Relation of Meditation and Good Health

Meditation has many schools of thought namely transcendental meditation, focusing on breath, repeating of mantra, detaching from thought process, passive witnessing of thoughts (sahaj meditation) and focusing of attention. The duration of meditation can vary. Most of the time people will learn one of these types of meditation from a teacher and practice it daily at home.

Meditation is believed to bring state of calmness and inner peace. This subject attracted lot of interest from researchers. Most scientific research has shown a lot of health benefits from meditation.

Studies have shown certain physiological effects such as slowed heart rate or a particular EEG pattern that characterize a relaxed state. The hormone Cortisol which is produced by the body in response to stress is lowered by meditation. This leads to stress free and peaceful mind. There are T helper cells in our body which help in increasing immunity, after doing research it was found that teachers of meditation have maximum count of T helper cells.

Studies have also shown that meditation can help in diseases like seizures, asthma, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, irritable bowel syndrome, atherosclerosis (thickening of blood vessels) and coronary artery disease. Apart from these systemic conditions it also helps with mental health conditions. Depression and anxiety have typically reported to get better by practicing meditation routinely. Research also says patients with breast cancer have improved their quality of life after meditation.

Good results are seen in patients using meditation as an adjunct to medicine as compared to the group treated with medicines alone. Results can be experienced once you continue doing it daily for couple of months.