A recent Globe & Mail article positioned stress as a public health issue, and cited research that shows that “[c]hronic stress caused by taking on too much – both at home and at work – has been linked to a wide range of serious health concerns, from Alzheimer’s and depression to obesity, diabetes and heart disease.” (http://bit.ly/rtOdwC)
How to reduce stress? For an increasing number of people, meditation is the answer and science is backing them up.
Dr. Ramesh Manocha at Sydney University led a study into meditation recently. He found that meditation “triggers change in electrical activity of the brain, improving the mind and body in measurable ways,” including improvement in mood and depression levels. http://bit.ly/nHrHHu
Other recent studies have found additional benefits to meditation: initial research at UCLA shows that meditation may help reduce age-related brain atrophy (http://bit.ly/nubjXP); and scientists at Wake Forest University found a link between meditation and reduced sensitivity to pain, a discovery that shows promise for those suffering from chronic pain (http://bit.ly/oUEpjM).
A common misconception about mediation is that it is just a matter of sitting quietly. While that is certainly one aspect of it, there is more to meditation than simply relaxing. As Dr. Manocha notes, meditation is the widening of space between thoughts “until the space is so large you have no thoughts whatsoever in that moment.”
Meditation is a practice, one that takes commitment and some instruction to get started. But it is worth the effort, as research continually shows. To learn more about meditation, try a simple Google search to find instructors in your community or visit your local library where books on mediation are often readily available.
No comments:
Post a Comment