For centuries meditation has been used successfully to create balance, harmony, and well-being. It is now regarded as one of the most powerful ways to protect against the pressures and “bad stress” that modern living can create.
Good Stress versus Bad Stress
Stress spurs us to action and sharpens our thinking. Coping well with life’s pressures or stresses gives us a sense of achievement – a job well done.
Good stress is manageable stress that brings interest, challenge, and fun into our lives.
Bad stress happens when there seems to be too much to cope with – when it feels like life is getting out of our control. There is an ocean of research regarding many negative physical and psychological consequences of overwhelming stress.
Enjoying the Good Stress and Avoiding the Bad Stress
Successful living is about learning to cope with life’s pressures. By making sure that for most of the time we feel physically, mentally and emotionally strong enough to handle the demands placed on us at work, at home and in relationships, most of our stress becomes good stress. In other words we feel in control of our lives and the over the top pressures that create bad stress are much less likely to arise.
How Meditation Helps
Meditation helps the brain and nervous system to react more effectively and appropriately to all life’s challenges. Meditators tend to be more intellectually focused and acquire greater physical co-ordination. People who meditate are less likely to become ill because meditation helps boost the effectiveness of the immune system.
Meditation: Akin to a Vacation, But Better
In a 2016 gene-based study, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, University of California at San Francisco and Harvard Medical School, found some fascinating correlations between meditating and an improved immune system, among other interesting results.
The study took place during a 1-week retreat offered by Chopra Center for Well Being in California at the OMNI La Costa Resort and Spa. 94 healthy women ages 30-60 were divided into three groups; 31 spent the week at the vacation resort center, 33 engaged in meditation/yoga training, and there was a control group of 30 women who were regular meditators.
After one week, all participants, benefitting from the “vacation effect,” felt greater vitality and decreased distress, regardless of whether they were in the resort group or in an intensive meditation/yoga retreat. They also exhibited positive changes in genes associated with stress, inflammation, and wound healing.
In the novice meditators group, specific plasma ratio levels related to the deterrence of Alzheimer ’s disease and dementia increased, while the experienced meditators began the study with already higher levels that did not change throughout the course of the study.
The researchers also identified a ‘meditation effect’ within the regular meditator group, characterized by a distinct network of genes with cellular functions that may be relevant to healthy aging and noted specific shifts in genes related to fighting viral infection.
During an interview with a writer for an article on Forbes, Rudolph E Tanzi, a member of the study’s research team, stated, “”Meditation is one of the ways to engage in restorative activities that may provide relief for our immune systems, easing the day-to-day stress of a body constantly trying to protect itself. The prediction is that this would then lead to healthier aging.”
In as little as 5 or 10 minutes each day, you could be receiving the many benefits that meditation can bring – extra energy, creativity, resilience to life stress, and much more.
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