Meditation – Science or Fiction?

Whether Meditation is a scientific approach and whether practicing it results in stress reduction and well being of the humanity has always been a debatable subject. Still there are many who consider practicing meditation, a mere jujube and the medical benefits supposed to accrue, a mere placebo.

Harvard Medical School researchers monitored the brain activity of meditation practitioners, during meditation and found that meditation activates those sections of the brain, which govern the involuntary activities of the body like digestion as well as blood pressure. They found that stress often interferes in proper execution of these body functions. Hence, we can conclude that regular practicing of meditation wards off stress related problems like heart diseases, digestive disorders and infertility.

It is also heartening to know that practicing meditation for as little as 20 minutes a day brings benefits like controlled blood pressure and improved body functions. Rob Nairn, in his book, “What is meditation” explains, “It is a highly alert and skillful state of mind because it requires one to be psychologically present and ‘with’ whatever happens in and around one without subtracting from it in any way”. From the above it follows that in meditation, we are in a super conscious state. This super conscious state brings about the curative properties mentioned earlier.

It has also been proved that people who practiced meditation showed increased alpha waves, which are relaxed brain waves. It is these relaxed waves, which bring about reduced anxiety levels and lessened depressed state.

Many people have described meditation with rigid rules to follow, difficult body postures very tough to practice, especially for western culture-oriented men and women. It is enough to know that meditation consists of sitting quietly, focusing on one’s breath, word or mental picture. The objective is to still the mind from its constant chattering nature.

As per Roger Thomson Ph.D., – a Chicago based Psychologist and Zen meditation specialist, there is only one-way to assess whether we are doing the meditation correctly or not. He declares, “If you are feeling better at the end, you are probably doing it right.

Same Dr. Thomson explores the symbiotic nature of meditation techniques and Psychotherapy in a paper published in American Journal of Psychotherapy. He says that in both symptoms we are intimately present with what is happening here and now. This is the secret of de-stressing effects of meditation

We can thus see that the beneficial effects of meditation are realistic and not fictitious.

Suzie’s passion is to write on wide varieties of subjects. Her latest writing is at baby Bjorn active carrier which contains reviews on new native baby carrier and other information about baby carriers.