Meditation….Its Benefits
An enrichment for your soul…

Excerpt from healthandyoga.com

There are many thousands of meditation methods known today.  Some are best for beginners, others are better tackled after a few years of experience.  So to just give you a starting point the following method can be followed:

Improvement of body luster an general health – when your mind focuses one particular part of the body, the blood flow to that part increases and cells receive more oxygen and other nutrients in abundance.

Improvement in concentration – many of the athletes and sports professionals regularly employ meditation methods.  Studies have found a direct correlation between concentration exercises such as meditation and the performance level of sports professionals.  Meditation strengthens the mind, it comes under control and is able to provide effective guidance to the physical body to effectively execute all its projects.  It is a powerful way of improving concentration and improving mental strength.

Health Benefits of Meditation…

Though meditation is usually recognized as a largely spiritual practice, it also has many health benefits.  The yoga and meditation techniques are being implemented in management of life threatening diseases; in transformation of molecular and genetic structure; in reversal of mental illnesses, in accelearted learning programs, in preceptions and communciations beyond the physical, in solving problems and atomic and nuclear physics; in gaining better ecological understanding; in management of lifestyle and future world problems.  Some benefits of mediation are:

• it lowers oxygen consumption
• it decreases respiratory rate
• it increases blood flow an slows the heart rate
• increases exercise tolerance in heart patients
• leads to a deeper level of relaxation
• good for people with high blood pressure as it brings the bp to normal
• reduces anxiety attacks by lowering the levels of blood lactate
• decreases muscle tension (any pain due to tension) and headaches
• builds self-confidence
• it increases serotonin production which influences mood and behavior.  low levels of serotonin are associated with depression, obesity, insomnia and headaches
• helps in chronic diseases like allergies, arthritis, etc.
• reduces pre-menstrual syndrome
• helps in post-operative healing
• enhances the immune system.  research has revealed that meditation increases activity of ‘natural-killer’ cells, which kill bacteria and cancer cells
• also reduces activity of viruses and emotional distress

Benefits of Meditation on Women’s Health and Pregnancy:

Identity of your own – besides daughter, wife, mother, etc.

Women begin life as someone’s daughter, and then someone’s lover, wife, someone’s mother.  Yes, but who am I – who am I really?  Not only does a woman need an understanding of her body but also needs to connect with the essence of her true self.  A true self, which is an identity beyond everyday change – beyond gender, beyond fluctuations of hormones, beyond family expectations and other superimposed personality patterns.  Discovering this true self is not as easy.  Just when you know who you are, it all changes again.

The process of self-discovery involves, tripping off false layers of identity, going back through all the conditionings, realizing – “I am not that, and not that, and not that”, an emptiness out of which arises the realization – “ah ha!  I am that.”

The place for this self discovery is not the psychiatrist’s couch, the matrimonial bed, the mother’s group, or even a yoga retreat, but within you rown private meditation times.

For Mothers-to-be:

Meditation puts mothers in tune with their babies.  After birth, daily meditation becomes a precious time to refocus and make sense of the many new thoughts and feelings which can be running through your mind, brought about by the events of childbirth and new motherhood.

Meditation – A Stress Buster

Meditation has been proved scientifically to combat stress and stress-related disorders like high blood presure, insomnia and heart diseases

Why are we stressed most of the time?

Normally, any life threatening situation triggers off the stress response.  This response enables a person to act quickly and survive intense, short-term challenges, which require less brains and fast reflexes.  This is possibly the survival response inherited form our pre-civilization days.  But today the same response is triggered in traffic jams, work related irritations, family squabbles and many such situations – meaning that with any petty problem, our body ends up preparing for a life-death situation.  And then as these situations don’t come to an end, with a single confrontation, we remain in a perpetual state of stress.

What happens to our body during stress?

During stress, the heart beats faster and blood pressure rises.  The blood flow is diverted from the internal organs to the muscles as well as the areas of the brain that control muscle coordination.  As a result, the brain releases chemicals that help the body cope better with injuries, including those that block pain and help  the blood clot faster.  All these symptoms lead to the feeling of being run down, tired and basically stressed.

How does meditation bust stress?

Meditation comes to the rescue in such a situation and induces a relaxation response.  Dr. Benson (used to work at Harvard Medical School, did a research of physiological effects of meditation) found that there was a counter-balancing mechanism to the fight-or-flight response in most stress-inducing situations.  As stress is induced by stimulation of the hypothalamus of the brain – relaxation can be achieved by countering this stimulation – by stimulating other areas of the brain.  This is achieved by doing meditation, which leads to a state of deep rest.