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What Meditation Can Do For You |
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Benefits in Brief Meditation triggers what is called the 'relaxation response'. The expression was coined by a pioneer in the field Dr Herbert Benson of the Harvard Medical School in the 1970s. When we are hot-wired for action and crisis our muscles tighten, blood pressure and breathing rates rise and we burn energy faster. This is called the 'stress response'. In the down phase the reverse happens with adrenalin (the 'anger' hormone) and noradrenalin (the 'fear' hormone) levels fading, muscles relaxing, blood pressure and breathing rates dropping and we burn less energy as our metabolic rate slows once more. Throughout every day we move from arousal to relaxation and back again to varying degrees many times.What happens when we are continuously stressed-out however, is that we run the risk of getting stuck in the hot-wired, high-alert phase which can create immense stress within the body and, over time, immense damage as well. The immune system, which protects the body from infection and disease, seems to particularly suffer under the pressure of chronic stress. And meditation will activate the relaxation response where and when you need it. If you are running too 'hot', meditation, deliberately employed as a technique which relaxes the body and calms the mind, helps put the body back into homeostasis or balance, and thus back into self-repair and healthy growth mode.
The actual connection between the mind and the body, indeed of consciousness itself and its role, are however still maddeningly elusive. What there is, as my professional associate in Perth and author of the best-selling 'Meditation and Health', Eric Harrison - who taught me to meditate many years ago - puts it, 'tends to be tentative and struggling to define its terms'. Empirical evidence however suggests using the mind to help heal the body can be remarkable effective at best.