Millions of us pop vitamins or herbal remedies as ‘insurance policy’ to stave off colds and flu.
But new research suggests that meditation could be very effective at preventing the winter ailments.
Adults who meditated or did moderately intense exercise for eight weeks suffered fewer colds than those who did nothing, according to a study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Read more
You gotta relax, man. Life in 2012 means a degree of stress, for just about everyone. Our bodies and minds can take a lot of abuse, but its all too easy to get into a negative cycle, and just keep sinking. You don't sleep well, you get up late, so you don't eat, your blood sugar is low, so your temper is short, etc. Stress. If you need more time, more energy, or better sleep, then its worth taking the time to relax and meditate. Believe it or not, this investment in yourself can improve these aspects of your life, and many more.
Everyone knows stress is not good for you. Prolonged exposure to increased levels of cortisol and adrenaline is harmful to your organs. This condition is usually exacerbated by tense, tight muscles (causing pain), shallow breathing, and digestive problems. With just five minutes a few times a day, you can improve your health and cut stress. Best of all, it costs nothing and requires no equipment. Read more
Earlier evidence out of UCLA suggested that meditating for years thickens the brain (in a good way) and strengthens the connections between brain cells. Now a further report by UCLA researchers suggests yet another benefit.
Eileen Luders, an assistant professor at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, and colleagues, have found that long-term meditators have larger amounts of gyrification ("folding" of the cortex, which may allow the brain to process information faster) than people who do not meditate. Further, a direct correlation was found between the amount of gyrification and the number of meditation years, possibly providing further proof of the brain's neuroplasticity, or ability to adapt to environmental changes. Read more
So if you want to develop bigger muscles and stronger bones, you pump iron. But what do you do to build a bigger brain? Meditate.
Research has confirmed the beneficial aspects of meditation. In addition to having better focus and control over their emotions, many people who meditate regularly have reduced levels of stress and bolstered immune systems. But this new research is about much more than stress management... it's about meditation changing the actual structure of the brain.
First, in an article in the Jan. 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, researchers report that those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. Previous studies have also shown that there are structural differences between the brains of meditators and those who don’t meditate, but this was the first to document changes in gray matter over time through meditation. Read more
Pain Management Technique
What was most amazing about the recent research which showed meditation reduced the intensity of pain by 40% and reduced the unpleasantness associated with pain by almost 60%, was that these benefits were attained with just 4 meditation sessions of 20 minutes each! That’s really incredible. Normally much more consistent practice is needed and the benefits of meditation are procured over time, but here we find that after just a few practice session, meditation helped enormously with pain management and pain relief.
This study, on the powers of meditation for pain management, was conducted at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, NC and published in the Journal of Neuroscience on April 6th. Even the researchers were amazed at the results.
How Meditation Helps with Pain Management: Read more
Meditation produces powerful pain-relieving effects in the brain, according to new research published in the April 6 edition of the Journal of Neuroscience.
"This is the first study to show that only a little over an hour of meditation training can dramatically reduce both the experience of pain and pain-related brain activation," said Fadel Zeidan, Ph.D., lead author of the study and post-doctoral research fellow at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
"We found a big effect – about a 40 percent reduction in pain intensity and a 57 percent reduction in pain unpleasantness. Meditation produced a greater reduction in pain than even morphine or other pain-relieving drugs, which typically reduce pain ratings by about 25 percent." Read more
Some of us need regular amounts of coffee or other chemical enhancers to make us cognitively sharper. A newly published study suggests perhaps a brief bit of meditation would prepare us just as well.
While past research using neuroimaging technology has shown that meditation techniques can promote significant changes in brain areas associated with concentration, it has always been assumed that extensive training was required to achieve this effect. Though many people would like to boost their cognitive abilities, the monk-like discipline required seems like a daunting time commitment and financial cost for this benefit.
Surprisingly, the benefits may be achievable even without all the work. Though it sounds almost like an advertisement for a "miracle" weight-loss product, new research now suggests that the mind may be easier to cognitively train than we previously believed. Psychologists studying the effects of a meditation technique known as "mindfulness " found that meditation-trained participants showed a significant improvement in their critical cognitive skills (and performed significantly higher in cognitive tests than a control group) after only four days of training for only 20 minutes each day. Read more
