Everyday Health

Meditation is a group of mental training techniques. You can use meditation to improve mental health and capacity to improve their motivation for their goals and also to help improve physical health. Some of these techniques are very simple, so they can learn from a book or an article; others require the guidance of a qualified meditation teacher.

What is meditation…Most techniques called meditation include these components:
1. You sit or lie in a relaxed position.
2. You breathe regularly. You breathe in deep enough to get enough oxygen. When you breathe out, you relax the muscles so that your lungs are well emptied, but without effort.
3. Stop thinking about everyday problems and issues.
4. You concentrate your thoughts on some sounds, some words that you repeat, some images, some abstract concept or some feeling. All your attention should be appointed to the object you have chosen to focus on.
5. If some foreign thoughts creep in, you just stop this foreign thought, and back to the object of meditation.

The different meditation techniques differ according to the degree of concentration and thoughts are treated as foreigners. In some techniques, the goal is to concentrate so intensely that no foreign thoughts occur at all.

In other techniques, the concentration is more relaxed so that foreign thoughts easily pop up. When these foreign thoughts are discovered, one stops these and goes back to pure meditation in a relaxed manner. Thoughts come, will often be about things you have forgotten or suppressed, and allow you to rediscover hidden memory material. This rediscovery will have a therapeutic effect.

The Effects of Meditation….Meditation has the following effects:
1. Meditation will give you rest and recreation.
2. You learn to relax.
3. You learn to concentrate better on problem-solving.
4. Meditation often has a positive effect on blood pressure.
5. Meditation has beneficial effects on internal body processes, such as circulation, respiration and digestion.
6. Regular meditation will have an effect psychotherapeutically.
7. Regular meditation will facilitate the immune system.
8. Meditation is usually pleasant.

The difference between hypnosis and meditation:
Hypnosis can have some of the same relaxing effects as meditation and psychotherapy. However, when you are in control meditate alone; by hypnosis you let some other person or some mechanical device that you control. Hypnosis does not have an effect on the ability of training to focus.

A simple form of meditation….Here is a simple form of meditation. Through this meditation technique, you should focus on an easy way. This will allow foreign thoughts to pop up. These are treated as one by one they appear. You do the following:

1. Sit in a good chair in a comfortable position.
2. Relax all the muscles, as well as you can.
3. Stop thinking of something, or at least try not to think about anything.
4. Breath out, relaxing the muscles in your breathing apparatus.
5. Repeat the following in 10 – 20 minutes:
- Breath in so deep that you feels you receive enough oxygen.
- Breath out, relax the chest and diaphragm completely.
- Every time you breathe out, I think the word “one” or another simple word inside yourself. You should think the word in an extended form, and so if you hear it inside you, but you should try to avoid using your mouth or voice.
6. If foreign thoughts come in, just stop these thoughts in a relaxed manner, and continue to focus from the breath and the word you repeat.

As you proceed through this meditation, you should feel steadily more relaxed in your mind and body; constantly feel you breathe more efficiently, and that the blood flow throughout your body becomes more efficient. You can also experience increased mental pleasure throughout the meditation.

Effects meditation in Diseases:
Like any type of training, meditation may be exaggerated, so that you get tired and worn out. Therefore you should not meditate so long or so concentrated that you feel tired or mentally emptied.

Meditation may sometimes give problems for people suffering from mental illness, epilepsy, serious heart problems or neurological diseases. On the other hand, meditation can be useful in treating these and other conditions.

People suffering from such conditions should verify the effects that different types of meditation have on their own kinds of health problems before beginning to practice meditation and be cautious if you decide to start meditating. It may be wise to learn meditation from an experienced teacher, psychologist or health professional that use meditation as a module for the treatment of the disease itself.