Meditation is often recommended as a way of reducing stress and even improving
health. Find out what it involves.
Kinds of meditation
For many people, the word "meditation" brings to mind images of
monks sitting pretzel-legged, chanting "om." At the very least, it's
typically assumed to be some sort of specialized religious activity. But it's
not necessarily so.
Most basically, meditation involves calming and focusing the mind. Many forms
also involve some kind of breath control. Most, but not all, involve sitting.
And there are several ways to meditate that involve no religious or spiritual
purpose or affiliation at all. Techniques that have been studied in clinical
trials and are recommended by some doctors for improving mental and physical
health include the following:
- Relaxation response. This involves sitting in a relaxed posture
with the eyes closed and focusing on your breath for 10 or 20 minutes. It
is recommended to do it twice daily. This is a technique that was developed
by Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School; he has published books on
it, and there is information on it available on the Web.
- Mindfulness meditation. This involves being aware of your bodily
sensations, the things you feel, and the sounds you hear, and paying attention
to what you're doing. It may sound simple, but have you ever eaten a meal
without thinking about anything but the food and the act of eating? There
are several approaches to this technique; the one most tested for its health
benefits is often referred to as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, or MBSR,
and can be learned over a course of a few weeks through tapes or programs.
Its leading proponent is Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts
Medical School, which has a Center for Mindfulness. Other advocates of similar
kinds of mindfulness meditation include Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen
Buddhist who has published several books and allows a non-religious approach
to meditation.
- Transcendental Meditation®. This is a program offered by an organization
founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi; it is required that you learn the technique
from an instructor. It involves 15 to 20 minutes twice a day, seated, but
it also involves mental repetition of a mantra, a "word"
such as "ainga" or "shiring" that has been selected for
you by your instructor.
There are also meditation techniques that are related to specific religions.
Different branches of Buddhism (notably Theravada, Tibetan and Zen) have a variety
of well-established techniques, as do sects of Hinduism, but there are also
meditative practices used in some groups in western religions such as Islam
and Christianity. There is considerable variety in the different approaches.
Why meditate?
One health reason to meditate is to reduce stress. Stress is unpleasant, of
course, but it goes further than that: it can have a bad effect on your health.
It can increase your risk for heart disease or heart attacks and can worsen
existing heart disease. Stress can also affect your immune system, meaning you're
more likely, for instance, to catch a cold and you may feel sicker when
you have an infection. And, of course, stress can lead to anxiety, depression
and other mood disorders.
It's not surprising, then, that meditation has been found not only to reduce
stress but to help stress-related conditions. For instance, mindfulness meditation
has been found to increase healing rates for people being treated for psoriasis
and may also improve immune function. A group training program in mindfulness
meditation has been found to help people with anxiety disorder or panic disorder.
And transcendental meditation has been found to reduce heart disease risk factors,
including coronary artery disease (clogged arteries) and high blood pressure,
in elderly people of African descent.
But, even leaving all that, a good reason to meditate is simply that it's
relaxing, and it's more effective than just sitting with your eyes closed. It
gives you a break from the rush-rush-rush of daily life and allows you a chance
to focus your mind and perhaps gain a bit more control over where your
thoughts take you. And remember: mental health is health, too.
Meditation by the numbers
You may feel that you want to meditate but just can't get around to it. Perhaps
you feel you always have something to do. Perhaps you want to find a quiet room,
or get yourself a nice meditation cushion, or maybe you want to have a tea first
and then you get distracted. Or perhaps you feel you should read a book on it
or take a course.
Or you can just go ahead and do it. Meditation doesn't require special equipment.
A quiet room is nice, but not essential. Even sitting down is not essential
there are ways of meditating while walking. And, while courses and books
can be helpful, you can get started anywhere, anytime like now,
for instance. The real reason for not meditating is usually that you feel you
should always be doing something useful. Well, meditation is something useful
and it's good for you. So get to it! Here is an easy way to get started:
- Sit comfortably with your back straight in a "dignified"
posture in a chair.
- Close your eyes and breathe calmly.
- Count your breaths: inhale, one, exhale, one; inhale, two, exhale, two;
inhale, three, exhale, three; and so on. If your mind wanders, simply return
it to your breathing as soon as you notice that it has wandered; don't get
frustrated or chastise yourself for being distracted, as that will only distract
you further. If you lose count, start again from one.
How far you want to count is a matter of how much time and concentration you
have. You may wish to count in cycles of ten, restarting at one after reaching
ten, and do this for five or ten cycles (keeping track on your fingers of how
many cycles you've gone through). Or you may wish to count to 100.
A pause to refresh
You will likely want more information on ways of meditating, and a good place
to start is with books and tapes by respected meditation experts. There are
hundreds of books and tapes to choose from, and you may have access to classes
in meditation offered by local organizations as well. You will probably want
to try a few approaches to see which is most effective for you.
You may well find, however, that the times you need inner calm most tend to
be times when you don't have the option of going off for ten or twenty minutes
to meditate. That doesn't mean you don't have access to calmness and clarity
of mind. Meditation will help you to have a better handle on your mind and emotions
at all times during the day, but there's also something else you can do: at
any point during the day, you can take a brief pause to calm your mind and refocus
your awareness.
If, for instance, there's a noise that you hear every so often perhaps
a co-worker's phone pause for five seconds when you hear it. Stop, smile
slightly, breathe calmly and evenly and be aware of your breath. If you start
to think about something, just set it aside and think, "Thinking... thinking...
thinking." Try choosing a noise that irritates you, so that instead of
simply fuming, you make the noise your signal for a pause to refresh your outlook.
You can even stop and think, "Irritation... irritation... irritation..."
as you watch the irritation appear and fade away.
This also works if you find your mind wandering from your work, or if you
get angry or upset. Just pause, inhale, exhale, and think "wandering"
or "angry" or "upset." Don't fight the thoughts or feelings;
just recognize them, and be aware of yourself having them. And then continue
what you were doing.
And any time you think about meditating and find yourself putting it off to
do something else first, pause for five seconds and think, "procrastinating...
procrastinating... procrastinating..."
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