Amazing Meditation

by Aimee Amodio | More from this Blogger

13 Nov 2007 08:00 AM

Meditation really is amazing -- studies have shown that meditation can have some impressive effects on the human body.

• A study from the American Journal of Cardiology found that people who practiced Transcendental Meditation actually lived longer than those who didn't.
• A study from the University of California at Irvine found that people who meditate show less activity (as much as fifty percent less) in the pain centers of the brain.
• Another study from the University of Pennsylvania found that meditating twice daily reduced the severity of congestive heart failure -- increasing survival rates.
• A study from the Preventive Cardiac Center at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in LA found that people who meditate have lower death and heart attack rates.
• A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that Transcendental Meditation could decrease risk factors for heart disease like high blood pressure and insulin resistance over several months.

What is Transcendental Meditation? It is a style of meditation that involves sitting quietly with your eyes closed for up to twenty minutes. While seated, you repeat a mantra (a simple phrase or a simple sound like OHM) to allow your mind and body to settle down.

How does meditation work? It stimulates the part of the nervous system that fights stress! Meditation can lower blood pressure, lower heart and breath rate, relax muscles, and reduce stress hormones. Stress activates your "fight or flight" response, raising blood pressure, tightening muscles, increasing heart and breath rate, and flooding the body with stress hormones. With just ten or twenty minutes of meditation, your body can settle down and relax.

Anyone can meditate -- it doesn't take years of study and effort. You don't need a special quiet space to do it! Just focus on the sensations present in your body and you will find your stress and anger melting away. Concentrate on your breathing or repeat a mantra to take yourself out of the chaos and into a state of peace.

Learn more about Aimee Amodio

Aimee is a fiction writer... dog lover... music lover...

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