meditation not only mellows the mind but may also calm the body's damaging responses to stress that leads to heart disease and diabetes, researchers said on Monday. In a 16-week trial featuring heart disease patients averaging 68 years old, those who were taught the principles of transcendental meditation from the ancient Vedic tradition in India experienced several health benefits, the study said. Meditation has been previously shown to lower blood pressure, but researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, found it also decreased heart rate variability and insulin sensitivity. Reuters UK 12 June, 2006 Dr. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at UW-Madison and director of the university's Lab for Affective Neuroscience, pioneered some of the world's first research on meditation and its affect on the brain. With meditation, says Davidson, a person can train his or her mind to improve attention and regulate emotions; it can also improve a person's level of happiness and well-being. Davidson explains that these benefits come from neuroplasticity, or the brain's ability to be exercised and enhanced, creating new neural pathways. "The brain can be transformed through practice and experience," he says. Davidson and his team are currently conducting more meditation research, specifically investigating how meditation facilitates healing and impacts a person's ability to cope with pain. Wisconsin State Journal 18 September, 2006 The Stress Reduction Program at the University of Massachusetts� aims to teach people how to integrate meditation into their everyday lives to overcome stress, pain, high blood pressure, fatigue, and other ailments. National Geographic 1 February, 2006 (Meditators) produced gamma waves that were 30 times as strong as the students'. In addition, larger areas of the meditators' brains were active, particularly in the left prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for positive emotions. Wired Magazine 14 February, 2006 Meditation has been tested clinically, and works because it is relaxing, and reduced stress is good for your health for entirely non-mysterious reasons... US researchers led by Robert Schneider concluded that transcendental meditation reduced the risk of death among older people with mild high blood pressure by 23%. The Guardian 4 May, 2005 Practitioners claim it gives them the means to calm their minds, observe their mental processes at work and modify them. These claims are gaining support from some hard-nosed scientific studies of the experiences of meditators. Financial Times 13 February, 2004 Increasingly, the overstretched and overburdened have a new answer to work lives of gunning harder for what seems like less and less: Don't just do something -- sit there. Companies increasingly are falling for the allure of meditation, too, offering free, on-site classes. They're being won over, in part, by findings at the National Institutes of Health, the University of Massachusetts, and the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Harvard University that meditation enhances the qualities companies need most from their knowledge workers: increased brain-wave activity, enhanced intuition, better concentration, and the alleviation of the kinds of aches and pains that plague employees most. Tech outfits like Apple Computer, Yahoo!, and Google are also signing up. So are white-shoe, Old Economy outfits like consulting firm McKinsey, Deutsche Bank, and Hughes Aircraft. Business Week 28 July, 2003 Maxed-out professionals are turning to daily meditation to lower blood pressure, prolong concentration, and crank up creative juices. Inc. Magazine July 2004 Research has found the Transcendental Meditation program reduces risk factors in heart disease and other chronic disorders, such as high blood pressure, smoking, psychological stress, stress hormones, harmful cholesterol, and atherosclerosis. Medical News Today 2 May, 2005
|
