Meditate To Improve Your Health

In the late 1960s, Dr

In the late 1960s, Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School conducted scientific studies to test the health benefits of meditation. He determined that meditation could be used successfully in treating physiological problems, like high blood pressure, heart disease, migraine headaches, and auto-immune diseases, such as diabetes and arthritis.

During their meditation, he found that his test subjects had slowed heartbeats and breathing; their blood lactate levels were lowered, and their brains had increased in alpha activity, which is a definite sign of relaxation. Dr. Benson also found that meditation was helpful in stopping or slowing obsessive thinking, anxiety, depression, and hostility.

In the "Set Point Study," scientists found that each of us has a natural "set point" in our brains for both good and bad emotions. The study found that people who are used to being happy have more activity in the front portion of their frontal lobes. The right side is more active in people who worry or are anxious. Even when major events occur in a person's life, like winning the lottery, scientists have found that brain chemistry shifts back to its normal, or set point within about six months.

One of the most dramatic examples of what can be called "resetting the set point" was a study done with people who had suffered paralysis from spinal cord injuries. Although they could no longer walk and often suffered from depression in the short run, within six months of the accident, these individuals had returned to their normal mental set points and their original state of happiness. In other words, no matter what happens in a person's life, the shift back to the set point inevitably takes place.

The good news is that you CAN change your set point through meditation. The study proved that after only eight weeks of meditating for approximately one hour each day, six days a week, these same people reported that they had become happier. Follow-up tests showed that their set points had been changed, so that their normal level of mental happiness had been raised. In addition, they had become better at picking up emotional cues from others, and they reported developing more empathy towards other people's emotions. On the physical level, these same researchers found that the meditators' immune system response had been enhanced.

Another study found that aging people who meditate regularly don't lose their gray matter as fast as non-meditators. Apparently, the meditators' brains have noticeably thicker tissue in the prefrontal cortex, which is the region of the brain responsible for attention and control. Studies have proven that regular meditation can improve not only your psychic health but also your physical health!

by: Dr. Robert Puff

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