“I always thought that falling in love was much easier than coming out of it. But the practice of meditation changed my opinion. Just a few minutes of daily practice helped me cope with a broken relationship much faster than what otherwise would have taken several months!” – Vineet Nambiar, daily meditator.

PAIN – a four-letter word that is very much part of our lives. It may be as minor as a small wound/ headache or it could be a troubled relationship. The fact remains that pain is inevitable. But what can be avoided is the suffering that follows. Meditation is a simple technique with profound effects that can help in this process.

How to heal yourself?​

A research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School showed that regular practice of meditation helped reduce heart diseases by 45%, high blood pressure by 43%, significantly reduced cholesterol levels and helped slow down ageing.

Did you know that our emotions have a direct impact on the body? The way we feel inside reflects outside. That is why you might have noticed that the health of some people drastically goes down when they are stressed out or depressed for a long time. Stress is one of the primary reasons for poor health. Sometimes it manifests itself in the form of diabetes, hypertension and other such lifestyle diseases.

When we meditate, the mind becomes calm and relaxed. Meditation helps release stress from the mind and body. When the mind is quiet, the emotions are balanced and the effect shows on the body. We stay healthy and free of diseases. In fact, consistent practice of meditation for a period of time can even help cure certain prolonged health conditions.

Ramila Patel, a 52-year-old housewife from Mumbai, is a beneficiary to this. She had been suffering from chronic migraine for 20 years and had to take at least four tablets of Paracetamol a day! With daily practice of Sudarshan Kriya and meditation, she shares that she is completely cured! She has never had a single migraine attack since last three years.

“We use only 30 percent of our total lung capacity; 90 percent of the impurities in the system are thrown out through the breath. When you put attention to the breath, it has immense potentiality to heal. Doing meditation and pranayama can eliminate the cause of disease.” – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Meditation for Healing

People struggling with chronic pain or other medical conditions can use healing meditation to feel better in body and spirit. Some report dramatic results from healing meditation, while others simply appreciate the reduction in stress that comes from sitting quietly and focusing the mind. Healing meditation often incorporates visualization techniques.

What to expect

While meditation hasn’t been proven to cure specific ailments, patients report that it can be helpful when used alongside more conventional treatments. Meditation can help reduce anxiety, for one thing, which can potentially cause positive changes in your body. It’s important to be open to the process and have faith that it will help, but be willing to give it time.

Guided meditation techniques

Guided imagery, in which you create mental pictures in response to another person’s instructions, is commonly used for healing meditation. For example, if you have cancer, you might be asked to vividly picture your white blood cells fighting and winning against the cancer cells, and purging the bad cells from your body.

Personal healing images

You can use a healing meditation CD, or you can develop your own powerful healing images. For example, you might visualize your immune system as a train chugging steadily up a hill. Try to meditate on your chosen image often, at least once a day. You can also turn to it whenever you need a mental boost.

Preparing for healing meditation

When learning how to meditate, beginners often have trouble finding the best posture for meditation. Don’t be afraid to experiment — there’s no “right” way to meditate. Prepare to meditate by finding a quiet room without disruptions and take the following steps:

• Turn off your phone and any other gadgets.
• Dim the lights.
• Sit in a straight-backed chair with your head forward, knees bent at a right angle and your hands on your thighs. You can also sit with your legs crossed or, if you’re flexible, pretzel your legs into a lotus position. If sitting isn’t comfortable, lie on the floor (it’s too easy to fall asleep on a bed).
• You can chant a mantra to yourself, such as ” Om Mani Padme Hum,” a Tibetan healing mantra, or use a simple word like “calm,” “one” or “om.”
• Close your eyes, or try staring at a focal point.

The best advice for beginners just learning about meditation is to start simple. Quieting your mind for long periods is more difficult than it looks, so just carve out 10 to 20 minutes a day at first. All you’ll need is a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed.

Benefits of meditation

Regular meditation can help relieve stress, improve your ability to focus and lead to a better understanding of your own thought patterns and processes. Some people use meditation to enhance creativity, reduce chronic pain, treat headaches and even improve athletic performance.

Focus

Although most people meditate with closed eyes, many beginners find it useful to have a point of focus, such as a candle. Concentrating on the flame can make it easier to clear your mind.

When learning how to meditate, beginners tend to get frustrated by the persistence of outside thoughts — all the anxieties, to-do lists and random memories that parade constantly through the brain. Instead of fighting them off, simply observe them as they enter your mind and let them pass. Repeating a mantra to yourself is another good way to maintain your focus.

Meditation techniques for beginners

Breathing meditation and relaxation meditation methods are especially good for people first learning to meditate. With breathing meditation, you simply breathe deeply from your abdomen, focusing all your attention on your breath, inhaling slowly through your nose and exhaling through your mouth.

Relaxation meditation involves consciously visualizing the release of tension from your body, beginning at the head and moving slowly down to the toes.

Meditate in action

“Walking meditation” is another useful way for beginners to learn how to meditate. The key is to concentrate fully on each deliberate step, paying attention only to the present moment. Focus on the rhythmic motion of your legs and the feel of the ground under your feet. Other active forms of meditation include tai chi and qigong (both traditional Chinese movement therapies) and yoga.

Combine meditation with lifestyle choices

A healthy diet, regular exercise and good sleep all enhance the positive effects of meditating. Spending time in nature, getting out in the sunshine, spending time with loved ones and trying to maintain a good attitude should also improve your results. Share

Meditation For Healing: Heal Yourself With Your Mind

Our bodies are wonderfully designed machines with natural self-healing abilities. Always under the influence of our emotions and thoughts, it knows how to keep you healthy on all fronts: killing nasty germs, fixing frayed DNA, boosting longevity, eliminating toxins, warding off infection, canceling out cancer cells, and just keeping you in order from head to toe.

Of course, things inevitably go off-course from time to time and when they do, the door opens for disease in all forms to manifest.

So why does our body’s self healing ability sometimes derail? Your nervous system has two main command and control centers — the “fight-or-flight” stress response ruled by the sympathetic nervous system and the “relaxation response” regulated by the parasympathetic nervous system. The latter of the two, you must be relaxed for your body’s natural self-healing abilities to function correctly.

Why do our nervous systems so easily get out of whack? Our caveman originating stress response is there to put us on red alert mode should a lion decide to pursue us for his next meal. The problem is, nowadays, modern man is safe from daily lion attacks, while our stress responses still somehow get triggered, on average, a few dozen times per day.

But how and why? Our so called “lizard brain” originating amygdala confusingly sees our everyday relationship issues, financial worries, and career stress the same as if we were still cavemen being chased by a lion.

Our easily-terrified amygdala quickly and easily shifts into overdrive, initiating a cascade of nasty stress chemicals, effectively preventing our body from being able to do what it does best: keep us healthy. It should come as no surprise that we live in a society so full of mental, emotional, and physical unwellness.

Problem solved. Luckily there is a very powerful, highly effective solution to keeping our so called “lizard brain” amygdala cool and calm while allowing our parasympathetic nervous system optimal functioning: meditation. Scientifically proven over hundreds of studies to quiet down and deactivate the stressful parts of the brain, while nourishing our bodies with the magic nervous system soothing elixir, meditation is the very best technique for proper mind body self healing. Access the limitless benefits of meditation quickly, safely, and easily: Get started with EquiSync®

Meditation For Healing: Strengthen Your Mind Body Connection

Over the last few decades, science has begun to see and understand the body in incredible new ways. Once thought to be a purely 3D piece of biology is now understood to be a super complex interwoven array of intricate information and flowing energy.

Even now, faster than the blink of an eye, your body is dynamically rearranging particles with the rest of your surroundings. In fact, your body has changed in miraculous ways even since you began reading this article only a few minutes ago.

Your body’s countless trillions of cells are perpetually interfacing with each other as they keep you alive: pumping life sustaining blood, getting rid of harmful toxins, while defending against germs, viruses, and disease.

Contrary to the well-entrenched scientific dogma of decades ago, you have much more control over these so called “involuntary” body processes. Hundreds of studies now conclude that our minds’ are the true supreme orchestra tor of the mental, emotional, and physical wellness of the body.

Every thought, emotion, and feeling that we have forms a feedback loop with our neurochemistry. As we go about our daily routine, the stimuli we encounter creates within our brain lightning-fast neuropeptides which then attach to ready and waiting receptor cells and neurons. Inline with your emotional state, chemicals then get created either letting your body know it’s party time or run back into the cave time.

For example, after a tough breakup, we feel heartbroken. Contrary to what you may think, this goes far beyond just a feeling a little blue, mentally and emotionally. If a doctor used his best instruments to measure the physical tissue within our heart in the troubling days and weeks following our beloved saying their final goodbye, they would find distressed molecules and damaged cells – topped with extra helpings of both adrenaline and cortisol.

Likewise, your emotional highs and peak moments also correspond with positive neurochemicals like those linked to so called “runner’s high”, like endorphins, nor epinephrine, antioxidants, and immune system boosters. If only it was possible to harness this limitless potential of the mind! Luckily, the highest solution exists within you – self awareness. What is the key to achieving so called “self aware mastery”? Meditation.

Meditation for Healing

In recent years thousands of people have participated in studies that confirm the beneficial effects of meditation for stress, depression, managing chronic pain, insomnia and other conditions. Clearly, there are forms of meditation practice that can help people cope with what ails them. But did you know that in some cases meditation can even help people cure what ails them?

A remarkable story of healing

An article published in the Daily Beast called Can Meditation Cure Disease tells of a 37-year-old Tibetan lama who arrived in New York with a gangrenous leg and was told by three different doctors that the leg needed to be amputated as soon as possible. Even though his physicians were certain that if the lama kept his leg the gangrene would kill him, before giving his consent, he spoke with the Dalai Lama, who told him not to amputate but instead to do certain healing meditation practices.

The story details how, after several months of intensive healing meditation practice, the illness reached a turning point – which was considered medically impossible – and within a year the leg had healed and the lama was walking again.

Over the ages there have been countless accounts of faith-based and prayer-based healing. What stands out here is that the illness and recovery were well-documented and that a team of respected doctors and researchers has been studying the case to try to determine how such a thing could be possible.

One of the researchers, Dr. William C. Bushnell, spoke of Tibetan – and yogic – practices involving prana, the subtle circulatory and energetic system of the body sometimes referred to as “the winds.” Bushell is quoted in the article as saying, “It is not entirely clear from a Western science perspective what the winds are, but the scientific evidence suggests to me and others that the meditative process involving winds includes increased local blood flow, metabolic activity, and oxygenation.”

Meditation can transform the mind; mind can transform the body

The area of using meditation for self-healing has been of great interest to brain researchers around the globe. Numerous studies have revealed the relationship between meditation and a healthy brain. It would seem that the brains of long-term mediators are wired a bit differently than those of non-mediators.

Two regions of the brain are responsible for depression, anger, stress and anxiety: the right prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. These regions become overly active when your mind is agitated or you’re upset. The left prefrontal cortex, on the other hand, is associated with feelings of peace, happiness, self-awareness and positivity. This region is activated in the brains of consistent mediators. So is the production of the “happy” neurotransmitter serotonin – in fact, some anti-depressants artificially increase serotonin, and that’s what makes people feel less blue. Clinical studies have also linked production of dopamine with meditation. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that helps create feelings of pleasure and reward (just like chocolate, but without the calories.)

Meditation is believed to influence the sympathetic nervous system, keeping blood pressure, respiration and heart rate in check. When poorly controlled, these are the physical parameters that go hand in hand with feelings of stress and anxiety.

There’s no question that stress and anxiety are linked to a wide variety of maladies, including heart attacks, high blood pressure, digestive issues, sexual dysfunction and insomnia. And science concurs that many forms of meditation help reduce stress, starting with mindfulness, as practiced in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for example, and Transcendental Meditation, as well as relaxation meditation, guided meditations, walking meditation and more.

Taking care of your whole self

Tr inlay Rinpoche, a scholar and meditation expert who teaches all over the world, says that meditation is the best way to take care of your self: your mind, body and essence. Meditation not only makes our lives more meaningful, it also offers us a natural healing mechanism. Many ailments begin with an imbalanced or stressed mind and develop in susceptible parts of the body. By working with the mind and learning to better manage the triggers that disturb it, we bolster the body’s natural defenses.

Guided meditation for healing is a great way to release the stress that accumulates in the mind and the tensions that build up in the body. One of the reasons that guided meditation is particularly effective is that you can just relax and enjoy it. The only thing you have to do is try to stay focused. Guided meditation for healing can be found in meditation groups, community settings, audio and video.

By reading this article it’s clear that you’re interested in the practice of meditation and its results: making life more joyful and meaningful. And so are we! Mind works is a non-profit organization with a mission to share authentic meditation guidance to you and our worldwide followers. Click the link below to find out more and discover:

Healing through Meditation in 7 Steps

Healing through meditation has been performed by spiritually enlightened persons for thousands of years. The great thing about it, especially in the context of our modern times, is that no “special” power is needed in order to perform it—ordinary folks like you and I can easily meditate to achieve health and healing, and we can do this whenever it is convenient for us. The following are the easy no-BS steps in performing meditation on your own.

1. Find a quiet place in your home where you will not be interrupted for at least 30 minutes. Ideally, this would be your bedroom, where you can lock the door to ensure no one would just barge in and interrupt your attempt in achieving healing through meditation. It may also help to place a sign on your door to inform your housemates that they should not disturb you.

2. The best time to meditate is in the evening when activities have significantly died down and when you can do it in the dark. The absence of light is believed to stimulate certain glands that enable you to “get in the zone”.

3. Sit on a spot where you can be comfortable. Sitting on a yoga mat placed on the floor is recommended, but the point is, as long as you’re comfortable, the battle is half won. Relax and close your eyes and stop caring about the outside world—here, you are in your bubble of calm and happiness.

4. Start breathing deeply and slowly. Do this by inhaling through your nose slowly, filling up your lungs with air, and holding it there for a few seconds before exhaling through your mouth. Did we mention “slowly”? Continue breathing in this fashion for at least three times.

5. When outside thoughts begin flooding your head and distract you, focus on your breathing—think about how the air comes and goes out of your lungs and fill up your being. You can also use a mantra—choose a positive affirmation (such as “I am filled with peace” or “I feel extremely strong”) and mentally repeat it.

6. Stay absolutely calm. Stop judging yourself or others or everything that happens beyond the immediate space surrounding you. Stop caring. Just let it be. Know that things will take care of themselves.

7. Continue this breathing and mantra repetition for at least five minutes or even more. You will feel your bond with the universe and with the higher levels of your consciousness grow stronger. It’s best to use a timer to make sure you would not end the session too soon, but choose something that is not as shrill as an alarm clock—something that makes a single soft “ding”. When the session is over, move your hands and fingers and feet, wriggle them to jump-start your blood’s circulation and to waken your system to the fact that you’re still here. When you feel you’ve arrived at the right moment, slowly open your eyes and turn the light back on. Try to meditate at least once a day, or before you fully retire at night.

Healing through meditation has been studied and documented by researchers, and its mechanism has been observed using high-tech instruments. For instance, it has been shown that meditation heals us firstly by boosting the body’s production of neurochemicals and “feel good” hormones, such as serotonin, GABA, DHEA and melatonin—this is not some empty claim, but rather a documented fact. These are hormones that help stabilize our mood, eliminate stress, and give us a deep feeling of calm and well-being. So regular meditation can go a long way in giving us the health we all need—naturally.