Health Benefits of Meditation

Posted by Elaine Moore Jan 27, 2007

Meditation has been an integral component of Eastern medicine for centuries with most types of meditation following traditions handed down from either India or Tibet. As a healing tool, meditation can promote feelings of relaxation and inner peace and it can help transform the negative emotional states that are linked to disease. Meditation also affects the autonomic nervous system, reducing heart rate and blood pressure and improving respiration. And by reducing muscle tension, meditation helps to reduce inflammation, headache, and other types of pain. Used as a form of stress reduction, meditation is reported to improve immune system health and promote remission in patients with autoimmune disorders.

The Meditative State and the Origins of Disease

In the meditative state, the body is still and the mind is free of distractions. Tibetan meditation is based on the concept that all human life involves suffering. This suffering can only be transcended through meditation as one develops true understanding, wisdom, and compassion. Tibetan meditation aims to liberate the individual from both physical disease and mental ignorance.

Disease, according to Tibetan medicine, stems from a process of imbalance brought on by negative thoughts, harmful actions, improper behavior, inappropriate diet, and sometimes the influence of malevolent spirits. The factors disturb the delicate equilibrium of humors and elements with the body, disrupting the body’s normal metabolic processes and energy flow, thereby causing sickness.

According to Ayurvedic medicine, which originated in India, mediation is a tool for training the mind to develop greater calm. This calm, in turn, evokes insights into our own life experience. Meditation is considered a way of slowing down that allows us to get in touch with our natural self and our place in the rhythmic flow of the universe.

The Practice of Meditation

Meditation can be performed in any position as long as the back is kept straight. The preferred position is sitting upright with the legs crossed on a pillow to help keep the back straight. This classic lotus pose or padmasana, which originated in India, provides a stable position that facilitates breathing.

Meditation requires a relaxed, passive attitude of detachment and a point of focus. This point of focus can be an object, visualization, sacred sounds known as mantras, prayers, or sacred hand gestures, which are called mudras. Mudras convey symbolic messages and connect subtle energy fields within the body, stimulating awareness. The recitation of mantras is thought to generate vibrations that are conducive to healing. One of the best known mantras is “om mant padme hum,” meaning O Jewel in the Lotus.

Objects commonly used in meditation include religious statutes, particularly those depicting the Buddha. Visualization is achieved through paintings or symbolic representations such as sacred shapes (yantras) and designs (mandalas). Visualizations for healing are often centered on the Medicine Buddha, an image surrounded by emanating rays of light.

Meditation can be combined with exercise by synchronizing a mantra and breathing with movements, such as steps taken while running or incorporating the bending of arms or prostrations while walking. In tantric meditation the aim is to transform oneself into the body, mind, and speech of the Buddha and other deities.

The Benefits of Meditation

Mediation is reported to calm the anxiety that frequently accompanies chronic pain by cultivating awareness. At the Duke University Medical School, psychiatrist Ron Vereen teaches Integrative Medicine students how to use meditation along with mindful breathing as a tool for coping with pain. Becoming mindful through meditation doesn’t diminish pain but changes one’s understanding and relationship to pain. By removing resistance to pain, the suffering is relieved.

Vereen also promotes using a “loving’kindness” meditation known as Metta bhavana that helps those who practice it develop a loving acceptance attitude toward oneself and others. This technique invites patients to be more friendly and loving to themselves instead of feeling resentful about their condition. A nursing trial using this technique for 8 weeks showed reduced pain and stress on the day on and the day after this meditation was used.

Harvard cardiologist Dr. Herbert Benson, author of The Relaxation Response and pioneer in the Mind/Body Medical Institute showed that practicing meditation for twenty minutes daily twice a day could significantly reduce blood pressure, which is a marker for chronic stress.

In a 1976 study at a Veteran’s Administration Hospital in La Jolla, California researchers showed that a program of regular yoga and mediation increased levels of immune system hormones and reduced levels of stress hormones, thereby improving immune system health. Meditation used as a form of stress reduction also improves immune system health by calming and strengthening the immune system.

Resources:

Jennifer Pirtle, When Chronic Pain Strikes, Natural Health, November 2006.

Marcia Starck, Handbook of Natural Therapies, Exploring the Spiral of Healing,

Tarthang Tulku, Tibetan Meditation, London: Duncan Baird, 2006.

Jacqueline Young, The Healing Path, London: Thorsons, 2001.