Health Education

Did you know that by practicing one of several different types of meditation techniques on a regular basis, you can help alleviate pain, improve your health and improve your mood immensely.

Here I want to show you that if you can spend 20 to 30 minutes a day to learn meditation you can start to get rid of any pain you may be suffering, and make a big improvement to your health by using something as simple as yoga meditation.

Yoga uses simple techniques which can be performed by anyone and more importantly it is not time consuming. Throughout the world, this has been an age old stress relieving and healing modality that has been practiced by almost all of the religions and cultures. The meditation technique is designed to bring harmony and balance inside you so that there is no more tension, just calmness.

All-in-all, there are several different techniques that can be used along with the aid of listening to mediation music or the aid of chanting. The focus could be on some object close by or you could focus on the breaths that you take as they go in and out of your body. No matter what the approach used, a quiet environment and a fixed uninterrupted time span will be required.

Identify your object of focus – it can be a mantra (word or phrase), your breathing cycle or a physical object and attain a comfortable posture (do not lie down as it would induce sleep). The ultimate aim with any guided meditation process is to reach a state of a mild trance, a state where you are aware of your surroundings yet detached from it.

There are in total three states to learn meditation and many manage to reach the primary or Alpha state, the second and the third state will make your mind even calmer.  To access the deeper levels you may prefer to practice something like buddhist meditation of even transcendental meditation.

Among several religions, the history of meditation is a very important spiritual practice, which includes Jewish, Sufism and Christian mystical tradition. However, meditation and the brain is closely associated most with yoga and Buddhism. Buddhism uses it in order to focus and direct one’s mental path to get to the point of enlightenment. You can meditate anywhere and in any posture – while lying back, walking, sitting, whatever – however, the best position would be ‘zazen’ or sitting down.

The benefits of meditation have been researched and put down in a study by Harvard professor, Herbert Benson. Just twenty minutes is enough to make a visible difference in controlling your blood pressure, your heart and breathing rate and you metabolism. Entering into the deeper states sometimes bring on colorful swirls and pictures as well as hearing voices inside of you. Some of the follow-on studies have reflected that guided meditation can also help to relieve anxiety and stress, migraine, headaches, depression, fatigue, chronic pain, and insomnia.

With better awareness comes a better state of health and you will find that your functioning – whether physical, mental, emotional or psychological – is so much more enhanced and healthy.

While traditionally transcendental meditation was a tool to get you to a higher spiritual level, today it is also used to help you manage the stresses and tension that are a part and parcel of the modern lifestyle. When you combine yoga and meditation, you will find it a perfect recipe to help you to a life without stress and tension.