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To calm the mind
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Soothing the mind and controlling blood pressure are the advantages of meditation
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De-Stress Meditate for peace
Years ago, one Mr. J had reported that while he was meditating, he experienced a strange phenomenon of perceiving a light placed in front of him in his “pooja room” suddenly getting extinguished and thick darkness enveloping the whole are
a. Hours later he received a telegraphic message that his son had died in a car accident!
This kind of extra sensory perception (ESP) happens but very rarely even in deep meditation. It is a purported ability to acquire or receive or grasp information by paranormal means free of any physical senses or deduction.
Awareness
Meditation is the effortless awareness of one’s true self or reality. To a person in meditation wherever his mind goes, he sees only the truth. An understanding of Eastern philosophy is not essential for the realization of these truths though it may be useful.
However something is crucial – “a major shift in mindset and life approach” says psychologist Dr. Scott Bishop who does research on “the effects of a mindfulness form of meditation” on stress at the University Health Network affiliated to the University of Toronto (U.T).
People who meditate learn to be still and empty the mind of all distractions and disturbances. Some concentrate on a particular thoughtor ‘mantra’, activity or image such as a landscape or scenery, ocean waves or passing clouds.
Or they merely rest quietly in the “savasana” posture and observe their breathing and thoughts. Techniques differ including contemplating, mindful and Transcendental Meditation (TM), but the aim is always the same, that is, to calm the body and the mind.
Meditation helps people exercise more control (conscious) over their behaviour says Saki Santorelli, assistant professor of medicine and director of the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
Meditation teaches people to shift their focus away from desires and future plans, back to the present , to their breathing and thoughts. In ‘mindfulness meditation’ people watch their thought and feelings, without judging them.
This prevents them from being destructive or getting into potentially injurious habits and responses, says Zindalk Segel, Head of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Unit at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health of the University of Toronto’s psychiatry department.
Dr. Segel has folded in such mindfulness techniques, cognitive therapy to treat depression. He found that such meditation helps curbanger, anxiety, suicidal tendencies and eating disorders.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) patients used meditation to defuse their controlling thoughts.
Cancer patients managed chronic pain and hypertensive patients lowered their blood pressure. Some patients showed reversing carotic atherosclerosis and prevented heart attack.
In ground breaking work Dr. Vernon Barnes, assistant research scientist in Paediatrics at Medical College Georgia, the United States found that Africo–American adolescents reduce their hypertension risk through transcendental meditation (TM) – a form involving effortless reduction of abnormal mental activity.
Dr. Vernon Barnes’ study of 35 persons (between 15 and 18 years) revealed that those who practiced TM maintained lower blood pressure during rest and stressful interviews and “virtual reality car driving stimulation tasks” than controls.
Through meditation people discover the peace and wellness that already lives in themselves.
Psychologist Nirbhay Singh of Virginia Commonwealth University School says “every individual has within them the seed of their own happiness. Meditation helps connect them to it.”
C. P. SOMASUNDARAM
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