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Benefits of buddhist meditation
Benefits of yoga
Causes and effects of stress
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Recommended: Benefits of buddhist meditation
Introduction
Modern life is full of hassle, stress and frustrations. Stress is so common that is has become a way of life of many people. Stress isn’t always negative. In small measures, it can help you cope well under pressure and encourage you to do your best. Stress has known to be a common factor for students these days due to work overload. Stress can cause some lifestyle problems, for example, headaches, loss of appetite, heart attacks, obesity, aging, depression, nervous breakdown and loss of focus. There are many ways in which stress could be overcome, such as yoga and meditation. Studies have found that stress has both positive and negative effect on everyone. Even though meditation is conventional, people still practice it in hopes of stave off stress. Meditations have been used for centuries by everyone as one of the cures to help reduce stress in their daily life.
Although meditation practitioners have acknowledged the benefits of meditation for hundreds for years, it is only now that shows that scientific research is starting to prove that meditation has a positive effect on everyone on a physiological level. Meditation is believed to help lower stress level, calms the section of the brain that triggers anger and fear. Recent studies have found that the brain has the ability to change its function and structure. Happiness, enthusiasm and self-control are form of positive emotions due to a high level of brain activities.
After decades of research, it has demonstrated that “Within the field of psychology, the focus of meditation research has been physiological change and the reduction of medical or psychological symptoms of stress or even both”. [1] Mediations help deal with solving problems and distracting thought...
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...helps reduce the pressure we put upon ourselves. To help reduce unwanted thoughts, you can train yourself to knowledge those thoughts differently. Instead of freaking out about something, you can assure yourself that it’s just a thought and not part of your core self. We can clearly see the difference between the two groups and that supports the hypothesis that doing meditation on regular basis does help with lowering stress levels. Not being stressed can help with better lifestyle choices, helps you have control of our emotions even more so, feel good about yourself. Being a student is truly tough, especially with so much pressure about tests, exams, getting good grades, managing a social life with school work, that meditation would be a healthier option for us since it’s time efficient, won’t feel like someone’s judging you, helps you reconnect with yourself.
The studies showed that while meditated, the subjects showed signs of thought processes slowing down and changes occurring in the brain. The purpose of meditation, and mindfulness meditation as mentioned in this course, is to increase awareness while calming the normal thought processes that often overcrowd the mind with ideas that are deemed not-true by Buddhism. These brain scans clearly show that the purpose of meditation is achieved in doing so.
“All of us have a personal relationship with stress, but few of us know how it affects us.” In the film “Stress- Portrait of a Killer” by National Geographic, Robert Sapolsky is researching baboon’s to find a link in stress and potential health risks in humans, Carol Shively is also researching macaques for that reason. Sapolsky is an american neuroendocrinologist that went to Africa “on a hunch” to study non-human subjects to test his theory, this experiment actually got Robert Sapolsky “MacArthur Foundations Genius Fellowship”. He did this by darting the baboons with anesthetic to put them to sleep, to make for easier blood samples. In the samples Sapolsky is measuring the levels of stress hormones found in the blood, he devoted thirty years of his life to this study with the help of his wife Lisa Sapolsky. This experiment relates to sociologic analysis, because Sapolsky’s study happens to draw a conclusion between economic activities and how it genuinely affects the quality of life. Some of the sociological themes we’ll be discussing are how “stress impacts our bodies and how our social standing can make us more or less susceptible”.
Advancements in medication benefit society and help to maintain every individual’s health. However, regarding certain suffering such as depression, stress, and anxiety, a safer form of treatment exists. Medications attempting to treat depression, anxiety, or stress contain chemicals which cause the body to react negatively. These negative side effects are not necessary due to the practice of mindful meditation. Mindful meditation is a more beneficial way to heal psychological diseases versus medication because meditation does not create any negative side effects, the practice is equally effective as medications, and there are multiple positive benefits to meditation along with healing. A few additional benefits include a greater awareness,
Understanding the brain and the different signs will help acknowledge the issues within a person to help them cope with the issue. It is important for one to be aware of their selves and their reactions/behaviors. On the other hand, the studies address the different types of mediation and possible consequences. When introducing a specific technique, there are always pros and cons, and people that are for or against the matter. Meditation is known as healing of the body and/or mind and can be religious. Those different types were address and justified for the understanding of the use for the
Meditation may also expand the life-span by ensuring the mind and the heart from the harming effects of anxiety. One study reported that meditation and yoga help to avoid cell harm caused by incessant mental anxiety. It has even been proposed that meditation may moderate the cellular aging process. The circumstances and end results of enthusiastic experience exist all through the body and the mind, and all things considered they are profoundly joined to physical and mental anxiety (Harris,
Meditation is a family of techniques that have in common an attempt to focus attention in a nonanalytical way, and attempt not to dwell on the thoughts that come into one’s mind (Wisner, Jones, & Gwin, 2010). Meditation could be applied as intervention and prevention. As an intervention in schools, meditation could replace discipline referrals or suspensions in some situations. For example, a student that is emotionally escalated will most likely become even more escalated if he or she thinks that a discipline referral or suspension is in their future. If this child were to have the opportunity to channel their attention somewhere else, through meditation, they could avoid the more negative outcome. By practicing meditation, this student sees that they were given the opportunity to take control over their actions and feelings, instead of someone else taking control of them. This would allow for more healing, trust, and growth in the student-faculty
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
As stated by Steifer, meditation is a great form of relaxation that also enhances one’s mental well-being. The writer states that through the practice
The most common response I hear these days when I tell someone I teach meditation is “I’m so stressed out. I could really use some of that.” I am also amused to hear fairly often “My friend should really meet you!” I’m happy to see that meditation is known more and more as something that could be directly helpful in our day-to-day lives. Anywhere stress plays a role in our problems, meditation can have a potential role in its relief.
Many people are skeptical about perceiving meditation as a treatment of any kind, but there are genuine benefits to the brain that have been observed by a myriad of research done recently. First, mindfulness meditation has been shown to decrease amygdala volume and overall stress. Second, meditation helps preserve the brain via increased grey matter volume, keeping all brain function in top shape (which means less damage done to stress related systems as we age). And lastly, mindfulness helps with alleviating stress altogether by regulating our own emotions during the flight-or-flight response. This is the most important benefit, as mindfulness allows us to rewire the brain in such a way that we can think and act rationally in any form of stressful
positive attitude towards perceived stress.” Meditation does reduce stress and helps give a positive mental health from experience. There is information on hypnosis claiming how it can be beneficial. It can be used to reduce pain, overcome fear, and much more. The catch with hypnosis is being hypnotizable. As stated in “Can hypnosis ease your pain?,” “Those who are tend to enjoy using their imaginations, get
Meditation is a unique process that helps us understand how our mind works. When we understand how your mind works, then we can begin to make purposeful alteration in our life to improve it. Meditation also improves our ability to objectively analyze our emotions, mental states, thought process and responses to events that occur around
Both exercise and meditation promote wellness through physical health and vitality. Vitality is defined by the Encarta World English Dictionary as "abundant physical and mental energy, usually combined with a wholehearted and joyous approach to situations and activities." Meditation has physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits. It's an opportunity to enrich the soul. Day-to-day you're confronted with a flood of potential stressful experiences. Some stress is good but overall it's how you handle change and responsibility that determines how stress impacts your life.
Researchers have discovered that a specific meditation called Transcendental Meditation (TM) reduces stress and anxiety in students. Studies show that if the Transcendental Meditation technique is implemented into America’s public school curriculum the stress and anxiety levels in students will decrease and wit...
Relaxing is just one of many different beneficiaries that can come from the art of meditation. Some of the physical benefits are: lower high blood pressure, lower levels of blood lactate (which can reduce anxiety attacks), decrease tension related pains, improve the immune system, and increase energy levels. While the mental benefits of meditation are: anxiety can decrease, more emotional stability, creativity can be increased, happiness increases, intuition can be developed, it gain peace of mind, it sharpens the mind, and it can expand consciousness. It can also benefit by cleansing you from within and calm you when you feel overwhelmed or unstable.