Health Benefits of Yoga Meditation
Increases Immunity, Fights Disease and Reduces Stress
May 7, 2009
Even in this enlightened 21st century, many people still think of meditation as a bunch of hippies sitting on the floor and chanting "Om". While many of us have reaped the benefits of meditation for a long while now, science is finally catching up and agreeing it may be beneficial to our general health and well being.
Meditation and Hospital Patients
In one recent study, US hospital records showed patients who meditated regularly needed half the number of in-and-out patient treatments, compared to those who did not, in 17 treatment categories. Those over 40 did particularly well, with a third of hospital admission rates in comparison with non-meditators.
Meditation may even increase longevity. In a three year study carried out at an elderly care centre researchers found 80-year-olds who learned to meditate were happier and lived longer than the non-meditators.
The Cousins Centre for Psychoneuro-immunology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) may be able to shed some light on this phenomenom. Researchers there tracked CD4+T lymphocytes, the immune cells attacked by HIV, in a group of HIV-positive adults over an eight-week meditation programme.
Meditation and AIDS
The patients involved in the programme showed no loss of CD4+ T lymphocytes during the study. This seems to suggest that meditation may buffer the decline of these cells. In contrast, those not meditating showed a significant decline in CD4+T lymphocytes over the same eight-week period.
The effects were independent of anti-retroviral medication to slow progression of HIV. Amazingly, the more meditation classes the participants attended, the more resilient their immune systems were against the progression of HIV.
Meditation and Disease
This adds to the already mounting evidence that suggests meditation may help prevent and treat a range of medical conditions, including: lower back pain, chronic cardiovascular disease, attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities.
Common Forms of Meditation
The most well-known forms of meditation practices are Buddhist Meditation, Transcendental Meditation, Mindfulness Meditation and Zen Meditation.
These disciplines believe mediation can increase immune response, improve asthma and respiratory disorders, increase fertility and reduce the effects of ageing. There is also scientific-based evidence of meditation easing symptoms of psoriasis, Type II diabetes, eating disorders and some of the symptoms associated with cancer.
One of the reasons meditation may be beneficial for such a wide variety of diseases could be related to stress hormones. Just four months of regular meditation can reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol quite significantly.
Meditation and Healing
While the exact reasons meditation seems to work are still unclear, most experts would agree we can all benefit from the practice and use meditation as part of any healing process.
