Meditation: The Ultimate Self Help Program
Meditation has many benefits. These benefits are not just conjecture or subjective experiences - important though these are – they are scientifically proven facts that are verified by robust research.
Here are but a few examples:
- Meditation has shown a 48% reduction in symptoms of depression.
- People who meditate have 47% fewer heart attacks.
- 75% of long-term insomniacs who have been trained in meditation can fall asleep within 20 minutes of going to bed.
- People who meditate show an 8% to 15% decrease in the risk of stroke.
- Sufferers of anxiety who meditate show a 60% improvement in anxiety levels after only 8 weeks of practice.
- Meditation can slow aging. A study found that people who had been meditating for more than five years were physiologically 12 to 15 years younger than non-meditators.
- The chance of getting cancer has been shown in studies to reduce by 55% in those who meditate regularly.
- Regular meditators experience a 10-20 point drop in blood pressure compared to the general population.
From cancer, to aging to heart attacks, blood pressure and mental health, meditation has a proven impact across a whole variety of areas in the body. It can’t be said that its effects are confined to only one region or one system – its scope of action is truly diverse.
Why is this?
Well, as a doctor I can see a pattern here, one that extends to all pathologies. Generally, illnesses build up under the cloak of invisibility. Whether it is high blood pressure, heart attacks or cancer, the initiation and progression of the illness is something that happens outside our realm of conscious living. If you could actually felt your blood vessels tensing – as they do in hypertension - or your arteries narrowing – as they do before heart attacks - or your cells abnormally proliferating – as they do in cancer – then no illness would ever take it’s grip. We’d be able to stop it before it got out of control. The problem is that none of these things can be seen or felt. They creep up inside us until, often, we reach a point of catastrophe.
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