Meditation and Present Life
Dr. Minu Sharma is a family practitioner practicing in Valley center, California. Dr. Sharma specializes in comprehensive health care for people of all ages. In addition to diagnosing and treating illnesses, family practitioners also put focus on preventative care with routine checkups, tests and personalized coaching on... more
Meditation has been practiced since antiquity in numerous religious traditions and beliefs. Eastern spiritual practices, referred to as dhayana in Hinduism and Buddhism, comes from the sanskrit root dhyai, meaning contemplate or meditate. Meditation is one arm of Ayurveda. These days we use this term in different forms like focusing, concentrating, contemplating, observing, listening to relaxing music or sound, etc.
In reality this is a form of technique to self heal.
Meditation slows biological aging and decreases the incidence of chronic diseases. It increases the level of hormone DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), which is associated with increased longevity and youthfulness. It helps improve chronic disorders, such as asthma, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, epilepsy, heart disease, fibromyalgia and chronic pain. Meditation reduces the expression of genes involved in stress response, inflammation and heart disease.It increases the expression of genes involved in tumor suppression.
Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique—such as mindfulness or focusing their mind on a particular object, thought or activity—to train attention and awareness. Some of these techniques are difficult to do and further aggravate an already overactive mind. Some of these techniques are relaxing but still involve use of the mind, so a more accurate description would be a relaxation technique instead of meditation. Vedic-meditation, which originated in the ancient times of Bharat, is an easy and effortless process that takes one to a source of the mind deep inside. Relaxation is helpful for reducing stress and promoting health.
Meditation has positive effects on all areas of life. It increases the conscious capacity of the mind and makes one calmer and more peaceful. It balances the emotions and increases the energy, alertness, and ability to focus during activity. It takes one to a higher level of consciousness.
There are different ways to start meditation, like transcendental technique recommends practice of 20 minutes twice per day. You can meditate different part of the day. Some mediators find practice best in the hours before dawn.
Meditation lowers cortisol level and reduces stress. It helps normalize blood pressure, reduces anxiety and depression, and is helpful in post traumatic disorder. It synchronizes the functions of both sides of the brain and improves learning and memory. During meditation, brain produces alpha waves, which are associated with deep relaxation. The level of neurotransmitter GABA 9 (gamma-aminobutyric acid) increases, which keeps negativity under control.
Mindfulness practices have become very popular. These practices function on the level of mind and do not go to the deeper level beyond mind. They do not access that deep within that is full of peace, bliss energy, intelligence and creativity. As in a cell the DNA is the source of all the knowledge of the physiology and there is a feedback process that determines how much more proteins to make and how much water to conserve. With meditation, we create that loop in our mind to heal the broken emotions and heal the broken cells too.
The earliest clear references to meditation in Hindu literature are in the middle Upanishads and the Mahabharata.
