If you regularly practice meditation, mental health problems may never be an issue for you. Research has consistently shown that meditation can improve bpth mental health as well as physical well-being.
Depression
For thousands of years, meditation has been used in Eastern religious and spiritual traditions as a method of uniting the spirit and the mind. Through the years, medicine men and tribal doctors have used the healing benefits of meditation. In more modern times, meditation has become a popular way to relieve the stress from a fast-paced world as well as helping to improve both mental and physical health.
It is now well known that physical exercise can alter hormone levels within the body and have a positive effect on our moods, however more recent research has demonstrated that meditation works in a related manner and offers similar benefits. Despite the obvious metabolic differences between running and meditation, similar positive mood changes occur after both of these activities.
Spontaneous thoughts are often cited as a symptom of depression. For this reason, scientists have investigated ways in which these thoughts can be controlled without the use of drugs. Meditation and prayer can help prevent depression by reducing intrusive thoughts. In one study, twenty men and women were monitored after prayer, meditation, and carrying out a memory task. The results showed that there was a significant reduction in thought arousal during both the memory task and the reciting of prayer after meditation.
Anxiety
Meditation has long been used to help relax, focus and attenuate anxiety by reducing arousal state. A study at the University of Massachusetts Medical School revealed that twenty-two medical patients with anxiety disorders showed clinically and statistically significant improvements in symptoms of anxiety and panic following an eight-week stress reduction intervention based on mindfulness meditation. Three years later, a follow-up study learned that the same subjects still had reduced anxiety and concluded that mindfulness meditation can have long-term benefits in the treatment of anxiety disorders.
A large review study looked at sixty studies using meditation of the treatment of anxiety disorders and concluded that meditation therapy was an effective method for treating anxiety disorders.
Stress
Whether practiced for spiritual reasons, relaxation, or for treatment of disease, meditation has been shown to be beneficial for stress reduction. A controlled study at the Medical College of Georgia found that fifteen minutes of meditation twice a day reduced measures of stress with 35 adolescents. Stress reduction programs involving group counseling, psychoeducation, relaxation training, and meditation can reduce stress and help to prevent and manage health problems relating to stress. Meditation reduces stress by restoring the body to a calm state and assisting the body with reparation. When practicing meditation, the heart rate and breathing slows down, blood pressure normalizes, and oxygen is used more efficiently. Additionally, the adrenal glands produce less cortisol, which improves immune function. In a longitudinal study lasting four years, sixty-four post-baccalaureate students practiced deep breathing meditation exercises daily. Students reported decreased test anxiety, nervousness, and self-doubt. The researchers concluded that deep breathing meditation provided students with a solution for meeting challenging academic and professional stress. There are many different types of meditation, including sitting, standing, and walking methods. While reducing stress, meditation has also been shown to improve attention, reduce anxiety, enhance cognition, and improve quality of life throughout the lifespan.
Addiction
Meditation has been effectively incorporated as part of substance abuse rehabilitation in treatment programs. Investigators have authored several reviews of studies looking into the benefits of transcendental meditation (TM) in treating substance abuse and concluded that TM influences both psychological and physiological health with addictive behaviors. Additionally, TM has been shown to help recovering substance abusers in maintaining abstinence.
Smoking
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a type of relation psychotherapy that involves learning meditation techniques which help to elicit a feeling of peace and relaxation. A study at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine revealed that MBSR is a highly effective smoking intervention. Eighteen subjects were enrolled in the study with an average smoking history of almost twenty cigarettes per day for over twenty-six years. The MBSR instructors taught mindfulness techniques in eight weekly group sessions. All eighteen participants attempted smoking cessation during the seventh week without any additional therapies. At the end of six weeks, ten of eighteen subjects (56 percent) had quit smoking. Researchers noted that “Compliance with meditation was positively associated with smoking abstinence and decreases in stress and affective distress.”
