Mindful Meditation: Theravada Buddhism

Mindful Meditation

I. Introduction

Mindfulness refers to attending to an experience on purpose and non-judgmentally and seeing yourself and others holistically. Mindfulness and meditation practices are positively correlated with physical and mental well-being. This research paper will look at the history of Theravada Buddhism, its mindful meditation practices, and the beneficial effects that its practice can have on one’s physiological and psychological health. Additionally, I will discuss the practical applications of this practice in an educational and workplace setting.

II. The Practice of Mindful Meditation

Meditation—the mysterious subject where in the past conjures the image of the solitary Asian ascetic sitting in deep trance, is

The Impact of Mindful Meditation on Physical and Mental Health

Mindful meditation has the potential to have many positive effects on one’s physical and mental health and numerous studies have examined these effects, ranging from the reversal of chronic hypertension to the alleviation of insomnia. In this section I will focus on the effects that mindful meditation has on the stress response and regulation of the social side effects of managing diabetes and how these practices can lessen chronic anxiety in individuals.

The stress response begins in the brain, according to a Harvard Health Publication (2014), this flight or fight reaction originates with a sensory input and is relayed to the amygdala and in the amygdala the input is processed and if a threat is perceived, a signal is sent to the hypothalamus, this command center alerts the rest of the body via the autonomic nervous system activating the sympathetic nervous system. The heart rate and respiratory rate increase along with other changes in several body systems due to the release of epinephrine. Extended periods of epinephrine surges have the potential to damage the vascular system, increasing the individual’s risk of heart attack or stroke. What mindfulness meditation attempts to illicit is the parasympathetic nervous system, the opposite of this cascade of events that were triggered by the flight or fight response. A decrease in heart rate and respiratory rate along with a decrease in blood pressure and

(1992), conducted a study that focused on the effectiveness of a group stress reduction program based on mindfulness meditation. The research on the effectiveness of meditation have been mostly limited to no-psychiatric population, this study included a group of participants who have clinical diagnoses of anxiety. The study was conducted jointly by an established outpatient program that focused on relaxation with the use of intensive training in mindfulness meditation. The authors note that, mindfulness meditation differs from other forms of meditation such as transcendental meditation that has the individual focus on one object or mantra, mindfulness meditation trains one to attend to a wide range of changing objects while maintaining moment-to-moment awareness (Kabat-Zinn et al.,