Sunday, September 26, 2010

Meditation Techniques for Stress

People encounter stress everyday, some do at work or school, others at home. While they are usually able to cope with stress, sometimes the burden simply becomes too much that people break down because of it. One of the ways to deal with this is to learn meditation techniques for stress.

The Science of Stress

In the General Adaptation Syndrome model designed by Hans Selye, he identifies three stages that people undergo when stressed.

STAGE ONE: During the intial stage, the body goes on a state of alarm at the realization of a threat. In this stage, cortisol is released by the body.

STAGE TWO: The second stage is where the body becomes unable to cope with the strain until its resources are depleted.

STAGE THREE: In the final stage, the body breaks down which include the exhaustion of the immune system. Because of this, the body is unable to fight of sicknesses which then expose the person to
illnesses.

Learning meditation techniques for stress can help you to calm your mind and give you a greater sense of control over things. When you practise regularly, the things that are considered threats (the things which cause stress) become easier to manage.

However, this reduction of stress isn’t the end of the exercise. Since stress can make people prone to illness, reducing stress can help in keeping the person healthy.

If you make meditation part of your daily routine,this can result in improved health and resistance to illnesses, helping to prevent you from becoming stressed in the first place.

So the next time you feel stressed out, try to calm yourself down by practicing meditation. While your problems won’t exactly go away, you at least become mentally prepared to face them.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Meditation History

The practice of meditation has been around for several millennia. Although there are no recorded texts which would point exactly when this practice started, several ancient civilizations became the cradle of today’s meditation practices. In this post we will take a brief look at Meditation History.

India particularly is hailed as the proponent of meditation as an organized practice. Over centuries, many Hindi scholars have written about meditation, from the ways of doing it to its benefits. Some of the well-known Hindi texts include the Vedas and the Yoga Sutras which was written by Patanjali.

But no one has arguably been more influential in the world of meditation than Siddharta Gautama, otherwise known as Buddha. In 500 BC, he achieved enlightenment through the practice of meditation. His influence spread throughout Asia and eventually the whole world.

While the East has has a very long meditation history, the Western world picked the practice up much later. In fact, it was only in the mid-20th century when meditation became a popular practice among Westerners.

Today, more and more meditation centers and organizations crop up in the West. While meditation used to be intertwined with religious practices, a good number of Western meditation centers are stripped off this spiritual aspect. They usually focus now on the health benefits of this practice especially in the fast-paced world of today.

But regardless of the loss of the spiritual side of meditation, it is still widely-recognized for its benefits to people’s mental well-being. It was and it still remains as one of the central aspects of meditation.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Meditation for Pain Relief

If you are suffering from pain, you may want to consider meditation for pain relief. Before you do this, it is always advisable to seek medical advice for pain as pain is the body's way of letting you know that there is something wrong.

Anyone who has heard of the expression about the power of mind over matter will easily understand the benefit of meditation for pain relief.

Here are just a few methods in which meditation can help in alleviating pain:

Concentration techniques: ithese can help in easing your suffering by keeping your mind away from the source of the pain. Usually, a pain is even more magnified because you can't help but focus on it. If your attention is focused elsewhere, the pain becomes more manageable.

Mindfulness meditation: This involves being aware of your present condition and accepting it as such. If a person accepts that he/she is currently in pain, dealing with it would be much easier.

Visualization: This can also be considered as a type of self-hypnosis. It is done by creating an image of the pain and imagining it moving away from the body.

As suggested by these methods, they will not actually take the pain away, but they will make dealing with the pain a lot easier.

This is also the reason why methods like those mentioned should be coupled with the proper medical advice. As mentioned above, consulting your doctor is advised before even trying the meditation for pain relief exercises.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Meditation & Fear

Most people have a fear or phobia of certain things, be it of heights or speaking in front of people. While most people overcome their fears, some are crippled by it. This therefore prevents them from doing things that they would otherwise find enjoyable.

Meditation is one way for people trapped by their fears to finally get out of their shell and start living the full life.

A definition of fear is that it is the anxiety caused by a perceived danger. It is the state of mind by which a person foresees something wrong happening either to him/her or the people around him/her.

Meditation helps in overcoming a person’s fear by altering his/her state of mind. There are several ways by which this practice can help people achieve this.

One such way is called mindfulness meditation. By training the person to live in the now, his/her attention is veered away from the future where that person perceives the danger. Besides, it is only a mere perception and such event may or may not actually happen.

Visualization can also help a person cope with fear by making the person imagine what he/she will do in case the perceived danger comes. By being mentally prepared for such an event, the person will be able to deal with the future situation better.

Again, fear is a mere state of mind. Facing it, therefore, needs some alteration in the person’s perception of what may or may not happen. It can be achieved by the practice of meditation.