Meditation is good for your health

According to a recent article by William Collinge, Ph.D., the WebMD on CNN.com, medical evidence is piling up to support the role of mind/body medicine in promoting health.

Considering all the data below, it's no wonder that the age-old practice of meditation is becoming more and more popular in the West. Learning to meditate in a regular weekly meditation class is not only good for you but also extremely enjoyable -- and the enjoyment increases the better you get at it. There is probably no method that is more effective in truly relaxing your body and mind. Meditation adds more healing power to your body/mind, enabling you to cope much better with any present or potential sickness and ill-health. Perhaps even more importantly, through meditation you can tap into a vast reservoir of inner peace that you may not even know you had!

As Dr Collinge writes: 'At the heart of mind/body medicine lies the age-old practice of meditation, a quiet, simple technique that belies an almost extraordinary power to boost disease resistance and maintain overall health'.

Drawing from recent research by Dr David Eisenberg and his colleagues at the Harvard Medical School, he lists an increasing number of medical benefits from the practice of meditation:

1. Reductions in heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, oxygen consumption, blood flow to skeletal muscles, perspiration and muscle tension, as well as improvement in immunity.
2. Women with PMS (premenstrual syndrome) who meditate regularly reduce their symptoms by 58 percent. Women going through menopause could significantly reduce the intensity of hot flushes.
3. In a study of a 10-week group program that included meditation (along with exercise and nutrition changes), women struggling with infertility had significantly less anxiety, depression, and fatigue, and 34-percent became pregnant within six months.
4. New mothers who use meditation with images of milk flowing in their breasts can more than double their production of milk.
5. Patients with coronary-artery disease who meditated daily for eight months had nearly a 15-percent increase in exercise tolerance.
6. Patients with ischemic heart disease (in which the heart muscle receives an inadequate supply of blood) who practiced for four weeks had a significantly lower frequency of premature ventricular contractions (a type of irregular heartbeat).
7. Angioplasty patients who used meditation had significantly less anxiety, pain and need for medication during and after the procedure.
8. Patients having open-heart surgery who meditated regularly were able to reduce their incidence of postoperative supraventricular tachycardia (abnormally high heart rate).
9. Medical students who meditated regularly during final exams had a higher percentage of "T-helper cells," the immune cells that trigger the immune system into action.
10. Nursing-home residents trained in meditation had increased activity of "natural-killer cells," which kill bacteria and cancer cells. They also had reductions in the activity of viruses and of emotional distress.
11. Patients with metastatic (spreading) cancer who meditated with imagery regularly for a year had significant increases in natural-killer cell activity.

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