Meditation and Heart Disease

Scientific studies have shown our state of mind, particularly our level of stress, plays a major part in every stage of heart disease. Since it has been proven beyond doubt that meditation is one of the best tools to counter stress, it is obvious that meditation can play a major role in preventing heart disease. This has been proved by survey conducted by Dr. David Orme Johnson, which found that regular mediators are 87.3% less likely to be hospitalized due to heart disease.

Meditation and Psychiatric Disorders —

Meditation and Psychiatric Disorders

Emerging evidence shows that in addition to stress, anxiety and depression, meditation is effective in treating in a host of other psychiatric disorders, and in maintaining sound mental health in general. Meditation is gradually being incorporated by more and more psychiatrists in the treatment plan for obsessive compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, bulimia nervosa, alienation, sexual arousal disorder, schizophrenia, among others. A 2005 study by researchers Elkins and others showed that at least 30% of psychiatric inpatients used various mind body techniques including relaxation, visualization and meditation.

Meditation and Pain —

Meditation and Pain

One of the early studies on meditation, conducted by Pelettier and Peper, found that three adept meditators did not feel pain when they voluntarily inserted steel needles into their bodies. Since then, numerous research studies, spread over more than three decades, have found that meditation is effective in treating various kinds of pain, including –
• headache/ migraine,-
• back pain,-
• arthritis, –
• muscle pain,-
• dismenorhea ( period pain).-
A nationwide survey conducted in the US in 1997 found that 27% of Americans use relaxation for pain relief, and 23% reported that their doctors have prescribed relaxation instead of pain killers.
One of the leading researchers and practitioner in this field is Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. In 1982, he studied the effects of 10 weeks of mindfulness meditation on 51 chronic pain patients who had not improved with traditional medical care. 65% of the patients felt less pain. Dr. Kabat-Zinn has successfully treated thousands of pain patients with only meditation in his Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School since 1979.
In 1996, a high power 12 member panel of the National Institute of Health – reviewed the studies conducted by Dr. Kabat-Zinn and many others, and concluded that relaxation is as effective as painkillers and surgery for treating pain, and has the added benefit of not having any side effects. They recommended that relaxation and other behavioral techniques should be integrated into the treatment of pain.